Measuring what matters is Australia’s first national wellbeing framework. The framework was released by the Australian Government on 21 July 2023 and seeks to track Australia’s progress towards a more healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive and prosperous Australia. It is designed to complement the reporting of economic and financial data, recognising that an economy and prosperous society is about more than the dollars. A key part of wellbeing, is access to and participation in high quality education.
The framework has five wellbeing themes:
- Healthy: A society in which people feel well and are in good physical and mental health, can access services when they need, and have the information they require to take action to improve their health.
- Secure: A society where people live peacefully, feel safe, have financial security and access to housing.
- Sustainable: A society that sustainably uses natural and financial resources, protects and repairs the environment and builds resilience to combat challenges.
- Cohesive: A society that supports connections with family, friends and the community, values diversity, and promotes belonging and culture.
- Prosperous: A society that has a dynamic, strong economy, invests in people’s skills and education, and provides broad opportunities for employment and well-paid, secure jobs.
Whilst this initial report has been criticised for the dated data, it is the first in what the current federal government intends to report on to complement financial and economic data. Given Education Ministers have also been considering various approaches to wellbeing measures used in schools, it is foreseeable that in the future, there may be a greater focus on how funding supports evidence-based approaches to student and staff wellbeing.
You can access the Measuring What Matters dashboard here. I encourage you to engage with the dashboard, particularly those “sub-dashboards” that relate to literacy and numeracy skills at school, education attainment and childhood development and digital preparedness – scroll about two-thirds down the page. You can access the Australian Student Wellbeing Framework here.
Yvonne Ries
Deputy Executive Director – Education
