Australian Curriculum

Last updated

The Australian Curriculum is a national curriculum for all primary and secondary schools in Australia under progressive development, review, and implementation. The curriculum is developed and reviewed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, an independent statutory body. Since 2014 all states and territories in Australia have begun implementing aspects of the Foundation to Year 10 part of the curriculum. [1]

Contents

Credentialing, and related assessment requirements and processes, remain the responsibility of states and territories. [2]

The full Australian Curriculum can be accessed at its own website. [3]

Learning areas

The learning areas in the Australian Curriculum are as follows: [4]

Learning areaFoundation to Year 2Year 3 to Year 4Year 5 to Year 8Year 9 to Year 10Year 11 to Year 12
ArtsXXXX 
EnglishXXXXX
Health and Physical EducationXXXX 
Civics and Citizenship XXX 
Economics and Business  XX 
GeographyXXXXX
HistoryXXXXX
LanguagesXXXX 
MathematicsXXXXX
ScienceXXXXX
TechnologiesXXXX 
Work Studies   X 

History

A nationwide curriculum has been on the political agenda in Australia for several decades. In the late 1980s a significant push for a national curriculum in Australia was mounted by the Hawke federal government. Draft documentation was produced but failure to achieve agreement from the predominately coalition state governments led to the abandonment of this initiative in 1991.[ citation needed ]

In 2006, then-Prime Minister John Howard called for a "root and branch renewal" of Australian history teaching at school level, ostensibly in response to building criticism of Australian students' (and Australians more widely) perceived lack of awareness of historical events. The Howard government convened the Australian History Summit in August 2006 to commence the process of drafting a national History curriculum. The Summit recommended that Australian History be a compulsory part of the curriculum in all Australian schools in years 9 and 10. The Australian History External Reference Group was then commissioned by the government to develop a Guide to Teaching Australian History in Years 9 and 10. The Reference Group comprised Geoffrey Blainey, Gerard Henderson, Nicholas Brown and Elizabeth Ward, and was presented with a draft proposal prepared earlier by the historian Tony Taylor. The Guide was released to the public on 11 October 2007, but little was achieved toward its implementation following the Howard government's defeat at the federal election in November 2007.[ citation needed ]

In April 2008, the Rudd government established the independent National Curriculum Board. [5] Taylor, who had written the original draft for the Howard government-appointed Australian History External Reference Group, told The Age that he expected that the Reference Group's Guide to Teaching Australian History would be discarded by the new Board. Taylor had expressed public disapproval of the changes made to his original draft, both by the Reference Group and, Taylor suspected, by Howard himself. Taylor was of the opinion that the Guide had sought to establish a curriculum that was "too close to a nationalist view of Australia's past", and hoped that the new Board would produce a curriculum that was more in line with what Taylor saw as Rudd's "regional and global world view". [6] In September 2008, the Board appointed four academics to draft "framing documents" which would establish a broad direction for the National Curriculum in each of four subject areas: history (Stuart Macintyre), english (Peter Freebody), science (Denis Goodrum) and mathematics (Peter Sullivan). In May 2009 the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), [7] a statutory authority, was established to oversee the implementation of the planned nationwide curriculum initiative. [8] In March 2010 a draft national curriculum [9] was released.[ citation needed ]

Implementation issues and criticism

The Australian Curriculum has experienced implementation issues due to reluctance or slowness by some States in changing state curricula. New South Wales in particular has delayed its roll out of the new curriculum. [10]

In May 2010, Anna Patty, an education editor for the Sydney Morning Herald , criticised the Australian Curriculum on the basis that it "threatens to water down the content" for senior students, compared with the existing Higher School Certificate. Under the new curriculum, students would have to learn statistics in mathematics, while the Extension 1 and 2 topics would be replaced with an easier specialist maths course. [11] Patty said that the English courses would focus more on language and literacy, and less on literature, and that the curriculum would disadvantage gifted students. [11]

In September 2010, the NSW Board of Studies criticised the then-draft Australian Curriculum, saying that it was inferior to the NSW curriculum. Among other criticisms, the Board said that the draft K-10 curriculum lacked an overarching framework, was overcrowded with content, diminished the teaching of literature, and that the maths curriculum failed to cater to the full range of students. [12]

In October 2010, Peter Brown, a mathematics lecturer of the University of New South Wales, criticised the Australian Curriculum for lack of flexibility within the Year 9-10 and the Year 11-12 syllabuses by the removal of extension maths courses. [13] Brown also said that the National Curriculum would "dumb down" the year 12 curriculum then offered in NSW. [13]

In October 2013, conservative economist Judith Sloan criticised the business and economics components of the Australian Curriculum in particular, and offered the general criticism that "[t]he real rationale for a national school curriculum relates to the pursuit of centralised control by the federal government and the scope to impose fashionable values dressed up as the pursuit of educational excellence". [14]

In June 2021, following media reports that the proposed national curriculum was "preoccupied with the oppression, discrimination and struggles of Indigenous Australians", the Australian Senate approved a motion tabled by right-wing senator Pauline Hanson calling on the federal government to reject Critical race theory CRT, despite it not being included in the curriculum. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Education in Australia</span>

Education in Australia encompasses the sectors of early childhood education (preschool) and primary education, followed by secondary education, and finally tertiary education, which includes higher education and vocational education. Regulation and funding of education is primarily the responsibility of the States and territories; however, the Australian Government also plays a funding role.

The Higher School Certificate (HSC) is the credential awarded to secondary school students who successfully complete senior high school level studies in New South Wales and some ACT schools in Australia, as well as some international schools in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, and Papua New Guinea. It was first introduced in 1967, and is currently developed and managed by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mudgee High School</span> School in Australia

Mudgee High School is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school, located in Mudgee, a regional town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia.

The School Certificate was a qualification issued by the Board of Studies, typically at the end of Year 10. The successful completion of the School Certificate was a requirement for completion of the Higher School Certificate. The School Certificate was issued for the last time in 2011. It has been replaced with the RoSA

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandria Park Community School</span> School in New South Wales, Australia

Alexandria Park Community School is a government school for secondary and primary students located on Gadigal country at Park Road, Alexandria, a south Sydney inner suburb, New South Wales, Australia. The school is a public-funded, partially academically selective, comprehensive, co-educational day school. The school had over 1188 enrollments in 2023. 18% of students identified as Indigenous Australians and 58% were from a language background other than English. Opportunity classes are delivered in Year 5 and Year 6, as well as a selective stream in Year 7 to Year 12 for academically gifted and talented students. The school is operated by the NSW government Department of Education in accordance with a curriculum developed by the New South Wales Education Standards Authority. The school principal is Diane Fetherston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Council for Educational Research</span> Educational research organization

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), established in 1930, is an independent educational research organisation based in Camberwell, Victoria (Melbourne) and with offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Cyberjaya, Dubai, Jakarta, London, New Delhi, Perth and Sydney. ACER develops and manages a range of testing and assessment services and conducts research and analysis in the education sector.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lambton High School</span> School in Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Lambton High School is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school, located in the suburb of Lambton in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davidson High School (New South Wales)</span> School in Frenchs Forest, New South Wales, Australia

Davidson High School (DHS) is a school in Frenchs Forest, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on Mimosa Street. It is a co-educational high school operated by the New South Wales Department of Education with students from years 7 to 12. The school was established in 1972 as a result of the growing population in the Frenchs Forest and Belrose areas and is located on a site bounded by heritage-listed remnant bushland.

Bradfield Senior College is a government-funded co-educational specialist senior secondary and vocational day school specialising in the creative industries, located on the Pacific Highway, St Leonards, New South Wales, in the lower north shore suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Chadwick</span> Australian politician

Virginia Anne Chadwick was an Australian politician. She was a Liberal Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1978 to 1999. She was the first NSW female Minister for Education; the first female President of the New South Wales Legislative Council; and Chair and CEO of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

Currambena School is an independent primary and preschool in Lane Cove, New South Wales.

Lorien Novalis School for Rudolf Steiner Education is a private, Steiner school located in Dural, a suburb in The Hills Shire, in northwestern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Established in 1971, the school teaches students from early learning, and Kindergarten to Year 12; and also offers playgroup services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NAPLAN</span> Australias national school assessment program

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a series of tests focused on basic skills that are administered to Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. These standardised tests assess students' reading, writing, language and numeracy and are administered by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). The National Assessment Program is overseen by the Education Ministers Meeting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Education Revolution</span> Australian Government digital technology in schools policy 2009–2012

The Digital Education Revolution (DER) was an Australian government–funded educational reform program, promised by then prime minister of Australia Kevin Rudd during the launch of his 2007 Australian federal election campaign in Brisbane. It was officially launched in late 2008, with the first deployments announced by then Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard and then New South Wales counterpart, Verity Firth. The first deployment took place at Fairvale High School in August that year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Callaghan College</span> School in Australia

Callaghan College is a large multi-campus government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school, located in the north-western corridor of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mosman High School</span> School in Mosman, New South Wales, Australia

Mosman High School, is a school located in Mosman, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, on Military Road. It is a co-educational high school operated by the New South Wales Department of Education with students from years 7 to 12. The school was established in 1961 and is one of the few state schools in NSW that has no school uniform.

The Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW was the state government education agency in New South Wales, Australia. It was formed on 1 January 2014 following the amalgamation of the Board of Studies and the NSW Institute of Teachers, and replaced on 1 January 2017 by the New South Wales Education Standards Authority.

The New South Wales Education Standards Authority is the state government education statutory authority with the responsibility for the establishment and monitoring of school standards in the Australian state of New South Wales. It was formed on 1 January 2017 to replace the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punchbowl Boys High School</span> School in Punchbowl, New South Wales, Australia

Punchbowl Boys High School is a public secondary school in Punchbowl, New South Wales, Australia, in Sydney.

Special Religious Education (SRE), aka 'Scripture,' is optional instruction in a particular religious persuasion in New South Wales government schools ie. students attend after being opted-in by their parents or carers. Time is allocated in NSW government schools for qualified SRE volunteers to teach students about their chosen religion.

References

  1. ↑ Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority infographic
  2. ↑ "Frequently asked questions". www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "Australian Curriculum". www.australiancurriculum.edu.au. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  4. ↑ "Learning Areas / Subjects". Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. Retrieved 9 April 2018.
  5. ↑ Minister for Education (12 October 2008). "Media release: Delivering Australia's First National Curriculum" (Press release). Archived from the original on 22 June 2009. Retrieved 12 August 2009.
  6. ↑ Topsfield, Jewel (9 January 2008). "Rudd to scrap Howard's history". The Age . Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  7. ↑ "ACARA Literacy Progressions And Typing » EdAlive Online Learning". 2 April 2019. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
  8. ↑ Minister for Education; Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (3 June 2009). "Joint Media Release with the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment Training and Youth Affairs" (Press release). Archived from the original on 22 June 2009.
  9. ↑ "Curriculum linked » EdAlive Online Learning". 22 January 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
  10. ↑ "Education: NSW goes slow on primary curriculum as Commonwealth chalks up changes". The Sydney Morning Herald. 20 September 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  11. 1 2 "National curriculum content not up to scratch: critics". The Sydney Morning Herald. 14 May 2010. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  12. ↑ "New curriculum slammed by studies board". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 January 2017.
  13. 1 2 "No water to throw on heated debate". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 January 2017.
  14. ↑ "National curriculum mired in half-baked fads". The Australian. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
  15. ↑ Gatwiri, Kathomi; Anderson, Leticia (22 June 2021). "The Senate has voted to reject critical race theory from the national curriculum. What is it, and why does it matter?". The Conversation. Retrieved 25 June 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.