Colleen Harkin Discussing The National Curriculum on TNT TV – 30 July 2024

The Institute of Public Affairs’ Colleen Harkin was on TNT TV to discuss the IPA’s research into the national curriculum.

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

Below is a transcript of the interview.

Dean Mackin:

My next guest is Colleen Harkin, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs and somebody who is a former teacher. She is doing a terrific job. I think there’s a class action that we’re going to find out about as well. But it’s time to give control back to the teachers. And Colleen Harkin, I think is one of those people who can empower that happening. Hello, Colleen, how are you going?

Colleen Harkin:

Hi there, how are you?

Dean Mackin:

Excellent. Thanks for coming on the programme. Our education system. When did it all go wrong?

Colleen Harkin:

Oh, that’s a big question. Look, the education system is a basket case as you’ve just said to your viewers. There are so many elements that are not performing well. We’ve got a decline in academic standards, we have discipline problems in classrooms, we have a teacher shortage, we have a curriculum that is completely focused on activism rather than teaching students a skill set that they’ll require to become independent people in their own life. Every element of the education system is in need of an overhaul and immediate attention.

To your question about when did this start? It’s been a while in the making. If you compare the average 15-year-old student’s results now compared to, say, 20 years ago, they’re give or take about 15 or 16 months behind where they were. And if you compare to, say, for example, in the … Maybe the 70s and the 80s where things like explicit teaching was sort of demonised, it’s been slowly removed from the curriculum. And the notion of student-led, and self-learning, and all those kinds of inquiry learning methods. It’s been a bit of a slow march but we are now at a stage where it is absolutely crucial that something is done about it.

Dean Mackin:

And just when you think things might get better rather than worse, I saw a story on the … In the ABC last week about a new curriculum being rolled out. And whilst it didn’t rather detail what we might expect, I think the past 20 years might be a good indicator as to what we might expect.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, the focus on the national curriculum is very much … I mean, it says, it states that its priorities are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures. And sustainability which includes climate, social justice, those kinds of things. It actually explicitly says it’s not focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic it’s focused on activism. There’s only so much time in the day that a student’s at school. If the focus is on teaching students to be global warriors and not on becoming competent and academically capable people we’ve got a problem.

Dean Mackin:

I mean, I’ll give you a perfect example. My son, who tops all the major classes for the last couple of years, this morning said to me, “Dad, they’ve cancelled music,” which he loves, plays two instruments, “And math because they’re doing a thing for NAIDOC week for the first half of the day.” Subsequently, he’ll be going to school at 1L00 P.M. today rather than at 9:00 or 8:30. Is this something that we can expect more and more of as we move forward?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, in any given year throughout their school life a student will receive something like 12 or 13 dedicated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander celebration days. That’s in addition to the cross-curriculum priority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures that’s embedded into every single subject at every year level, at every opportunity. It’s stated in the curriculum that that’s the priority and to merge it in wherever you possibly can, shoehorn it if necessary. And then that’s in addition to the celebrations of NAIDOC Week, Sorry Day, and all of those sorts of other celebrations. That dripping tap that students receive throughout their years at school is a constant indoctrination really.

Dean Mackin:

It is frightening. I hoped growing up in one of the most multicultural parts of Australia, Marysville… And we never looked upon each other as being from different races, we’re a bunch of mates, and that’s all I recall in regards to that. These days, the division … They try and talk about inclusion but I feel that we are becoming divided when you look after one particular group more than any other. I mean, I cannot help but think that is racist, that is divisive. A disproportionate amount of money being spent on one group that is apparently 3% of the Australian population. Of course, moving forward even into universities, out of the schools places being made available for those students exclusively. I mean, is that not a form of racism? That’s all I can take from that. I don’t know what your take on that is.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, the students are taught quite explicitly that they are intergenerational oppressors. Sort of the original sin and that things that happened 250 years ago are their fault is very much the overriding energy, I guess I could say is that the curriculum presents them with. And that starts from the moment that they enter school. It’s completely common in every … Most schools that there’s an acknowledgment to country every morning. A lot of primary schools have ones where the students have made the words themselves where they’re apologising for being on somebody else’s land. I get examples of somewhere students apologise for ruining somebody else’s culture. These are children of six and seven years old, don’t forget, who are having to recite these things every day. So that notion of guilt is very strongly promoted to the students throughout. You’re right, it’s incredibly divisive.

Dean Mackin:

The other thing that is really worrying is … I mean, yes I know we’ve got some teachers who are very, very much on board with all of that. They have drunk the Kool-Aid if you will. Other teachers who simply roll their eyes and have to mutter under their breath to the others who think, like I do, that it’s a load of nonsense. Unfortunately, they are compelled to stand up at these school meetings with the teachers prior to school commencing and do a Welcome to Country or a version of it themself. I mean, how is that allowed? And where’s the teacher’s union on all of this?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, unfortunately, the teacher union promote this. So last year during the period of the referendum of the Voice, the Australian Education Union promoted the Yes Campaign and provided staff and materials for schools. They were definitely not apolitical at all. Definitely promoting a partisan view of the referendum. And you’re right, there’s a lot of teachers who are extremely concerned about the content. And they’re obliged under their professional obligations to follow the curriculum but that doesn’t mean that they feel comfortable about doing it. In any workplace there’ll be people who are supportive of that activist scenario I guess. There are definitely a lot of people who are very concerned about what’s going on there’s no doubt about that.

Dean Mackin:

Something that you have correctly suggested, it’s time to give teachers back some control. We’ll talk about ways we can do that. And I would suggest without the people viewing and listening at the moment we absolutely cannot make that happen. We’ll talk about that on the other side of the break here at TNT. We’ll be back after these short news headlines.

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Dean Mackin:

Welcome back. The Institute of Public Affairs, you should Google them, you should get on there. They have terrific people there and some wonderful releases that they put out there. Very succinct in the way they deliver their information, highly accurate. Their opinion, their take on it, if you will, is always, I consider to be, spot on. Colleen Harkin’s joins us. One of the Research Fellows there at the Institute of Public Affairs. I think she would advocate for, it’s time to give teachers back some level of control. Colleen Harkin, how do we go about that?

Colleen Harkin:

OECD do an assessment every couple of years called the International Student Assessment, the PISA Programme for International Student Assessment. It runs through a range of tests with students, reading, maths, science. And they also did one a couple of years ago about … The mostly recently available on classroom discipline environment. That means how quickly kids settle down, how well the teacher controls the classroom, the level of noise, all of those sorts of things. Australian classrooms are one of the worst in the world. We came out 71st out of 80 of all of the countries that were assessed which is clearly not a great scenario to be in. So if you have classrooms that are noisy, where kids can’t listen they’re not, obviously, going to be able to learn very well in that environment.

Part of that I’m convinced is because of the activist curriculum that encourages students to be non-compliant. It actually encourages students to not sort of comply with what they’re supposed to be doing. We have about 50% of teachers who … And principals who report that they have either witnessed or experienced physical violence. There’s a lot that we need to do in our schools to rein them in from a discipline point of view and give teachers back control over what’s going on.

Dean Mackin:

I mean, that’s horrific, 71 out of 80. We were literally right at the top many years ago. Now, this is something I’m going to say and I don’t expect you to agree. But I mean, being someone who went to school in the 70s and 80s, and being a rather rebellious kid I had no idea what I was capable of at school until I met one Christian Brother O’Connor in year five and year six at St. Joseph’s at Newtown where I was introduced to this thing called the cane. All of a sudden I became a very studious individual. My marks, I became the top kid in the class. And that stayed with me probably for the bulk of high school. I was going to say, I’m not advocating that come back, maybe I am. If I could say to my son’s school, “You could do that to him” I absolutely would if that was legal. I have noticed a sudden decline at the introduction. Oh, sorry. Them taking away corporal punishment in schools. And I don’t intend for you to agree with that I’ve just … It’s something that I’ve noticed.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, to be honest, it’s not really required. I can give you examples of environments where people have taken some of the lowest-performing students in a nation and in an environment and taking them to be some of the better-performing students in the environment just by explicit teaching and classroom layout. I’ll give you an example. The Michaela School in the UK was opened up about five or six years ago. It’s non-exam entry, it takes in any students in the area who want to go in some of the lowest socio-economic environment in London. In five years it took those students to some of the top-performing students in the nation and doubled the standard across the UK in performance of those student … The percentage of students who got the old equivalent of a grade in their subjects. Michaela School trains their students to sit in a straight row, bolt upright, looking at the teacher.

They even have a programme where they teach the kids to follow the teacher’s eyes as she moves around the room so that there’s absolute focus. They walk from class to class in a single line. You know what I mean? There’s those sorts of self-disciplined behaviours the students have been taught to focus and concentrate. And the methods of teaching that they use are explicit. There’s no learning … Sorry. There’s no inquiry learning that’s student-led it’s all very specific and scaffolds on knowledge one step at a time. There’s no teamwork in terms of study where … So that students are individually responsible for their own results. If you forget a pen, for example, that’s a demerit point. And if you get I think it’s three demerit points in a session that’s automatic detention. So we don’t need the cane, right, we just need environments where students are expected to behave, and they’re taught how to behave, and the consequences of behaving are there.

There’s schools also in New South Wales who have similarly increased their results dramatically in a couple of years by changing the way they teach. Not having students sitting in groups with their backs to the teacher. I mean, kids are kids it’s part of their job to try and buck the system and to not listen. I mean, that’s normal behaviour for students. But it’s not normal for teachers to have to not manage their classroom properly. So that’s what we have to get back to or move forward to is training the teachers properly in how to manage a classroom.

Dean Mackin:

Yeah, I love it. I mean, so much of what you just said reminded me very much of the 70s and early 80s, those things that came about. We always had the teachers … Or they had our attention. We had to write out our mistakes 10 times each. And we did a test every single day in year five and six. It wasn’t unusual for most of the kids in the class to get upward of 90% it was the norm. Again, good teachers, focus, and respect. I think it’s a two-way street. And it is earned, certainly it isn’t deserved. You have to make people earn it. Streaming of classes, something one would just put in line with common sense. You’ve got 120 kids, you’ve got four classes, divide them. All the best top 30 in one, the lower ones in the other, and sort the rest out in the middle so teachers can focus on and teach at the level that is appropriate to that group of 30 kids. But they don’t even do that these days.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, unfortunately, most teachers are expected to run individual lesson plans. In any classroom there will be maybe five, six, seven children who have an individual lesson plan amongst their 25 children who have other small grouping needs. The demands on teachers are unrealistic. In any group of 25 children you’re going to have an array of standards and capabilities. But the expectation now that everything is individualised is simply … It’s just not manageable in an ordinary classroom in an ordinary day.

To your point about streaming. Most teachers try and collate small groups together. Your example of 125 children, you’d have an extraordinary range of capabilities. But grouping children together who are, for example, talented in maths and being able to focus on that makes a lot of sense. It’s just simply not possible to run 25 different individual programmes. Unfortunately, a lot of parents expect it. A lot of parents sort of say, “My child is the most important thing in the world and your job is to teach my child,” which is true we’re … All of our children are the most special in the world. We’ve got to be realistic about what teachers can actually cope with.

Dean Mackin:

We’ve only got about a minute left. How do we go about bringing change? Do we complain to the schools? Do we complain to our local member? What do we do? Are we living in hope? Is it a good chance we could ever get back to being one of the top countries in the world when it comes to our education system?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, there’s always hope but we have to actually do the things to actually make the hope reality. And all of those things above. The overriding thing I would say to people is always remember that your child is not a ward of the state, and to be cognizant of what’s going on. Your primary job as a parent is to actually make sure that your child is on track for the things that they’re doing, and that includes, for example, the discipline scenario that we spoke about before. But yes, speak to the school, speak to the MPs. We also have to look at the teacher training, the initial teacher training at the universities and how our teachers are being taught so that they’re skilled, to the best of their ability, to be able to run a class properly so that the children can learn. So it’s all of the above. There is no sort of silver bullet here. It’s every component of this needs to be addressed.

Dean Mackin:

Well, let’s hope that we do that and with people such as yourself and the Institute of Public Affairs. Colleen, Harkin, let’s live in hope and hope that does happen. People like you making for change. I appreciate you coming on and, hopefully, we’ll do it again sometime.

Colleen Harkin:

Anytime.

This transcript from TNT TV on 30 July 2024 has been edited for clarity.