AI in Schools
Four percent AI trust as Catholic schools weigh the encyclical
Digital Attitudes, 8 June 2026
The Monday read after a week of EDUtech and Friday submission deadlines is three pieces of paper that now set the term 3 procurement frame: an Australian privacy survey, an Investment NSW media release, and a Vatican encyclical.
OAIC's first survey under Carly Kind lands 4 percent trust in AI companies
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner published the Australian Community Attitudes to Privacy Survey 2026 on 28 May, with Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind's lead line that "trust in AI (4 percent) and social media (3 percent) is minuscule." The Social Research Centre fielded the survey on 1,511 nationally representative adults in March, with 93 percent saying it is not fair to use personal information to train AI models and 71 percent rejecting the repurposing of data for AI training after a service has ended. The release lands three days before the OAIC's Children's Online Privacy Code consultation closed on Friday 5 June at 5pm and 187 days before the code registers on 10 December. The OAIC release on the trust-in-AI finding, 28 May, and the IAPP digital-rights read of the survey, 4 June.
Why this matters: For school business managers and university CISOs whose OAIC submission landed at the regulator by Friday close, the 4 percent trust figure is the line every code-drafting paragraph the OAIC writes between June and December will be read against, and the under-18 best-interest assessment the registered code will impose from 10 December will be drafted into that climate. For state Department of Education CIOs running NSWEduChat, SA EdChat, Queensland's Corella and the WA ClassmAIte pilot, the survey is the cleanest Australian-public read of why the department-built tools (data hosted inside the state's secure environment) sit on a different procurement page from the commercial seat licences that ship student data to a foreign vendor's training pipeline. For ed-tech vendors selling AI products into Australian schools and universities, the operational read is that the 4 percent figure will be the line every chair of a school board and every deputy vice-chancellor (academic) will hand back across the table at the next renewal call.
NSW Investment books $1.7 billion of ed-tech as the EDUtech floor closes
Investment NSW published its EDUtech week media release on 29 May, with Deputy Secretary Rebecca McPhee confirming the state's ed-tech sector at 300 companies, 8,200 staff, $1.7 billion in annual revenue and $530 million in exports, ahead of EDUtech Australia bringing 10,000 attendees and 400 international delegates to the ICC on Wednesday and Thursday. The four day program (the NSW EdTech Summit on Monday and Tuesday, EDUtech proper on Wednesday and Thursday) ran the Tech Buyers Program structured 1:1 meeting tracks alongside the floor for the first time at this scale, and Investment NSW positioned the state's $21 billion international education export figure for 2025 as the procurement context the next two years of vendor renewals will be read against. The Investment NSW media release on the EDUtech week, 29 May.
Why this matters: For independent and Catholic school heads briefing the term 3 procurement cycle this morning, the $1.7 billion figure is the marker the state is putting on the table for the conversation about whether the school's next LMS, SIS or AI contract sits with an NSW-domiciled vendor (Schoolbox, Sentral, the various Innovation Alley startups) or with a foreign one (Instructure Canvas, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI). For state Department of Education CIOs across the borders (Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia) reading the NSW sector number alongside the Corella, Cogniti, NSWEduChat and SA EdChat builds, the operational read is that the home-state ecosystem question is now an inter-state procurement debate that the next two budget cycles will write down. For ed-tech vendors with a Sydney stand last week, the Tech Buyers Program 1:1 tracks ran alongside the floor for the first time at this scale, which means the term 3 renewal conversation is happening on the back of meetings the buyer scheduled in advance, not on the booth pitch.
Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical lands on Catholic education's desk in Melbourne and Sydney
Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, at the Vatican on 25 May, and the National Catholic Education Commission (NCEC) and Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) both published their reading of the document the following week. NCEC Executive Director Scott Ryan framed the response as a call to develop students' "capacity to think critically, be imaginative" and pointed at the documented decline in Australian students' ICT literacy since 2022, while MACS Executive Director Dr Edward Simons confirmed the encyclical "will further inform MACS' development of a system-wide response" to AI and pointed back at the system's June 2025 Vision for Engagement that restricted non-essential digital devices in schools. The encyclical's central line on education (paragraph 145) is that "the organisation of schools, physical spaces, evaluation methods and the role of teachers themselves must be rethought." The NCEC statement, 27 May, and the MACS welcome of the encyclical, 28 May.
Why this matters: For Catholic school heads in the Brisbane Catholic Education system (146 schools, Microsoft Copilot rollout to 12,500 staff), Catholic Schools NSW, Catholic Education South Australia and MACS briefing the term 3 AI policy this morning, the encyclical is now the doctrinal text every Catholic-system AI procurement paper will sit on for the next planning cycle, and the paragraph 145 line on rethinking evaluation methods is the one that ties the Vatican direction back to the Luckin and Lodge EDUtech assessment panel quoted in the Teacher Magazine wrap on Friday. For state Department of Education CIOs and independent school heads reading the MACS Vision for Engagement device restriction alongside the eSafety Inman Grant line on WhatsApp and Roblox covered yesterday, the operational signal is that the Catholic sector's mobile-device-restriction position is now backed by both an Australian regulator and a Vatican encyclical. For ed-tech vendors selling AI products into the 1,750-plus Catholic schools across Australia, the renewal conversation in term 3 will run through the diocese's Rome Call for AI Ethics commitment as much as the OAIC code and the AITSL Standards review.
The thread this morning is that the operational frame for term 3 procurement has now hardened: 4 percent public trust in AI companies, $1.7 billion of NSW sector revenue, and a Vatican encyclical that names assessment redesign as the doctrinal task. More on the operational read at digitalattitudes.com.au.