Two contrasting Australian Curriculum responses to globalisation: what students should learn or become

Abstract

This paper compares two contrasting educational policy responses to globalisation in Australia: the ‘New Basics’ experiment that occurred in the State of Queensland (2000–2003) and the Australian Curriculum, which is currently being implemented across the nation from preschool to Year 10 in English, history, mathematics and science. These initiatives illustrate the tensions that have continued to mount during the last decade over answers to the question of ‘what counts’ as the most valuable knowledge and/or skills needed to negotiate the complexities of a rapidly globalising world. Illustrating one international trend of favouring the development of competencies and dispositions, the New Basics project abandoned traditional school subjects for futures oriented, ‘real-world’ learning. The Australian Curriculum demonstrates a strong return to ‘the disciplines’, partly as a local backlash against experiments like the New Basics and Outcomes Based Education, but also motivated by the desire to improve the nation's performance on international tests; however, via its framework of ‘cross-curriculum priorities’ and ‘general capabilities’, the Australian Curriculum also pays heed to the rhetoric of shaping the individual as the kind of person with the skills and dispositions required by the global millennium citizen and worker.

Keywords:

• globalisation
• national curriculum
• discipline-based
• New Basics
• capabilities
• accountability

Acknowledgements

The research upon which this paper is based has been developed from an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded Discovery Project (DP1094850), Schooling the nation in an age of globalization: national curriculum, accountabilities and their effects.

Notes

1 Labor was in political power in Queensland, 1989–2012, apart from a short Conservative interregnum of the Borbidge government, 1996–1998.

2 The QSRLS was commissioned during the Borbidge government to evaluate the impact of school-based management (Leading Schools) on equity and student learning. The election of Beattie Labor in 1998 saw this government abolish Leading Schools, but continue support for this research (costing $1.3 million), which evolved into a mapping of classroom practices and their effects on student learning.

3 It is interesting that Australia's apparently declining performance on PISA 2009 caused national political panic with the then Prime Minister establishing a target enschrined in legislation that Australia be back in the top five of performers by 2025, a goal supported by the new Conservative Federal Minister (see Sellar & Lingard, 2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bob Lingard

Bob Lingard works in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, Australia. His most recent book (2014) is Politics, Policies and Pedagogies in Education (London: Routledge).

Glenda McGregor

Glenda McGregor is a senior lecturer in the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University, Australia. Her most recent book (2014) co-authored with Martin Mills is Re-engaging Young People in Education (London: Routledge).