Background
The Teacher Standards and the Principal Standard, endorsed by Education Ministers in 2010 and 2011 respectively, have been in place without change for over 15 years. While grounded in international research and validated by the profession at the time, neither set of Standards has been comprehensively reviewed since endorsement.
AITSL has advocated for a review of both Standards for several years, with multiple reports that stem from the report Through Growth to Achievement: Report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools (‘Gonski 2.0’), to AITSL’s Stocktake of the Teacher Standards report in 2020, and AITSL’s submissions through various reviews and inquiries.
The Teacher Standards were the first national framework to be agreed by Education Ministers and underpin most of the other national frameworks maintained by AITSL. The Standards (particularly the Teacher Standards) have been robust and are embedded in many processes, including Initial Teacher Education program accreditation, teacher registration and certification, performance and development cycles and industrial agreements.
Context
September 2025: The Australian Government convened an education workforce roundtable, which surfaced a broad range of issues, questions and possible solutions to explore, with a consistent theme around modernising the Teacher Standards and Principal Standard emerging.
October 2025: Education Ministers agreed to ask AITSL to scope a review of the Teacher Standards and the Principal Standard, and to come back with a detailed proposal, costing, and a teacher consultation plan.
November and December 2025: AITSL completed consultations with 30 different stakeholder groups, testing an initial set of principles and areas of focus to help scope the elements for a review. In developing this scope, AITSL consulted with the following stakeholders:
- National education agencies (AERO, ACARA, ESA, ACECQA, NATSIEC)
- Initial teacher education providers
- Teacher regulatory authorities
- Teacher unions
- Jurisdictional school systems and sectors
- National Catholic Education Commission
- Independent Schools Australia
- AITSL’s existing advisory groups and expert steering committees
- Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers (HALT)
- Teachers, middle leaders and principals
- Early childhood education and care services
- Parent associations
- Research bodies/think tanks.
January 2026: Schools Policy Group (SPG) supported AITSL’s paper Scoping a Review of the Standards, with feedback incorporated for progressing to the Australian Education Senior Officials Committee (AESOC).
February 2026: AESOC supported AITSL’s paper Scoping a Review of the Standards, with feedback incorporated for progressing to Education Ministers.
March 2026: AITSL’s paper Scoping a Review of the Standards was circulated to Education Ministers, with responses due by mid-April 2026.
Key themes from initial consultation
The themes raised from the initial consultation to inform the scope for a review of both Standards have been summarised into 2 categories.
Process considerations
- Stakeholders would benefit from early, visible and ongoing involvement in shaping the direction of the review.
- Ensuring that the review to identify areas for improvement will be informed by comprehensive stakeholder and practitioner feedback, while being underpinned by a systematic comparison of evidence, in particular, the published evidence base on effective teaching.
- Communication about the review is simple, clear and transparent to maintain trust and harness teacher and leader engagement.
- A transparent and credible governance structure to support the review is required, ensuring there is comprehensive representation from all stakeholders and participation by practising teachers and leaders.
- A phased approach to the review is required to reduce confusion and enable quality reviews of both sets of Standards.
Content considerations
- Supporting the need for coherence and continuity to form a developmental continuum across sets of Standards, noting that the continuum needs to address development in teaching expertise and leadership. Preference to refinement, simplification and clearer guidance over a potential structural redesign.
- Using the evidence base to review the relative weight of the Standard descriptors in the Teacher Standards in terms of their impact on teaching effectiveness, to identify those which are most important to optimising student rates of learning progress and levels of achievement. This action recognises that some descriptors are more important than others for improving instruction, and that those related to instruction should be a clear focus of development and reflection throughout a teacher’s career lifecycle. This information would guide teacher energy and effort in applying the Teacher Standards to develop their practice.
- Using the evidence-base to identify key renewal priorities, including optimising teacher effectiveness; maximising the progress and achievement of learners; articulating the inclusivity of learners with disability; strengthening the safe, effective and ethical use of digital tools and technologies; strengthening child safety requirements; and strengthening cultural responsiveness and social cohesion.
- Exploring how to best include early childhood teachers across the sets of Standards, recognising the different structural and organisational contexts across early childhood education and care settings when compared with the primary and secondary school contexts for which the existing standards were written.
- Recognising the critical importance of teacher and leader wellbeing in sustaining the profession, and student wellbeing having a crucial role in their successful learning.
What does the review of the Principal Standard include?
AITSL will be fully accountable for the 6 elements in the review of the Principal Standard:
- Governance
- Expert advisors
- Evidence inputs: literature review, environmental scan and consultation
- Discussion paper and consultation with written submissions
- Impact assessment
- Report with final recommendations.
The project is overseen by the AITSL Board and designed to balance the need for a process that delivers quality, is underpinned by evidence, and maximises the profession's participation while remaining efficient. This aligns with AITSL’s remit to develop teaching and leadership expertise and a successful record of Standards development, most recently with the development of the nationally endorsed Australian Professional Standards for Middle Leaders.
Governance
The following governance structure combines representation with expertise.
Project Reference Group (PRG)
The purpose of the PRG is to review progress and provide advice on project risks and issues. Membership includes representatives from:
- Australasian Teacher Regulatory Authorities (ATRA)
- Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA)
- Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE)
- Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO)
- Australian Education Union (AEU)
- Australian Government Department of Education
- Government school systems (8)
- Independent Education Union (IEU)
- Independent Schools Australia (ISA)
- National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation (NATSIEC)
- National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC)
- Peak Parent Associations
- Peak Principal Associations.
Professional panels (approx 8–10 members each)
The purpose of the professional panels is to share practitioner advice on teaching and leadership, relevant to their experiences with the Teacher Standards. There are 3 professional panels, with up to 10 representatives from a range of education settings:
- Early childhood
- Middle leaders
- Senior leaders (including Assistant Principals, Deputy Principals, and Principals).
AITSL’s existing advisory groups and steering committees
AITSL will leverage its existing consultative groups comprising teachers, leaders, systems, sectors, regulatory bodies, initial teacher education providers, education experts, and principal and other professional associations to help guide the review of the Principal Standard. This includes:
- Advisory Group for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education (AGATSIE): comprising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education experts from across the nation. They provide advice on work to support teachers and school leaders to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people achieve their full potential and are supported to embrace their culture and identity.
- Certifying Authorities Network (CAN): comprising members from each certifying authority. The primary objective of the CAN is to share practice, provide advice, make decisions and offer support amongst jurisdictions regarding Highly Accomplished and Lead teacher certification.
- National Professional Learning Network (NPLN): includes representatives from jurisdictional state and territory leadership institutes. The primary objective of the Network is to support collaboration between members, including the sharing of practice, research and innovation, as well as identifying and participating in areas of mutual work.
- Professional Associations Forum (PAF): comprising heads of professional associations. They advise on work AITSL is progressing to promote excellence in teaching and school leadership to maximise impact on student learning in all Australian schools
- Professional Growth Network (PGN): includes nominated representatives from the government and Catholic and Independent sectors in every state and territory, with a focus on supporting teacher growth and development.
- School Leadership and Teaching Expert Standing Committee (SLTESC): comprising recognised experts in teaching and school leadership. They advise on work that AITSL is progressing to promote excellence in teaching and school leadership, aiming to maximise the impact on student learning in all Australian schools.
- Teacher Education Expert Standing Committee (TEESC): comprising experts in initial teacher education from across universities and state and territory teacher regulatory bodies. They advise on work AITSL is progressing related to initial teacher education and the relationship between teacher education and the transition to working as a teacher.
- Teacher Quality and Regulation Forum (TQRF): comprising senior officers from teacher regulatory authorities in each state and territory. The primary objective is to promote use of professional standards to assess the eligibility of teachers for the various registration categories to maximise impact on the learning of children and young people in all Australian early childhood, primary, and secondary contexts
Expert advisors
AITSL has engaged national and international research experts to improve the quality of the reviews. They will draw on their extensive knowledge of evidence-based teaching and leadership practice to provide quality assurance over all components of the reviews, ensuring content rigour.
Evidence inputs
AITSL will work in collaboration with the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) to ensure that the review of aspects of teacher and leader practice related to instruction is underpinned by the evidence on effective teaching, including how students learn, teaching aligned to how students learn, student assessment for formative purposes and safe, learning-focused environments.
The review will be underpinned by high-quality evidence, with the following to be collected:
- An environmental scan focusing on international developments in teaching standards, certification/accreditation and policy developments to support effective teaching. It will also include employer artefacts which are relevant to the role of teachers, directors of early childhood education and care services, senior leaders and principals in schools – this includes role descriptions and industrial instruments which reference roles and responsibilities.
- A review of the relevant literature related to teaching and leadership standards, including evaluations of the impact and implementation of standards in Australia and similar international evaluations.
- Advice from educational measurement experts regarding best practice in the application of standards with a focus on Initial Teacher Education accreditation, teacher registration and certification.
- Application of the analysis of the consultation undertaken to prepare the discussion paper.
Discussion paper and consultation
A discussion paper will be developed following the completion of the Evidence Inputs. The purpose of the discussion paper is to serve as a catalyst for discussion with the profession and key stakeholders about the Principal Standard. The discussion paper will include aspects such as:
- key points from the evidence-base
- gaps identified in the Principal Standard from a comparison against the evidence base
- a set of proposals to address the gaps with accompanying questions to guide consultation.
There will be options for the profession and key stakeholders to submit their feedback via an online survey or via written submissions.
Impact assessment
The purpose of the impact assessment is to identify the extent of implementation consequences stemming from any revisions to the Principal Standard. A plan for an impact assessment will be developed in consultation with governance groups to ensure all implementation aspects are canvassed. The impact assessment will be undertaken using external expertise to provide objectivity.
Final report with recommendations
A final report with recommendations will be developed for consideration through the intergovernmental process for the Principal Standard. The final report will be based on a synthesis of the advice and evidence gathered through the review process and identify gaps in the Principal Standard and opportunities for improvement.
The final report will include detailed recommendations on specific revisions proposed for consideration to Education Ministers, via SPG and AESOC. A range of revision options will be provided to Ministers to address gaps identified by the review.
FAQs
Why is the review happening?
The Principal Standard has been in place for over 15 years and has not been formally reviewed during that time. As the roles of teachers and leaders continue to evolve, it is timely to revisit the Principal Standard to ensure it remains relevant to contemporary practice and is informed by current evidence.
Will the review affect my day-to-day practice?
No. The Principal Standard remains in use during the review.
I believe there is nothing wrong with the Principal Standard. Does it need to be reviewed?
Many teachers and leaders can find the Principal Standard useful in supporting their leadership practice, and this review acknowledges that.
The purpose of the review is not to assume change is needed, but to examine how the Principal Standard is working in practice and whether it remains current and aligns with the evidence base. A review also provides an opportunity to consider how the Principal Standard is used across different contexts and to ensure it continues to reflect the profession over time. Input from aspiring and current leaders – including those who value the Principal Standard as it is – is an important part of this process.
Why should I get involved in the consultations?
Your perspective as an aspiring or current leader is central to understanding how the Principal Standard is working in practice. Contributing to the consultations helps ensure the review reflects the expertise of the profession and the realities of different educational contexts.
What are the benefits of participating in the consultations?
- You will help shape the future direction of the Principal Standard by contributing your professional experience and insights.
- It recognises your voice and your context, including your education setting, role and career stage.
- You will be contributing to an evidence-informed review that draws on real-world practice across Australia.
Links to Standards