Policies/Education and Innovation

Provide a stronger platform for skills-based, secular school education

 * Include a solid foundation of life skills and personal development within the National Curriculum.
 * Grades 1-4 to cover behavior towards others, people skills, and exploration of science and critical thinking;
 * Grades 5-6 to develop earlier material and additionally cover sex education, conflict resolution, and ethics;
 * Grades 7-8 to develop earlier material and additionally cover accidents and emergency response, civics and voting, budgeting, basic IT skills, careers and starting a business.
 * Set additional curriculum benchmarks as preconditions for federal funding.
 * Require teaching of a rigorous and credible science curriculum.
 * End religious indoctrination in government schools - encourage study of religion in the context of history, culture and literature.
 * Abolish the school chaplains program and redirect funding to employ trained counselors.
 * Grant schools and principals authority to choose software packages (including open source software) independently and according to localised needs.
 * Enact a pilot program to distribute open source, low cost, 3D printers to interested high schools for Design and Technology classes.

Support academic autonomy in tertiary institutions

 * Impose benchmarks to guarantee the use of public funds for academic salaries, teaching material and research.
 * Expand full-time academic positions targeting a maximum student-teacher ratio of 20:1.
 * Study leave, research time, and fieldwork to be guaranteed in academic contracts.
 * Restore academic control over course and research funding, course design & outcomes, unit guides, marking, workload allocation, hiring, and teaching choices.
 * Defund administrative functions and organisations associated with monitoring, surveillance, government reviews and data collection.
 * Abolish standardising and rigid templates.
 * Abolish the Excellence in Research for Australia initiative.
 * Abolish code of conduct restrictions on academic speech.
 * Limit the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency to an advisory role.

Increase public access to education outputs

 * Institute Open Access provisions for publicly funded academic, peer-reviewed, journal articles produced within universities.
 * Universities and publishers to make all articles freely available to the public without paywalls or publisher restrictions.
 * Promote increased use of campuses for community seminars, live events and public debates.
 * Increase provision of free online courses.
 * Establish a fund to support groups and facilities providing free intra- and extra-curricular activities and content.
 * Restore previously planned funding growth and reverse the mooted $2.3 billion reduction.
 * Reduce HECS fees by 25% to support enrolments.
 * Reform the lifetime limit on total allowable debt under FEE-HELP to improve flexibility.
 * Universities to fund counselling and childcare without compulsory service fees.
 * Restore funding to access and equity measures assisting students from lower socioeconomic and indigenous backgrounds.
 * Increase course-driven interaction between students and businesses or community groups.
 * Full whistle-blower protections to apply with regard to Unileaks and similar outlets.