In April 1999, State, Territory and Commonwealth Ministers of Education met as the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) in Adelaide. At that meeting, Ministers endorsed a new set of National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century. The new goals were released in April 1999 as The Adelaide Declaration (1999) on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century.

The Adelaide Declaration (1999) arose from a Discussion Paper (1998) reviewing The Hobart Declaration (1989) and supersedes these earlier documents.

The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008) now supersedes the Adelaide Declaration and is available here.