Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration

Curriculum review: where was NESA’s consultation?

This column by Debra Batley is the first of two columns discussing the recent NESA announcement.

NESA’s announcement on Monday 15th January that its curriculum overhaul was powering on into 2021 by cutting over 80 elective school developed courses not deemed “core” had several disturbing aspects to it. There was next to no consultation in this decision and it was particularly unsettling given that it followed closely on the heels of NESA’s December blanket dis-endorsement of all providers of professional learning in NSW (with the exception of DOE, AIS NSW and Catholic Schools). The decision around professional learning was also done in the name of curriculum reform, and was completely without consultation – the Professional Teacher’s Council lost endorsement, along with almost every professional teaching association in NSW. 

This is not what the Geoff Masters‘ review promised. This document was aspirational: it gave a reasonable time frame, talked of the importance of collaboration with key stakeholders in the writing of new curriculum documents, and left teachers with hope that the review process would be positive for both students and teachers. 

Unrealistic timeline

Instead, we have an unrealistic timeline. How can curriculum possibly be written, piloted, tested, sent out for consultation, adjusted, and teachers trained in the 18 month time frame that the Minister’s office has given NESA? The results of a short timeline are already emerging, with shortcuts in collaboration and consultation with key stakeholders being taken. Education is often a political football, however there is a growing perception that minority parties such as One Nation are ‘running the table’. It would be good to see the evidence basis for these latest reform decisions. 

Had teachers had been consulted on the culling of elective subjects, they probably would have replied that a large body of evidence suggests students do better when they are intrinsically motivated in their learning, have self-determination and autonomy. They maybe would have mentioned that researchers such as the late Sir Kenneth Robinson have found that educational outcomes are improved by learning across domains. 

Furthermore, they may have argued that school developed electives are particularly relevant to the school’s context. The culling of electives assumes a ‘one size fits all’ approach for their organisation (100 hours or 200 hours). Some schools in NSW take the opportunity to offer electives on a semester basis (50 hour courses). One well known Northern NSW School includes subjects such as Philosophy and Cosmology amongst their semester long elective offerings. Performing Arts High Schools have developed courses such as Circus Skills and Musical Theatre. Two of the biggest electives at my school are content endorsed courses; they are looked forward to by students, and I am certain they attract enrolments to the school. As a teacher I dread finding out that Year 9 Music has been placed on the same line as Outdoor Education – I know this means a small music class. 

Whilst the Hon. Sarah Mitchell may not see the value in these courses, for some students, these are the subjects that ignite their passions. 

It is somewhat ironic, that whilst the curriculum reform agenda is pushing for a depth as opposed to a breadth of understanding, the NSW Government is opposed to the idea of a child becoming an expert in printmaking – “this can be included in visual arts”. I would have thought that 100 hours of printmaking – which can include nine main types, and a multitude of subtypes – would actually model deep learning and provide students with practical skills. Disturbingly, even though the  Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration expresses a desire for “all learners to explore and build on their individual abilities, interests, and experiences”, the recent curriculum review decision seems to contradict this. 

What is core curriculum anyhow?

The elective decision also raises the question of what is ‘core’ curriculum. A blanket rule with this decision was that all languages were to be retained. The result of this is that some subjects with very low enrolments are protected (such as Sanskrit), whilst subjects with large enrolments (Physical Activity and Sports Studies – CEC) are potentially listed as electives to be ‘cleared out’. The weight of evidence supporting the idea that educational outcomes are better for students who have access to a broad curriculum is enormous. Furthermore, it is the students who need it most, who are the ones in danger of missing out. The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Declaration states that students, whilst needing the fundamental skills of literacy and numeracy, also require learning in other domains. The study of elective subjects can contribute to this learning. Often through the well-being and motivational benefits this brings, a student’s overall learning is supported. It is clear that there is an academic hierarchy in NSW; however, a blanket decision to remove electives won’t fix it. A better solution would be using the knowledge of teachers evidenced in designing and writing some of the outstanding Endorsed Courses available for everyone. Philosophy anyone?

Debra Batley is a high school music teacher in North Western NSW. She is a current doctoral student at UNSW and her research area is in educational equity and its interaction with creative arts curriculum. In 2017-2019 with funding from AIS NSW she completed a 2 year long school based research project, examining the impact school based music tuition could have as a remediation tool for older readers who were not meeting stage outcomes. Debra is also the Chair of ASME NSW and is a passionate advocate for high quality music education for all students.

Is this what Dan Tehan means by ‘back to basics’? The Mparntwe Declaration

The Mparntwe Declaration was released at the end of last year.  I do not use the official full title of the document on purpose.  I do this as a final hurrah to 2019, the Year of Indigenous Languages and I do this because, as was pointed out, this was the first time a national education declaration has included Indigenous language in its title. I do this to emphasise that we are on Aboriginal lands first and foremost. 

You would be forgiven for not knowing much about the Mparntwe Declaration as it was revealed with little fanfare in mid-December last year, just as 2019 end of year festivities began, the White Island volcano in New Zealand erupted and an awareness of the horrors of Australia’s bushfires was growing.

But I don’t want the declaration to slip away from public scrutiny before we have had a good look at it and note what is happening. The Mparntwe Declaration is our new national declaration on education in Australia. It sets the national vision and goals for education for all Australians, agreed on by all of the education ministers in Australia. It replaces the Melbourne Declaration which supposedly did the same thing back in 2008.

You have probably already forgotten the turmoil involved, also at the end of 2019, when the latest PISA results were published, just a week before the Mparntwe Declaration was announced. At the time Australian Education Minister, Dan Tehan, told us that “alarm bells should be ringing” over poor student test results and states and territories needed to “get back to basics”.

It is ironic to me just a week later we were provided with a national education policy which simply rephrases and reinstates the old Melbourne Declaration. How can anything change if we are just given a rehash of the same things? Let me explain.  

The goals

As with the Melbourne Declaration, the Mparntwe Declaration has two goals.  Here are the two sets of goals. To me, they are the same goals simply rephrased.

Melbourne Declaration 2008

Goal 1: Australian schooling promotes equity and excellence

Goal 2: All young Australians become successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens

Mparntwe Declaration 2019

Goal 1: The Australian education system promotes excellence and equity

Goal 2: All young Australians become confident and creative individuals, successful lifelong learners, and active and informed members of the community

The ‘elaborations’ which follow each goal are also mostly a rehash. But there are some differences and I found them interesting.

Comparisons of the elaborations of Goal 1

The first elaboration of the first goal in the Melbourne Declaration was to “provide all students with access to high quality schooling that is free from discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy, culture, ethnicity, religion, health or disability, socioeconomic background or geographic location”. It has been extended in the Mparntwe Declaration with an additional bullet point stating another parameter is to “recognize the individual needs of all young Australians, identify barriers that can be addressed, and empower learners to overcome barriers”.

So the social justice agenda found within the Melbourne Declaration is elaborated in the Mparntwe Declaration with additional bullet points on the needs of all young Australians who face disadvantage when engaging and/or accessing education.

If ordering is an indication of priority, we can note that the dot point “ensure that learning is built on and includes local, regional and national cultural knowledge and experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and work in partnership with local communities” has been moved from the second bullet point in the Melbourne Declaration to seventh bullet point in the Mparntwe Declaration. 

Also the emphasis placed in the Melbourne Declaration to “promote high expectations for the learning outcomes of Indigenous students” has been removed from the Mparntwe Declaration and is encompassed within the new bullet point whereby “young Australians of all backgrounds are supported to achieve their full educational potential”

While the silence of the specific references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students may be in effect to address deficit discourses of the previous Melbourne Declaration, the stronghold of colonial norms of deficit remains. 

That is, the Education Council’s website (the website of all education ministers) may well state that “through the Declaration, Australian Governments also renewed their commitment to celebrating and learning from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge and histories and ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are supported to imagine, discover and unlock their potential”, (note the commitment to celebrating and learning from) however newspaper articles across Australia continue to espouse colonial rhetoric by highlighting the OECD pointed out that, in maths and reading, Indigenous students are lagging behind their non-Indigenous counterparts by two-and-a-half years and two-and-a-third-years, respectively.”

Comparisons of the elaborations of Goal 2

Goal 2 has remained essentially the same, although the order in which the previous parameters were stated have changed, as well as an elaboration, and there is a refinement of the key points.  

Within the area of Confident and creative individuals, all of the nine dot points from the Melbourne Declaration have been maintained with the notable addition of ‘imagination’ to the Mparntwe Declaration – “have the imagination, knowledge, skills, understanding and values to establish and maintain healthy, satisfying lives”(my emphasis added). 

Is the inclusion of ‘imagination” here a nod to the Imagination Declaration released in 2019?  The Imagination Declaration is a group declaration by young Indigenous people who had gathered in East Arnhem Land in 2019 for a Youth Forum. It was a message to the Prime Minister and education ministers asking them to “imagine what’s possible” for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth. Famously, the declaration said, “We are not the problem, we are the solution”.

I ‘d like to know the purpose of using this term here in the Mparntwe Declaration. The Oxford dictionary defines imagination as “the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses” or “the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful” – pray then why would people need to form new ideas or be creative when it comes to simply living?

The doom and gloom and neoliberalist ideologies of self-empowerment do not end there, as in addition to the previous Melbourne Declaration bullet points, the Mparntwe Declaration includes the need to be “resilient and develop the skills and strategy […] need[ed] to tackle current and future challenges” as well as to be “able to recognize, adapt to, and manage change” all while “understand[ing our] responsibilities as global citizens and know how to affect positive change [and still] have a sense of belonging, purpose and meaning that enable[s students] to thrive in their learning environment[s]”.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be a shift from engaging with our “Asian neighbours” in the Melbourne Declaration, to engaging with our to “Indo-Pacific neighbours” in the Mparntwe Declaration The change in term of reference from Asia to Indo-Pacific aligns with the joint statement from ASEAN earlier this year. The Mparntwe Declaration seems to be neatening up the edges of policy and ensuring that it is aligned to the changing attitudes of colonial Australia. 

This becomes explicit when we consider that hidden within the rhetoric is also the push for the recognition of colonial Australia and a nod to conservatives by encouraging students to “have an understanding of Australia’s system of government, its histories, religions and culture”.  Not only is the fear of the fall of Western civilization addressed with this simple parameter but also, ensures an easy ride in for the religious discrimination bill currently in its second draft.  

The Mparntwe Declaration’s Commitment to Action section has also remained virtually the same as the Melbourne Declaration but with some distinct exceptions.  Most notably in my field, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education has been singled out from other marginalized groups as a central focus area needing its own commitment.  I have written about the tensions of Indigenous education policy previously in this blog in Words matter: how the latest school funding report (Gonski 2.0) gets it so wrong, and in The Conversation in There’s little reason for optimism about Closing the Gap, despite changes to education targets.

And though I acknowledge the need for a specific target, my fear is it places Indigeneity in a silo rather than recognising the complexity of humans. 

The elaboration of the Commitment to Action in the Mparntwe Declaration on supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learners to reach their potential has drawn from a variety of already existing policies hodge-podged together.  For example, the Vision from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Strategy is present verbatim.  Statements directly from the Melbourne Declaration in the previous Commitment to Action that looked to improve the educational outcomes of Indigenous youth and disadvantaged young Australians have been borrowed.  Other components of this section are the reformation and re-imagining of statements made within the 2019 Closing the Gap: Prime Minister’s Report

More notably, what is the ‘education community’ so consistently referenced in the Mparntwe Declaration? There is no definition of who makes up the ‘community’?  Is this the new term of reference for the stakeholders?  An attempt to remove the perceived commodification and marketisation of education to the notion of a community suggesting a relationship? 

Very little to nothing is new or visionary in the Mparntwe Declaration.  Perhaps this is what is meant by ‘back to basics’?  Rehash what has been said already with some minor changes to address political agendas and then wonder why our educational outcomes are not changing.  

Melitta Hogarth is a Kamilaroi woman who is Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at University of Melbourne.  Prior to entering academia Melitta taught for almost 20 years in all three sectors of the Queensland education system specifically in Secondary education.  Melitta’s interests are in education, equity and social justice.  Her PhD titled “Addressing the rights of Indigenous peoples in education: A critical analysis of Indigenous education policy” was recently awarded the Ray Debus Award for Doctoral Research in Education.