A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Abstract

As CEO of Learning First, and in my previous roles at the Grattan Institute and the OECD, I have written many reports advocating for reforms in Australian school education. But I have never produced a report that expressed so much alarm about a fundamental aspect of our education system. I have never conducted analysis that showed such severe problems as those presented here. I take no joy in presenting these findings, but I am certain that the only way we can improve Australian education is to be honest about them. Problems not faced are problems not fixed. This report sets out the results of detailed analysis and benchmarking of the Australian science curriculum with curriculums in comparable and high-performing systems around the world. The results show the lack of breadth and depth of the Australian science curriculum, the flaws in its sequencing of content, and the lack of clarity about what to teach and assess. The benchmarking took over a year to complete, but in truth the report is the culmination of years of work. Many years ago, Learning First focused on school improvement, teacher and leader development and professional learning. As we worked with numerous Australian systems and published reports, we saw time and again that good policies and programs, and tireless work from educators, were not having the impact they should have. The more we investigated the causes of these problems, the more we realised that a defining problem was curriculum: both the Australian Curriculum itself, and how it could be interpreted and effectively enacted in schools and classrooms. Many teachers, school and system leaders also expressed to us their deep concerns about the Australian Curriculum, yet significant curriculum reform is not part of Australia's policy debate. We are on a mission to change that. About seven years ago we started publishing reports on the importance of curriculum, and to propose reforms to strengthen the Australian Curriculum in order to improve student performance and make our schools fairer and more equal. We have published reports with Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy in the United States, and we have written numerous opinion pieces on the need for change (read our work at www.learningfirst.com). Throughout this work, what hit home was how different the Australian Curriculum is from quality curriculums in other systems, especially those that perform highly (or are improving) in international assessments. Whenever we show Australian teachers high-quality curriculums from other systems, they invariably have the same response: this content is so much clearer and would be so much easier to teach than the Australian Curriculum. But how could we prove this point to a larger audience? Last year we decided to start benchmarking the content of the Australian science curriculum. Through the example of science, we wanted to show how the Australian Curriculum differs from the curriculums of leading systems around the world and how much improvement is needed. The results of this benchmarking are stark. Before starting the work, I knew there were problems with the Australian Curriculum but my colleagues and I have been shocked by the size of the holes in the Australian science curriculum revealed in this report.