A government-commissioned review of Australia’s national education evidence body remains unpublished, which raises broader questions about the importance of transparency in education policy.
Thu 20 Aug 2026 01.00 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Dean Lewins
A single unreleased report exposes a much bigger question: should Australians be able to see the research that shapes education policy?
Australian governments frequently say education policy should be evidence-informed. Few would disagree. Decisions affecting more than four million students should be guided by rigorous research rather than ideology, politics or the issue of the day.
Over the past decade, governments have invested heavily in that ambition, commissioning universities, independent experts, national agencies and consultants to evaluate programs, review curriculum, analyse school attendance and behaviour, and assess the teacher workforce.
That is exactly what governments should be doing.
The problem is what happens once that research is complete.
In 2025, Australia’s education ministers jointly commissioned KPMG to undertake an independent review of the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), Australia’s independent national education evidence body. The review was intended to examine whether AERO was meeting its objectives and how the organisation should evolve.
By early 2026, the review had been completed and submitted to Australia’s education ministers.
The public has never seen it.
In April 2026, the Commonwealth Department of Education refused a Freedom of Information request seeking the report, relying on exemptions relating to Commonwealth-state relations, deliberative process and business information.
The issue, however, extends beyond a single FOI decision.
Following a Senate order requiring the report to be tabled, the Australian Government advised that it would not do so because education ministers from the states and territories had not agreed to its public release. Responsibility appears to rest not with a single minister or department but with the collective governance arrangements of Australia’s Education Ministers Meeting.
Does this suggest collective decision-making has inadvertently become a barrier to public accountability?
The question is not whether the KPMG review paints AERO in a favourable or unfavourable light.
It may conclude that AERO is effectively fulfilling its role. It may recommend modest refinements or significant reform. It may prove methodologically rigorous or attract legitimate criticism.
The public simply has no way of knowing.
Documents released through the FOI process reveal that AERO opposed the release of the report, arguing that its release could undermine confidence in the quality of its evidence, discourage participation in future research and damage relationships with education jurisdictions.
That is a remarkable position for Australia’s national education evidence agency to find itself in.
According to an article recently published by The Guardian, the report remains unpublished while governments consider establishing a new national Teaching and Learning Commission that would bring together AERO, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) and Education Services Australia (ESA). The Department stated that releasing the review could prejudice ongoing discussions.
Whether or not that concern is justified, it illustrates a broader problem.
Research commissioned with public money may be informing significant structural reform of Australia’s education system. Yet it remains unavailable to teachers, school leaders and researchers whose work those reforms will affect.
This is not an isolated case.
A 2023 investigation by The Australia Institute found that more than 80 per cent of government-commissioned consultant reports in the education sector over a three-year period were never published.
Curriculum reform, funding arrangements, attendance policy, behaviour frameworks and workforce planning can all be shaped by commissioned research that no one outside government is permitted to examine.
That should concern everyone, regardless of where they sit in Australia’s education debates.
Teachers are expected to justify their practice with evidence.
School leaders are expected to demonstrate that improvement strategies are supported by research.
Students themselves are taught to question sources, evaluate claims and distinguish evidence from assertion.
Governments should be held to the same standard.
Cabinet confidentiality has a legitimate place. Draft reports need room to be worked on. Some commercial and diplomatic information genuinely warrants protection. These are reasonable exceptions.
However, when four out of five commissioned education reports never reach the public domain, the exception seems to have become the rule.
The solution is neither complicated nor radical.
Every Australian education department should maintain a publicly accessible register of commissioned research, identifying the report title, author, commissioning agency, cost, completion date and publication status.
Such a register would not compel the release of genuinely sensitive material. It would simply make publicly funded research visible and require non-publication to be publicly justified.
Education is Australia’s largest long-term investment in its future.
If governments want Australians to trust that education policy is genuinely evidence-informed, the KPMG review is a good place to start.
Whether responsibility rests with a single minister, a department or all nine education ministers is ultimately beside the point. Australians should not have to work through layers of government to understand the evidence informing national education policy.
As governments consider the future architecture of Australia’s national education agencies, they should also be willing to explain whether the independent evaluation informing those discussions will be released before those reforms are finalised.
Independent evaluations are commissioned precisely because governments recognise the value of external scrutiny.
Ben Sacco is an author and Managing Director of Education Economy.
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