Colleen Harkin Discussing IPA Education Research At Your Service With Mike – Cairns FM 89.1 – 4 April 2025

In this interview, Colleen Harkin appeared on At Your Service with Mike – Cairns FM 89.1 to discuss the IPA’s research into the National Curriculum.

All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.

Below is a transcript of the interview.

Colleen Harkin:

This is a really important thing to understand, is that once a child starts to fall behind, it is very difficult. If we’re being realistic, it is very difficult to get them back up to speed. So if we already have a third of our nation’s eight and nine-year-olds falling behind, we have a very serious problem that needs to be addressed about what are we doing about explicit teaching in the primary school and what foundational building blocks are we giving these children in order to make sure that they don’t fall behind so early in the piece.

Mike Friganiotis:

Yeah. I know this is sort of old school, Colleen, and a lot of parents probably would be aghast to hear it, but is there any benefit in keeping the child back a year to try and catch up that lack of knowledge in those early years?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, it is an old, I’ll call it an old-fashioned view. The reason it went out of flavour was really because, really to my comment that I just made, is that once you fall behind, it’s very difficult to pick up.

Mike Friganiotis:

Indeed.

Colleen Harkin:

And so the real issue is making sure that those children who are between Prep and Grade 3, they are the most crucial years of any child’s development. So making sure that they’re doing the basic maths, basic counting, explicit teaching of phonics. There is no reason for a child to fall behind in the situation that we have in our nation where so much time and money is put into education. There is always going to be a very small percentage of children who won’t meet the benchmarks. But we’re in a situation where a third of our kids are not meeting the benchmark when it really should be a very small handful of children. We could increase our results dramatically just by focusing on the core skills.

Paul Fourdyce:

Yeah, Colleen, it’s Paul. Good morning to you.

Colleen Harkin:

Hi, Paul.

Paul Fourdyce:

Yeah, look, where we are, obviously in Cairns and Far North Queensland, we have a number of discrete Indigenous communities. Particularly up in the Cape area and across Queensland, there’s 19 discrete Indigenous communities. We’re still seeing, not only in those communities but across the state, where enrollments aren’t what they could or should be. So you’ve got kids that are disengaged that aren’t enrolled. And then of course, of those that are enrolled, we see a large degree of truancy; and attendance rates in some locations are extremely poor. Is there any sort of view as to how to get people more enthusiastic about making sure kids are enrolled and engaged in school?

Colleen Harkin:

Look, it’s a double-edged sword, because the reality is not every kid loves school and not every kid wants to go to school every day. So the culture needs to be set from the school that the expectation is that you will arrive because this is your future.

I have just come back from London, and while I was there I visited Michaela School in Wembley. It’s got a very severe reputation of being the strictest school in the country. It’s a community school; anybody can go there. There’s no entrance exam or anything like that. And she took the school of about 600 students from the worst performing in the country to the best. They are literally in the top 5 or 6% of the UK English system now; just really, honestly, by expectation. She has the same kids who were travelling around Wembley in gangs; and she’s transformed generations of kids. She’s only been open for five or six years.

But there’s a lot about allowing students to think that we don’t care. You put a boundary around a child and they’ll try and bounce against it. That’s their job. But it doesn’t mean that you should keep shifting the boundaries and letting them get away with not doing the things that we know are for their benefit.

So, of course learning should be interesting. Of course it should be purposeful. All of those normal issues about engaging students in reading, writing, arithmetic, they’re all valid. But what we also have to is not accept second standards just because they happen to be Indigenous. They’re entitled to the same conditions, they’re entitled to the same education, the same pathway, the same optimistic and visionary future as any other child in the nation.

Mike Friganiotis:

I have heard about that school, Colleen, and she’s done incredible things over there, that lady. But you just said we’re entitled to the same standards in Australia. I hope we’re not getting the same standards, because we’re rocketing downhill at a great rate of knots, as we all know. Are they doing something as a whole in Europe better than Australia?

Colleen Harkin:

Are you talking about the Michaela School specifically?

Mike Friganiotis:

Well, no, not that one. She’s one out of the box there, and hopefully England’s going to follow exactly what she’s doing. But you can be sure they won’t, because the unions won’t have it. But is there something that they’re doing in Europe that we’re doing differently here? Because it can’t be from lack of money, because we’ve got plenty of money at it.

Colleen Harkin:

No, it’s not definitely not lack of money. Yeah, it’s not lack of money.

Mike Friganiotis:

Yeah, so what can we do different?

Colleen Harkin:

Our funding has, give or take, doubled in the last 15 years, and our results have gone backwards to the fact that our kids are now four years behind Singapore and they’re about a year and a half behind where they were in that same 15, 16 year funding increase period.

Look, I would say to you that the biggest culprit in our education system is what’s called the cross-curriculum priorities. And that means that every class level, every subject level is mandated to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders histories and culture and sustainability in the subject matter. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s Phys Ed or Art or English or Maths or Science, those two cross-curriculum priorities need to be in every subject and every year level. And it means that children are doing things like learning maths through Aboriginal dance; and there’s only so much time in the day. So if you are not focused on maths, for maths, and maths sake, and you are polluting it with other ideology, you are definitionally reducing the standard that you can expect from those students. So our position at the Institute of Public Affairs is very strongly that the cross-curriculum priorities should be removed from the curriculum yesterday.

Paul Fourdyce:

Yeah, that’s a very valid point. And we’re seeing ideology creeping into higher education and some question whether it’s education or indoctrination. Can you see a point in time where, particularly in those places where children are not showing any sort of academic flair, where they’re more tailored towards getting a job prospect, getting them job ready?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, we have a TAFE system that is also well funded. Part of the challenge at the moment is Minister Clare came out maybe two or three months ago and said that he wanted most Australian children to have a tertiary qualification, whether it’s TAFE or university, whatever, 85% of the nation. Now, that’s all well and good, except that what is the standard that you’re achieving? Macquarie University have just come out being criticised-

Mike Friganiotis:

Disgraceful.

Colleen Harkin:

… rightly so being criticised for demanding that students do a welcome to country, and if it’s not sufficiently energetic enough that they could fail.

Mike Friganiotis:

Like, 30% of the final result, or it’s some stupid amount like that.

Colleen Harkin:

It’s a disgrace. And the fact that that has been allowed to happen demeans the standard of what’s going on in those university classrooms. And it is the same in primary and secondary school classrooms. If you are doing this stuff, this ideological political activism within the educational institutions, you are not doing your job educating students. You’re simply not doing it.

Mike Friganiotis:

Yeah. Colleen, a couple of years ago when Jason Clare first came on the scene, you had pretty high hopes for him. How’s he panned out in the three years he’s been in charge?

Colleen Harkin:

Look, I’d sort of give him a bit of a 50 50 scorecard. I think he’s definitely well-intentioned and he’s definitely not the worst of some of the education ministers that we’ve had.

Mike Friganiotis:

Not a high standard but Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

But there are very grave concerns in my view that remain in a belligerent refusal to look at the cross-curriculum priorities and therefore the actual point of what goes on in the classroom on a daily basis, at the coalface what’s actually happening and what a teacher is being asked to teach. We just did an audit of the national curriculum, and to print out, you actually can’t get the actual national curriculum as a document. It’s physically impossible to get it, which is a problem in and of itself. But we just have gone through literally copying and pasting just the maths curriculum and we haven’t finished yet, and we’re at nearly 2000 pages.

So the amount of clutter and ideological activism, it is impossible for a teacher to actually just look at this document and get on and do their job. So there’s a lot to be done in the space, but there’s a few things that would make a world of difference very quickly by just focusing on depoliticizing the content and removing the pollution within each subject area and having, maths is maths, English is English. It’s not an opportunity to teach about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and culture, or it’s not an opportunity to talk about climate change. You’re learning to count, you’re learning your tables, you’re learning formula, all of that sort of stuff.

Paul Fourdyce:

Yeah, look, it sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? You wonder why it’s got to the point that it has. Just in regards to teachers and it’s a great occupation, but how are we going as far as the recruitment and retention of teachers?

Colleen Harkin:

There’s a very big problem in the initial teacher training at school these days. Of a four-year teaching degree, about a year and a third of that time is spent on ideological activism again. So decolonizing the curriculum, is skin colour a pigment of your imagination? These are all unit offerings that students have to study. And in that four-year period, there’s only 10 weeks that is devoted to the core skills of teaching of the numeracy and literacy. So the training of teachers is completely flawed and needs to be overhauled.

And then once they get into a classroom, our classrooms are some of the worst in the world. We came 71st out of 80 in the OECD assessment of the classroom disciplinary environment. Teachers have never had, they’ve never done so much work that is irrelevant to their job. They’ve never had it so hard. I’m a big supporter of teachers, so don’t get me wrong in terms of my criticisms of the education system, it’s not about teachers, it’s about the policymakers and what they’re telling teachers they have to do. And they’re not getting backed up. So we’ve got a problem with discipline, we’ve got a problem with curriculum, and therefore why would you stick at being a teacher? It’s a very difficult scenario that we’ve got at the moment.

Mike Friganiotis:

Yeah. So what if that dropout rate, Colleen, is there by the sound, I wouldn’t want to hang around for something like that.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. There’s about a 50% dropout rate of the initial teacher training programmes, and there’s a tendency that the first five years is a high dropout rate. If you can get past the first five years, they tend to sort of stick around for a little while. But obviously that scenario, it’s the first critical years. The other thing is that the initial teacher training students don’t get much access to real-life classroom experience until well into their studies. So they’re not getting the practical mentorship that is really important in that scenario. So in years gone past, in your first sort of six weeks of being at university, you would have had an opportunity to go into a classroom with a qualified teacher and get a feel about whether it’s actually right for you or not. Now, some students are not getting into a classroom until year three or even four of their course.

Paul Fourdyce:

Wow. And have we seen any changes in the percentage gender split wise of teaching? I see a movement where it become more a female domain than a male domain.

Colleen Harkin:

Look, I don’t have any current stats on that. Teaching has always tended to be more female dominated, but I can’t give you any current stats on what the split is. I’m sorry.

Paul Fourdyce:

No, that’s fair enough.

Mike Friganiotis:

Well, Colleen, look, what’s three things that we can do, from a parent, grandparent point of view, what can we be doing to help our kids? Because by the sounds of it, they’re on their own once we drop them, that stop, drop and go see you later. What can we be doing at home to make a real difference in our grandkids or children’s eyes?

Colleen Harkin:

The mantra that I always say to people is that your child is not a ward of the state. So you are not handing them over when you drop them off at school. And always keep in mind that it’s your child, it’s your family, and so therefore, don’t take your eye off the ball. From an academic point of view, play number games, play your own spelling bees, do all of those sorts of things. Keep engaged with what your child is doing. Be very conscious of what’s going on in the classroom. There’s a lot of, I’ll call it age inappropriate material that children, particularly in the primary school, are exposed to, either to do with gender equity… under the banner of diversity, equity, and inclusion. That is that they are told that they sort of basically social justice warriors and that it’s their responsibility to cure the ills of the world. And climate change is an existential threat.

And so anxiety in young children is absolutely, what’s the word I’m looking for, it’s not imploding, it’s increasing.

Mike Friganiotis:

Skyrocketing. Yeah.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, skyrocketing. Thank you. So these are all issues that are going on in classrooms that are affecting children’s well-being. So to parents, I’d say always keep a close watch on what’s happening with your child and provide them the conversation that will balance out some of the things that they hear. So if they’ve heard that the world’s going to implode and the whales are all dying because they do hear those sorts of things at school, talk to them about, well, it’s not going to happen tomorrow morning, honey. And it’s okay. Talk to them about the broad picture of climate change. Climate’s always changing, all of those sorts of things.

Mike Friganiotis:

Tell them the truth. Colleen, I was going to ask you about, now, no parent would agree to all this sort of crap that’s been happening through our education system, right, how did it get to this point? Because what you’ve just described, I’m sure 99.9% of parents would say, that’s ridiculous, come on. But it’s here, we’re staring this right in the face. How did it get to this state?

Colleen Harkin:

It’s a really good question, Alan, and I think what worries me more is that most parents don’t know what their child is exposed to when they drop them off at school. The education institutions have been hijacked and the content within them is extreme in many cases of its political activism. And it has a huge impact, obviously, we’ve been discussing the impact on academic standards, but also mental health and wellbeing of children. There’s a long conversation about the long march through the institutions and how it’s been filtered down. The union activism that, for example, in Victoria, in my home state, the state education minister came out and said that all schools will teach explicit teaching of phonics. And the Victorian Education Union said, “no, you have no place to say that. Go away.” So the political agenda that exists within education is extraordinary, and it’s been going on for quite some time. So until we have an education minister who is brave enough to address the national curriculum and remove the politicisation in it, I don’t see any changes happening, any real change happening unless somebody’s prepared to do that.

Mike Friganiotis:

I think Donald Trump done that with the Department of Education. I think he sacked 13,000 employees in the last month.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, he’s talking about removing the Federal Education Department.

Mike Friganiotis:

Yes. Could that work here?

Colleen Harkin:

Yes, the IPA’s position would be that we would remove what’s called ACARA, which is the Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority. That is the authority that writes the national curriculum. Our view is that the more you centralise a bureaucracy, the less say people have. And that applies to all of these sorts of big bureaucratic departments where we have Canberra elites telling people all over the nation what subject matter should be taught, and that’s how we get climate change and aboriginal activism into the curriculum. So our position would be, sure, maybe you might have a 200-page thing of core skills that every student in Australia would need to know, times tables and these words and all of that kind of core skills, but remove the overriding national overreach that the bureaucracies have.

Paul Fourdyce:

So I see, Colleen, in the US in particular, they have district board structures where obviously the parents get to present, go through what the curriculum in and have discussions in regards to whether they support or otherwise. Are there opportunities for greater parental influence and the activities that are going on within the classroom?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, interestingly, our parents are really quite removed from our education system, structurally. In a government school, there is very little say that parents have. Private and independent school, Catholic and independence schools or church-based schools tend to have a little bit more of an opportunity of a say there, because they do have a, it’s different to America, but there is that sort of board structure in a lot of cases. So our parents are really quite… There’s an opaqueness between the parent and the school. We would also argue that parents should know what’s going on in the classroom before it happens, because there’s been plenty of examples where, and I can give you loads of emails from parents who say that their child has come home crying over some issue and not being able to go to sleep. Now, once the child has been told that it’s too late for the parent, you’re actually trying to backfill a problem that you shouldn’t have had in the first place.

Paul Fourdyce:

Damage is done.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. So again, I’d be saying, parents, your child’s not a ward of the state. Be an activist, be your child’s biggest champion and stay close to what’s going on.

Mike Friganiotis:

What great advice. Colleen Harkin, thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure, as usual and informative again, thanks Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

You’re very welcome, Alan. And Alan, I know this is a pre-record, but if you wanted to, we’ve made a board game on the First Fleet. It was given free to every primary school in the country, specifically to address the imbalance in the curriculum about the First Fleet. So another time, if you wanted to talk about that, happy to come on board about that issue specifically.

Mike Friganiotis:

Absolutely.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. And we’re now going to make it available for anyone to buy if they want to. But we’ve made it, we’ve developed it, we’ve given it to every primary school in the country for nothing.

Mike Friganiotis:

Okay. Maybe I’ll hook that up with you for Emancipation Day in August.

Colleen Harkin:

Sure. Yeah.

Mike Friganiotis:

Beautiful. Good on you, Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah, no problem. Okay.

Mike Friganiotis:

Thank you.

Colleen Harkin:

All right. No problem.

Paul Fourdyce:

Yeah, thanks Colleen. And just for your info, I went to James Cook High School, so that would have been a great [inaudible 00:14:57] to play.

Mike Friganiotis:

Another [inaudible 00:14:55].

Colleen Harkin:

I missed where you were. Say that again?

Paul Fourdyce:

I said I was educated at James Cook High School, so-

Colleen Harkin:

There you go. Well, he’s the worst of the world these days.

Paul Fourdyce:

That’s right, that’s right.

Mike Friganiotis:

Good on you, Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

The irony is that these people who are pulling his statue down don’t even know that he was here 17 years before the First Fleet arrived.

Mike Friganiotis:

Yeah, they got no idea. Go on you, Colleen.

Colleen Harkin:

All right.

Mike Friganiotis:

Bye.

Colleen Harkin:

No problem. Thanks.

This transcript of Colleen Harkin talking on At Your Service with Mike – Cairns FM 89.1 from 4 April 2025 has