The need for courage and coordination
Australia has world-class educators, researchers, and thinkers on AI in education. We are not short on expertise, but we need coordination and collective courage to act on it.
The Castlereagh Statement is a unified national, cross-sector vision built by practitioners. These are the people doing the work in classrooms, lecture halls, training facilities, and workplaces across Australia. It calls for coordinated action to ensure all Australians can thrive in an AI-transformed future.
The Statement is the voice of a grassroots community of educators, leaders, and students speaking to one of the most urgent challenges facing Australian education, and offering a shared way forward.
Why this Statement, now?
Our education and training systems were designed for an era when information and cognitive labour were scarce. That era is over. Generative AI is matching or exceeding human performance on many of the cognitive tasks our systems were built to develop and assess, and it’s advancing faster than our institutions can respond.
The gap between what’s needed and what’s happening is widening, not closing. Learners are already using AI, often without guidance. The employment landscape is transforming around graduates at a pace that has outstripped our systems’ ability to keep up. Other countries are moving quickly. Australia risks falling behind, not because we lack the capability, but because we lack a shared national plan for education and training along the lifespan.
Multiple national bodies, such as Jobs and Skills Australia, the Productivity Commission, and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training, have all called for urgent, coordinated action. The Castlereagh Statement is designed to break through and catalyse that coordination.
What the Statement proposes
The Statement builds on the 2019 Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration and sets out:
Three goals
A shared definition of what we value in human learners and educators; coherent learning pathways from early childhood to lifelong learning; and every Australian capable of confidently, critically, and creatively engaging with AI.
Six foundational principles
From redefining the educated, future-ready Australian, through reconceptualising learning and assessment, to placing technology in service of pedagogy and trust.
A three-horizon framework for action
Near-term stabilisation (e.g. national guidelines, assessment reform, teacher upskilling), medium-term structural transitions (e.g. curriculum reform, cross-sector experimentation, realigned incentives), and long-term new foundations (e.g. capability-focused education models, seamless lifelong learning pathways).
What happens next?
The Castlereagh Statement is a green paper: it sets the direction and invites the education and training community to help build the path.
The roadmap from here:
April 2026: Socialise and build the coalition
We’re sharing the Statement across sectors and inviting people to sign on, provide feedback, and tell us what it means for their context. The Statement is a compass that different sectors can use to chart their own course while staying aligned on shared goals.
Q2 2026: Develop sector-specific action plans
Working with practitioners across schools, VET, higher education, and industry, we’ll develop concrete action plans tailored to each sector’s unique context, constraints, and opportunities.
Q3 2026: A white paper with firm recommendations
Drawing on feedback, sector-specific plans, and emerging evidence, we aim to publish a white paper that moves from principles to specific, actionable recommendations for government, institutions, and industry.