ACER chief executive Professor Geoff Masters was invited by The Advertiser newspaper in Adelaide to write an opinion article in response to the release of the ALP position paper on a national school curriculum. The following article was published on 2 March 2007.

This week saw Federal Labour leader Kevin Rudd release an ALP position paper on a national school curriculum. The paper proposes a national curriculum in the core areas of mathematics, English, science and history from Reception to Year 12. The curriculum would identify essential knowledge and skills that all Australian students should be taught, but would leave room for ‘sensible’ local, regional and state variations.

The ALP paper comes hot on the heels of Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop’s call for greater national curriculum consistency and her decision to seek the support of state education ministers to achieve this. Minister Bishop hinted at the possibility of using federal funds to ensure the introduction of a national approach.

So, whether the government or opposition is returned to power after the next election, it seems likely that we will see more common school curricula across Australia.

And it’s not before time. Consider, for example, what is happening in the senior secondary school. With a population less than some American states, Australia now has seven government authorities developing nine senior certificates, including the SACE. It has to be asked, in a country of 20 million people, do we really need nine senior certificates? As part of these nine certificates, the seven authorities develop 27 different mathematics courses and more than 20 history courses that can be used for tertiary entrance. They also develop other non-TER mathematics and history courses.

The closer one looks, the more obvious the problem becomes. A recent ACER study showed that 95 per cent of the chemistry taught across Australia is common to all states and territories. In other words, the seven government authorities are busily developing essentially the same chemistry curriculum seven times. Despite this, each state has its own method for assessing students’ mastery of this curriculum and its own system for reporting student results, making it impossible to compare chemistry results between any two states. This observation is not limited to chemistry: 90 per cent of advanced mathematics and 85 per cent of physics content are common to all states and territories.

A national approach to curriculum should have as an objective the elimination of unnecessary differences. Across this country there are bewildering variations in terminology, requirements that make it harder to achieve a certificate in some states than in others, and as many different schemes for reporting Year 12 results as there are agencies responsible for doing this. And the situation is becoming worse. With proposed changes in a number of states, including Queensland, SA and WA, senior secondary arrangements in this country are about to diverge further.

A national curriculum also should have as an objective the elimination of unnecessary duplication. States and territories are staunch defenders of their own systems. Each appears to consider its curriculum superior to those of the rest of the country, which are variously described as lacking in academic rigour, unresponsive to local and student needs, too rigid and bureaucratic, based on narrow and limited forms of assessment, and captured by educational fads. But a dispassionate analysis suggests that state curricula have much more in common than is often suggested.

However, more important than removing unnecessary differences, minimising duplication and achieving comparability across states is the opportunity that now exists to re-think the school curriculum. This is a national priority and it requires a national response. For example, too few students are choosing to study advanced mathematics and science. Better teaching will be part of the solution, but bold new approaches to school curricula also are required. The answer will not be found in a return to curricula of the 1950s, but in new high-quality multi-disciplinary curricula that are grounded in contemporary issues such as global warming, salinity, nuclear energy, genetically-modified foods, cloning and stem-cell research. The current bipartisan agreement provides an opportunity for a federal minister to provide genuine leadership in the development of an Australian curriculum for the 21st century.

This article was originally published in the The Advertiser, 2 March 2007, page 20.

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