Drive to increase pre-settlement history lessons

Primary students would be taught more pre-settlement indigenous history under changes to the national curriculum.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion.

Primary school students would be taught more pre-settlement indigenous history — including Aboriginal languages, phrases and customs — under changes to the national curriculum being ­developed by the Turnbull ­government.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion said he had commissioned Melbourne University to devise changes to the curriculum under the leadership of prominent indigenous academic Marcia Langton.

Senator Scullion suggested the debate over an additional plaque on Captain James Cook’s statue to acknowledge the presence of Aborigines on the continent ­before his arrival, or “retrofitting” historical monuments, would be irrelevant if Australians were ­better informed about pre-­settlement indigenous history.

The Northern Territory senator said he hoped to present a draft version of the new teaching materials to the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority by March for initial feedback, and he would speak with state and territory education ministers ­before the end of this year.

“We have been forced to study the civilisations of north Africa, the building of pyramids, the ­desertification of country to ­unsustainable land practices,” he said. “And yet we’ve failed to understand our own amazingly sophisticated civilisation, which had a culture that was sustained by land and sustained the land for tens of thousands of years. If we understood that more, we wouldn’t need second plaques.”

Senator Scullion said that, under his proposed changes, primary school children would learn about the indigenous clan in their school area — including a basic introduction to the native language and the original place names for landmarks. The balance between pre-settlement ­indigenous history and the story of British colonisation of Australia in primary schools would be an issue for Professor Langton to help implement.

“Language, land and culture are inseparable if you wish to understand the culture of First Australians,” he said.

“You have to understand language and their connection to the land. I’m not sure about where the balance will lie but what I want is to provide the content for a new ­element of pre-settlement history at two levels: one is an understanding of the general ­Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander civilisations across Australia and the second is how they operate … (an) understanding of pre-settlement history in a local context which would involve language.

“I would expect to have some phrases, an understanding of the names of places in the area as well as an understanding of the uses of the land and the local flora and fauna in the area.”

The government push comes after a debate broke out over whether the inscription on Cook’s statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park should be changed. Malcolm Turnbull warned against the “Stalinist exercise” of rewriting history.

Labor MP Linda Burney, the first indigenous woman elected to the House of Representatives, said it was historically wrong to credit Cook with the discovery of Aus­tralia and pushed for the plaque to be changed.

Bill Shorten fuelled the debate this week by saying he was comfortable with an additional indigenous plaque on the statue, but stopped short of saying what the plaque should say.

Education expert Kevin Donnelly, who co-chaired the national curriculum review, last week ­argued the pendulum in school history had moved “too far towards the black-­armband view”.