Portfolio — 26 March 2026

The Minister for Education, Mr Clare, used a media release to signal a national inflection point in early literacy policy, anchored by measurable gains in New South Wales and a commitment to scale proven instruments across every jurisdiction [TA-260325-educat-3b328c288650]. The headline finding is stark: the NSW Phonics Check, administered in year one, now shows two-thirds of children on track with reading — up from one in two children just three years ago.

That shift frames the centrepiece announcement: every state and territory will roll out the Phonics Check for the first time in 2026, with an equivalent mathematics assessment to follow [TA-260325-educat-3b328c288650].

The release also drew a one-year stocktake on the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, pointing to three concurrent improvements — high school completion rates rising for the first time in a decade, school attendance recovering after years of decline, and growth in university teacher enrolments. Taken together, the Minister presented these as compounding evidence that the Agreement is producing system-wide results, not isolated gains.

On workforce, the Minister addressed the ongoing Victorian teacher strike by pointing to NSW as a working model: the state now has the highest-paid teachers in the country and has recorded its lowest teacher shortage numbers in 12 years. The Minister expressed confidence that the Victorian Government will reach a resolution, framing higher teacher pay not as a cost but as a supply-side fix with a demonstrated track record [TA-260325-educat-3b328c288650].

The implicit argument running across all three threads — assessment, outcomes, and workforce — is that the federal government's policy architecture is delivering, and that states which align with it on pay and curriculum are seeing the returns.