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Government in the rundown to the end-of-year federal election” (Milne & Passmore, 2007, p.
20).
This section on national curriculum has highlighted some of the debates from the period
beginning 2006, as a way to contextualise the broader impacts of the history/culture wars on
education, and more specifically, the History curriculum in schools. Any national curriculum
of history, or more realistically an insistence of a requirement for funding that the states adopt
a compulsory, discreet and separate History curriculum can be seen as a failure of the John
Howard government to implement. Although funding was linked to a very hasty adjustment
of student achievements’ reporting, which all the states complied with; the History
curriculum (whether separate or as part of the SOSE KLA) remained unchanged throughout
the time it entered sustained public interest in the mid 2000s. Linking of a History curriculum
to funding was an issue others thought would happen, with Salusinszky writing one week
prior to the national history summit,
Bishop wants compulsory, stand-alone history subjects from kindergarten to Year 10,
with Australian history the focus in the final two years. If the states hear the message,
well and good. If not, it will be amplified through the megaphone of the next
quadrennial education funding agreement, which will deliver them about $40 billion
of commonwealth money. Just as it has with report cards and flagpoles in school
grounds, the Howard Government is prepared to micro-manage the way state
education systems do history. (2006, p. 25)
A1.9 Queensland Contexts: Historical Background of Development of SOSE
Curriculum framing document, The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals of Schooling in
the Twenty-first Century (commonly known as The Adelaide Declaration) (MCEETYA,
1999) superseded the previous agreement, the Hobart Declaration of Schooling (MCEETYA,
1989); which was an attempt by the Education Ministers of Australia’s states and territories
under the direction of the Commonwealth Government to provide “a framework for
cooperation between schools, states, territories and the Commonwealth” (MCEETYA, 1989,
p. 2) and in doing so provide common elements in school curriculum across the various
education jurisdictions. The Adelaide Declaration developed these statements further, with
agreed curriculum and other education goals for all states. This Declaration saw all states and
territories agree to collaborate on a number of national schooling goals.
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