Our department

​​​​​​​​​Our vision is for equity and excellence in everything we do.

Our purpose is to deliver a high equity, high quality early childhood and education system which provides a strong start for all children and supports every student to realise their potential.

Machinery-of-government changes

The following table outlines the divisions that joined the department due to machinery-of-government changes on 1 November 2024, and the related annual report where the financial statements can be found for the 2024–25 reporting period.

Outgoing functions

As a result of the machinery-of-government changes the following statutory bodies were transferred to the Minister for Education and the Arts' portfolio from 1 November 2024.

• Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees.
• Board of the Queensland Museum.
• Queensland Performing Arts Trust.
• Queensland Theatre Company.
• Library Board of Queensland.

The statutory bodies are required to produce their own annual reports.

Our strategic direction

Our Strategic Plan 2024–28 was published on 1 July 2024 with an update on 30 April 2025 to reflect machinery-of-government changes.

The Strategic Plan 2024–28 outlines how we will achieve our vision through our strategic objectives:

• A strong start for all children
• Every student realising their potential
• Vibrant arts and culture across the State.

Achieving our strategic objectives is supported by our focus on capable people delivering our vision and investing in infrastructure and information technology to build sustainable, energy-efficient and future-focused teaching and learning facilities.

Each objective has a set of strategies to achieve our goal, and performance measures to monitor our progress.

Our strategic objectives and service areas

Our strategic objectives are delivered through our service areas, which support us to provide a broad range of responsive services to support government and departmental commitments and priorities.

Each service area includes performance information about how we achieve the desired service delivery outcomes by delivering services efficiently and effectively.

Our challenges

In delivering on our strategic objectives, we identified the following challenges.

• Skilled workforce: Ensure workforce design, supply, retention and capability meet our service delivery needs and reflect our diverse communities.
• Digital security: Enhance capacity and capability to maintain the integrity and security of our information and systems.
• Building resilience: Strengthen our prevention and preparedness for disruptive events and climate impacts.
• Future-proofed investment: Respond to the needs of diverse communities, considering their strengths and aspirations, the impact of cost of living pressures, and investment for future generations.
• Safety and wellbeing: Address complex issues impacting the wellbeing and safety of children, students, communities and workplaces.

Our opportunities

We also identified opportunities to deliver on our strategic objectives.

• Leadership at every level: Empower leaders at every level through high quality development opportunities.
• Integrated services: Work across government and foster meaningful partnerships to respond to changing communities.
• Performance improvement: Drive improved services to deliver great outcomes for Queenslanders.
• Innovation: Assess our impact and embed future focused approaches to drive outcomes and innovation.
• Investment: Target responses and investment to deliver better outcomes for children, young people, families and communities.
• Artistic and cultural identity: Invest Queensland's unique arts, cultural and social identity with partners to improve cultural, economic and social outcomes.

In everything we do we consider child and student protection and safety, workplace health and safety, information security and integrity.

The department monitors and manages its strategic risks and the areas of lowest risk appetite to respond to our challenges and opportunities and deliver our strategic objectives. Information about initiatives to manage these risks can be found throughout the report.

Queensland Government's objectives for the community

The government's direction is informed by its broad objectives for the community. The objectives reflect the government's vision for Queensland. We support the following objectives:

• Safety where you live—by supporting early intervention to keep young people engaged in learning and strengthening safety in early childhood services and schools.
• A better lifestyle through a stronger economy—by providing access to quality early childhood and education and investing in arts and culture across the state to deliver outcomes for Queenslanders.
• A plan for Queensland's future—by building the infrastructure needed for a growing population, putting more teachers in safer schools and preparing young Queenslanders for the future.

Queensland public service values

The Queensland public service values guide our employees' behaviour and decision-making:

The importance of adhering to and demonstrating the values is promoted through our Integrity Framework, Mandatory All Staff Training and Management Foundations program.

Public sector ethics

We are committed to embedding a robust organisational culture that celebrates acting with integrity and demonstrating the highest standards of ethical conduct.

Our approach to public sector ethics is contained within our Integrity Framework and Standard of Practice (SOP), which supports and is aligned to the Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 (Qld) and the Code of Conduct for the Queensland Public Service (COCQPS).

A range of measures ensure our people have the appropriate knowledge, and our administrative procedures and management practices promote public sector ethics, including:

• our Mandatory All Staff Training program is completed within one week of joining the department and annually thereafter. The program contains components on our values, the operation of the COCQPS and the SOP and disciplinary action in the event of a breach
• our Management Foundations program is completed by all leaders and financial delegates and builds their understanding of the legislative, regulatory and operational responsibilities and accountabilities of leaders
• our Decision-making framework and guide support our staff to make good decisions in the best interests of the community we serve
• our ​​Annual Action Plan: Implementing the Integrity Framework monitors, maintains and manages governance controls to improve performance and embed a zero-tolerance approach to fraud and corruption.

Reframing the relationship

We are committed to reframing our relationship with Aboriginal communities and Torres Strait Islander communities and to moving forward together with mutual respect.

Our 2024 Reframing the relationship plan committed to developing our cultural capability when we provide advice to government and when we deliver services to the community. Our commitment is embedded within our key strategies, including Equity and Excellence, which acknowledges that valuing Aboriginal cultures and Torres Strait Islander cultures and voice is essential in our approach to student engagement and learning, and the Early Childhood Workforce Strategy which was co-designed with Aboriginal educators and Torres Strait Islander educators. A self-audit undertaken of the 2024 Reframing the relationship plan found that we had effectively implemented actions to improve our cultural capability.

Our people

As at 30 June 2025, we had over 98,000 employees (headcount), or over 78,000 full-time equivalents (FTE). Approximately 94% of the Education workforce (FTE) are based in schools.

The table below shows the FTE as at 30 June 2025.

Table 1: Staffing