Transcript - 2GB - 2 March 2010

SUBJECTS: National curriculum

(greetings omitted)

Alan JONES: What do you make of this national curriculum? Has it been hijacked by "educational engineers"?

Christopher PYNE: Well, we are going to look at it extremely closely when we win Government because I am quite worried that it contains, for example, one-hundred and eighteen references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders but no reference at all to Westminster or to Magna Carta. Now I don't believe that we should not have a proper part of Indigenous culture in our education curriculum. Obviously we need to learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and we need to learn a lot more about them but for comparison between that emphasis and completely ignoring Westminster, which is our parliamentary democracy and Magna Carta, which is our basis for all our laws that gives us cause for concern. We need to make sure that people have a balanced curriculum. That young people are learning Australian history and the history of our Western civilisation in a balanced way and I'm worried about that.

JONES: Would you...I mean, you've got university qualifications...would you pass an exam in "Aboriginal X-Ray Art: investigating Aboriginal knowledge of the internal biology and physiological processes of animals"?

PYNE: Well I definitely wouldn't Alan but maybe had a chance to study it for a while I might?

JONES: I mean, you've got children. Are you excited that they'll be part of what we're told will be "the systematic observations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultures over many generations so that they can see how the sequence of various natural events contributes to our scientific understandings of seasons in Australia"? I mean, what the hell does all that mean!

PYNE: Look, I would be happy for them to learn about Indigenous culture and heritage and more about it than I did when I was in school. I'm certainly pleased about that but that doesn't mean that what we need to do is abandon a proper study of our heritage from Great Britain. And the traditions of that, has made Australia what it is today. I mean, we are a Western civilisation but we are a very successful society that contributed to the rule of law and to freedom and democracy because of the last two-hundred years of our traditions and our European heritage. It's extremely important that young people don't have that downgraded and learn a mute history of Australia.

JONES: Sure, we should be taught about the people who shaped Australia so it is what it is today where it provides a standard of living where it's the envy of the world. We're going to be taught about invasion, are we?

PYNE: Well, year nines will be taught about massacres and internal displacement of Aboriginal people and certainly that did happen and it's an important thing to learn about it but also we need to learn at the same time about the benefits that Australia has bought to millions of people over the last couple of hundred years.

JONES: Should Aboriginal Sorry Day be held in the same regard as Anzac Day?

PYNE: No, it shouldn't. And children who are as young as four, under the national curriculum, will be taught about the importance of Anzac Day and Sorry Day at the same time. I have four children, nine and under, and I can tell you than when they were four years old they weren't interested one bit about the landing in Gallipoli. They were much more concerned about wether Geoff Wiggle was gonna wake up or not! I'm deeply concerned that we might be putting the cart before the horse on some of these issues. I mean, under this curriculum Alan, they don't learn about Australia Day until grade three! Now why would they be learning about Sorry Day in Kindergarten but Australia Day not until grade three? Now I don't understand some of the logic about this and what we need to do is have a thorough examination of this curriculum after the election. Review it and decide if we want to scrap it and start again.

JONES: How do you make sure then that the classroom does not become, and may well be today. I mean we saw all this with WorkChoices and everything, an instrument of propaganda?

PYNE: Well that is one of the criticisms of [unclear] to get a hold of the education agenda and try and shape it in the way that they want young people to emerge from school believing certain things. I don't want young Australians to emerge from school believing that Australia was a bloody, massacre-ridden, unpleasant place for the last two-hundred years and is only now starting to work out what it is as a country. Australia has a history and some of that history is not pleasant. A lot of it is sensational and we are a great country because of that. The sum total of our past Aboriginal history going back tens of thousands of years and much more recently, European history. It's very important that it be put in a context that makes Australians proud. That was one of the achievements of the Howard Government. We emerged after eleven years prouder than we were to be Australians than before the Howard Government took over. We don't want to see a reversal of that to the black armband view of Australian history.

JONES: there's a very important aspect in all of this, mind you, an argument that we're going to return to grammar, which people would endorse but who's going to teach it because the current teachers don't understand grammar. Most couldn't define what a sentence was.

PYNE: I welcome the return to teaching phonics in Primary school. Obviously you sound out the words and that's how most of us learned to read and I think that is a very important thing. There is still critical literacy and whole language learning as part of the curriculum.

JONES: But if someone's going to teach them nouns, pronunciation and full-stops it won't be the current generation of teachers who's been denied that education themselves!

PYNE: Well one of the things that the Primary Principals Association said yesterday, Leonie Trimper said that one of the great failings in the new curriculum because there's been no time and no money put aside for the training and re-training of teachers to actually implement the curriculum. So this has come out late. It has to be implemented quickly. It's been put on the table without any money and without any training.

JONES: Is this another ceiling insulation job? Is this done in a hurry without proper consultation, without proper funding, without economic models associated with it. Is this to get something else out to muddy the landscape a little?

PYNE: Well it concerns me is that the Minister who is responsible for the Computers in Schools programme, of which there's one quarter delivered, Trade Training Centres...there's one out of two-hundred-and-fifty...there's no Youth Allowance reforms. There are no Commonwealth Scholarships. The "double drop-off" for parents were supposed to be abandoned. Still there's only two childcare centres out of two-hundred-and-sixty and now, of course, they're responsible for implementing the new national curriculum. Already, the criticism is that there's no money for training, there's no money for implementation and it all has to be up and running by the middle of next year.

JONES: Now, that happened to the computer, did it not? I mean, the argument was that there was to be, what, $1billion to get a computer to every student but they didn't factor in things such as software, network support and staff training so that programme has blown out to what, $2.2billion and of the one million computers that were supposed to be on desks in school, I think you said in the Parliament that in October last year there were only one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand.

PYNE: Yes, I mean, the programme has fallen dramatically short of what was expected and it's blown out by over one-hundred percent. This is the thing, it's great to have these big announcements. The government is really good at making a big announcement, going to a school, being photographed with children, reading books and so forth but then the actual rubber has to hit the road at some point when the implementation phase begins and already the principals are saying the curriculum, this national curriculum, you want it up and running very soon. There's no money for training, there's no money for implementation and as you point out, a lot of the teachers, are going to want to know how teach.

JONES: That's right and then they try...my point is, in all of this is that the curriculum programme now has been vindicated but we haven't got the computer programme right! It was announced, it's not in place and they keep jumping from one programme to another and nothing seems to reach its conclusion.

PYNE: it's called "bread ad circuses", Alan, trying to keep the public distracted by moving from one shiny toy to the next. Which, of course, I think the Australian public are far too smart for that. They still haven't implemented their Trade Training Centres, they haven't implemented their Computers in Schools programme. The Building the Education Revolution, so called, is yet to be completed...

JONES: ...and I understand the Auditor-General's investigating waste and mismanagement into that programme, is it not?

PYNE: The Auditor-General was hoping to hand down his report into the waste and mismanagement of the BER or the Building the Education Revolution in February so it must be coming very, very soon...

JONES: ...it might be like the Henry Report? It might not see the light of day?

PYNE: Well, then we'll have to pursue it because people need to know.

JONES: ...that's Christopher Pyne...the very articulate Federal Shadow Minister, there. It's a classic case, you see. So we got the curriculum yesterday but the schools...we've got the big issues, see. About $1billion to give a computer to every student but they forgot to include the necessary related costs like software, network support and staff training so that cost more money. So the $1billion programme's blown out to $2.2billion and by October last year only one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand of the one million computers had actually landed on desks at schools! At that rate it'll take seven years to deliver that programme but now we're on to the curriculum? The last programme hasn't even been done properly!

(ends)