Editorial. NSW leads vital education reform
Children in NSW will gain significant benefits from the Minns government’s brave and necessary teaching revolution. The biggest overhaul of classroom teaching since the 1970s will ensure students master the basics: maths, reading, writing and grammar. They also will receive a sound foundation in history and geography, preparing them for further learning. After years of reviews, false starts, unfulfilled promises to reverse falling standards and test results, and progressive ideological influences on curriculum content, woke opinions and jargon are out. In addition to basic skills, children as young as five will learn about ancient civilisations, grammar and human anatomy, in a stripped-back syllabus designed to impart the knowledge students will need to think for themselves, education editor Natasha Bita revealed in Wednesday’s paper.
Other education authorities have been slow to respond to the news. Concerned parents and teachers who recognise the folly of current trends are entitled to expect improvements in their states and territories. That is especially true of the larger states – Victoria and Queensland – where education is infused with woke overload. The nation’s education predicament, in which one in three children failed NAPLAN literacy and numeracy exams last year despite hundreds of billions of dollars being pumped into the system for several decades, is untenable.
The fact the initiative is bipartisan boosts the chance of enduring reform. To their credit, NSW Education Minister Prue Car and opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Mitchell, who led the start of the process under the former state Coalition government, acknowledge each other’s roles. Since the Minns government’s election in March last year, Ms Car has shown she is decisive and effective. From term four that year she banned NSW public secondary school students from using mobile phones at school. One of the savviest features of the curriculum overhaul, begun under the Coalition and continued by the Minns government, is the leading role played by 200 expert teachers in the process. As Bita wrote: NSW has delivered a succinct syllabus “co-designed by classroom teachers, instead of ivory-tower academics who think ‘phonics’ is a dirty word”.
Too often during the past 20 years, teachers unions have led the fight against most education reform, from NAPLAN to more transparent reporting to parents. The advantage for teachers is that the new curriculum spells out precisely what children need to learn, using plain-English wording and practical examples. It is clear, coherent and sequenced. A consistent criticism of the national curriculum, raised by the Australian Education Research Organisation last year, is that it is too vague and confusing for teachers who have to “invent their own” lessons and are not clear about what they need to teach.
Abiding concerns about lack of content in key areas of knowledge and historical context also have been tackled. These include civics and citizenship, basic science and geography, and the traditions of major world religions in Australia. Indigenous culture will be covered in the “human society and its environment” syllabus, including Aboriginal languages in local areas and Aboriginal knowledge and practices to care for the country. The physical education curriculum encourages children to be active and learn the basics of games and sports. All of which is what parents are entitled to expect. That several generations have missed out is a black mark against the education sector and the political class. In tandem with improvements to university teaching degrees, this is the breakthrough needed for too long. Current and future students deserve no less.