Interview - Australia Today with Steve Price
STEVE PRICE:
News this morning that there will be an overhaul of the national school curriculum. I mean, I must be having a sense of déjà vu because we've been down this track many times before, the Federal Education Minister is Alan Tudge. I'm pleased to say he's on the line.
Minister, how are you?
ALAN TUDGE:
G'day, Steve. How’s it going?
STEVE PRICE:
Oh, how many times have we redone the curriculum, do you reckon, in your political career alone, Alan?
ALAN TUDGE:
Well, I mean, the national curriculum only got introduced actually by Julia Gillard. And this is the first time that the national curriculum has been reviewed in six years. So, it's timely to have a look at it again. It sets the overall standards upon which then each state and territory fills in the details.
STEVE PRICE:
Knowing that you’re a results-driven person the thing that, when you took over as Education Minister, you must have had in your mind was those international surveys that are done that shows that our reading, writing and mathematics proficiency is not increasing and improving year-on-year against benchmark other countries like the Singapores of the world. That must be something you want to lift. Is this going to do it?
ALAN TUDGE:
That is exactly the central challenge in schooling today, is the fact that our standards have declined quite markedly over the last 20 years, despite the fact we've had a massive increase in school funding. From a school funding perspective, a kid today has 60 per cent more resources allocated to them than they did 20 years ago in real terms, and yet their standards are about a year behind where say a 15-year-old was. A 15-year-old today compared to a 15-year-old 20 years ago, is a year behind. That's not good enough. We have to reverse this.
STEVE PRICE:
What do you put that down to?
ALAN TUDGE:
There's a few things. I think there's been a lot of education fads come into the classroom over the last 20 years. For example, we've had the whole language movement rather than teaching phonics. Now, whole language is when you look at a picture and you see the word cat and you try to say, “oh, that must be cat”, versus sounding it out cuh – aa – tuh. Finally, this is coming back to have some common sense again in terms of, of course, kids learn to read by decoding the alphabet. We've had this child-centred learning movement occur, which has no evidence base, rather than explicit teaching, i.e. the teacher actually teaching the kids what to do. These things are now, sort of, trending back. I'm certainly using my influence and the authority that I have to insist that evidence-based practises be brought back.
STEVE PRICE:
I mean, obviously, there's not a one size fits all. I mean, I've got two girls in their early 20s who obviously five years ago finished Year 12 and then went on, one went on to uni, both went on to university. They were both taught to spell phonically, one can and could and prospered with it. The other one struggled.
ALAN TUDGE:
You need a bit of both. The evidence will say that a teacher needs to have both the ability to teach the whole language, as well as phonics up their sleeve. But certainly for those kids who are struggling, phonics is critical and the evidence is categorical on this. And in fact, it was categorical from 15 years ago after the national reading inquiry in the United States and after the federal national reading inquiry. Some teachers, though, were never taught this. They were never taught how to teach phonics. To the extent, Steve, and this, in some respects, is quite pleasing - La Trobe University here in Melbourne just started a short course on how to teach phonics - it’s just for existing teachers to do. They had a thousand applications straight away, from teachers who had never been taught how to teach phonics before, which is just an indictment of the teacher education faculties, frankly, but it's also a good thing that teachers want to learn this.
STEVE PRICE:
Some of the reporting today, I think you believe may have jumped the gun a little bit. I hope I’m not misquoting you there. But Natasha Bita in The Courier Mail today says Year 1 students will no longer be taught to tell the time on a clock with hands or to use fractions, waiting until Year 2 when they are more conceptually ready. Really?
ALAN TUDGE:
This draft curriculum has been put out by ACARA, who is a joint state-federal body. They do the work independently of ministers, initially, but with some guidelines. They’ve put out this draft curriculum for consultation with the public. When it comes up to me for ministerial approval, along with the other state and territory ministers, I'm certainly going to be looking for things such as the curriculum being decluttered, for standards to be higher or evidence-based practices to be part of it. They're the things that I'll be looking for.
I read this particular example this morning, Steve, and I must say, I was perplexed by that as to why that would be delayed. I see that teaching of the times table is proposed to be delayed to grade four rather than grade three, which perplexes me. But there's some other very positive things in there in terms of some of the more explicit teaching of mathematical concepts, for example, coming in a little bit earlier. The study of language to actually be focused more on the acquisition of the language rather than analysing cultural differences with English. So, it’s some of those that are sort of good developments.
STEVE PRICE:
It's funny, though, isn't it, when you think about these things practically, you know, I think about my own house now. And you and I grew up in different generations, but you're a bit older than my children, a lot older than my children. But we always had clocks in the house. I reckon if you look around a lot of houses now, there wouldn't be a clock on the wall because everyone tells the time off their phone.
ALAN TUDGE:
Yeah. That's a good point, too. That's a very good point.
STEVE PRICE:
There isn’t clocks there. I’m in a room now, there's no clock.
ALAN TUDGE:
I've got a little boy who's in prep and he's been taught how to read the time.
STEVE PRICE:
Well, the only time he'd be saying is, “dad, it's time to go out in the park and kick the footy.” He wouldn't be caring what time it was on the clock.
ALAN TUDGE:
They’re getting taught that pretty early, though. So, you're right about that. Although, there's obviously, with watches, I mean, these days’ people are bringing back the old-fashioned watches, Steve.
STEVE PRICE:
That's true.
Can I ask you just quickly, I know you’ve got to rush - bringing back foreign students, I mentioned earlier in the week there was a plan that James Merlino, the acting Premier of Victoria, has put to the Federal Government. I think there's more advanced plans because I was talking to Phil Honeywood, who's obviously working in the area of trying to get the foreign students back. We all want that that to happen for the economy. There are more advanced plans, it seems, in New South Wales than there are in Victoria.
Are you looking at putting in place a scheme that can reboot what was, I think, either the third or fourth largest export we have in the economy, export earner we have in the economy?
ALAN TUDGE:
We would like to see international students back and we've asked the states and territories to develop quarantine plans for the return of international students. But importantly, those plans must be for quarantine beds, above and beyond those which are set aside for returning Australians, because returning Australians are our priority.
STEVE PRICE:
So, you’re not going to fill Howard Springs up with returning foreign students?
ALAN TUDGE:
No, we're not going to do that. They will have to come up with plans, if they do, with arrangements which are in addition to those for returning Australians. That's a very clear criteria which we have set. Plus, they must have their Chief Medical Officer sign the fact that it meets all of their health conditions and is safe and so that the virus cannot escape there, because we know what happens if the virus escapes from hotel quarantine, particularly from a Victorian perspective.
So, they’re the two preconditions. There are some other conditions as well, but they're the two main ones. Victoria is the first that has put something to me. They just did so a couple of days ago. We're looking closely at that; we want to review it.
We're going to be very cautious in this regard. Because, yes, we could bring back some international students, but if the virus gets out in the process, then it has a very, very significant impact on both our society and our economy. We certainly don't want to see further lockdowns like we've had in the past.
STEVE PRICE:
Certainly, don't want to do that in Victoria again, do we, Alan?
ALAN TUDGE:
No, no.
STEVE PRICE:
Thank you very much for your time, Minister. Have a great day.
ALAN TUDGE:
Thanks very much, Steve.
[ENDS]