It’s 2025. Why Are Teachers Still Making Lessons Alone?

The Australian Productivity Commission has called for a national repository of lesson plans to help lift student outcomes and ease the strain on teachers. In a recent report, it argued that “fragmented and duplicated” efforts across schools are slowing educational progress, and that smarter lesson-sharing, especially supported by AI, could help reverse stagnating student results.

The proposal: create a central, AI-enhanced platform where teachers can upload, share, remix, and adapt lesson materials across the country. This isn’t just about efficiency it’s about equity. The Commission says such a system would benefit rural schools, reduce duplication, and support new teachers who are often left to reinvent the wheel.

You can read the full article from The Guardian here.

Reflection

A friend of mine just started teaching at a new school. She’s highly capable, energetic, and passionate, but is having to build nearly all her lesson materials from scratch. Every slide. Every worksheet. From zero.

She’s not alone. This siloed approach is baked into the culture of many schools. Teachers guard their Google Drives, departments vary wildly in what they support, and there’s no national system that helps connect dots between people doing the exact same job.

The Commission’s proposal is long overdue.

Imagine:

• A shared pool of quality-vetted lessons
• AI tools that adapt them to different states, year levels, or student needs
• Peer feedback and rating systems
• Easy integration with learning platforms

We don’t need every teacher to be a full-time instructional designer. We need them to be present. To build relationships. To teach, not just type.

It’s 2025. We’ve built AI tutors, chatbots, and automated grading. Surely we can build something that helps teachers stop drowning in duplicate work.