With the recent announcement by Schools Education Minister Peter Garrett that the Australian Curriculum roll-out will start a year later than planned, teachers around Australia will be heaving a colossal sigh of relief. The powers that be have listened to sense, realising what educators have known all along – that the timeline was unrealistic if it was to be done properly.
This is for English, maths, science and history – with much requested Professional Development set to kick in for Victorian teachers next year, prior to a 2012 implementation of the new curriculum.
Geography and languages – part of phase two – are still being written. Drafts are due to be released soon for comments, according to the ACARA timeline. Trials are to start in 2011, with consultation in the first half of the year, and publication of documents by August 2011.
Language teachers are anxious to know what the document will entail. Rumours abound that only four languages will be covered by the national curriculum. Speculation has it that two of these will be Chinese and French. But what will the other two be?
What will this mean for the languages not included in the national curriculum documents?
It turns out language teachers need not worry. ACARA’s line is that, “As with any other learning areas . . . not covered under national curriculum development, languages that are not included within the Australian Curriculum will continue to be offered under existing state and territory arrangements.”
What this infers is that if your language is NOT on the list of four, you’ve got it easy. You don’t need to rewrite your course, don’t need to find time to attend this professional development. No upset apple cart.
But it will be interesting to see what shape the languages curriculum takes. Survey results from nationwide language teacher associations highlight the widespread belief in a range of entry points to languages. Students should be able to start a new language at various times in their education, in other words. This makes for a complex framework. With discussion taking place about common assessment across all states and territories for national curriculum subjects, it will be a curious mix indeed, running current state language curriculum alongside the new.
Another curious addition to the national curriculum stable is the Australian Baccalaureate. Touted as providing senior students “with access to a credential of international standing”, one wonders why we need to devote time, energy and, more importantly, precious education dollars to develop our own version of something that already exists and works so well.
The International Baccalaureate – created and expertly overseen by the IBO – has been running in many government and independent schools in the country for nearly 20 years, as an alternative to state-based certificates, such as the VCE or HSC and even VET.
The AB is not set to hit our schools for a while yet. Let’s hope that well before development is underway, the Government sees sense and scraps this folly.
Your thoughts?
Running out the door 