NATIONAL CURRICULUM DEBATE

Labor the lesser evil

• COMMENT
  Judith Weeldon
• March 03, 2007

I CONTINUE to believe that the arguments against a national curriculum outweigh potential benefits. The danger of nationalising bad policy is significant; divisiveness among the states over who wins will be serious; the expense will not be insignificant; loss of intellectual diversity will be similar to loss of biodiversity.

But when both the Government and the alternative government choose to support a national curriculum, the best strategy for the voter is to choose the better option and try to influence what can be influenced.

This week, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd and education spokesman Stephen Smith published Labor's new policy document, Establishing a national curriculum to improve our children's educational outcomes. In his 20-page easy-to-read statement, Rudd produces a policy with some strong features and an approach to national agreement that has a chance of working.

The most often heard argument for a national curriculum is consistency across the country to assist students who move interstate. Consistency is not only the hobgoblin of small minds; it is also a poor argument for a major change. Of the 80,000 students estimated to change states each year, only some experience avoidable difficulty due to different curriculums, and those are generally older students facing examinations on specific syllabuses. There are already many strategies to assist these students and their teachers if schools are sensitive and well-enough resourced. Centralising curriculum for this purpose is overkill.

A better argument is one based on international competitiveness, an idea that is prominent in Labor's policy, which gives ample evidence of the strength of Australian curriculums as revealed in international benchmarking, in which Australia holds a proud but not top place in each category.

Two countries that are consistently placed ahead of us in almost all categories and clearly do significantly better than Australia are Finland and South Korea. Why? What do they do that we don't?

The top students in all three countries are roughly equal but Finland and South Korea do much more to ensure all students reach their full potential. This achievement is not made suddenly in the senior years of school or by offering a few brilliant teachers so-called performance pay.

Solid achievement for all is built by many teachers, from pre-school through to Year 12, applying a sound curriculum that develops first-class fundamental skills and thinking ability that can be used in all other study: that is, primarily, literacy and numeracy. Foundation knowledge of history, science and literature are crucial, too. For this reason, the Labor policy has taken a brave and important step in offering a national curriculum that covers kindergarten to Year 12.

Take the example of science teaching, which is in crisis across Australia. We are not producing enough scientists or keeping the ones we have. We do not have a scientifically educated populace that is able to apply scientific principles to make good personal, political and economic judgments. As just two examples, consider alternative medicine and water recycling.

Labor's plan for a K-12 science curriculum is ambitious but well placed and suggests seriousness of purpose. A main reason for our difficulties in senior sciences today is that we fail utterly in teaching science in primary years. Almost no new primary teachers have any qualifications whatsoever in science; they seldom even have significant high school science. Thus they are not capable of recognising and developing the natural scientific thinking of young children that should grow into a love of science. A strong primary science curriculum supported by qualified specialist science teachers would, over the years, make a significant intellectual and economic change in Australia. Finding and educating these teachers will be a major challenge, but it can be done and is an urgent task. Serious curriculum imbalance can quickly develop when four disciplines are selected above others for national attention.

It is hard to imagine that national assessment, reporting and certification would not follow close behind the national curriculum. The same curriculum measured by different standards and reported in different terms will not achieve the goal of consistency across the country and equality in university entrance competition. A bitter battle can be expected on the issue of external examinations versus continuous assessment. This battle has been fought and different resolutions have been found in each state or territory. It will be essential that professional educators making these decisions put aside local pride and make judgments in the interests of the nation and its young people.

Once we have equivalent assessment and reporting, there will be great pressure for a national certificate as an easy way of communicating the achievements that can so easily be compared. When this happens, the elevation of the national courses will cause serious problems for the other subject areas that will seem to students, and especially to parents, less important and therefore will not be studied as seriously. Do we want to then embrace these subjects in the national curriculum, too, or are there other strategies? We need to discuss these problems now. The implications are huge and require a clear policy statement to match this one.

Rudd does not seem to value the creative arts, which hardly get a mention; I hope he fixes that. Similarly, biology (and probably geology) should be named alongside chemistry and physics.

Rudd does, however, recognise the very real conundrum of languages other than English, a giant weakness for a country that hopes to compete internationally. The solution will not be easy, but at least the Labor call for "a new policy approach" suggests we can look forward to a much-needed breakthrough in a funded policy that addresses one of our most embarrassing educational failures.

The best national curriculum will be meaningless if it cannot be adopted by the states and territories on the sole criterion of being the best. Political sparring, jealous guarding of present curriculums and point scoring will not produce success.

Education Minister Julie Bishop says she looks forward to winning the states' and territories' agreement to her plan by 2009. It is less clear what they are meant to agree to but, as Bishop points out, she has three years to convince the states. And if they are not convinced, she will withhold funding. Judging by national agreement to the sad requirement for A to E grading on school reports, she will win the argument through force and a national curriculum will become law.

Rudd has committed to a three-year program with $50 million in funding for representative experts from the states, territories and Catholic and independent schools to write the new curriculum. He outlines the process and the required qualifications of the writers. Labor will negotiate with state and territory governments when the impact on their education budgets is known and will provide funding accordingly. The government would need to be well prepared, for this will not be an inexpensive exercise.

This two-pronged approach of collaborative writing and funding is more likely to gain support than Coalition funding threats and claims the present curriculum comes "straight from chairman Mao". The Coalition has some valid criticisms of some curriculums but these get lost in hostility that obviates the possibility of fruitful negotiation with main participants.

If we have to have a national curriculum, the Labor policy at least brings a definite benefit in valuing the early years, including kindergarten, in its proposition. Labor's implementation strategy may be more palatable to the many who see benefit in both a national curriculum and states' rights.

If you are going to vote based on the better national curriculum proposal, Labor should give greater satisfaction. In seeking endorsement of the new curriculum through the Council of Australian Governments, it will be imperative that the new prime minister uses all his leadership skills to ensure those responsible at all levels have the best interests of children and of the Australian nation as their only priority. Otherwise a national curriculum could be a national disaster.

Judith Wheeldon is a former head of two private Sydney girls' schools, Abbotsleigh and Queenwood.