The Education Curriculum

The Federal government has decided to get more involved in our health and education system. The understood delineation in responsibilities between Federal and State governments has been that the federal government is responsible for things that affect Australia as a sovereign nation, like Defence and Immigration. However, by having Education and Health under State control, there is a problem of standardisation. Is a doctor from Queensland the same as a Doctor from Western Australia?  Is a matriculation in South Australia worth the same as Matriculation in Victoria?

Having worked in Education my whole working life, I feel qualified to at least have an opinion on the issue, as opposed to Health and hospitals, which I will not address in this article. So why is the federal government getting involved in Education?

Standardised tests in Numeracy and Literacy are given to all Grade 3, 5 and 7 across the country and this has led to standardised learning in certain areas. By standardising the rest of the curriculum we ensure that a student moving from one state to another will have no more problems that a student moving from one school to another as the learning material will be the same. That’s great.  How else does it help?

Australia has always been reactive in its policy rather than forward thinking. A shortage of manpower in a particular section of the economy will lead to an adjustment of emphasis in the education system. The effect of which is felt several year down the line.

After Australia largely ditched Technical schools almost a generation ago, we are in the midst of a ‘tradie’ crisis. This affects our immigration quotas as well. The good news for Australia is we no longer have a shortage of hairdressers, much to the chagrin of thousands of want to be migrants who were doing courses that would help their visa applications.

School was meant to prepare you for life and we once had PM who thought “Life wasn’t meant to be easy”.  Yes, back in the “good old days”, we were punished corporally and had to show respect to our elders, stand up on buses for them and for any adult for that matter. And you tell that to kids today and they just don’t believe ya! (with apologies to Monty Python).

Despite the buzzwords, transparency, multiple intelligences, heterogeneous learning and of course, differentiated curriculum, the curriculum is not going forward. It is returning to the past; but it is not going backwards. It is simply readjusting for the time and maybe even recognising some merit in the past way of thinking and teaching.

Grammar is going to be taught as part of English. As someone who has taught English overseas, I believe this is a really positive step. Yet it leaves a very daunting question. Who is going to teach it? Changing the curriculum is great, but the teachers are the ones that have to adapt; Much more so then the students.

Teachers, who have never learnt grammar at school or even during their tertiary education, are now expected to teach it. I’m sure there will be many teachers spending this year staying one lesson ahead of the students in certain areas.

Schools, being in control of their own budgets have been very busy hiring “graduate teachers” as opposed to experienced teachers; as every year experience adds to the teacher’s salary. They are now staffed with teachers teaching a curriculum that is foreign to them. 

Don’t get me wrong. I think the government is getting it right on education. The emphasis on creating a more transparent system, one that will prepare the student to meet the challenges of life in the 21^st century is a step in the right directions. There will be hiccups and quite a lot of pressure on teachers, who will more answerable to school, parents and ultimately their students, but striving to reach a national standard is positive.  It will be interesting to see if that is extended into high school. I believe a national matriculation would be a very positive step.

When I was at uni in the 70’s, competition was a dirty word. We’ve come a full circle since then. I also believe that without going overboard, competition is not unhealthy. The trick with competition is to maintain the competitive spirit and that will be the biggest challenge for the teachers; reign in the leaders and continue to motivate the other end of the spectrum. It’s a tough gig being a teacher.