The NSW Department of Education recently welcomed PhD interns into the ranks, giving emerging researchers the opportunity to gain practical experience while contributing to projects helping students successfully complete their schooling.

The 6-month placements through the "Thrive: Finishing School Well" partnership, connect PhD researchers with teams across the department, allowing them to apply their doctoral research to real-world challenges in education while gaining valuable professional experience.

Thrive PhD intern Christine Crispin joined the Home-schooling directorate. The team benefitted from her research project and her previous experience in consulting and as an applied social researcher.

Christine’s PhD research explores home-schooling trends in NSW and the factors driving families to choose this form of education. Alongside her research, Christine supported the team by leading workshops to help develop a stakeholder engagement plan.

Director of Home-schooling Sharon Ford said the placement had been a valuable experience for the team.

“It has been an absolute joy to have Chrissie Crispin as part of the home-schooling directorate. Her expertise challenged and supported us to develop a much deeper understanding of what authentic engagement with stakeholders can and should look like. We are excited to build on this work in 2026.”

Christine is hopeful that her research will do more than address knowledge gaps from an academic perspective but, “help inform the necessary, ongoing dialogue between policy makers, regulators and home-schooling families and stakeholders to realise the best possible outcomes for children who undertake homeschooling.”

Other interns supported projects in the Equity Programs team and the Skills, Performance and Insights directorate.

The PhD placements are part of the CSIRO Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Graduate Program and the Thrive Research program, delivered in collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney and Western Sydney University, with funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

More Thrive interns will join the department in 2026, continuing to strengthen collaboration between researchers and policymakers to improve outcomes for students.