In this opinion article, published in The Age on 16 April, ACER's chief executive Professor Geoff Masters outlines the challenges of developing a common curriculum for Australia, particularly in science.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite. Not much bigger than a basketball, Sputnik I created deep concern in the United States that American science and technology had been surpassed by the Russians.

The US government responded to the sputnik ‘scare’ with a range of initiatives, including the establishment of the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) and the adoption of a more significant role in school education. New federally funded science courses were designed to help prepare the next generation of American scientists. These post-Sputnik courses had a significant impact on school science teaching, not only in the US, but also in countries like Australia. In the first half of the 20th century, school science had been heavily factual and, under the influence of the progressive education movement, had attempted to link science learning to social issues and to students’ personal experiences. The post-sputnik courses, in contrast, were tightly focused on the disciplines – chemistry, physics, biology and earth sciences – and were designed to introduce science as it was experienced by scientists. The science community itself played a leading role in the design of these courses which emphasised key concepts and principles and scientific investigation.

Fifty years on, Australia faces a looming problem of its own in science and mathematics. A 2006 Science, Engineering and Technology Audit predicted a national shortfall of 19 000 scientists by 2012. And while some university science departments face downsizing as fewer highly able students choose to study science, many countries in our region are investing heavily in high-level science and mathematics training.

Over the past two decades Australian schools have seen a decline in the proportions of senior secondary students taking chemistry, physics and biology. Only 15 per cent of students entering senior secondary school now choose to study chemistry. Schools also are experiencing shortages of well qualified science teachers – a situation predicted to worsen as the baby-boomers retire – and many teachers currently teaching science lack high-level training and qualifications in the fields in which they teach. For example, 40 per cent of physics teachers do not have a major in physics.

All this is happening at a time when the need for science literacy has never been greater. To make informed decisions, Australians must now engage with concepts and issues such as global warming, climate change, the ozone layer, water conservation, water recycling, salinity, stem cell research, nuclear energy, fossil fuels, cloning and genetically modified foods. However, surveys of students consistently show that they cannot see the relevance of school science to their lives and find science uninteresting and difficult to learn. Attitudes to science become less positive between Year 4 and Year 8, and by Year 10 students generally have negative attitudes to science and scientists and no interest in pursuing science as a career.

The response to this crisis in Australian science education has been to observe – correctly – that the keys to improved student engagement and achievement are to increase the number of qualified science teachers and to improve the quality of science teaching. Highly qualified and passionate teachers who are able to connect scientific knowledge, thinking and problem solving to real-life problems are central to the solution. However, teachers also work within curriculum contexts that shape and constrain what they do.

The Australian government and the opposition appear united in their commitment to a national curriculum. But what should a national curriculum in an area such as science seek to achieve?

Recent analyses by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) have shown that 95 per cent of senior secondary chemistry content, 90 per cent of advanced mathematics content, and 85 per cent of physics content is common to all states and territories. Despite this, the states maintain seven different ways of assessing and examining mastery of this content and seven different formats for reporting student results, making it impossible to compare subject results from one state to another.

Presumably, it would be a relatively straightforward matter to reach agreement on national curriculum consistency in senior subjects such as these. It may even be possible to achieve national agreement on common standards and methods of reporting student results, and agreement on some common assessments and examinations. But would this alone produce more positive student attitudes, larger numbers of students studying science, or higher levels of science attainment? It seems unlikely. Although the arguments for reducing duplication, removing unnecessary differences and making subject results comparable across Australia are compelling, the mere alignment of what currently exists may do little to address these more pressing concerns.

A more ambitious approach to a national curriculum would embrace these fundamental concerns and ask: What kinds of science curricula would engage larger numbers of students and address perceptions of school science as irrelevant to students’ lives? How could Australian scientists and mathematicians be supported to provide leadership to the design of new curricula? How much factual content should students be expected to learn, and could greater emphasis be placed on the development of deep understandings of concepts and principles? How is local flexibility best accommodated within a nationally agreed curriculum? Should curricula be designed to encourage multi-disciplinary approaches to problems? And what contribution might local industries and community groups make to improved school science curricula and learning?

Current bipartisan support for a national curriculum provides an opportunity for bold national responses to these and other national curriculum questions – responses, perhaps, not unlike the US response to sputnik.

This article was originally published in The Age Education Age opinion section. ('Science needs a new formula,' by Geoff Masters, The Age, 16 April 2007, page 16).

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