Review Order On School Subjects
The Age
Tuesday May 12, 1998
A review of Victoria's prep to year 10 curriculums has been ordered to determine whether schools should be forced to allocate set amounts of time for key subjects.
The review, to be headed by a Catholic education official, Ms Susan Pascoe, will identify priority subjects, such as literacy, numeracy, science, civics and information technology for students of different ages.
The Education Minister, Mr Phil Gude, has written to the chairman of the Victorian Board of Studies, Professor Kwong Lee Dow, outlining the terms of reference for the curriculum standards framework (CSF) review, which will be completed by the end of 1999. A progress report is expected later this year.
The review will affect almost 790,000 state, Catholic and independent students and is the first significant reform of the Victorian curriculum since the CSF policy framework was introduced in 1994-95.
Despite the review, it is expected that the CSF structure, which is based on the eight key learning areas of the arts, English, health and physical education, languages other than English, mathematics, science, studies of society and the environment, and technology will remain unchanged.
The CSF sets out curriculum requirements, specifying what students should be learning and the skills they should have attained. Only physical education and languages other than English have a mandated number of hours. The revised curriculum would be in place for the beginning of the 2000 school year, when the changes recommended by last year's review of the Victorian Certificate of Education are to be implemented.
A copy of Mr Gude's letter, obtained by The Age, says the review should consider "benchmarking" the key curriculum areas of English, mathematics, science, civics and information technology against "national and international best practice".
"The review should examine the ways in which elements of the CSF can be simplified to assist schools to achieve greater consistency of teacher judgment and clarity in reporting student achievement," the letter says. "It has become increasingly obvious that there is a need to set priorities among the many competing demands of the curriculum.
"It is desirable that action be taken quickly to alleviate teacher workload pressures and to ensure that schools clearly understand the priority to be given to literacy and numeracy, science, civics and information technology.
"I request both immediate consideration of the problems associated with the 'crowded curriculum' and a longer-term, critical appraisal and redevelopment of the CSF."
Professor Lee Dow said the review was timely because of concerns that schools were trying to do too much and that this was having a detrimental effect on student learning.
THE ROAD TO LEARNING
* Review to identify priority subjects from prep to year 10
* To be completed by the end of 1999, introduced in 2000
* More subjects may get compulsory allocations of time
* 790,000 students to be affected
* Eight key learning areas likely to be retained
© 1998 The Age