Curriculum Policy and Major Education Reports
Tasmania – Key Documents – the 1985 Context
Secondary Education in Tasmania: Review of the Education Department by the Committee on Secondary Education - 1977
- Considers existing provisions and future development of educational programs and the organisation of secondary education in Tasmania.
- Makes a series of recommendations for schools and for the administration, as well as setting out general principles for the system.
- Illustrates the transition from school to work as a 'process'.
- Favours a 'balanced curriculum' and a 'core curriculum' of six broad areas of activity: language, mathematics, gaining insights into the physical environment, gaining insights into the social and cultural environment, experience in the arts and crafts, and a consideration of the problems of humanity that concern and puzzle adolescents.
Tasmanian Education: Next Decade (TEND) - 1978.
- Promotes a general education with core curriculum including six areas of study.
- Includes three components of a core curriculum – Communicating, Thinking, and Valuing.
- Recommends the discontinuation of the School Certificate.
- Recommends an overhaul of curriculum as a single whole spanning the K-12 years.
Requirements for a Curriculum: A Discussion Paper - 1980
- This discussion paper is the report of the Core Curriculum Study Group which was established following the report, Secondary Education in Tasmania.
- Discusses 'essential learnings' and competencies but rejects these terms in favour of the idea of 'a thread of usefulness'.
- Endorses the common purposes idea in TEND: Communicating, Thinking and Valuing.
White Paper on Tasmanian Schools and Colleges in the 1980s – 1981
- Sets policy direction for Tasmanian schools in the 1980s.
- Recommends that the Education Department provide 'statements' offering broad curriculum guidelines and that schools be responsible for working out the detail of curriculum programs.
- Encourages greater co-operation between schools and the community.
- Identifies the importance of 'recurrent education' and provides initiative for improvement.
- Demonstrates a concern with ‘handicapped’ and otherwise disadvantaged students.