China, Islam threats to democracy force changes to Australian history classes

Australian children should be taught more about democracy, freedom and patriotism, the Education Minister will declare when he reveals the draft new national curriculum.

School kids will be taught that Australia is the “greatest country on earth‘’, in a new cutback curriculum with a focus on phonics and times tables.

Year 2 students will no longer be asked to identify “racist statues’’, federal Education Minister Alan Tudge will declare on Friday when he reveals that the draft national curriculum has been more than halved from 3281 to 1443 pages.

Warning against the rise of Communist China and fundamentalist Islam, Mr Tudge said Australian children should be taught more about the importance of democracy, freedom and patriotism.

“We should expect our young people leaving school to have an understanding of our liberal democracy and how it is that we are one of the wealthiest, most free, most tolerant and most egalitarian countries in all of human history, which millions have immigrated to,” he will tell the Centre for Independent Studies.

“If they don’t learn this, they won’t defend it as previous generations did.

“We must do more to impress upon young Australians how extraordinarily lucky we are.’’

Mr Tudge said a “negative view of our country, our history and our future” was harming children’s mental health.

“Ultimately, students should leave school with a love of country and a sense of optimism and hope that we live in the greatest country on earth and that the future is bright,’’ he said.

“If they are constantly fed a negative view of our country, our history and our people, then we will exacerbate existing problems.

“Let us be positive about our country.’’

Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge wants school kids to have a positive view of Australia. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Tudge will reveal that the draft curriculum has been changed so that seven-year-old students will no longer be expected to “assess the morality of historical statues”.

“How that ever got into the draft (in April), I do not know,’’ he says in his speech.

The revised curriculum will teach students that “our democracy is based on our Christian and Western origins, with a reference to the importance of the values of patriotism and freedom’’.

“The influence of authoritarianism and communism is growing in the world, particularly with the rise of an assertive China,” Mr Tudge said.

“Fundamentalist Islam remains a dominant force in any countries, as we are seeing in Afghanistan.

“There has not been a more important time to teach children the origins, values and singular greatness of liberal democracy since the 1940s.”

Mr Tudge said the curriculum was still too “long and deeply bureaucratic’’ compared to New Zealand’s school curriculum which has just 120 pages, and the UK’s 306-page document.

The original draft, released in April, would have forced teachers to wait until Year 4 to teach the times tables, but the new document reinstates the maths rote learning to Year 3.

It will also put more focus on teaching children to read and write using phonics – learning the sounds of letter combinations.

Mr Tudge said the revisions meant the curriculum had “gone from an F to perhaps a C, but Australian students deserve an A+.’’

“With education standards in decline in Australia over the last twenty years … it must aim higher,’’ he said.

Originally published as China, Islam threats to democracy force changes to Australian history classes