Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to get a question from the member for Deakin about the government keeping its commitments in school education. I have to say that recently I had the opportunity to announce the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group.

It completed one of the pillars that the government took to the election about how we are going to address student outcomes at our schools, putting students first. We had already announced a review of the national curriculum to have the most robust curriculum possible. We have already announced a $70 million fund because we want to expand independent public schools. We know that the more autonomy that a school has, the better the results for students and the higher the expectations for students, which means that we are putting students first. Then I announced the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, because all of the research, whether it is our own local research or whether it is the OECD PISA study, shows that in Australia, more than any other OECD country, the most important factor that affects a student's outcome is the quality of the teachers. That report found that eight out of 10 influences on a student's results will be the classroom to which they are allocated in a school—not their social background and not the curriculum but the classrooms to which they are allocated in a school. So we are focusing on the issues that matter in education: more autonomy for schools; a better curriculum for schools; higher teacher quality in schools.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

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