Education expert urges reform for national curriculum

An education expert has warned the national curriculum is at risk of significant variation across the nation.

Professor Kenneth Wiltshire says states need to work ­together on reforms to the nation curriculum.

An education expert has warned that the national curriculum is at risk of significant variation across the nation, and has urged states to agree on national ­reforms rather than go it alone.

Kenneth Wiltshire has backed a plan by the ­Victorian opposition to emphasise Australian values, civics and citizenship in state schools, but says states would be better off working ­together on wholesale ­reforms to the national curriculum.

An emeritus professor within the University of Queensland’s Business School, Professor Wiltshire co-chaired the Coalition’s national curriculum ­review, and has criticised the ­national ­curriculum for paying inadequate attention to Australian values and for omitting “whole slabs” of Australian ­history.

Writing in The Australian today, Professor Wiltshire also says the national curriculum contains “major ­inaccuracies” and signs of bias across many subjects, including an anti-­business and anti-capitalist ­approach.

Rather than walk away from the curriculum, he says states must work ­together on reforms and a ­monitoring system boosting ­adherence and preventing further splits.

“We certainly do not want nine values statements across the ­nation or significantly different curriculum content from state to state,’’ Professor Wiltshire says.

The comments follow the ­decision by the Victorian ­Coalit­ion to release an “education values statement’’ that proposes to “declutter” the state’s curriculum with a focus on basic literacy, numeracy and writing skills and to put a ­renewed focus on “Australian values”.

The initiative has polarised ­academics, who have called it “shallow and absurd”.

Professor Wiltshire says the national curriculum ­always intended to emphasise moral and spiritual values as ­dictated in the 2008 Melbourne ­Declaration, but has fallen short. He says ­students are missing out on learning about key historical landmarks that are central to the national identity.