Many of Australia’s educational tensions are well known and shared globally: top-down punitive accountability, debates about pedagogy, a climate of competition between colleagues, increasing reliance on numeric data to track learning, the negative effects of over-testing and an epidemic of anxiety.

We are largely driven by performance measures. The massive surge of testing and data is eating away at the richness of the school experience. In a recent state curriculum review, there were widespread calls for a reduction in content coverage and more focus on creativity, problem-solving, curiosity, flexibility, collaboration and global awareness.

Australian teachers are largely voiceless in the public discourse on schooling. It would be highly unusual for a TV panel discussing education to feature a teacher. Teachers tend to feel uncomfortable and unprepared for such public limelight, challenged by the prospect of reducing the complexity of education to a media grab.

For too long, teachers have allowed others to set the agenda on education. An informed and engaged population starts with us.

Cameron Paterson is a history teacher at SHORE Church of England Grammar School in North Sydney, Australia