Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 3:37:15 to 3:43:50
ACARA outlines the development of curriculum changes regarding Islamophobia and the process for interim curriculum reviews.
Topics: Education, Social cohesion
Speakers: Mr. Stephen Gniel, Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Senator Marielle Smith, Unknown Speaker
Steven Neil. Um I note you've distributed an opening statement. Are you happy for that to sit as read or would you like to provide anything else?
>> Uh no, I'm happy to go straight to questions, Senator, given the time and those things. Very happy.
>> Thank you. Um in which case I'm coming to Senator O. Sullivan.
Thank you for your opening statement. I'll look at that in a second. Um,
>> What did I do? Three
>> and maybe my questions might be uh
>> there's only >> there's only a couple of uh
>> It's possible some of my questions are covered by your statement, but uh so forgive me. I'm obviously having a chance to read. No problem. And >> it's just been handed to us. The >> I want to ask about the Islamophobia curriculum changes. The minutes of the Islamophobia Education Task Force show that in August it asked AAR to draft terms of reference for review of the national curriculum on racial and religious tolerance and that in September it agreed those draft terms of reference should go to the education minister's meeting. Has the public been consulted at all on those terms of reference?
>> No. And on the terms of reference, they mainly came from the Australian government's response to the special envoys uh report.
>> Will they be will the public be consulted
>> on the terms of reference? No, there's not a plan to consult um broadly with the public on the terms of reference themselves. Um once we um should we be uh approved to do that work uh then we would uh as we normally do go quite widely with who we talk to um as we've done with the anti-semitism and
>> so there's that commitment there that any changes to the curriculum would go through the usual >> AARA curriculum review procultation with with and seek feedback from the public.
>> Not no not to the general public. We don't usually with these what are called interim reviews. So these are the short um uh timeframe ones. So we'll be asked to do that uh quite rapidly. We only had I think it was ended up being seven or eight months to do the anti-semitism work and of course you'll understand why that was a priority um to in terms of timeline. So I'd expect that we'll be given a a short time frame and put up a short time frame for this work as well given the importance of getting that uh in place. Um and then as I said we'll certainly be working across um different communities and consultation approaches but it won't be a um the the full curriculum review consultation I think you're alluding to which was in the last one was that 2020 to 2022
>> 20 Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Few years ago. Uh right. So what what prevents you even from having a a short period of consultation?
>> Uh it's not part of the process that we've uh put forward in terms of iterative reviews at the moment um to go to public consultation in terms of the uh yeah the level of detail around that. Remembering these are not um reviews in the same way that we would look across all curriculum areas and in detail about um uh each of the learning areas. These ones are really looking for where can we strengthen uh particular components of that. So they can be uh new content but they can also be um a more focused uh content about those specific issues. Um so uh you'll you'll know that for anti-semitism for example it was making sure that we were very clear about a rejection of all forms of anti-semitism. We'd expect that there in a the racial and religious tolerance one as well that we'd be uh looking at similar uh types of um reviewing of that curriculum and making sure that it's fit for purpose particularly with what we're seeing occurring in the community and what um you know the curriculum and education uh can play a part of um you know building that type of community and society that we all want to live in.
>> And um will the terms of reference be
>> uh so following minister's approval uh those will uh be put onto the AARA website and that's that's a yeah a normal practice. Senator,
>> do the draft terms of reference include any anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Arab racism as well as uh
Islamophobia? No, not in in those particular words, but it does talk about the broader um hate um and racism more broadly, but no, not in those particular terms.
>> And when do you expect to see those uh curriculum changes rolled out assuming they are adopted?
>> Yeah. So, look, we're I think on the timeline that we're putting to ministers, we'd be going back to them um at a similar time next year. So um and then in terms of the roll out that becomes a a matter that we discuss with the states and territories who take that responsibility for that implementation. Um of course Carl will have it ready for those um states and territories to implement as soon as possible.
>> What do what do you expect that our
Uh well it's a matter for the review I guess Senator but um what we what we already know is that the Australian curriculum uh has a strength of that developmental um approach to learning across from the very early years and in fact it builds on the early year or the early years learning framework that's used in the in the in the child care sector and in preschools across the country um which starts with that understanding of self family um and their own um identity and their place uh in the world and then builds all the way through and in um in the more senior years uh senator is uh you'd understand but also have probably can remember um that's when you start really introducing students to um more challenging topics should I say I might be taking you back um but uh yeah so it's a developmental approach so you know you don't uh start with you know five and six year olds talking about um the hate part of this you talk about respect um and you build from there about understanding others um things like taking turns uh all of those sort of things are embedded within the Australian curriculum as exists