National curriculum extension shelved (1 Viewer)

tywebb

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National curriculum extension shelved

THE AUSTRALIAN, DECEMBER 13, 2014 12:00AM

Justine Ferrari

THE national curriculum will end at Year 10 after education ministers yesterday decided to shelve the development of further courses for Years 11 and 12 with the states and territories having no intention of adopting the subjects.

At a meeting of the nation’s education ministers in Canberra yesterday, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority was told to drop the development of national curriculum in subjects beyond the initial five that have been written, and sitting untouched for two years.

Courses in English, maths, science, history and geography were endorsed by ministers in December 2012 “as the common base” for developing state and territory courses, with the intent that ACARA work with the states to “explore” the content that would be integrated into the state syllabuses.

Ministers yesterday resolved that ACARA go no further in extending the national curriculum in Years 11 and 12, with federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne saying that given ACARA’s stretched resources and the lack of interest from the states, it would be in ACARA’s interests not to pursue it further. The ministers also referred to ACARA the federal government’s curriculum review, by academics Ken Wiltshire and Kevin Donnelly, released in October, asking it to provide advice early next year on the recommendations.

The meeting passed a resolution supporting the four broad themes for change outlined in the federal government’s initial response, which are reducing the overcrowding in the curriculum, promoting a parent-friendly version of the curriculum, improving accessibility for students with disabilities, and rebalancing the curriculum with the removal of the overarching themes of indigenous, Asia and sustainability issues embedded in every subject.

After the meeting, Mr Pyne welcomed his colleagues’ decision, saying it was an “important first step in strengthening our curriculum and a victory for practical, commonsense reform”.

“The curriculum should never be viewed as a static document; it is necessary to ensure it is the best it can be and the review of the curriculum makes many commonsense recommendations and was widely welcomed,” he said.

Mr Pyne hopes changes to the national curriculum will be introduced for 2016 but there is little appetite among the states to make any adaptions to the newly introduced courses.

The states failed to secure any agreement from federal Assistant Education Minister Sussan Ley to provide timely notice about the future of funding for universal access to preschool. The existing finding expires at the end of next year and a motion by South Australia sought to set a timeline for Canberra to inform the states and territories of its intentions. The motion was rejected by Ms Ley.
 

tywebb

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One might now wonder what that means to BOSTES' work that has already commenced in revamping the senior courses?

Whatever the case, in NSW schools are legally obliged to do what BOSTES says, not ACARA. Adrian Piccoli has the final say as to what is implemented in schools in NSW, not Christopher Pyne. Nevertheless, the recent efforts by BOSTES was to "support implementation of Australian curriculum content" as per their webpage on it at http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/australian-curriculum/11-12-eng-maths-sci-hist.html . But that now seems to be a somewhat vacuous base upon which to develop state and territory senior secondary courses. Also, in the article it was pointed out that states have a lack of interest in ACARA's senior curricula. Dare one ask why? Clearly it is simply because they are not good enough!
 
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