Teacher pans national curriculum for snubbing knowledge

Education experts have warned that school funding will be wasted unless the national curriculum is fixed.

Greg Ashman, at Ballarat Clarendon College, says ‘fashionable, so-called generic skills’ dominate the education debate. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Education experts have warned that billions of dollars in extra funding the federal government has earmarked for schools to ­improve student results will be wasted unless fundamental flaws in the national curriculum are fixed.

With the government tipped to release the highly anticipated ­report of the David Gonski-led ­review into educational excellence as early as next week, concerns have emerged that the curriculum fails to spell out what students need to learn and when, and ­instead emphasises the development of general capabilities, such as critical thinking, problem solving and creativity, despite little evidence of links to improved results.

Kenneth Wiltshire, who chaired the 2014 national curriculum review said he had concerns with the way the later review overlooked the importance of the curriculum.

“I am concerned that the … ­review process did not focus enough on the knowledge base of the content of the curriculum and particularly the cognitive processes required in the learning experience for students,” he said.

“This lies at the heart of our poor performance in international benchmarks; not funding.”

Announced last July after the Turnbull government promised to inject an additional $25.3 billion into schools, the review aimed to “gather evidence and insights” on the “most effective and efficient use of funding to improve ... ­student achievement”.

The terms of reference made no reference of what role the curriculum might play in that process.

Greg Ashman, who is head of research at the high-performing Ballarat Clarendon College in Victoria, said amid the push to promote “fashionable, so-called generic skills”, the importance of knowledge in the curriculum was underappreciated.

“If you look at the Australian curriculum, there’s some knowledge in there, just not enough of it,” Mr Ashman said.

“A lot of people talk about the importance of developing certain skills, such as how to look up something on Google and evaluate certain sources. But in order to evaluate things you actually have to know stuff to begin with.”

Bella d’Abrera, director of the Institute of Public Affairs’ Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, said the acquisition of knowledge was now less important than “inquiry and questioning. This is the wrong way around — it should be facts first, questioning second,” Dr d’Abrera said.

“How can you question an historical event if you haven’t been taught about the event in the first place?”

Australian Catholic University research fellow Kevin Donnelly, who also chaired the 2014 curriculum review, has advocated for a move away from the outcomes-based, student-led education model to a curriculum steeped in knowledge of established subjects.

“How can they address the issue of raising standards if they don’t address the curriculum and the recommendation of the 2014 national curriculum review,” Dr Donnelly said.

Education minister Minister Simon Birmingham yesterday defended the process, pointing out that the government had previously reviewed the curriculum, which had enabled schools to spend more time on teaching young people “the skills that will set them up for life”.

“I’m not going to pre-empt the recommendations of David Gonski’s review,” Senator Birmingham said, “but note that while their task was not to repeat the earlier curriculum review they have received a wide variety of submissions and been thorough in their deliberations.”