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Australia’s largest state has now made education about Aboriginal Cultures and Histories mandatory in every compulsory year of school education. The New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA), which is responsible for curriculum and assessment in every school and system in that state, has completed this work ensuring that school children from Kindergarten to Year 10 will learn each year about the cultures and histories of Indigenous Australians.

The News South Wales Teachers Federation Branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU), an affiliate of Education International, has welcomed this new policy and were key in advocating for the needed changes.

“These curriculum reforms herald a commitment by educators to tell the full story of our past. All students will benefit from a thorough knowledge and appreciation of this ancient land, the depth and beauty of our Aboriginal past, the truth about the harsh, colonial dispossession of the original owners and of the rich sense of Aboriginal cultures and communities that still endures," explained Henry Rajendra, President of NSWTF.

"Teachers and their union have worked for decades to achieve this moral and intellectual progress embodied into mandatory curriculum. It has now come to pass,” he added.

Indigenous perspectives and experiences at every level

At the high school level, for example, students will learn about Indigenous Australians’ experience of colonisation which will include Indigenous perspectives and experiences, major conflicts between expanding colonial power and the original inhabitants including the Frontier Wars and other aspects of the British invasion of land that had been inhabited for 60,000 years by Aboriginal peoples.

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald “Jenni Wenzel, an adviser to NESA, observed that the curriculum changes meant that Aboriginal children would see their cultures now reflected in the universal curriculum. As Wenzel observed, ‘All students need to know about the history of Australia, and truth telling and presenting multiple perspectives is an important part of that...For the first time in my life I am confident that my grandchildren and future generations will be taught the full history of Australia at school’.”

These recent changes complete the cycle of curriculum reform, backed by the state government and all school sectors which had the goal of developing a curriculum that specifies what every student should know and understand about Aboriginal cultures and histories.

This provides for a curriculum continuum for schoolchildren. In the very early years, they will identify ways that Aboriginal peoples connect to culture, country and community then move on to appreciating the importance of Aboriginal languages within cultures. Building on this, students will learn about the interactions of Aboriginal Peoples with their environments and with others and will finish their primary school years discovering how Aboriginal Peoples have maintained their Cultures, heritages and identities over time.

In the high school years, students will move on to studying the impacts of colonialism, the clash of cultures and the understanding of invasion, dispossession, resistance, racism and the land seizures that followed the British occupation. It is most significant that Aboriginal educators and elders were involved at all stages of this historic curriculum development.

A global issue

Beyond Australia, new research from Education International shows a substantial increase in the number of education unions recognising and engaging with Indigenous People’s issues over the past 10 years.

The new edition of Education International’s Quadrennial Survey on the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Education reveals a rise in education unions’ recognition of and engagement with the issues affecting Indigenous Peoples.

Overall, while the report indicates growing awareness of and respect for Indigenous Peoples among education unions, ongoing challenges such as political instability, budget constraints, and legal discrepancies stand in the way of the full realisation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights in education.