Coalition analysis of the cross-curriculum priorities which schools are encouraged to teach has heightened concerns about deficiencies with the Australian curriculum.
Shadow Minister for Education Sarah Henderson said the Coalition has consistently sounded alarm bells about the curriculum which is overcrowded, too complex and infused with ideology which is why primary school principals from every sector say it’s “impossible to teach”.
The analysis reveals nearly 2,500 ways for teachers to weave into lessons the three mandatory cross-curriculum priorities of sustainability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, and Australia’s engagement with Asia.
More than half of all content taught from Foundation to Year 10, across all subjects (excluding languages), is impacted by one or more cross-curriculum priorities.
There are 2,451 different suggestions, known as ‘elaborations’, as to how these priorities can be incorporated into lesson content, with 1,825 or 75 per cent of elaborations relating to Indigenous history and culture.
For instance, in Year 2, maths teachers are encouraged to use ‘First Nations Australians’ stories and dances to understand the balance and connection between addition and subtraction’.
When teaching Year 4 maths about calculating time, teachers are encouraged to explore “First Nations Australians’ explanations of the passing of time through cultural accounts and cyclic phenomena involving sun, moon and stars.”
Year 10 maths teachers are encouraged to apply Pythagoras’s theorem by exploring “navigation, design of technologies or surveying by First Nations Australians, investigating geometric and spatial reasoning, and how these connect in trigonometry.”
“While learning Indigenous history and culture is vital to every child’s education, the requirement to embed cross-curriculum priorities in every subject flies in the face of world-leading curricula which is focused on the core knowledge students need to excel at school,” Senator Henderson said.
“A concise, knowledge-rich curriculum aligned to international best-practice is also crucial to reducing the burden on teachers and providing them with the support they deserve.
“The national curriculum is so unwieldy the regulator says it doesn’t have the resources to produce it in hard copy. If the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority can’t print this document, how can teachers and parents be expected to read and understand it?
“As the Australian Education Research Organisation makes clear in its March 2024 report, a knowledge-rich curriculum ‘…provides the foundation for excellence and equity in the education system by prioritising and explicitly outlining the essential knowledge and related skills that students should be taught and develop at each stage of their schooling’,” Senator Henderson said.
Even with a strong focus on Indigenous culture, First Nations students are falling further behind their non-Indigenous peers in national maths tests.
In 2008, before cross-curriculum priorities were introduced, 19.8% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and 2.5% of non-Indigenous students did not meet the minimum Year 7 numeracy standard in the NAPLAN tests. By 2022, the number of students failing had increased to 27.8% for Indigenous students and 5% for non-Indigenous students.
“The Coalition is determined to get back to basics by focusing on explicit instruction and other evidence-based teaching methods which prioritise reading, writing, maths and science,” Senator Henderson said.
“Raising educational standards is all part of our plan to get Australia back on track.”