Context
COAG, through the National Education Agreement 
(NEA), has determined the following outcomes for schooling in Australia:
- all children are engaged in and benefiting from schooling
- young people are meeting basic literacy and numeracy standards, and overall levels of literacy and numeracy achievement are improving
- Australian students excel by international standards
- schooling promotes the social inclusion and reduces the educational disadvantage of children, especially Indigenous children
- young people make successful transition from school to work and further study.
The COAG schooling targets include:
- lifting the Year 12 or equivalent attainment rate to 90 per cent by 2020
- halving the gap for Indigenous students in reading, writing and numeracy within a decade
- at least halving the gap for Indigenous students in Year 12 attainment rates by 2020.
National Education Agreement and National Partnership Agreements
The key national education policy directions influencing schools are driven by the NEA priorities of:
- improving teacher and school leader quality
- high standards and expectations
- greater accountability and better directed resources
- modern, world-class teaching and learning environments, including ICT
- integrated strategies for low socioeconomic status (SES) school communities
- boosting parental engagement.
These key priorities are delivered through a number of reforms under the National Partnership Agreements for participating schools.
These include:
- literacy and numeracy - focusing on the key areas of teaching, leadership and the effective use of student performance information, especially for those students who are identified as not meeting the national minimum standards
- low SES communities - supporting a suite of reforms designed to transform the way schooling is delivered in disadvantaged communities
- improving teacher quality - improving teacher and school leadership quality
- youth attainment and transitions - increasing young people's participation and attainment in education and training, and enabling young people to successfully move from school to further education, training or full-time employment.
These reform initiatives are important for all schools, with more significant implications for those schools directly participating in a partnership agreement.
Department of Education and Training Strategic Plan 2011-2015
The Strategic Plan identifies the key objectives, strategies and key performance indicators that we will pursue to meet our challenges and deliver our objectives in alignment with the NEA and state priorities.
What does this mean for schools?
To enable Queensland's state schools to respond to the national reform agenda and state priorities, this improvement framework outlines the school planning, reporting and reviewing processes that will:
- provide alignment between DET strategies; and system and school priorities
- provide clarity for schools in meeting their short-term and long-term planning, reviewing and reporting obligations.
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