National Curriculum Board to Tackle Geography

The Age, 8 April 2008

The Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Ms Julia Gillard, has announced that she will be instructing the National Curriculum Board to create a ‘rigorous, world-class’ geography curriculum.

The announcement follows the release of a recent report that claims that the current geography curriculum is
experiencing a ‘decline in the quality of teaching’ as well as a drop in student numbers.

Recently, geography has not been taught as a stand alone subject; instead, it has been taught as part of the larger ‘studies of society and the environment’ (SOSE). The report shows that student numbers have declined from over
4,000 students in 1992 to just over 2,500 in 2004.

The report, commissioned by management consultants Erebus International, also claims that teachers have found
that ‘students taking up geography in the final years of high school are lacking much of the basic knowledge needed
for that level of study’. The report further identified that younger students ‘needed to be taught basic skills such as
map reading and data interpretation’.

Ms Gillard stated that the ‘Rudd Government is committed to the development of a national curriculum in geography’.

A study into the Teaching of Geography in Years 3-10, is available at: www.dest.gov.au/schools/teaching_geography.

 

 

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