Building character and the nation: ADF lessons for young Australians

Building Character and the Nation

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A New Research Paper on the Crisis of Character and Citizenship in Australian Education

📄 Read the Full Research Paper (PDF)

🗒️ Download the Executive Summary (2 pages)

Improving Australian school education policy and outcomes requires a return to first principles. The place to begin is with the national education goals, which hold the highest status in education policy yet no longer provide sufficient clarity or direction for the challenges schools now face. Across the country, educators are being asked to respond to declining academic performance, weak civics knowledge, student disengagement, behavioural pressures and growing uncertainty about citizenship, belonging and the wider purposes of schooling.

A strong national framework needs clear expectations, a coherent sense of purpose and a practical way of forming the habits and responsibilities expected of young Australians. The Australian Air Force Cadets offer a compelling example. Affiliated with the Australian Defence Force and shaped by the wider Royal Australian Air Force setting, the AAFC gives young people a structured environment built around service, responsibility, discipline and shared purpose. Its expectations are clear, its values are explicit, and its culture gives members, families and the wider community confidence about what the organisation stands for and what it seeks to develop. The result is a model of youth formation in which unity of purpose, mutual accountability and commitment to the nation are actively taught and lived.

Overview

Part I offers a broad description of some of the historic influences on Australian school education, particularly as these might be assumed to underpin the national education goals.

Part II describes the expectations and constraints of school education under Australia’s federal system of government, with specific reference to the subject of Civics and Citizenship.

Part III introduces the Australian Defence Force Cadets program, with its longstanding commitment to being one of Australia’s premier national youth development organisations. This paper places a specific emphasis on the historic and contemporary achievements of one branch, the Australian Air Force Cadets (AAFC).

Part IV discusses the data collected in a survey of 218 former Cadets regarding their experience as school-age Cadets and the extent to which they believe the program influenced their personal development. Even taking into consideration the respondents’ membership of an alumni network (a likely indicator of a good experience), their ratings and comments were overwhelmingly positive. For example, 98% either strongly agreed or agreed with the AAFC’s claim that it provides experiences that ‘equip for life’. Responses were considered and often quite detailed.

Recommendations

Restate Australia’s national education goals in clear, succinct language that explicitly addresses the intellectual, moral and civic role of schooling in this country. The goals should:

  1. Make an unequivocal case not just for what students should learn and teachers should teach, but why. Such a rationale must acknowledge the distinctively Australian education context – including its complex challenges – in ways that enhance policymaking accountability and transparency for all stakeholders.
  2. Mandate the systematic acquisition of knowledge about Australia’s democratic foundations, as part of the evolution of Western civilisation, for all students throughout the compulsory years of schooling and in Years 11 and 12.
  3. Ensure that this focus (Recommendation 2) is built into all school curricula and initial teacher education / professional development programs.
  4. Establish clear connections between school education, the formation of individual character and a sense of belonging, and development of a conscious commitment to national values and Australian citizenship.

This paper is the first in the Page Research Centre’s 2026 Thematic Series: Rethinking and Restating the Nature and Purpose of Australian School Education.

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