Bishop Wrong-footed By A Class Act

The Age

Thursday June 14, 2007

Jewel Topsfield, Canberra

SOMETIMES it takes a bunch of nerdy kids to ask the hard questions. Like what was Julie Bishop actually on about when she said some themes in school curriculums were straight from Chairman Mao?

The federal Education Minister faced one of her toughest grillings when she lined up yesterday against three teenagers in the recording studio of Canberra's National Museum as part of the Talkback Classroom program. "It does seem to us (that) politicians have turned education into political football," deadpanned 17-year-old Elliot Cameron, of Fort Street High School in NSW, pointing to Ms Bishop's Mao gibe. "Is this rhetoric helpful?"

A bemused Ms Bishop stayed on message. She had looked at courses and exam questions sent in by people "concerned about the kind of ideology steeped in some Australian school subjects". She had commissioned experts to develop a core national curriculum in key subjects.

"Why would the new curriculum be any less tainted by ideology?" shot back Sam Goldsmith, of Masada College, NSW.

Elliot warmed to the ideology theme. He said that in 1996, the Prime Minister criticised the "black armband view of history".

"Isn't teaching pride just as dangerous as teaching shame?" he asked.

Ms Bishop insisted John Howard had been talking about the need for a "sensible centre".

The panel then took questions in the studio, despite Ms Bishop protesting that she had to be back in Parliament.

Ben Duggin, from Canberra College, asked how she would teach the Howard Government era in 30 years. "Would you make relevance to AWB . . . the children overboard, Iraq, or would you say they were the greatest economic managers of this century?"

Ms Bishop replied: "I'm not in the business of trying to rewrite history."

A Government insider later said the questions appeared to have been planted by unions and the NSW curriculum board.