Australia is an outlier, the cost of high school is higher than other developed countries while our results are going down. As a wealthy country with a big education sector, how did we get here?

Join Jane Caro AM, Tom Greenwell and Skye Predavec as they share recent research on Australian education and discuss how to navigate a way out of this policy quagmire.

SPEAKERS:

Jane Caro AM– Walkley award winning columnist, author, novelist & social commentator

Jane occasionally appears on TV, regularly on radio, makes a lot of speeches and writes often in SMH, Age, The Saturday Paper. She is on the board of the Public Education Foundation. She was awarded the B&T Women in Media Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. She is a feminist and an advocate for public education.

She’s written 14 books, including The Stupid Country. How Australia is Dismantling Public Education and What Makes a Good School both co-authored with Chris Bonnor. Her two latest novels the Mother and Lyrebird are best sellers.

Tom Greenwell – Author of Waiting for Gonski – How Australia failed its schools with Chris Bonnor

Tom is co-author with Chris Bonnor of Waiting for Gonski, How Australia failed its schools (UNSW Press 2022), as well as Choice and Fairness: A Common Framework for All Australian Schools (2023) and Lessons From Canada: An Equal School System is Possible (2025) both published by Australian Learning Lecture. He has written extensively about Australian education and public affairs and teaches history and politics in the ACT public education system. He previously worked as a research officer for the Australian Education Union.

Skye Predavec – Researcher, The Australia Institute

Skye Predavec is a Researcher at the Australia Institute, with a particular focus on education, media, gun control and elections. She co-authored the 2026 report Australia’s private high school problem, which found privatisation has made Australian high schools the most expensive for families in the developed world. Skye also has experience in campaigns and advocacy on issues around public transport, education, and housing.

Dr Alice Grundy — Research Manager, The Australia Institute

Dr Alice Grundy is an editor, researcher and teacher, with over 15 years’ experience working in book publishing, and a Visiting Fellow at ANU. She has worked for the public service and has taught at the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Melbourne and Australian National University. She completed a PhD on editing and publishing history at ANU, the first half of which became Editing Fiction: Three case studies from postwar Australia, published by Cambridge University Press.