Push to make politics a compulsory subject in South Australian high schools
With only a handful of Year 11 and 12 students studying Australia’s political system, some experts say it’s time for mandatory classes.
Education
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Politics must be made a compulsory high school subject to ensure young people become functioning citizens and to restore faith in Australian democracy, experts say.
Flinders University Professor Dean Jaensch says it should be mandatory from Years 9-11, so all students leave school with “a really good knowledge of all aspects of Australian politics and how it works”.
The focus should be on the federal system but state and even local government should also be covered, Prof Jaensch says.
And in his column in today’s Advertiser, he writes the issue has extra relevance amid the “growing call” for lowering the voting age to 16.
Just one in three SA Year 10 students met the proficient standard in the national civics and citizenship test in 2016, which was even worse than the troubling Australian average of 38 per cent. Last year, only 83 Year 11s and 29 Year 12s studied SACE Australian and International Politics.
And this year’s Lowy Institute poll found only 55 per cent of Australians aged 18-29 think democracy is always the best form of government.
Adelaide University Adjunct Professor Carol Johnson was “very concerned about the lack of knowledge of basic political institutions and processes, even among (uni) students who have enrolled to study politics, let alone others”.
Prof Johnson said school students should, at a minimum, be taught about voting, the roles of Parliament, the “basic philosophies” underpinning our political parties, freedom of speech, and how liberal democracies differ from other political systems.
She said some sort of compulsory teaching was necessary, though whether it should be a “full” subject was debatable.
Monash University’s Dr Zareh Ghazarian said successive federal governments had pushed for more civics teaching, and it was in the Australian Curriculum in Years 3-10. But implementation by the states and schools was “patchy and inconsistent” as it was usually part of broader social studies subjects.
Dr Ghazarian said young people were passionate about issues but often did not know which level of government was responsible for them, and lacked confidence in participating in democratic processes.
He suggested schools include democracy refreshers in the “life courses” they often run in Year 11 and 12 that cover things like safe partying.
SA Education Minister John Gardner said understanding of civics and citizenship was a requirement under the humanities and social sciences curriculum in Years 7-10.
He pointed to the recent launch of the “first ever” Governor’s Civic Awards for Schools and the school competition celebrating the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage.
“Our focus is on increasing subject options and offering more choice for students in senior secondary years and better aligning students’ subject choices to their future pathways, which includes further education and employment,” Mr Gardner said.