The following are elements that contribute to equality in the opportunity to learn. In an equitable system, all students would have access to:
- Engaged time;
- Quality teaching, resources and environments;
- Safe environments which students are free from harm and discrimination and that their basic needs are met;
- The material, cultural and economic means to achieve;
- Opportunities to practice and to extend practices;
- High expectations that are shared between the school and the home contexts;
- Suitable collaboration between the home and school contexts as well as with the broader community context;
- Schools and communities which are sensitive to the linguistic and cultural diversity of the student population, particularly when a minority of learners come to classrooms with a home language that is not used as the language of instruction;
- Instruction which is suitable to the learners’ stages of development, and learners have been given strategic skills that help them engage in the current and subsequent stages of learning;
- Learning environment which facilitate high challenge/high support instruction so that diverse students can make suitable and competitive progress;
- Special accommodations that have been made to meet the specific learning needs of all students;
- Content which is engaging, relevant, purposeful and that will build on prior knowledge and that will be consistent with current ways of knowing and be applicable to everyday problem-solving.
- An education that responds to individual affinities/talents so learners are able to capitalise on these interests and learning trajectories;
- Effective support in managing transitions between schooling/learning contexts;.
- Every opportunity to achieve, so that children's resilience is being developed and their motivation is fostered;
- Institutions and society that seek to minimise and mitigate the impacts of social and economic disadvantage; and
- People and institutions who keep “a finger on the pulse” of all students at all times. Progress is monitored, opportunities are made available, and extra support is facilitated, where required.