2GB Chris Smith

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview - 2GB Sydney with Chris Smith
Wednesday 13 October 2014

SUBJECT: Release of the review of the Australian Curriculum

CHRIS SMITH: Now this is one of the subjects, whenever I raise it, that parents and grandparents want to weigh into because when it comes to education they've had their own experiences, they've closely monitored the experiences of their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, and they have a great deal of understanding of what works and doesn't work in the Australian education framework. So we know that - the headlines today tell us that Australian schools are in for a major revamp if teachers and parents agree to changes recommended by the Federal Government's review of school curriculums. Now the major finding is that the curriculum is overcrowded, especially in primary schools, and that a back to basics approach is needed, especially when it comes to literacy and numeracy. Now, none of that would shock any of those who have had children at school, or grandparents who have watched kids just leave school and may not necessarily be as equipped as they were when they left. Now, it's widely expected the review would be opposed by a number of groups. Instead it's received cautious support from principals, Catholic and independent schools, and even the Federal Opposition. I've got the Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne on then line right now. Minister, welcome.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Chris, thank you for having me.

CHRIS SMITH: This is one of the rare wins your Government has had of late, because I get the feeling that the reaction to the findings has been overwhelmingly positive.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It has been overwhelmingly positive. I wouldn't say that we've yet booked a win; obviously the education ministers in the state and territories and I have to agree to ask ACARA to adjust the national curriculum around the recommendations of the review. But this is the first major review since the national curriculum began. It happily says we shouldn't be throwing the baby out with the bath water, but there's ways that we can improve it. It is an eminently reasonable document, and I think most people are pleased, and some are a little bit surprised, to find that it's basically talking about practical things we can do rather than getting caught up with ideological debate.

CHRIS SMITH: Or the debate that dominated educational discussion in the last government, which was: how much money do we need?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well that's right. What I've tried to do since I've been Education Minister is move away from a constant circular argument about more money ...

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: ... when we're actually spending more money, and focus on things like curriculum, parental engagement, teacher quality ...

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: ... more autonomy, and this review is a big step along the pathway to focusing on a robust curriculum. It says that we should do things like un-clutter the primary school curriculum and focus on history, English, maths and science until children get to high school, which I think is eminently sensible. It says that practical teaching methods like phonics should be back in fashion, not out of fashion, but I think a lot of teachers and educators have moved in that direction independently of this review.

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It says we need a curriculum that parents can follow, so that they can be more engaged in their children's education rather than a curriculum that is only written for teachers and principals. So there needs to be a simplistic document that parents can follow, and so we can be more engaged in our kids' education. So, I think the last thing that's probably worth noting is that rather than having the content match the themes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, sustainability, and Australia's place in Asia, the themes should coincide with the content; the content's more important than trying to squeeze things into their various themes.

CHRIS SMITH: How did we get so far off track? And I know what Kevin Donnelly, who co-authored this review, I know what Kevin Donnelly has thought, and he's made it quite clear on programs on 2GB that he thought the cultural left had basically railroaded the education system, and enforced its bias. Do you think that has been one of the reason why it's so far off track?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Chris my plan with this is to be Captain Cooperative about trying to bring about change to the national curriculum. I don't want the various parties to go into their corners and refuse once again to put kids first. We want students to be front and centre of these changes.

CHRIS SMITH: So no more blame game?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well there's not much point in everyone going back to their ideological arguments about ...

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: ... the Left versus ...

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: ... the Right. What I want to do is bring about real change that benefits our students. And I think it's fair to say that most parents and grandparents think that perhaps somewhere around the '70s we moved away from the basics and started to move towards other models of pedagogy, or teaching methods. But we've got lots of fantastic stuff in our education system, like a real focus on creativity, which the Asian countries that compete with us are fascinated by. But we also need to have a good balance of literacy, numeracy, understanding our history, and science, if we're going to be able to compete with those Asian countries that are getting better and better in terms of their education outputs.

CHRIS SMITH: It's interesting, you spoke firstly there about the changes that were coming in, that would come in, that have been recommended - like de-cluttering the curriculum. I was just doing a little bit of a Google search very early this morning, and it's interesting some of the subjects that are in curriculums now, you've got things like preventing dog biting. Another school had table manners. And what we've probably got to over many, many years is making or forcing the school to be our parents.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Chris I think you've hit upon a very good point. And when I speak to teachers out at the coalface, if you like, about the things that they're most concerned about, they are concerned that they spend a lot of their time running programs which are not core business of primary schools. One of the reasons for that of course is that we have a captive audience in primary school and senior school students. There is a workforce of several hundred thousand, which can be brought to bear to run out government programs, whether they are state or federal ones. And I think the tendency has been to say well if we want to meet a particular market, let's do it in schools. Over the last few decades - I'm not blaming any particular political party for this - over the last few decades we have filled up the school day with a whole lot of things that aren't history, English, maths and science. So one of the great things about this review is it says let's get back to those four core capabilities, and then move into a wider range of subjects in senior school when we have the basics under our children's belts, so to speak.

CHRIS SMITH: What - one of the recommendations that falls very much in line with what we got out of the Gonski report was the work needed to equip and support our teachers better, train them better.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes.

CHRIS SMITH: Give them regular assessments. Even film them and let them sit down and go through a session where they're ... where those who are assessing them can be critical of the way they communicate et cetera. The fact that we haven't done that for so long, and the influence we know that teachers have on students, is a bad mark against the system, isn't it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well one of the things that I'm doing in tandem with this review of the curriculum is the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group. By the end of the year they'll present me with a report about how to improve our teacher training at university level. I hope that it will be more practically focused, similarly it might again be back to basics. There was a survey released just this week which showed that both new teachers and principals were dissatisfied with the training at university. And one of the things in this review, it says how can you expect teachers to be teaching grammar, when they weren't taught grammar themselves? And I think that is a very good point.

CHRIS SMITH: Yep.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: And there is no point in blaming teachers for not doing something that they were never taught themselves.

CHRIS SMITH: Yeah very true. So how quickly can you roll the changes out here? And before you answer that, I notice that the New South Wales Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, has been quoted as saying: the review contains some sensible recommendations, but he doesn't plan to overhaul the state syllabus. So, they'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming on some of these things maybe?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I want to work collaboratively with the states and territories, and I think we can do that. We have an education ministers meeting in December where I think this will probably form a lot of the discussion. I've asked the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority to give me feedback on the review, but I note that all the states and territories, and ACARA, were involved in the drafting of this review. So I feel there is a lot of goodwill, and I think there'll be a lot of support from parents - and students quite frankly - for an outcomes-focused curriculum. And I want to work with states - obviously it's too late for 2015, but I'm sure we can do a lot of work over the next 14 months, which means we should be able to bring about improvements in 2016. But I do agree with you, I think if people decide that they're going to insist on no change, because everything they've done before is right, I think there'll be a low level of tolerance for that amongst the public.

CHRIS SMITH: I think you're right, I think we're well and truly past that point. Okay, 2016, here we come. Good luck.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Thank you very much.

CHRIS SMITH: Thank you for your time. Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne. That's where he's aiming: 2016. A significant change in the way your children, your grandchildren, are taught at school. Gee I tell you what, there's plenty of material to play with there from what he has had to say - but not only that from what the changes that have been submitted and reported on. Maybe you've got a view about cluttering the curriculum, maybe you've also got a view about the cross-curriculum priorities - and I know that's sort of a buzzword that's entered into the education lexicon, which doesn't really make any sense - but maybe what we need to do is create a schooling system that enables our students to get back to the basics and obtain a decent education. And forget about the table manners subjects, forget about preventing dog bites - all the things that families are about, families teach that stuff, and families need to go back and accept their responsibility as teachers to their children.

[ends]