Rebecca Borg
Rebecca Borg reports on education as a system that shapes children’s lives, pairing accountability journalism with granular stories from classrooms, playgrounds and childcare centres. Her work across the Herald Sun and news.com.au focuses on early learning, schools and tertiary education, while tracking how policy, funding and governance decisions play out for families and staff on the ground. She distinguishes herself by moving between data-driven investigations, “exclusive” enterprise pieces and small human stories that reveal the culture of Australian education.
Accountability in schools and childcare
As an education reporter at the Herald Sun, Borg covers early learning, school and tertiary news alongside research in the education sector, with a clear emphasis on holding leaders and providers to account. Her recent reporting has focused on alleged offending by a Victorian childcare worker that triggered more than $4.4 million in government payments to over 800 affected families, tracking both the financial burden on taxpayers and the experience of those caught up in the scandal.
She has also broken stories about an after-school care provider facing substantial fines for alleged acts of neglect at multiple primary schools, bringing regulatory enforcement and duty-of-care issues into public view.
In parallel, she examines how education authorities respond to crises, including pieces where experts criticise police handling of “sickening” group chats among students at elite schools. Across these investigations, Borg’s reporting centres on children’s safety and the accountability of institutions entrusted with their care.
Conditions in classrooms and the digital lives of students
Borg regularly interrogates the physical and digital environments in which students learn. She has reported on a “bombshell” findings-based story showing that the vast majority of schools in one state are deteriorating, with students taught in ageing or portable classrooms under collapsing ceilings and mouldy walls. Her coverage of school infrastructure stresses the everyday reality inside buildings, not just headline funding figures, making the state of classrooms a core thread in her beat. On the digital side, she has written about research tracking the screen time of 300,000 children, highlighting concerning patterns in device use and what those habits mean for learning and wellbeing. These pieces pair large-scale data with concrete examples from school communities, illustrating how policy, technology and physical environments combine to shape the student experience.
School culture, values and community flashpoints
Beyond policy and infrastructure, Borg devotes significant attention to how school rules, traditions and social norms affect students and families. Her stories range from high-profile discipline issues, such as the Haileybury boys’ group chat case, to hyperlocal disputes over everyday practices.
She has covered decisions like banning high-fives at school crossings, using seemingly small rules to explore how safety, risk and childhood freedom are balanced. In other work, she reports on primary schools that remove Christmas celebrations to be “inclusive”, tracing how administrators navigate cultural diversity, symbolism and parental expectations.
These community flashpoint stories show Borg’s interest in the tension between institutional policies and the values of the families they serve, and how those tensions play out in real school settings.
Education at the intersection of politics and broader news
Borg’s remit extends into state politics, protests and broader society when they intersect with education and social welfare.
She has covered demonstrations where protest leaders are challenged on slogans such as “Which river, which sea?”, using those moments to examine the language and understanding driving public movements. Her work also includes state-focused pieces like “‘Rivers of gold’: The states laughing at Vic” for news.com.au, where she looks at how fiscal settings and inter-state dynamics shape outcomes for one jurisdiction.[input] As news.com.au’s Melbourne reporter, she now covers crime, politics, education, social welfare and human interest stories, but continues to bring an education lens to issues that affect children and families.
Her career has spanned roles as an education specialist and broader news reporter across News Corp mastheads, and she has been recognised with Young Journalist of the Year honours and international secondments with titles including the New York Post and the California Post. Across this work, Borg maintains a focus on how systems, policies and events touch the lives of students, parents and school staff.
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.