Erica Stanford: Education Minister's hopes new curriculum will close education equity gap.

The Education Minister's hoping the new curriculum will close the education equity gap. 

Erica Stanford has unveiled proposed changes to content for Years 1-10 on top of the English and Maths refresh announced earlier. 

The key changes include financial education, and compulsory consent education.

Stanford told Mike Hosking that no matter where a child goes to school, they will learn the same thing. 

She says a consistent curriculum means no matter where or what family kids are from, they get the same knowledge they need to be successful. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To education where we have the longer way to draft
curriculum for years one through ten this morning. Key changes
include broading out social sciences and New Zealand history, along
with introducing civics and financial education. Erica Stanford is the
Education Minister and is with us out of Australia. As
it turns out, morning, good morning. It seems correct me
if I'm wrong, less controversial than some of your higher
school decisions and subjects and the battle you've got going

(00:22):
there is that fair?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
No, it's not controversial at all. I mean what we
have is a knowledge rich curriculum. It's been a few
years in the making. It's carefully sequenced. It lays out
what students have to know and what they need to
be able to do, and it's consistent so that every child,
no matter where they go to school, they get access
to quality learning and it's exciting and engaging and it's

(00:45):
a really exciting day in.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Terms of results. What do you expect and when?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
But we know that knowledge builds on knowledge builds on knowledge,
so we have to be teaching children knowledge so that
they can then work towards those higher skills that businesses
and universities and everybody likes critical thinking and problem solving,
and so what we expect to see, especially for the
most disadvantaged kids who come to school without lots of

(01:12):
prior knowledge, that we will see a closing of the
equity gap. It's like velcrow, knowledge sticks to knowledge. So
now that we have this consistent curriculum, no matter where
you go to school, no matter what family you are from,
you will get the knowledge that you need to be
able to be successful in life a good results.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Sure is any part of this about actually getting kids
to turn up? Does a curriculum do that? Or is
that a whole different matter.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Look, I think it will be in a way, and
that is because children will start to experience success, they'll
feel good about themselves, and it's an exciting, engaging curriculum.
But actually it's the incredible teachers that bring it to
life with their professionalism and judgment and know how to
engage the children in front of them, and that will
continue to happen. But what this will do is it
no matter where you go to school, you will be

(01:59):
learning the same thing and have access to the same knowledge.
So if you're a transient child, for example, and you
change schools, you'll be learning the same thing, so it
will mean that it's less likely that you will disengage
you from your learning. But it'll also mean that kids
are building up knowledge and feeling good about themselves, and
so when you feel good about yourself, you're more likely

(02:21):
to turn up to school. So it's a great curriculum.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
The rephrasing of the implementation, did you buy it off
more than you could chew?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
No? Well, if you think about what we inherited, the
whole curriculum was supposed to land in twenty twenty seven,
the whole thing, the whole every single area. We've introduced
Maths and English to start with, and they have been
introduced this year and they'll just be required next year.
That's it. Then there's three more areas the next year,
and then we've now phased out another three a year

(02:51):
after that. So we've actually carefully phased it over a
much longer period than was originally intended to give teachers
time to learn a new curriculum, get the professional learning
and development understand than your resources, and teach it to
our kids.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Not that I'm against civics, because I'm not, but one
of the great arguments around civics is you've got to
know how the system works and understand it so you
can participate. They do, of course, and have done for decades.
Do that in America and half of America doesn't turn up.
So what's the point of civics.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, I think we can be a bit more ambitious
for our kids. It's long We've long called for teaching
kids about societies and how they were formed, and what
democracy is and what it was like in other countries,
and is there democracy in every other country? And now
what is a voting system like? We have a relatively
complicated voting system. Many people still don't understand MMP. So

(03:40):
teaching our kids about it it's really important. Will it
lead to higher voting I hope so. But I guess
we'll see.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Line from Act and the indoctrination and history is over.
Did you see this as indoctrination?

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Oh? Look, what I wanted to see in this curriculum,
the social Science's curriculum was not just New Zealand history,
and that's what we've had, just a huge amount of
content on local New Zealand history. What we wanted to
see in terms of balance was New Zealand history, our
place in the world, world history, what are the great
events of the world that shape the world that we

(04:15):
live in, as well as geography, civics and society and
financial literacy, which are all in there now. So it's
a much broader curriculum because Ero told us last year
that kids enjoy history more when they are learning about
far away places and overseas events and how we connected.
So you're now going to learn about the Stone Age

(04:36):
and the Romans and the Greeks and the Egyptians and
kings and queens and revolutions. It's really exciting.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
What's your rule of thumb when you've arrived with no
bags before you go shopping? How long with no luggage
before you shop?

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Actually, when we turned up last night in Sydney, we
went straight to a night and day around the corner
and I have really you can imagine and the quality
of my moisturizer tona deodorant. So yeah, there's are more,
luckily across the road. So we're going to hit hit
there being on nine and try and tidy ourselves up.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Go well, appreciate that education. Minister Erica Stamford, who's up
in the early hours of a Sydney morning forest for
more from the mic Asking Breakfast. Listen live to news
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