Dr Jill Brown is an Associate Professor in Mathematics Education at Deakin University. She is a former maths teachers and current maths educator and education researcher.

Erin Morley is the editor of Education Review and Campus Review both of which report on current issues in school-based education and higher education respectively. A graduate of the University of Wollongong, Erin completed her internship at the Illawarra Mercury, where she investigated the lack of childcare vacancies by phoning 100 childcare centres within 70km of Wollongong.

Professor Rose Luckin is an internationally respected academic and influential communicator across multiple stakeholders about the future of education and technology, particularly artificial intelligence.

Stephen Gniel was appointed CEO of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) in July 2024. Previously, he has held senior leadership roles in both Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory in early childhood, schools and post school portfolios with both policy and operational priorities. 

Marnee Shay is an Associate Professor and a Principal Research Fellow in the School of Education at the University of Queensland. She is an Aboriginal woman whose maternal family is from the Ngen’giwumirri language group (Daly River, Northern Territory), she was born in Brisbane, with strong connections to Indigenous communities in southeast Queensland.

Professor Susan Groundwater-Smith is one of Australia’s greatest academic practitioners who has remained close to practitioners in schools. She has over 50 years of teaching and academic experience in both mainstream and special education.

Jason Clare is the Federal Minister for Education – he has held the portfolio since 2022.  

Randall Mumbulla is a final year teacher education student in the Bachelor of Education (Primary) Program at the University of Technology Sydney. Randall was also one of the winners of the recent ‘If I was Prime Minister’ essay competition, run by the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation (AIEF) with the award being presented to him by the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.

Dr Ken Boston began his professional career as a university lecturer, after being awarded his PhD in Earth Sciences. He then went into the education bureaucracy to go on to a distinguished career in Australian and international education. Dr Boston is a former Director-General of Education in South Australia and New South Wales, a former Director-General, Education and Training and Managing Director, TAFE NSW and former CEO of Britain’s Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. He was also a Gonski school funding reforms panellist.

Jo Lampert is a Professor of Social Inclusion and Teacher Education and Director of the Commonwealth and State supported NEXUS alternative pathway into teaching. NEXUS is a community-engaged teacher education program designed to prepare culturally diverse, high-quality teachers for metropolitan, regional, and rural secondary schools in Victoria, many of which are hard-to-staff. Jo was founder and co-director of the National Exceptional Teacher for Disadvantaged Schools (NETDS) program for ten years prior to moving to La Trobe University in 2017 – where over the past 5 years she developed NEXUS. In 2022 she took up a professorial role in teacher education for social transformation at Monash University.

Gabrielle Zolezzi is a classroom teacher with experience working in both the public and private sectors of education. In her first six years of teaching, she has moved between full-time classroom teacher roles to positions on her school executive, shaping her holistic view and understanding of our education systems. Gabrielle has led, designed, and implemented whole-school programs focused on encouraging agile thinking and 21st century skill development and is the current recipient of a grant to research further into this area.

Associate Professor Jessica Gerard works at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne where she researches the changing formations, and lived experience, of social inequalities in relation to education, activism, work, and unemployment.

Adrian is a former NSW Minister of Education, and previous director of the Gonski Institute at UNSW. In this episode, Adrian responds to our questions on who holds power in education, how does it relate to the current teacher shortage and what are the major ‘roadblocks’ to progressing different agendas forward in schools, the broader community and in teacher education in universities.

Julie is a recently retired classroom teacher, union member, and advocate for public education. We speak about her many decades of classroom experience and what she believes early career teachers require to be the best they can possibly be.

Alan is one of Australia’s leading education research scholars. In this third episode we talk to him about the damaging effects of neo-liberalism on education and why policy in Australian education is taking us backwards.

Chris is an education commentator and former school principal. He is a longtime campaigner for public education and his recent publications both in books and online opinion pieces in national publications focus on equity and funding. He is not hopeful about where education in Australia is at, he says: “It’s in the too hard basket. We have left so many things undone, for example, we haven’t solved the problem of equity – private providers undermine equity – it’s a system at war with itself. Deep structural reform is needed.”

Jacqueline is a senior writer and regular columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers. In this fifth episode we ask about her own unique writing processes which are not necessarily ‘scientific’ but driven from the news cycle and topics that she might be discussing with friends, family and current events.

Correna became Federal President of the Australian Education Union in February 2015. She has spent 17 years teaching in public primary schools. As President of the AEU, she led the union through a long-running industrial dispute with the SA Government as well as organising the “I Give a Gonski” and “Stop TAFE Cuts” campaigns. She has extensive experience and understanding of social justice issues, with a particular interest in students and their families from disadvantaged areas.