Promoting ACS Thought
The National Curriculum: The Learning First Critique of Science[1]
November 2023
Learning First has just released its report The Australian Curriculum Benchmarked Against the Best. It sets out the results of benchmarking the Australian science curriculum against seven comparable systems (the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Quebec, England, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United States).
The Report showed that “the Australian science curriculum in the first nine years of schooling:
- Contains about half the science content of the average of other curriculums
- Lacks breadth of learning: it covers 44 science topics compared to an average of 74 topics in
other systems
- Lacks depth of learning: just five science topics are covered in depth compared to an average of
22 topics covered in depth in other systems”.
The Australian science curriculum also contains poor sequencing and lack of specificity of content, which the research shows is vital for effective teaching and learning”.
Australian media have not been slow to pick up on these major concerns. The Sydney Morning Herald’s article was titled ‘Shockingly poor’: How Australia’s curriculum fails students[2] while The Australian’s prime article was titled Science deficits point to dire strait of the national curriculum[3].
The SMH article notes that both “NSW and Victoria adapt the curriculum for their own schools, but other states and jurisdictions follow the national version that sets out a baseline level of guaranteed learning content for all students”.
“In NSW, the latest science syllabus matches some of the higher-performing countries, but the study says Victoria, which is currently in the process of updating its curriculum, provides even less content than the already inadequate national document”.
Queensland schools are required to implement Australian Curriculum or an equivalent.
Dr Ben Jensen, one of the authors of the report, tellingly commented, “Whenever evidence of poor school performance makes the headlines, teachers are invariably blamed. But teachers and school leaders don’t deserve our disrespect, they deserve an apology. We have failed to look at the problems with the Australian Curriculum that is the core of Australian school education.
ACS provides a copy of the Report and two media articles with this paper for the benefit of our member schools.
[1] https://learningfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/SHORT-REPORT-COPMBINED.pdf
[2] https://www.smh.com.au/education/shockingly-poor-how-australia-s-science-curriculum-fails-students-20231122-p5elvz.html
[3] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/science-deficit-points-to-dire-state-of-the-national-curriculum/news-story/fe71fad5e2b60785352839218b220a5c