International Association of Academicians for Peace Oceania report says Indigenous elders should be brought into schools

A report says Australian students should be taught “values education from our First ­Nations peoples” because of their universal values going back thousands of years.

Indigenous elders should be ­invited into schools to share their “values and wisdom” with students, global leaders say.

Rejecting a “back to basics” model of education, the international experts argue for a “renaissance in values education” in Australian schools and tertiary institutions.

This includes the teaching of civics, citizenship, sexual ethics, cultural sensitivity and community engagement.

A report from the International Association of Academicians for Peace Oceania says strategies for teaching values could include bringing Indigenous elders into schools, along with the promotion of healthy attitudes to sex and the safe use of digital technology.

There is a call for Indigenous elders to be invited into schools to share their ‘values and wisdom’.

One of Australia’s top education officials promoting ­values education is David de Carvalho, chief executive of the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority, the body that runs NAPLAN tests.

Mr Carvalho is quoted in the report as saying “we have much to learn about values education from our First ­Nations peoples” because of their “universal values” going back thousands of years.

He said there was a need to “recognise the central role that Aboriginal histories and ­cultures have played and continue to play in our wider ­history”.

Mr Carvalho also said the sexual assaults in the Australian parliament as well as the testimonies from “thousands of brave young women educated at some of our most prestigious schools” showed that values education was needed.

The report describes the ‘central role that Aboriginal histories and ­cultures have played and continue to play in our wider ­history’. Picture: Kevin Farmer

La Trobe University researcher Anna Urban, a former principal of St John’s College Preston, said most schools had values “but it’s not much good if they are little more than publicly displayed artefacts”.

“Are they known and understood; are they shared?” she said.

“Are they applied on the ground rather than just ­accepted as abstract concepts?”

Ms Urban said values “could also be used as reference points if things go wrong”.

Another researcher, Terry Lovat, is quoted in the report as saying testing regimes such as NAPLAN were standing in the way of values education.

“We used to go to principals’ meetings and people would be talking about the values and the wonderful imaginative things happening in their schools,” he said.

“Now we are talking about their NAPLAN results, basic literacy and numeracy skills development, and a kind of testing regime, which is frankly killing good education, and this sort of thing is happening all around the world.

“We need to stop.”

Universal Peace Federation Australia vice-president John Bellavance, lead author of the report, said values education led to enhanced social and emotional wellbeing as well as significant academic improvement.

The research draws on 51 values in schools projects running over four years that involve 312 schools, 100,000 students and 5000 teachers.