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This speech was given by Associate Professor Geoff Riordan at the recent UTS/Daily Telegraph Education Forum in response to the ACER report on the proposal to introduce an Australian Certificate of Education. The forum speakers were: Hon Julie Bishop Federal Minister of Education, Science and Training, UTS Associate Professor Geoff Riordan, Professor Gordon Stanley of the NSW Board of Studies, and Macquarie University’s Professor George Cooney.

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A RESPONSE TO THE PROPOSAL TO DEVELOP A NEW AUSTRALIAN CERTIFICATE OF EDUCATION

By Associate Professor Geoff Riordan
UTS Faculty of Education


In 1999 internationally renowned professor of education, Michael Fullan wrote

“I have made the case elsewhere that the problem is not the absence of reform, but rather the presence of too many ad hoc, uncoordinated innovations and policies. Schools and school systems that are most effective do not take on the sheer most number of innovations - they are instead selective, integrative and focused.” (Fullan, 1999)

As welcome a move to a more national approach to credentialing is, it needs to be integrated with a national curriculum and not added as a 10th certificate or layered over the top of existing arrangements.

Therefore while I agree with the implicit acknowledgement of the need for a single national approach to curriculum and assessment evident in the ACER report, to my mind it is neither bold nor ambitious enough. It may, if implemented, act as a further obstacle to the longer term goal of re-engineering the system of curriculum, assessment and credentialing, that has emerged incrementally from the single system that was developed in the 1850s and found its full expression in the Public Instruction Act of 1880.

The current system bears all the marks and wounds of a system that has emerged over time rather than one that has been carefully planned. Despite the numerous examples of co-operation and collaboration among the states and commonwealth, there are many more examples of inefficiency, waste, opportunistic politicking and dysfunction.

This presentation will sketch the case for a single national system of curriculum development, assessment and certification – an Australian curriculum; comment on the possible objections and obstacles to an Australian curriculum and how these might be addressed; outline some key issues that will need to be addressed in the design and implementation of such a Curriculum and then refer to each of the six recommendations of the ACE report in terms of how they may help or hinder the Australian Curriculum. Through each of these, the argument will be developed that unless the ACE is part of a larger, well planned and resourced Australian Curriculum, the introduction of the ACE, as proposed should be treated with caution.

1. The Case for an Australian Curriculum

An options paper published by ACER in 2005 included the following:

1. the difficulties highlighted by students and families who move between states and territories during the final years of school.

2. A 2003 DEST survey concluded that 88 per cent of parents support ‘national school qualifications’, and 86 per cent support ‘standard tertiary entrance requirements across Australia’.

3. Employers also have promoted greater national consistency in education and training, and there is evidence that some employers find differences between current state certificates confusing.

4. Within the existing eight senior certificates, there are differences in requirements for the completion of the certificate, syllabuses, assessment procedures, the ways in which results are reported, and terminology. Current differences across jurisdictions make the comparison of student results and achievement standards difficult. Different schemes for reporting student achievement (scores, grades, achievement bands) make comparisons especially difficult. At the present time it is not possible to compare results in particular subjects (e.g., chemistry, Japanese) from one state/territory to another, although a statistical process is used to make tertiary entrance ranks directly comparable from one jurisdiction to another

5. Is there a need for seven different senior school physics syllabuses and their seven different sets of assessment procedures?

6. Are state-based differences in syllabuses and assessment methods a response to the different needs of students in different states/territories? Or do they reflect different philosophical positions and the influence of particular individuals and committees that have operated in each jurisdiction over time?

7. . . . with Australia now offering senior certificates in an international market through the enrolment of international students in Australia and by offering certificates off-shore, an Australian ‘brand’ for senior secondary education would improve the country’s position in an expanding international education marketplace, including the higher education marketplace.

These same arguments apply to an ACE, but they are actually arguments for an Australian Curriculum.

I have serious reservations though about the appropriateness of achieving an Australian curriculum through introducing an ACE at the end of schooling. This should not be an assessment or certificate led initiative.

Such an approach would be easy to do badly, but arguably impossible to do properly!

This is because there is uniform agreement in curriculum design – among expert practitioners and among theoreticians, that certification, assessment, pedagogy and curriculum structure and design are all interconnected. Overlaying the credentialing, without redesigning the rest of the package is a fraught task.

In addition to these benefits quoted above from the Report– a single national approach to curriculum development, student assessment and credentialing – the Australian Curriculum, would provide numerous other benefits, including:

1. With the economies of scale provided by a national curriculum, the capacity to better resource curriculum through the provision of high quality multimedia, text and other teaching and learning resources due to an Australia-wide market for such resources,

2. The capacity of universities and other registered providers to better provide quality ongoing professional development for practicing teachers

3. A clearer focus for education research into teaching and learning leading to the greater efficacy of research and its contributions to a world class research based curriculum and pedagogy

4. A more open market for employers and more career opportunities for teachers

5. Better quality teacher education and greater innovation with quality courses being sought after by students across the nation. This would lead to the development of world class Education Faculties in Australia.

6. Higher quality curriculum and assessment being available to students in all states through the national pooling of expertise and through this expertise, limiting the likelihood of the “theory-wars” that occasionally occur in state curriculum bodies resulting in collateral damage in the form of ill-conceived curriculum that is out of step with community and

7. More efficient use of human and financial resources – in the provision of a uniformly high quality school education – as the ACE report notes in its introduction “there is significant duplication of effort across bodies responsible for senior curricula and assessment. It is not difficult to imagine ways in which less duplication and more collaboration could lead to more efficient uses of national resources.” (p. iii)

What is being proposed is a major national infrastructure project to provide for the sustainable and effective development of Australia’s human capital.

2. Opposition and Obstacles to an Australian Curriculum

Opposition to an Australian Curriculum would cite any number of objections:
- the legal, constitutional constraints
- the complexity of re-engineering the existing curriculum approaches toward a national curriculum
- the potential for the concentration of power with the national minister
- difficulties of resourcing such an approach – particularly if the States fund a system that the commonwealth, through the Minister, directs
the potential for an Australian Curriculum to stifle experimentation, diversity and innovation.

Regarding the legal impediments to an Australian Curriculum – a couple of comments, the first on the Constitution.

The So-called Constitutional Barrier

We all know that the states have responsibility for school education. There would appear to me to be no reason why, though, the States and Commonwealth, by mutual agreement could not support the Commonwealth assuming responsibility for the Australian Curriculum. There is a precedent for this. In 1942 the Commonwealth Government began collecting all income tax on a uniform basis throughout Australia, and granting much of this revenue to the States and Territories. Much – according to the commonwealth treasury website, and not Michael Costa in NSW - of the tax collected by the Commonwealth is then distributed to the States to use. (1.)

This approach would not prohibit the states, at some point in the future, withdrawing from such agreement. Rather than a weakness with this approach, the power of a state to opt-out may be a strength as it could provide an incentive to achieve agreement among stakeholders rather than, as some states may fear, the Commonwealth exercising too great a power in this area, or conversely, not delivering quality outcomes. To my mind this is in keeping with the guiding principles of the Federation: the check and balance of respective powers and responsibilities.

A more formal way of achieving the same end may be provided through the existing referral powers of the constitution. Under the referral powers at Section 51 of the constitution, the commonwealth can legislate in areas that are referred to it by the States.

Finally, the corporations powers that have recently been evoked to enable the commonwealth to legislate in industrial relations and the administration of universities could be invoked. As stakeholders in school education, business and even, arguably universities, have commercial interests in the provision of a uniform quality system of curriculum, assessment and certification.

For the legal and constitutional constraints to be addressed, the plan for an Australian Curriculum will need to be developed so as not to draw out protectiveness from states, or give rise to the “politics of defensiveness” that is occasionally evident in education policy discussions between the Commonwealth, the States and the various non-government school educators.

The Exaggeration of Local Responsiveness as a Justification for Diverse Curriculums

Proponents of state-based curriculum development and assessment claim that current arrangements are necessary to address local needs and to attend to local contexts.

To the extent that curriculum ought to be responsive to the local context – and by curriculum I mean generally, the aims / outcomes, content and assessment, as opposed to the pedagogical character of school teaching and learning that is specific to each classroom - I am yet to hear a persuasive argument that the curriculum design itself could not provide reasonable accommodations for such differences. Examples of the accommodations that may be made in geography, history, economics, business studies, legal studies or any one of the numerous social science and humanities subjects offered in schools include topics and units of work that involve close study of the local social, economic, historical and physical environment. This is curriculum design 101, it is not an insurmountable obstacle.

What the ACER report by Geoff Masters and colleagues found was that:

Senior secondary arrangements of the future also must allow the development of local curriculum solutions. Diversity of provision, innovation and experimentation will be important not only in meeting local student needs, but also in ensuring continuous improvement in curricula, teaching and learning. An Australian Certificate of Education must provide a framework within which diversity, innovation and local responsiveness are possible and encouraged. Nevertheless, our analyses of existing senior secondary arrangements have convinced us that many current differences across Australia are difficult to explain or justify. It is clear that present differences between states and territories do not reflect differences in student needs and are not always in students’ best interests. In some cases these differences—for example, differences in the ways in which results are reported in different states and territories—may disadvantage some students.

The remaining objections and obstacles that I have earlier outlined I would like to address by outlining a way forward to an Australian Curriculum.

Methodology for a New Approach to Curriculum Determination and Student Certification

1. Arms length independence of the key stakeholders
The ACER report proposes a national standards body with a Board of Directors appointed by the Minister for Ed, Science and Training. Along the lines of the NSW Education Act regarding the Board of Studies, the Board should advise the minister or ministers and if the advice is not heeded, the reasons for this should be explained to parliament.

2. In setting up the board, there is a strong need to get the balance right between experts and broader stakeholders. Such a Board should not be comprised entirely of representatives or delegates of various interest and lobby groups, but rather, it should be an expert board formed through individual nomination. The remaining Board positions should be filled by representatives from bodies such as ACACA. ACACA is the national body for the chief executives of the statutory bodies in the Australian States and Territories and in New Zealand responsible for certificates of senior secondary education. ACACA provides a national means for monitoring and enhancing developments in senior secondary curriculum and certification.

3. Realistic Time lines for the introduction of new curriculum

4. Realistic time-lines to allow the provision of practical support and resources to promote curriculum innovation

A comment on this - The current much publicized case of the changes to the curriculum in Western Australia is instructive on this matter. Teachers, parents and numerous social commentators have been criticizing curriculum changes in WA. The WA government says that they are responding to international best practice in adopting an “outcomes-based” curriculum. Draft exam papers for the new syllabuses have been condemned. Teachers are refusing to implement the new senior school courses. Newspaper editors are decrying the apparent absence of content in the curriculum, and the apparent domination of so-called “sociological” focus of the English literature courses. The merits or otherwise of the new curriculum aside, this case highlights two key aspects of how not to do wholesale curriculum change – the first is don’t implement a top down approach to curriculum unless it is informed by the views of the experts who have to implement it, and second, don’t rush reform. It needs to be supported by professional development and the development of resources.

5. Focused evaluation research of curriculum changes – getting at data that allow for the identification of causal relations about what works - a research program to ameliorate the “provider capture” of influential lobbies who may seek to exert inappropriate ideological influence over an Australian Curriculum.

6. Life-long Learning and New Pathways into Professional Preparation
The aim of an Australian Curriculum should be that it cater for universal participation in the senior years of schooling. There is increasing evidence that the pathway to various professions is going to be through a general undergraduate degree with a graduate entry, profession-specific course leading to qualification in areas such as law, medicine, nursing, teaching, engineering and so forth. By moving the high stakes selection point to later in a person’s academic career, differences due to the quality of schooling and social contextual factors are likely to be further ameliorated. As this becomes the norm, there will be less pressure on the Australian curriculum to cover content and a more concerted effort made to toward developing the myriad of learning, vocational and civic literacies that Australia needs.

7. Leadership
All the obstacles and difficulties that challenge the achievement of an Australian Curriculum get to one key factor - LEADERSHIP.

While what I propose is difficult and would represent an enormous challenge, I believe that a bolder national vision and committed leadership from both the States and the Commonwealth could meet these challenges face-on. We need to get beyond the tyranny of public policy making with an eye to the election cycle and instead have the states and commonwealth and also, importantly, the various bodes that provide non-government schooling, demonstrate leadership. The leadership challenge is one of defining a vision and then inspiring support for that vision.

One thing that struck me about this report, and numerous others in recent years, is the extent of consultation that occurred and moreover, the painstaking documentation through the appendices of the Report, of every person and group who contributed or were consulted in the development of the report. This is the current orthodoxy -- and it is a worry on two counts. First it conforms to what Andy Hargreaves has described as a device for achieving contrived consent in support of prefigured recommendations. The second and more worrying issue though is that talking to a lot of people can help you understand the way an issue is perceived, but it doesn’t necessarily point to a clever or wise solution. When I think of two historical reports that have, in my view, been enormously influential, the emphasis of those reviews was not on distilling from consultation the seeds of an inspired recommendation, they were the product of clear and sustained thinking by educational experts who held senior positions in government. Both were former director generals of education and both were acknowledged educational leaders. The first was William Wilkins whose reports into the provision of education in NSW in the mid 1800s led to the development of state education in NSW as it now exists and the second was Sir Harold Wyndham whose report into the provision of secondary schooling recommended the comprehensive high school and the introduction of the HSC.

With no disrespect to ACER and the team headed by Geoff Masters, what they have provided is a wonderfully detailed and nuanced report on the current arrangements in each state and a sense of the aspirations of stakeholders toward a more national approach to schooling. What is needed now is some serious leadership to develop the vision from the sound basis that the ACER team have provided. In providing leadership, the states and commonwealth will also need to be aware, as Michael Fullan has observed, that:

"1. Large-scale change cannot be achieved if teachers identify only with their own classroom, and are not similarly concerned with the success of other teachers and the whole school.
2. Large-scale change cannot be achieved if principals identify only with their own school, and are not similarly concerned with the success of other principals and schools in the district.
3. Large-scale change cannot be achieved if school districts – (here read states and non-government schools and systems)-- identify only with their own (jurisdiction), and are not similarly concerned with the success of other (jurisdictions).
4. Large-scale change cannot be achieved if individual states identify only with their own states, and are not similarly concerned with the success of other states and the country as a whole." (2. p23)

I am aware that there are incentives that make people act more competitively in a win-lose fashion, but my point is that large-scale reform cannot be achieved unless the system promotes commitment in educators and the public, that they are all shareholders with a stake in the success of the system as a whole.

4. The Specific Recommendations of the ACE report

I would like to conclude with a few comments now on the recommendations of the ACE Report in the light of how they may help or hinder the development of an Australian Curriculum

Recommendation 1 That curriculum essentials be identified—at least in some nominated Mathematics, English, Science and Social Science/Humanities subjects— to ensure that all Australian students have opportunities to engage with the fundamental knowledge, principles and ideas that make up these disciplines. Essential elements of subject curricula should be identified by national subject panels comprising subject matter and assessment experts and members of the relevant professional subject associations.

A necessary first step – the details of which will be explored later. A better approach might be to select a subject area – say English, -- and through the co-operation of the existing curriculum authorities – develop a single set of K-12 syllabuses.

Recommendation 2: That achievement standards be developed—at least in some nominated English, mathematics, science and social science/humanities subjects— to ensure that students’ results in these subjects can be compared throughout Australia. Achievement standards should be benchmarked internationally and could take the form of A to E grades in a subject.

The establishment of standards alone is not sufficient to ensure a valid and reliable comparison of achievements. This should not be done until the means of assessment against such standards can be assured to be valid and reliable – far more complex a task if each jurisdiction is to undertake such assessment.

Recommendation 3: That, as part of the Australian Certificate of Education, all students undertake a national Key Capabilities Assessment part way through Year 12. This assessment would provide information about a number of capabilities important to life and work beyond school. Students’ results on the Key Capabilities Assessment would be reported alongside their subject results.

There is a compelling logic to having a Key Capabilities Assessment at or close to end of schooling which builds on the existing general skills tests that are currently undertaken. Two problems though are the capacity of such an assessment to add to the already high levels of stress caused to students by the current requirements of the final years of schooling. Students and teachers do not need yet another addition to an already overcrowded senior program of assessment tasks and high stakes tests. If the integrated and holistic approach I am advocating were to emerge then this could be properly and effectively integrated into the senior curriculum – and could therefore report the outcomes of explicit teaching and learning programs.

Recommendation 4: That an ACE Award of Excellence be introduced. This Award would be issued by the Australian Minister for Education, Science and Training to students who meet international standards of excellence in their school subjects and on the Key Capabilities Assessment.

No problem with this – although there is a great deal to be done beforehand.

Recommendation 5: That a national standards body be established. This body would not be an awarding body, but would be responsible for identifying essential curriculum content in nominated school subjects, developing achievement standards and managing the annual Key Capabilities Assessment.

I strongly support the introduction of a national body, but not just a standards body, rather a National Curriculum Body that is responsible for determining an Australian K-12 curriculum. The first task of this body should be designing an implementation plan for a move toward a national curriculum, assessment and curriculum regime. One of the early transition tasks may be the identification of key elements of core curriculum, but this would need to be considered in the context of the broader plan and may not, in the end be a necessary step in such a process. I liken the task ahead of such a body to that of a major engineering project, such as the building of the Harbour Tunnel. The new curriculum system and structure will need to develop alongside current arrangements and the introduction of the new system introduced in a phased manner to minimize the disruption to existing arrangements. The experts who would develop such a plan through a national curriculum body are just as likely to conclude that the first site for the phased introduction of an Australian curriculum be the first years of schooling and not the last.

Recommendation 6: That all students in the final years of secondary school be given access to the Australian Certificate of Education. Following agreement to incorporate essential curriculum content in nominated subjects, to report against common achievement standards, and to incorporate the Key Capabilities Assessment, each of the existing senior secondary certificates would be eligible to become the Australian Certificate of Education.

In the context of my earlier comments then, this final recommendation anticipates the outcome of the process I have described and may not, in the end, be the most sensible approach.

Conclusion

As a student of the history of education and education policy in Australia I am impatient with the incremental nature of the inevitable move to more national approach to school education. Some of the changes, and lets hope that the Australian Certificate of Education does not become one of them, may either by design or neglect, make the ultimate goal of a achieving a more efficient and effective integrated, properly funded, high quality Australian Curriculum even more difficult for future generations by deflecting attention and resources away from the larger more important goal. The current system of curriculum development and student assessment is wasteful of the always scarce public resources for education. The relations between the states and the Commonwealth are not as productive as they should be in regards to education policy – there are too often too may examples of dysfunction. What is needed now is leadership by the states and the commonwealth to be exercised toward the development of an Australian curriculum that puts to rest, once and for all a mess of curriculum arrangements that are artifacts of contexts and concepts from 19th century colonial Australia.



1. http://www.ato.gov.au/taxprofessionals/content.asp? doc=/content/tax_history.htm&pc=001/001/002/007/003&mnu=316&mfp=001/005&st=&cy=1

2. Fullan, M. (2000). The return of large scale reform. Journal of Educational Change, Vol 1, 2-28

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