National syllabus fails the key test

At a time when identifying as an Australian citizen is paramount, schools are told one of the essential core concepts is to embrace diversity and a subjective view of citizenship.

The most egregious flaw in the revised national curriculum is the fact, while nodding in the direction of Australia as a Western liberal democracy with a Christian heritage, the history and civics curriculums embody a politically correct, cultural-left interpretation of the nation and its place in the Asia-Pacific.

Cultural relativism prevails where Australia is described as a “multicultural, multi-faith society” where “citizens’ identity transcends geography or political borders and people have the right and responsibilities at the global level”.

At a time when identifying as an Australian citizen is paramount, schools are told one of the essential core concepts is to embrace diversity and a subjective view of citizenship — one where “A person’s sense of who they are, and conception and expression of their individuality or association with a group culture or to a state or nation, a region or the world regardless of one’s citizenship status” takes priority.

In line with the international movement to decolonise the curriculum by removing or ignoring the debt owed to Western civilisation, the curriculum further entrenches a focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait ­Islander history, culture and spirituality.

In the humanities and social sciences curriculum covering the years to Year 10, there are four references to Christianity but 13 to Indigenous history and culture. In the Eng­lish document, instead of introducing students to the evolving literary canon associated with Western culture, there are 45-plus references to Indigenous oral tradition, languages and texts.

Even mathematics and science are not immune, with schools told to teach Aboriginal “algebraic thinking” and “to learn that First Nations peoples of Australia have longstanding scientific knowledge traditions”.

Mandating as one of the three cross-curriculums priorities Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia also reveals a superficial and antiseptic understanding of what students need to learn. The Years 7-10 history curriculum, while referring to China 28 times, makes no mention of communism under Mao and the destructive impacts of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, where millions died.

Instead, students must explore the way “transnational and intercultural collaboration supports the notion of shared and sustainable futures, (and) can reflect on how Australians can participate in the Asia region as active and informed citizens”.

The nat­ional curriculum fails the test of ­nation-building; students will continue to leave school culturally illiterate.

Kevin Donnelly is a senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University