Elevating education standards: The case for certifying high-quality instructional materials in Australian schools

Every Australian classroom and school rely on the support of instructional materials in delivering lessons, assigning tasks to students, assessing students’ progress, and much more. Over recent years, the materials — especially digital content — available to teachers has increased markedly.

Amongst the heavy workload faced by Australian teachers is the need for convenient access to useable instructional materials that they can be confident in using effectively. However, most teachers and schools make personal decisions about what materials they use, often without access to centralised and trusted guidance. This adds to the workload burden for teachers as well as to the variability in practice within and between-schools.

Though all Australian schools and teachers endeavour to make use of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM), there are few markers or indicators of quality that can help aid them in making evidence-based instructional decisions.

As demonstrated in other industries, standards guide consumer understanding and product quality; ensuring safety and effectiveness. To the extent that such standards exist in Australian education systems, these target teaching practices and student learning expectations, but not the materials used to deliver teaching, assessment, intervention, and so on.

Certifying instructional materials could boost resource quality and decisionmaking confidence in schools.

Quality evaluation of HQIM should be systematic and comprehensive, focusing on evidence-based criteria and peer review to ensure alignment with educational standards and outcomes.

HQIM policies for structured evaluations and implementation from educational authorities show potential in improving educational outcomes and aiding school decisions.

Over recent years, international education systems — as demonstrated in the United States and United Kingdom — have developed various frameworks for quality assurance of instructional materials. Though the establishment of the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) has done much to disseminate evidence-based practices to educators and policymakers but has not yet guided the use of HQIM.

Establishing an Australian Standard for HQIM could not only elevate the quality of educational resources but also refine schools’ decision-making processes regarding their selection.

An Australian model for a HQIM ecosystem would be based on three pillars of:

An Australian Standard for HQIM that focuses on evidence, achievement standards, multi-tiered system of support, assessment and digital efficiency and safety.

An online HQIM Hub, modelled in a similar way to the US EdReports platform, for the publishing of independent and transparent reviews of HQIM against the Australian Standard.

Incentives for researchers to focus on scalable, broad-reaching initiatives in HQIM.

Together, this would improve the quality of evidence-based instructional materials available to schools and teachers, alleviate excess burdens and variability in practices, and support a culture of research-to-practice that will ultimately benefit student outcomes.

Jarrod Carter is the Senior Educational Data Analyst at Catholic Education South Australia, where he oversees the collection and analysis of educational data for more than 50,000 students across 101 schools.?