Australian Deans of Science Voice Serious Concerns Regarding Proposed National Science Curriculum for Schools. (October 5, 2010)

Interviewed on the ABC Radio National's Breakfast program John Rice, Honorary Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, and Executive Director of the Australian Council of Deans of Science, told Fran Kelly that the ACDS is not impressed with the proposed national science curriculum for schools.

In the Council's view the hastily drawn up curriculum is unsystematic, incomplete in its coverage and lacks relevance for the current generation of students.

Oh, and just in case the matter had gone unnoticed, the ACDS makes the point that there are currently too few science teachers with the expertise to adequately teach the proposed curriculum.

Click here to listen to the 5-minute interview.

It was a fortnight ago that the ACDS wrote to all ministers of education setting out its concerns that the proposed curriculum does not set out a coherent course of study.

Furthermore, a similar letter had been sent to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority in August in which the ACDS warned the quality of the science course was being "compromised by expediency and political timeframes".

The Australian's Justine Ferrari today reported:

[ACDS President] Rob Norris, wrote to the authority after ACARA officials said there had been "broad agreement" that the revision work was "successfully addressing the majority of issues raised in the consultation feedback".

Professor Norris, science dean at Monash University, said in his letter to ACARA on September 23 that many organisations had raised "significant issues . . . none of which have been satisfactorily addressed" and the draft course failed to live up to the expectations of the initial framing paper released in November 2008.

"(The draft curriculum) appears to have been driven more by expediency and the preconceived ideas of the writers," the letter says.
"It does not set out a coherent scheme of interest drivers engaging students in science, and in particular does not satisfactorily articulate the nature, scope and depth of scientific concepts that students are expected to have acquired.

"This alone allows sufficient ambiguity for different educational jurisdictions, indeed different teachers, to make wide interpretation . . . (nullifying) the stated purposes of a national curriculum."

Professor Norris [also] wrote to education ministers on September 23, saying the initial proposal for the science curriculum was to teach scientific concepts in contemporary issues that engage students, an approach supported by the deans. The original framing paper envisaged teaching scientific concepts through contemporary issues that engage students, but ACDS executive director John Rice said yesterday that aspect of the curriculum was being lost and it read more like a grab bag of topics that had no connection to the underlying scientific concepts.

The deans met ACARA head Barry McGaw [this past] Friday and will provide a more detailed brief of their concerns next week. Professor McGaw said he was confident the gap between the two sides was not as great as it first seemed.

A spokesman for Mr Garrett said the quality of the national curriculum was paramount and ACARA "needs to be allowed the time to do this work and get it right".

And with it all the chronic shortage of qualified and inspirational teachers remains in effect dismissed as if were non-existent.