5AA

E&OE TRANSCRIPT Interview - 5AA Adelaide with Leon Byner Monday 13 October 2014 SUBJECT: Release of the review of the Australian Curriculum LEON BYNER:          Now the Australian Government has released the review of the Aussie curriculum. They've also released an initial Australian Government response as a starting point for discussions with states and territories and key stakeholders on how to strengthen and refine the Australian curriculum. One of the things that is awfully sad is that you meet so many people who passed at school, but their literacy and numeracy is seriously wanting. In fact, there was an article in the weekend press explaining how some of the teachers are not sufficiently literate and numerate. So where the hell have we gone wrong, and what can we do to fix it? Let's talk with the Federal Education Minister, Chris Pyne. Chris, good morning. CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Good morning Leon. LEON BYNER:          Which question would you like to answer first? CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, there's a lot of questions there, and one of the great things about this national curriculum review is that it does try and answer all of those questions. And it does say that it's impossible to expect teachers to be teaching grammar and advanced punctuation when they themselves weren't taught grammar at school in the last several decades. And so therefore we need to address that issue through teacher training, and through back to basics in primary school. And this curriculum review gives us the chance, working with the states and territories, to re-frame the curriculum after five years of it being implemented, with a new period of focus in primary school on maths, English, science and history - more depth to those rather than breadth to many different subjects, to give our primary school kids, once they move into senior school, the basic skills and knowledge they need to then go on and learn in other subject areas. LEON BYNER:          Now, it is all very well to have policy initiatives and reforms Chris, as Minister, but you know as well as I do that the people who have to administer this first have got to do two things: they've got to want to do it, and then they have to deliver. Do you have the Australian Education Union on side to do this? CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        No. The Australian Education Union has turned its back on reform of the curriculum, and decided to stick its head very firmly in the sand, and are now really a union that's only interested in the pay and conditions of teachers. So apart from them, however, we've received extensive support around the country this morning - even the Fairfax Press have been supportive of it. The state and territory premiers and education ministers, the independent Catholic schools around Australia, there's been a lot of support. LEON BYNER:          Okay. CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Because I think everyone recognises this is a very genuine attempt at a practical outcomes-based new curriculum, or building on with the curriculum that's already been there, building on that curriculum rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water. LEON BYNER:          Let me ask you this. Now, let's deal with primary first - and this review was also secondary and we'll get to that in a moment - but if you're going to take something out of the curriculum, arguing that it's overcrowded and put back in the basics, what are you taking out? CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well in primary school for example, rather than trying to teach primary school students a range of subjects like health sciences, or economics, or geography - not that there's anything wrong with learning those things - they can be saved until senior years, and history, English, science and maths can be the focus of primary school, particularly literacy and numeracy in reception to year two. That is a very sensible suggestion. The other very sensible suggestion is a parent-friendly curriculum booklet, so that parents can engage more in their children's education. At the moment the curriculum is written mainly for teachers and principals; a parent-friendly version would engage parents more. And the other thing that the curriculum review suggests is rather than trying to make the content match themes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture - Aboriginal - Asia and Australia and sustainability, that the themes should fit in with the content, so that we should put the content first, the themes second, rather than the way it's been in the last five years. LEON BYNER:          If you want to teach history and maths and science, where are you going to get your teachers from? CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well we have excellent teachers - LEON BYNER:          Well you have, but you see a lot of them - this is the real crux - Chris you know, you've got teachers of differing disciplines who do those subjects they're not necessarily specialist in. CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        And that's exactly why, as part of the reforms that I'm trying to bring about, and if I've got the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, which will report to me by Christmas on their suggestions for teacher training at university. And one of the things that I hope that they'll recommend is more specialists rather than more generalists; more specialists in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, history, senior school, et cetera. Because we have a lot of generalists, and we need as many specialists as generalists. So, I hope that that's what they'll recommend ... LEON BYNER:          Alright. CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        ... and then I'll be able to work with the universities to bring about exactly the kind of teachers you're talking about. LEON BYNER:          One of the problems we've got here is that education is both state and federal, you see. So you've got parents listening today who will have a son or daughter at school, be it primary or secondary, who have got some basic issues - and these might be parents who do all the right things, but they go to the school and they say to the teacher or the principal: look, my son or daughter is appearing a bit slow, we don't think there's any issue except that they're just not where they should be; and often they're told: well if you want to do anything you'll have to hire the help yourself. What would you recommend a parent does in that scenario? CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well almost every school has the architecture in place to support all students. But some students do need more assistance than others. Now, you know, I have four children, aged six to 14, a couple of those are perfectly adequately served by the school that they go to. A couple of others need extra assistance. The assistance that they can't get at school, through special education for example, there's absolutely no reason why they can't - we can't try and get them more help outside school. LEON BYNER:          Okay. CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        But there are some students which will not be able to be served just with the services that are available in the school, because they might have more serious learning difficulties than other students. But I think both government and non-government schools are light-years ahead today than they were ten years ago in both recognising learning difficulties and putting in place the programs and architecture that students need to learn in a different way. LEON BYNER:          I'm going to ask you a hot potato. In South Australia, we've coupled education with child protection. Alright? And I know that there are those in the education sector who think that's not a good thing to happen right now for reasons you would understand. When you are giving education funding, and you're giving it to a department that actually has another department next to it that's part of it, how do you know that the funding for education is going to education only, and not into child protection? CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Because there's a formula in place for school funding from the Commonwealth to the states, and that money is effectively going through the states and to the schools directly. And I'm absolutely certain that if the schools were missing out on funding because it was being used to prop up child protection, they'd be the first to find out and they'd be the first to ... LEON BYNER:          Okay. CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        ... raise merry hell about it. And they should. But honestly, I do think the Department of Education and Family and Community Services should not be in the same portfolios in South Australia. South Australia is lagging behind badly in terms of the NAPLAN results. We are at the bottom of the ladder in mainland states in almost every NAPLAN measure, and we need a Minister for Education in South Australia, which might well be Jennifer Rankine; her focus is entirely on education while somebody else protects our children from some of the people out there that we know exist who need to be blunted from the nefarious objectives they might have. LEON BYNER:          Okay. So in a nutshell your objection to coupling the two together is what? CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        I don't think it gives us a laser-like focus on education for itself, and I think that the role of protecting our children, in terms of child protection and families and community services, is a specific role which is not about educating children, it's about protecting children from the people out there that we know exist who want to do the wrong thing by our children. LEON BYNER:          Chris Pyne, thank you. That's the Federal Education Minister. You may want to buy in to some of the things that he talked about today on 82230000. [ends]