Response to Australian Curriculum – Cross Curriculum Priorities consultation draft
Submitted by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) in partnership
with and on behalf of:

Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD)

Catholic Education Commission Victoria (CECV)

Independent Schools Victoria
Date submitted: 10 November 2011
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1. Introduction
The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), in partnership with the
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD), the Catholic
Education Commission Victoria (CECV) and Independent Schools Victoria, welcomes
the opportunity to provide comment on the Australian Curriculum – Cross
Curriculum Priorities consultation draft.
This response is informed by consultation undertaken with Victorian stakeholders in
relation to the Sustainability and Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia
priorities, and with the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc. (VAEAI) and
Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages (VACL) in relation to the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders, histories and cultures priority.
Victoria strongly supports the inclusion of these priorities in the Australian
Curriculum. These priorities highlight knowledge and skills that is crucial for all young
Australians, and illustrate how learning can be integrated across the subjects to
enable and ensure students connect their learning with important issues in
contemporary society. As VAEAI note in their independent submission:
[The] mandatory inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI)
perspectives in the education of all Australian children … will be an integral
step towards reconciliation and addressing Indigenous disadvantage …
engagement with the world’s oldest continuous living culture enriches the
ability of all learners to participate positively to the ongoing development of
Australia.
We support the curriculum design that positions these priorities not as separate
areas of learning, but as integral to the learning areas of the Australian Curriculum. A
key test, therefore, of the curriculum is that there should no curriculum content
located under the cross curriculum priorities that is additional to the curriculum
content defined in the learning ares.
2. Key issues
The organising ideas for each priority do present a cohesive description of each Cross
Curriculum Priority.
However, three are three key issues that we believe warrant further attention.
The first is that a list of the key skills and knowledge associated with each of the
priorities that it is essential every young Australian should acquire should be
developed and used to audit the existing curriculum to determine either (a) whether
these areas of key skills and knowledge have been included in the content of the
learning areas or (b) whether they should be included in the content of the learning
areas still to be developed.
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The second relates to the use of icons to signify the place of the priorities across the
curriculum. The use of icons in their current form leads to a highly superficial,
tokenistic approach where an icon appears next to particular word or phrase within
a curriculum area or strand instead of being associated with deeper skills. For
example, in Science the sustainability icon appears with content where the term
ecosystem or earth is used but not against predictions, data collection and analysis,
all of which are key skills necessary for students to develop in order to be able to
engage in the crucial issues associated with sustainabilitiy. A more judicious
placement of icons or other form of linkage is required to reflect how the Cross
Curriculum Priorities are linked to the curriculum content, with an explanation that
the placement of the icons provides examples rather than a comprehensive coverage
of the skills and knowledge associated with each priority.
The third is the key issue raised in the VAEAI response in relation to the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders, histories and cultures priority, that is, that:
much of the vocabulary used within the draft priorities information presents
Indigenous Australians and their cultures as exotic and/or primitive and,
therefore, as ‘other’. Presenting any group of peoples in this way is a form of
subordination, and functions to exclude ATSI peoples from mainstream society.
‘Othering’ also perpetuates the creation and maintenance of an ideology of race
that that contributed to the justification of the behaviours of European
colonisers towards Indigenous peoples.
We support the recommendation that the language used to describe this priority be
modified to acknowledge the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
histories, cultures and perspectives alongside the other histories, cultures and
perspectives that together constitute contemporary Ausralia, without positioning
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, histories and cultures as ‘exotic’ or ‘primitive’.
3. Detailed recommendations:
Revisions to Organising Ideas
(a) Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia
OI
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2
5
Feedback
Reference to ‘countries’ here is
limiting.
Diversity of languages and cultural
(and influences on cultures) within
particular Asian countries is not
evident
The use of the terms ‘environment’
and ‘influence’ requires clarification.
Suggested change
Replace with ‘cultures’ to encompass
the diversity that occurs within a
country/region.
Use a glossary to indicate that
languages and cultural can include
political, linguistic or geographic
Use a glossary to indicate
that
environments can include economic,
social or physical, and that influence
can refer to local or global dimensions
The use of the term ‘good’ is not Replace ‘good’ with ‘active’ and/or
appropriate.
‘informed’ or ‘responsible’
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(b) Sustainability
OI
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Comment
Recommendation
For OI 1-4 if term system(s) used then Definition of what a ‘system’ is and
title needs changing
how it relates to sustainability is
required. This would assist with the
choice of a more suitable heading for
the set of organising ideas 1-4.
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Use of term ‘connected’
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5
6
7
8
9
10
Replace
‘connected’
with
‘interdependence’
Use of term ‘closely related’
Replace ‘closely related’ with
‘interdependence’
World view is a dated term
Replace world view with global
view/perspective
As printed this is a restatement of OI5 Remove
Include maintain and promote with
‘intervene’ and add ‘cultural’
What are ‘products’?
Add ‘consume’ and ‘services’
Use glossary to provide examples of
‘products’
OI9 an OI10 are very similar and are Add ‘services’ and ‘technology’ to
not related to futures
provide a futures focus
remove
(c) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, histories and cultures
We note and broadly support the recommendations made in the VAEI response, in
particular that caution should be used to ensure that exercises related to the use of
statistical data do not position Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples as
scientific or mathematical ‘curiosities’, and that the specific knowledge of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australian society that students should develop
should be more clearly specified.
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