'Get rid of all the faddish rubbish' and focus on the essentials
ACU Senior Research Fellow Dr Kevin Donnelly says all top-performing academic countries “get rid of all the faddish rubbish” and focus on what is essential.
Click to View VideoThe new curriculum – a product of a government-ordered review – reduces overall content by 20 per cent in an effort to improve the performance of Australian students in international testing.
Some changes would see Australian students taught fewer humanities and more Indigenous studies.
“We’re in fact, not doing anything in this new curriculum – the revised curriculum – in how to get students to achieve stronger results in terms of the international testing,” he said.
“When I co-chaired the review in 2014, we acknowledged that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history/culture was important, but this is cancel culture on steroids when it comes to western culture and Christianity.
“In English in Year 7-10, there are 45 references to Aboriginal oral language, texts, ways of speaking – nothing about western literature; the literary canon.”
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