Science deficit points to dire state of the national curriculum

The Australian science curriculum is both narrow and shallow, writes Ben Jensen.

Anyone reading the news over the past decade cannot have missed reports of rising problems in Australian school education: declining results in national and international tests, burgeoning educational inequality and big numbers of burnt-out teachers leaving or considering leaving the system.

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.

A curriculum is the foundation of an education system, it sets out what is to be taught and assessed as children progress through each year of school. Leading research is clear that high-quality curriculum not only greatly improves student learning, it is one of the best ways to close the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students.

Learning First’s new report, Fixing the hole in Australian education: The Australian Curriculum benchmarked against the best, compares the Australian science curriculum from the first year of school to year 10 with seven science curriculums overseas. They are Singapore, England, Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Quebec – two of the highest-performing systems around the world on international assessments.

Across these systems the science content students are required to learn – topics such as cells, heat, magnets, gravity, electrical circuits and how body systems work – is spelt out in clear detail, with each topic sequenced to the next so students build on what they know.

The Australian science curriculum, by contrast, over the first nine years of school contains about half the science content of the average of the other curriculums we benchmarked. It covers 44 science topics compared to an average of 74 topics in the other systems, and covers just five in depth, compared to an average of 22 topics covered in depth in the other systems. The science curriculum lacks clarity, specificity and proper sequencing of content, all of which are vital for effective teaching and learning, according to research.

Curriculum experts often discuss breadth and depth of content in a curriculum as trade-offs; should more time be spent going deeper into certain topics or should more topics be covered but in less depth? Sadly, the Australian science curriculum lacks both breadth and depth. It covers fewer topics and goes into depth in these topics far less often than other benchmarked curriculums. The Australian science curriculum is both narrow and shallow.

A narrow, shallow curriculum has damaging effects on both learning and equity. Are we comfortable with Australian students not learning significant amounts of the science content that is provided without question to students in other countries?

Ben Jensen

Before the Australian Curriculum was introduced in 2010 the performance of Australian students in the OECD’s PISA science assessments were strong and stable: the scores on the 2006 and 2009 assessments were identical, putting Australia among the top countries in the world. These scores have been in decline ever since.

The latest PISA science assessment was in 2018, eight years after the introduction of the Australian Curriculum. Australian students sitting this test in 2018 had spent most of their school years being taught the new curriculum. They performed nearly one year below the performance of Australian students in 2006 and 2009, before the Australian Curriculum was introduced.

Of course, we cannot directly attribute this decline to the introduction of the Australian Curriculum; education systems are complex, and multiple factors affect performance. But we have to ask: What would we expect to happen to student learning if we introduce a curriculum with half the content of other countries? What changes in learning outcomes and in equity would we expect over the next decade?

We chose science as the first subject for our benchmarking because science content is more easily comparable across international systems, and because of the importance for young people to have strong foundations in science to succeed in the modern world. Research shows high-quality science curriculum can also help learning – especially for disadvantaged students – in other areas such as reading comprehension.

It is clear that during the development of the Australian Curriculum the research on quality curriculum was not followed, that benchmarking to ensure Australian students receive a world-class curriculum was not undertaken, that the breadth and depth of learning in the science curriculum was not ensured, and; that curriculum mapping to ensure quality sequencing of content was not undertaken. This is simply wrong.

At Learning First, we are on a mission to improve the Australian Curriculum. Every Australian child has the right to learn a world-class curriculum. Australian parents and carers should be able to send their children to schools, Australian teachers should have the right to teach in schools, and Australian industry, universities and institutes of further education should be able to expect schools that are supported by a world-class curriculum.

Our benchmarking shows the Australian Curriculum means we are all comfortable with Australian students not learning significant amounts of science; the science content that is provided to students in other countries. This must change.

Ben Jensen is chief executive of Learning First.