By Lisa Visentin and Jordan Baker
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge says he’s concerned by the level of emphasis given to teaching First Nations perspectives in the draft national curriculum, while the proposed changes have also been criticised by some Christian groups.
As the revised curriculum fired up debate over the teaching of nation’s foundations, Mr Tudge said he would be “looking for some changes” before he’d be prepared to give it his approval.
“I think it is a good development that the draft national curriculum includes more emphasis on Indigenous history. I think we should honour our Indigenous history and teach that well,” Mr Tudge said on Sky News on Friday.
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge says he is concerned about some of the proposed changes to the national curriculum.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“Equally, that should not come at the expense of dishonouring our Western heritage, which has made us the liberal democracy that we are today. We have to get the balance right and I’m concerned that we haven’t in the draft that’s been put out.”
Under the proposed changes, unveiled by the national curriculum authority on Thursday, children will be taught that First Nations’ people experienced British colonisation “as invasion and dispossession of land, sea and sky”. References to Australia’s “Christian heritage” were also removed out of the civics and citizenship syllabus in favour of terms such as secular and multi-faith.
Mr Tudge, along with the state and territory education ministers, is required to sign off on the final curriculum, which is expected to be ready by the end of the year after 10 weeks of public consultation.
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, a committed Christian, also weighed in, saying the curriculum must “continue to teach our culture, history and values”, saying Australia’s Judeo-Christian and Western values were “fundamental to our society’s ongoing success”.
Federal Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt said it was important for students to learn about Australia’s Indigenous heritage but would not be drawn on the specific proposals.
“It is important that all Australian students are provided the opportunity to learn about the depth, wealth and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 65,000-year-old history and cultures and we want to ensure teachers are appropriately supported to embed Indigenous Australian perspectives in this their classroom practice,” Mr Wyatt said.
The national review found the themes in the current curriculum did not include enough "truth telling" about the experience of First Nations Australians since European settlement and put too much emphasis on the period before contact with Europeans.
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, a member of the House of Representatives education committee, savaged the changes as “driving history through the guilt-ridden lens of revisionism”.
“Why don’t we just say that Caucasians aren’t actually here?” Mr Joyce said.
Australian education ministers held their regular education council meeting on Friday, with one source saying the response to the curriculum revision was “lukewarm”.
Dallas McInerney, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW, said some of the proposed revisions required further consideration and rebalancing, “particularly assumptions that seek to inform a curriculum which has Australia’s Christian identity being heritage and past tense.”
“It’s even worse still that the whole reference to Christian heritage has been taken out of the [civics] syllabus document. I think the next draft needs more educationalists and fewer sociologists,” he said,
But Mark Spencer, the director of public policy at Christian Schools Australia, welcomed the changes around Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, saying CSA hoped it would lead to a greater understanding of different perspectives.
“We need to be realistic and acknowledge the enormous impact of both Christian and Christian organisations on the shape of modern Australia and the framework of Judeo-Christian thinking and beliefs as the basis for the common values in our society for the last 200-odd years,” he said.
“To ignore this would be equally as harmful to our future as a nation as ignoring the views and perspectives of our First Nations Australians. We want to take the time to consider the proposals as a whole rather than react narrowly to the phrase ‘Christian heritage’.”