In the wake of a damning Productivity Commission report on Australia's education strategy, some parents and teachers in Western Australia are asking whether an initiative designed to give schools more autonomy has led to higher workloads.
The commission's assessment of Australia's national education strategies found national reading and numeracy results had generally declined since 2018 and inequalities in educational achievement had not been addressed.
Responding to the report, WA State School Teachers' Union vice-president Matt Jarman blamed the independent public schools (IPS) initiative, saying it had increased teacher workloads and driven staff out of the profession.
