Jackson Graham
Jackson Graham uses data-heavy explainers to show how school systems and universities work under pressure, with a focus on education policy, resources and how students move through the system. He works at The Age as an education and explainer reporter, combining long-form analysis with news coverage on schools and higher education. His reporting consistently links classroom realities with broader shifts such as industrial disputes, funding decisions and the impact of new technology on teaching and learning.
School capacity, funding and industrial tensions
A significant strand of Graham’s coverage examines how schools cope with rapid enrolment growth and uneven infrastructure. In a piece on schools “bursting at the seams”, he reports on campuses that cannot keep up with student numbers, detailing overcrowded classrooms and the planning lag between demographic growth and new facilities. The story emphasises how local enrolment spikes translate into cramped learning environments, and it traces the knock-on effects for parents, teachers and administrators when physical capacity falls behind demand.
Graham also reports on the industrial side of education, including live coverage of a major teacher strike that closed schools to students while staff walked off the job over a pay deal. In that reporting he contributes on-the-ground updates from the rally, documenting teacher concerns about workload, remuneration and conditions, and how those issues flow through to the stability of school operations.
The focus is not only the event itself but the way industrial action disrupts teaching and highlights structural tensions in the system.
His work on private schools brings a financial lens to education, using remuneration data to show how staff pay varies across institutions. In an analysis of salaries at more than 40 private schools, he reports the average staff package and identifies which schools pay the most, illustrating how resources and compensation differ within the sector.
The piece anchors its findings in specific figures and compares institutions, framing pay as a central element of how schools attract and retain staff.
Student choices and senior secondary pathways
Graham’s reporting on senior secondary education focuses on what students study and what they choose to abandon as they move towards the end of school. In an exclusive on the VCE subjects students are dropping in year 12, he uses statewide data to quantify how many students start a subject in year 11 but do not continue it to unit 4.
The story explains that many students enrol in six subjects in year 11 and then reduce to five, and it shows how that common pattern drives subject attrition.
He highlights which subjects are most frequently dropped, including religion, science and mathematics, and notes the steep decline in enrolments for VCE religion and society between unit 2 and unit 4. The piece points out that there are fewer students switching from advanced mathematics to easier streams, suggesting changing attitudes towards rigorous maths subjects and pathways. This work reflects Graham’s interest in how policy settings, curriculum design and student priorities interact at the point where young people make high-stakes decisions about their final school years.
Universities, technology and the future of learning
Graham specialises in higher education and has been tasked with examining whether local universities are prepared for future challenges, including the changing nature of work and advances in artificial intelligence.
In a series framed around the role of education in a more successful city, he is responsible for investigating whether universities are equipped to meet those challenges and to support the jobs and industries of the future. His brief connects degree programs and institutional strategy with wider economic questions about what skills a city will need.
His coverage of technology in universities includes a story on a lecturer who replaced himself with an AI avatar, where students could not tell the difference. In that piece he explores how generative AI tools are being embedded in teaching and what it means for the relationship between students and educators. The article looks at student responses to the avatar, the practicalities of delivering lectures through artificial means and the ethical questions that arise when human presence in the classroom is reduced.
Together, these higher education stories show Graham’s focus on how universities adapt to new technology while trying to remain relevant to rapidly shifting labour markets.
Explainer-driven reporting style
Graham’s author page at The Age describes him as an explainer reporter, and his professional profile notes that he writes long and in-depth pieces that explain the news and the world around us.
He uses explainers to unpack complex subjects, whether that is the structure of Christmas traditions in one piece or the architecture of education systems in others. This format allows him to combine narrative reporting with charts, figures and close reading of policy documents, giving readers a clear sense of how decisions made by governments and institutions affect daily life.
His pathway into The Age included a reporting fellowship that placed him across platforms and emphasised hands-on involvement in researching, developing and writing stories.
That experience underpins his current work, which blends the rigour of long-form explanatory journalism with the responsiveness of news reporting on events such as strikes and policy debates. Across schools and universities, his coverage is distinguished by its reliance on detailed data, focus on structural pressures and sustained attention to how education prepares people for an uncertain future.
4 more education journalists.
Bridie Short
Bridie Short reports on how learning environments shape young people’s experiences and their engagement with wider issues. She writes about education for Lynn News, a local news publication with a focus on community stories. Her coverage centres on classrooms and other learning settings, with attention to the people and events that define daily life there. She has written about drama students paying homage to the climate emergency with a performance, framing their creative response as part of their educational experience and blending arts coverage with an education lens. Her education reporting sits within a broader community news agenda, linking school and college stories to general news. Her pieces are grounded in concrete events and activities, showing what students and staff are doing rather than focusing on abstract policy.
Catherine Strohfeldt
Catherine Strohfeldt reports how education policy, money and behaviour collide in Queensland classrooms and childcare services, focusing on what government decisions mean for students, families and teachers day to day. She is an education reporter at Brisbane Times covering schools, universities and early learning alongside related state policy. She often starts with a single school, subject or provider to explain shifts in funding, discipline and workforce conditions, treating suspension statistics, surveys and on-the-ground accounts as complementary evidence. Her work links school fees, capital funding and teacher pay deals to who can access which schools and on what terms. Her beat extends into childcare chains in crisis and university leadership and governance. She also covers Queensland government, planning and environmental issues, showing how housing, health and coastal decisions reshape the communities in her education reporting.
Charles Bliss
Charles Bliss is a features-led reporter at the Eastern Daily Press whose distinct focus is education told through human stories about schools, pupils and the adults who work with them. He writes about what it feels like to be in a classroom or school community, using specific events, characters and concrete activity to show how reading, creativity and wellbeing are encouraged in young people. His education coverage centres children and teachers rather than policy, turning visits, campaigns and workshops into narrative pieces with practical detail. He gives particular weight to wellbeing, mental health and sensory learning, linking health, psychology and horticulture through tangible examples. Alongside education he covers health, environment, behaviour, everyday guidance and local innovation, using plain explanation, step-by-step advice and narrative structure to show how people learn, adapt and look after each other in their communities.
Conor Duffy
Conor Duffy stands out for linking education policy to the daily lives of students, parents and teachers, treating the classroom as part of a wider social system. He is the ABC’s national education and parenting reporter. His beat spans schools, universities and family life. He covers education policy, test scores, rankings, funding, teacher workload, behaviour, school refusal, student wellbeing and parenting stress. He reports on NAPLAN, university rankings, the Job Ready Graduates legislation and the cost of humanities degrees. He also covers privacy and school data. His reporting combines hard data, policy detail and personal stories. He has also done foreign, environment and investigative work for the ABC, including as North America correspondent, and has worked across Lateline, 7.30 and AM.