AITSL Teacher Standards submissions close today with AI still missing

Digital Attitudes, 7 August 2026

Friday of Term 3 Week 4, and the AITSL Teacher Standards deadline that has been sitting in every state ministerial diary since May finally hits close of business tonight. Also today: the 2026 Australian Education Awards black tie ceremony at The Fullerton Sydney names the country's Best Use of Technology school, and the Digital Education Council's global survey lands with an assessment relevance gap that is 60 percentage points wide.

AITSL Teacher Standards submissions close COB today, and the profession did not get AI into the document yet

AITSL's Review of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, the first formal review since the standards were adopted in 2011, closes to public survey and written submissions at end of day, Friday 7 August. The current APST, the reference document that governs teacher registration, initial teacher education accreditation, and every provisional to proficient certification decision in the country, contains no descriptor for generative AI, no descriptor for adaptive learning platforms, and no descriptor for digital assessment practice. The Working Group that packages the submissions goes to Education Ministers in February 2027 (AITSL supplementary information for the Review of the Teacher Standards). The IEU NSW/ACT briefing to members made the plain point that the review is the only mechanism the profession has to put AI, generative tools, and digital assessment into the standards that regulate registration and initial teacher education (IEU NSW/ACT on the AITSL survey).

Why this matters: For an ITE course coordinator or a director of learning, this is the last morning to file a submission that names the specific AI or digital assessment competency you want tested in the 2027 accreditation cycle. The concrete Term 3 action for a principal is a twenty minute stand up with the leadership team or the AI working group and one sharp submission through the AITSL portal by 5pm, naming three things, which AI related tasks a graduate teacher should be able to do in Week 3 of their first appointment, which digital assessment practice belongs in the Highly Accomplished descriptor, and which of the existing 37 focus areas is doing the closest job today. The submission window closing today does not close the debate, but it closes the input channel that the February 2027 Ministers' meeting will actually read. A school system CFO worried about the ITE pipeline should also send a submission through the employer path, because the standards flow through into TAFE and university curriculum accreditation lodged with TEQSA and ASQA.

Australian Education Awards 2026 lands tonight at The Fullerton with three straight tech categories

The 2026 Australian Education Awards black tie ceremony runs tonight at The Fullerton Hotel Sydney, with 29 categories, Federal Education Minister Jason Clare in the room, and the Toddle Best Use of Technology, OneSchool Global Innovation in Curriculum Design, and Innovation in Learning Environment Design excellence awardees already named. The Best Use of Technology shortlist includes Emmanuel Catholic College, Haileybury, Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar, Marsden SHS, St Andrew's Anglican College, St Michael's Grammar, Trinity College (SA), and Wesley College. The Innovation in Curriculum Design shortlist runs from Bellbird Park State Secondary and Broadbeach State School through to SCOTS PGC College, Westbourne Grammar and Yeronga State High. The Innovation in Learning Environment Design shortlist includes Ballina Coast High School, Haileybury Pangea, the Hillcrest Christian College Virtual Learning Community, and The Knox School (The Educator on the 2026 Excellence Awardees, Australian Education Awards on the night).

Why this matters: For a Head of Digital Learning or an ICT lead, tonight is the moment the sector effectively benchmarks itself on "what a good AU school tech program looks like in 2026", and the shortlist itself is more useful than the trophy. The concrete Term 3 action for a school executive is a 30 minute review on Monday morning against the eight Best Use of Technology finalists and the eight Innovation in Learning Environment finalists, asking two questions, which of these schools is running a program the SLT could steal from wholesale before Week 8, and which of these finalists has a Head of Digital Learning the school's own Head of Digital should ping for coffee this term. The other read is a sourcing read. Toddle is a specific AU curriculum planning vendor, OneSchool Global is a specific school management platform vendor, and both are now visibly sponsoring the tech categories the sector uses to define excellence. For a school running a competing SIS or curriculum planning stack, this is a market positioning signal, not a neutral one, and the Term 3 procurement question is whether the incumbent vendor is going to co-invest in a comparable industry footprint before the November tender window.

Digital Education Council 2026 survey puts student AI use at 88 per cent, faculty at 77, assessment relevance at 28

The Digital Education Council's AI in Higher Education Global Survey 2026, published in early July from 45,398 responses across 35 countries, lands three numbers the Australian higher ed sector cannot argue with. 88 per cent of students now use AI in their learning, 77 per cent of faculty use it in their teaching (up 16 points on 2025), and only 28 per cent of students feel that most or many of their assessments reflect the work, skills, and judgement they expect to need in an AI enabled workplace. 22 per cent of students say they find it harder to work without AI, 20 per cent say they depend on it to produce better work, and 19 per cent say they retain less because they rely on it (Digital Education Council on the AI in Higher Education Global Survey 2026).

Why this matters: The 88 to 28 gap is the number a DVC (Education) or a director of learning and teaching should put at the top of every Semester 2 assessment review paper, because it is the specific outcome the TEQSA adaptive capabilities note from 24 June was written to close. The concrete Term 3 action for a faculty dean is a two hour audit against three question types, how many current unit assessments would still function unchanged if every student had unrestricted AI access, how many need to be redesigned to include AI as a permitted tool with disclosure, and how many need to move to secure conditions (in person, viva, oral defence). The other number to read carefully is the 64 per cent of faculty who say they have completed AI literacy training against the fewer than three in ten students who feel they see the results. This is the training to classroom experience gap, and the honest read is that most Australian institutional AI training programs have been focused on faculty confidence rather than assessment redesign, which is why the redesign work stays on the "we will get to it in Q4" list every semester.

Three stories, one Friday, and the AITSL submission is the one that closes tonight. More at digitalattitudes.com.au.