The Coalition has refused to detail changes it would make to the national curriculum after Peter Dutton said students were being “indoctrinated” and pledged in his budget reply speech to “restore” a curriculum focused on “critical thinking, responsible citizenship, and common sense”.
Dutton has made repeated references to the education system in recent weeks, including floating on Sky News placing a “condition” on funding to ensure kids weren’t “guided by some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities” and pledging “we need to stop the teaching of some of the curriculum that says that our children should be ashamed of being Australian” in the Channel 7 debate.
Guardian Australia asked the shadow education minister, Sarah Henderson, for an interview to detail the Coalition’s plans, after she flagged on the ABC at the beginning of April there would be “more to say” on the curriculum during the campaign, but she repeatedly declined.
Instead, she provided a statement which contrasted with Dutton’s strong language that “classrooms should be for education, not indoctrination”.
Henderson said the Coalition was “strongly focused on getting back to basics to raise education standards in our schools”, pointing to declining Naplan proficiency in literacy, maths and science.
“Students learn best when taught explicitly, which is why the adoption of explicit instruction and other evidence-based teaching methods is so vital,” she said.
“Primary principal organisations from every sector say the national curriculum is impossible to teach, but Labor has failed to listen to the concerns of educators. If elected, we will work hard to listen and consult in order to drive practical, positive improvements in our schools.”
Henderson also pointed to a recent Coalition announcement to provide $100m to build and expand boarding schools for Indigenous students, and an early years literacy program for children living in disadvantaged communities.
The National Catholic Education Commission welcomed the boarding school funding announcement. It has been lobbying throughout the campaign for the major parties to allow schools to preference the employment of staff who support their religious worldview.
“Maintaining the authenticity of our mission is critical to the educational, pastoral and spiritual care we provide and our schools must be able to continue to employ staff who support that mission,” its executive director, Jacinta Collins, said.
Earlier this month, the education minister, Jason Clare, wrote to Collins and the CEO of Independent Schools Australia (ISA), warning a Coalition government could “use funding as a lever to determine what students in non-government schools are taught”.
“This shows an absolute abrogation of responsibility when it comes to the role of the majority government funder of the non-government school sector,” he wrote.
When asked about the letter, the CEO of ISA, Graham Catt, said the body strongly believed “governments should not dictate how teachers deliver education in the classroom”.
“Federal funding already carries requirements around standards, accountability, and curriculum frameworks,” he said. “Teachers are the experts and they know their students and school context.”
Catt said the curriculum was already subject to regular review and too many changes could be “highly problematic” due to the resourcing and time it took to implement. Any reforms, he said, must “respect sectoral diversity, school autonomy and the diverse needs of all learners”.
The national curriculum was last reviewed and updated in 2021-2022, under a federal Coalition government.
The executive officer of the Australian Association of Christian Schools, Vanessa Cheng, said there should be less government regulation and oversight in schools, not more.
But she said the curriculum had scope to be decluttered, adding “ideological overlays” were making it cumbersome and it didn’t tailor to individual school contexts.
“It needs to be fit for purpose and adaptable for different types of education philosophies,” she said. “I feel [the curriculum agreed to in 2022] didn’t give a strong sense of identity, in hope and confidence in who we are as a nation.
“It’s not about culture wars, it’s about pride as Australians … There’s been an emphasis on negative parts of our history rather than celebrating positives. I would hope that balance would go back other way.”
