Hey there, Wentyl!

Susie's taking a well-deserved week off, but the torrent of education news didn't abate in her absence ... kicked off by a scathing report into Australia's school curriculum. The author, Dr Kevin Donnelly, delivers this withering verdict:

“It’s not fit for purpose. It’s dumbed down, it’s superficial, it’s very politicised content and it fails to give young people an education which is intellectually rigorous, morally grounded and emotionally and spiritually enriching."

Dr Donnelly is an eminent educator and academic. He's also aligned with the right-wing Menzies Research Centre, so was always unlikely to be a big fan of the more woke elements of modern Aussie classrooms.

But the harsh reality is that international student assessment data shows Australian year 10 students’ reading, maths and science outcomes have dropped by 30, 37 and 20 points respectively since 2000. That's a near-catastrophic decline. Something is going wrong.

Dr Donnelly blames "edubabble" and calls for cross-curriculum priorities to be abandoned. These are three topics that are a mandatory part of the national curriculum, which dictates they should be "embedded" across all learning areas: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures; Australia's engagement with Asia; and sustainability.

It will no doubt be a rather heated debate as to whether those three topics should be at the core of what we're teaching our kids!

Interestingly, my colleague Mary Papadakis reported this week on a new survey that found many Aussie teachers say they struggle to hold respectful classroom debates on contentious issues because of political polarisation and a "fragility and amplified sense of victimhood" among students.

Do Australian schools need to fundamentally overhaul the way they teach children about AI and social media algorithms? Share your views with us at education@news.com.au

But I think there's a critical area where Australia's curriculum is sorely lacking, and it goes to teaching the next generation about the world they're growing up in.

The hidden algorithms powering social media feeds, AI queries and Google search results are reshaping the world, and we need to start teaching children how tech billionaires are able to manipulate these algorithms to reshape public discourse, distort the truth and encourage addiction to their platforms.

Lessons in digital literacy should be much deeper than just teaching kids "AI for dummies" and how to spot a predator.

Interestingly, the South Australian government took a step towards improving digital literacy education this week, announcing a new program to teach primary-schoolers how to distinguish fact from fiction online. Hopefully there will be much more to come.