Doorstop - Parliament House

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview - Doorstop, Parliament House
Thursday 5 March 2015

SUBJECT: Education Council unanimously endorse ACARA implementing the Federal Government’s response to the Wiltshire and Donnelly curriculum review.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well thank you all for coming at short notice.

Today, the Education Council met by teleconference, and I’m absolutely delighted to be able to report that the council of state and territory ministers of education, both Labor and Liberal, unanimously endorsed the proposed actions that ACARA will take to implement the Australian Government’s response to the Wiltshire and Donnelly curriculum review. So the four pillars that we promised before the election are starting to fall into place, whether it’s independent public schooling, teacher training, parental engagement, and now the curriculum.

Why I’m particularly pleased about this, on a day where the Intergenerational Report’s been handed down, is because obviously that is largely about productivity, participation in the workforce, which means good education, skilling the workforce, retraining it, and so forth, means that this is an important pillar in the capacity for our economy to change over the next 40 years, and to grow.

Giving school students a very strong start requires a very robust curriculum that’s useful and effective. The ACARA, the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority, have indicated that there’ll be some specific areas which will change. For example, there’ll be a de-cluttering of the primary school curriculum, which was recommended in the review. Four subjects will be turned into one. There will be a focus, an acknowledgement that for reading and writing there needs to be phonics and phonemic awareness at school; that will include areas like Macquarie University’s MultiLit program, so that students don’t leave school unable to read and to write, because they’ve had a proper grounding in the practical basics of phonics and phonemic awareness. And of course the … the first item of the recommendations, which has just momentarily escaped me, but will come back to me during this discussion I’m sure, will be included by the ACARA as part of the curriculum review.

So, Labor will be disappointed. Labor indicated that they were discrediting the review. They suggested that because Kevin Donnelly had been part of it, they wouldn’t be part of it. Labor states and territories have decided today to support the ACARA’s response. This has been a model of collaboration and cooperation. Last year, the Government released its initial response. I said then that we’d work closely with the states and territories; we’ve done that, and I think that’s exactly the way state and territory governments should work together, recognising our shared responsibilities, recognising the division of labour between us, and I’m very pleased with the outcome.

QUESTION: So where to from here? Is it now- does ACARA now start developing the detailed changes, and- so this is an in-principle type agreement? And what happened to the political bias side of [indistinct]?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, ACARA has said that the rebalancing of the curriculum, and the reordering of it and de-cluttering of it, they’ll deal with all as one part. They’ve accepted that there’s been too much depth and not enough breadth- sorry, too much breadth and not enough depth, and as a consequence they will be de-cluttering the curriculum. In terms of practical outcomes, this is not just in-principle acceptance. ACARA has a work plan, which we accepted today at the Educational Council. The work plan involves changes to the curriculum. It involved, for example, the folding of four subjects in the national curriculum into one, into a social sciences subject. There’s an acceptance at ACARA that some of the content of the curriculum needs to change, and that therefore we are moving forward in a much more robust- much more robust program around the curriculum.

QUESTION: When will it come into effect in classrooms, Mr Pyne?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, ACARA indicated they would hope that by August they will be able to send all the states and territory education authorities the new changes to the curriculum. Which means that from 2016 the new curriculum will be in place.

Now, they’re not throwing out the old curriculum and starting again, and that was never the recommendation of the review, the Wiltshire and Donnelly review. They are taking what the Government has said about that review, and indicating how it will be implemented. And in practical terms, that will start next year. But the structure of the national curriculum will remain, it will just be much, much better.

QUESTION: Minister, just on another issue. You were an integral part of the Liberal Party’s campaign at the 2013 election. One of your major promises was a $16 million grant categories(*). [Indistinct] has decided today to not [indistinct]. Did you do your homework on that grant?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, You’ll have to ask the appropriate minister about that, I’m not responsible for that grant.

QUESTION: Just in relation to NAPLAN, are we getting value for money in your mind for that exercise? There’s a lot of criticism still around about it.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The NAPLAN is a vital part of the education system. It makes everyone accountable, accountable to students and to parents. By publishing test results, all governments, state and territory and the Commonwealth, can see what progress we’re making. As a diagnostic tool it is really important for teachers to see the weaknesses in their students, and the strengths in their students. It’s important for principles to know which teachers should be allocated to which students, to match those strengths and weaknesses. The publication of it means that teachers know individual- so parents know individually how their children are going, and compare them across schools.

Now, I think it’s an important development. It was begun by a Howard Government, it was continued by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Governments. Julia Gillard chose to publish it on the MySchools website. I agree with that. The information that’s been published today is not a new NAPLAN result, it is the breaking down of the NAPLAN results by school. And it shows 300 have had outstanding improvements in their results. Obviously we’ve only been in Government for 18 months. The changes that we’re bringing in like teacher training, the changes to the curriculum which will now be developed – these are things that will not start having effect for some time.

QUESTION: Are you confident of getting to a vote on higher education by the end of the month, and are you confident of the outcome of that vote?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I’m continuing to negotiate with the states and territories- [laughs], with the states and territories – with the crossbenchers around the higher education reform. I am confident that they are giving me a fair hearing. And I believe that if they want to have an expansion of opportunity for students, high quality internationally competitive universities, and expansion of the demand-driven system to the pathways programs that are great enablers for low SES and first-generation university students, the expansion of the Commonwealth Grant Scheme, to the non-university higher education providers, the biggest expansion in scholarships in the history of Australia, then they will support this reform.

The alternative to that is a closure of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme; a Carrmageddon(*) that we are facing under Labor is the closure of NCRIS, the closure of the Future Fellowships program, a shutting of the door to low SES students going to university when Kim Carr brings back the caps and ends the demand-driven system, it means less revenue to universities, and inevitable closure of some universities.

QUESTION: One of those crossbenchers has labelled that move, to tie that research funding, as political blackmail. That’s not going to see you succeed on that front, is it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we announced in the Budget last May that the package of reforms – which included savings measures – would pay for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme continuing, and the Future Fellows. Now I’m absolutely passionate about NCRIS and the Future Fellows. I agree with Brian Schmitt, I agree with Nick Xenophon I agree with researchers and scientists across Australia that we want those 1700 jobs to continue, and the 30-odd thousand researchers to have access to that really important infrastructure and equipment.

That’s why I’m trying to fund it. Labor de-funded it. Labor took the money away. There was no money for this into the future. I’ve come in as the Minister, and I’m wanting to re-fund it. To do that we need savings to pass through the Senate. They are all part of the reform bill. If the cross-benchers join with Labor and the Greens to vote the bill down, those 1700 jobs will go, and they’ll be on the heads of the Senate.

QUESTION: Mr Pyne is the deadline still March, or …?

QUESTION: Minister, the Intergenerational …

QUESTION: [Inaudible question].

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s politically wise for the crossbenchers to recognise that there are enormous benefits in this reform bill. And if they vote the bill down, it is not all upsides for the university sector into the future, or for students, or for them. I want to re-fund NCRIS. Labor wanted to de-fund it. Labor having de-funding it, they’re now trying to vote against it re-funding. The Greens are trying to vote against NCRIS being re-funded. I urge the crossbenchers not to fall into that vortex with Labor and the Greens of voting against 1700 jobs.

QUESTION: Is the deadline still March or could deregulation be done after the Budget in this year?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Matt, deregulation can be done at any time. But I would like this to be voted on by the end of March.

QUESTION: Minister, the Intergenerational Report shows per-student funding flat-lining over the next 40 years. Is that appropriate?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: What it shows is that spending and lending on education’s increasing from $1200 per capita to $1900, in today’s dollars. So it actually shows an increase if you include all aspects of how the Government spends money on education.

QUESTION: Can I ask about the curriculum thing, just, what happened to the issues with Western civilisation and those elements of the curriculum? Is that sort of bias allegation- is that not a priority, or is this going to be pursued at all?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, the review of the curriculum found that there needed to be a re-balancing. The ACARA has largely agreed that there can be improvements and a rebalancing in the curriculum. Now, whether they- the actual specifics of what aspects they remove, or change, or add, is not something I’m going to be commenting on today.

QUESTION: So whether they do that will come back to, with that work plan when it comes back, to be endorsed in a couple of months …

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, the ACARA work plan …

QUESTION: … if they propose changes, that’s where it will come through?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we’ve agreed today at the Education Council to let ACARA go away and implement their work plan. So they will then, at some point, send changes to the curriculum to the states and territories to implement. It won’t be coming back to the Education Council for a final tick-off.

And the first thing I’ve now remembered is the change to the curriculum that they’ve accepted, which is there needs to be more depth and less breadth. So they’re trying to take out quite a lot of the content of the curriculum – 30 per cent of the content in some areas of the curriculum – in order to give students a more in-depth experience, rather than a broad-brush approach. Now, I can see my very esteemed colleague and friend, Mr Joyce, desperately champing at the bit to get in front of this microphone. So, if there are no other questions, I might give Barnaby a turn.

Thank you very much.

[ends]