The Productivity Commission has launched consultations on 15 priority reforms to improve Australia’s productivity. Consultations are open until 6 June 2025 and will be followed by the release of interim reports in July and August and then further consultations before the Commission provides its final reports/recommendations to the Australian government in December.
The 15 reforms the Commission is examining include three focussed on education and skills:
- Improve school student outcomes with the best available tools and resources – improving access to high-quality, accredited curriculum and lesson planning materials and diffusing the best innovations in educational technology across the country.
- Support the workforce through a flexible post-secondary education and training sector – post-secondary education that improves graduate skills and enables flexible learning, reskilling and upskilling through structured work-related training.
- Balance service availability and quality through fit-for-purpose occupational entry regulations – reforms to occupational entry regulations to reduce red tape, improve the availability of skills and make it easier for workers to move to areas of industry need.
Other areas of reform include the following which may also be of interested to VDC News readers:
- Support business investment through corporate tax reform
- Reduce the impact of regulation on business dynamism
- Support safe data access and handling through an outcomes-based approach to privacy
- Unlock the benefits of consumer data through effective access rights and controls
- Enhance reporting efficiency, transparency and accuracy through digital financial reporting
- Enable AI’s productivity potential
- Reform of quality and safety regulation to support a more cohesive care economy
- Embed collaborative commissioning to increase the integration of care services
- A national framework to support government investment in prevention
- Reduce the cost of meeting carbon targets
- Speed up approvals for new energy infrastructure
- Encourage adaptation by addressing barriers to private investment
Specifically in relation to introducing more flexibility into the post-secondary education and training sector – the Commission is exploring:
- “Improving recognition of prior learning and credit transfer mechanisms to make it easier for tertiary education students to have their existing qualifications and experience certified. This could enable more flexible education pathways, drive competition between course providers and support the growth of innovative education offerings such as microcredentials.
- Increasing the rates of structured, non-formal work-related training by developing targeted measures to enable lifelong skill development and support the workforce to adapt to the future needs of our changing economy.”
