Incorporating emerging trends into Australian school curriculum

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie
Published: 19th September 2016

Introduction

As the world continually develop, it is without much doubt that the things utilized today would be obsolete in the near future, or the process of doing things today will experience new changes. This is because of the increasing high level of industrialization and internationalization of business, which is merging the world into a small community.

In this report, the narrative of the future is presented in the form of six interlinked megatrends. A megatrend is considered as a significant shift in the economic, social and environmental conditions that will play vital roles in the future decades. They will determine what is done, how it is done, and who will be doing it.

As such, the purpose of this research is to understand how the Australian education curriculum can be redeveloped to reflect the new skills necessary for meeting the future global demands successfully. Additionally, there is an increasing focus on educational sustainability, as it relates to the impact it can have on the sustainability of corporations. As such, this paper is divided into two major parts. The first part is an understanding of these megatrends as they relate to the future world, and the second part is the understanding of Australian Curriculum Development Plan in terms of how they can be redeveloped to accommodate these expected future trends. It is expected that at the end of this report, the reader would be able to understand global future trends and how they can be applied in the development of curriculum to ensure that students are equipped with necessary skills required for successful business operations in the future.

Part A

Global mega trends

Figure 1: Future mega trends

 

Source as adapted from: (Hajkowicz, Cook, & Littleboy, 2012)

The six mega issues trends are as illustrated in the figure (1) above. The first issue trend is getting more from less. The earth has limited supply of natural resources, energy, food and water which are important for the survival of the human race and maintenance of lifestyles. Existing data does indicate that many of these resources are depleting at an alarming rate (Hajkowicz, Cook, & Littleboy, 2012). At the same time, there is a rapid increase on population and economic growth, pushing the consumption of these resources higher. In the more from less mega trend, the indication being presented is on how corporations, communities and government can discover new ways of ensuring that these resources are made sustainable. Science and technology, government policies, technology, patterns of lifestyle, business process, and cultural norms will all have a role to play in the course of ensuring that such sustainability level if achieved.

Going, going… Gone? Majority of the world’s plant species, natural habitats and animal species are under the tremendous threat of extinction. Thus, the actions taken by the human race within this couple of decades will determine the new scene for global biodiversity over the course of the new millennia. In this mega trends, the discouraging situation of the global ecological habitats and biodiversity is clearly illustrated, calling on the human race to take necessary actions now in order to avoid these ecosystem become obsolete in the near future (Hajkowicz, Cook, & Littleboy, 2012).

The silky highway is another significant mega trend that will be experienced in the future. It is expected that the world economy will shift from north to south and west to east in the coming decades. This will be due to rapid income growth in Asia, South America and Africa, although the Asian growth is expected to be higher than that of the South America and African growth. India and China represent the power house of the new global economy, and this shift in economic power is expected to build new export markets, business models, trade relations, and cultural ties with Australia (Hajkowicz, Cook, & Littleboy, 2012). Tourism and funds will increasingly from the Asian nations into the Australian economy as the global market enters into the Asian century.

Forever young features the increasing volume of elderly people in Australia. It has the advantage of the elderly population providing vast wealth of skills, knowledge, mentorship and wisdom. However, two significant issues are featured as: 1) Australia’s increasing gap in retirement savings account; and 2) rapidly increasing healthcare expenditure. These issues will change people’s patter of lifestyle, the services they demand and how the labor market is structured and operated (Hajkowicz, Cook, & Littleboy, 2012).

Virtually here is used to reference the megatrend that could occur in the world of increased connectivity as the communities, government, individuals and businesses are continually being immersed into a virtual world, to an extent that has never been experienced in the past. The world is consistently moving online to access information, connect with each other, make purchases, and run businesses (Hajkowicz, Cook, & Littleboy, 2012). The dependence on online businesses are also increasingly due to a rapid demand for such business. Thus, the conventional business approaches, markets, and products would be transformed in the nearest future, which will demand new set of skills and competence from the workforce.

The final trend in this discussion is great expectations. It features rising demand for experience instead of products and rising importance accorded to social relationships. It also captures people’ expectations about customize services that meet their individual needs and wants even in cases where such products are delivered to the masses. Consumers are no longer interested in the just “good enough” as they seek for “perfection” from the side of the producers (Hajkowicz, Cook, & Littleboy, 2012). Thus, market segmentation and customization are considered vital in this new global economy.

Part B

Australian Curriculum Development and Design  

In line with the ‘Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australian’ of 2008, the Australian education body has begun shaping its national curriculum to meet the need for change (Australian Government, 2016). The most recent version (4.0) of ‘The Shape of the Australian Curriculum’ was approved by the ACARA board in 2009 in view of the above understanding. The process of developing the national curriculum is detailed in two documents: ‘The Curriculum Development Process (Version 6)’ and ‘The Curriculum Design Paper (Version 3.1)’.

Figure 2: Model of curriculum development

 

Source as adapted from: (Print, 1993).

In accordance with (Print, 1993) the structure of this model can be employed in situations such as system curricula, school curricula, subject curricula, sub-school curricula and project curricula. As illustrated in the above figure (2), the main structure is formed by three stages as: organization, development, and application.

Organization

Considerations need to be made in the presage stage about the nature of curriculum participants as the development of curriculum does depend on those are accorded such responsibility. They include stakeholders such as school staffs, and subject departments or people that have been assigned to such roles. The curriculum workers can be teachers in a given subject. In any case, there is an intensive tension between these stakeholders due to high differences on their features. In any case, a number of reviews have level criticism as to school personnel being denied their right to be involved in the change process for national curriculum. On the same note, their contribution for change has gone widely unnoticed (Oliva, 2009).

Development

In the second stage, the selected group of developers are required to device the curriculum document. As noted by (Oliva, 2009) the group normally adopt the recurring procedure illustrated in the model that begins with: 1) situation analysis, 2) definition of aims, goals, and objectives, 3) development of contents, 4) learning activities and 5) evaluation of instructional materials. Through such steps, they can easily define the right aims, goals and objectives for their respective students. It is important to organize necessary contents and appropriate learning activities in such a way that it can be effectively evaluated at the concluding stage. The flexible elements of the initial circumstances and curriculum requirements normally result to the situational analysis being revised. Thus, continuous update of the existing curriculum is a critical process for the curriculum workers.

Application

This final stage takes critical consideration of the outcome from implementing the curriculum document in classrooms. The application stage covers implementation and modification of the curriculum, as well as monitoring the process and gathering feedback from the practice of the curriculum. Modification is not only inevitable but also necessary at the implementation stage. (Oliva, 2009) also provided support for the above statement by noting that it is through this stage that students’ lives are formed and human institution expands and develop. In order to ensure effectiveness in this change, it is important that the educators design necessary curriculum plan that is capable of accommodating necessary changes since it is not possible to create curriculum that can accommodate all changes. Monitoring and feedbacks are another important feature of the curriculum as it relates to how the curriculum is comprehensively evaluated in terms of how the students are able to attain the objective of such education. The last step of the model involve forwarding obtained feedback to the curriculum presage group in order ensure they remain part of the recurring steps for sustaining the quality of the curriculum.

Applying the megatrends into curriculum development

In line with the guidelines set by the above model, there is a need to modify the curriculum in order to implement the new trends into the academic sphere. The importance is that it will ensure a sustainable stream of competence and skills within the corporate setting.

(National Sustainability Council, 2013) noted that the trade and engineering occupations are continually experiencing difficulties with recruiting the right workforce. As noted in the previous discussions, this is due to wide gap between supply of high skilled workforce and demand in the industry. Additionally, there is little level of consistency between topics of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Although (Australian Curriculum, 2009; Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2012; Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2014; Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2010) and (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. , 2015)continually emphasis on science, technology and mathematics, while ignoring engineering.

Considering that majority of the mega trends highlighted above focus on engineering and ecology, it becomes important to incorporate these fields into the academic curriculum. Such implementation should start from the primary school, giving them a solid foundation the issues facing the world and why they need to be part of the solution. Once they have been equipped with necessary basics of these issues within their primary school level, the secondary school curriculum should initiative skill development process by adopting theoretical and practical solutions into the curriculum. The essence is to prepare these students well enough towards choosing courses that relate to these solution in their tertiary levels. If the primary and secondary school curriculum are designed to feature these mega trends, one would expect a solid background understanding of these issues within the society and increased commitment towards providing the right solutions to these issues.

Conclusion

There is no single solution to all the mega trend issues since different approaches can result to either positive or negative outcome. The focus of teachers is primarily on standard test as this demanded by education authorities for easy assessment and measurement (Webster & Ryan, 2014). However, these skills are important and should be featured in the curriculum design for secondary school students.

There are also criticisms level on ACARA as it is seem more as a policy-driven body and not government by educational professionals. Even if the government is to adopt their reports for educational decision making, it is important that the process of curriculum development adopts teachers as direct curriculum workers that determine all classroom activities for the students (Webster & Ryan, 2014). Finally, any new change in the curriculum should feature an incorporation of skills necessary for handling these mega trends. The overall benefit is that it will help guarantee a high level of sustainability in terms natural resources. With every single passing day, these issues are becoming worse. Thus, the incorporation process must be made urgently.

References

Australian Curriculum, A. a. (2009). Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority: Annual Report 2008–2009. Retrieved from Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA): http://www.acara.edu.au/_resources/ACARA_AnnualReport_08-09.pdf

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2010). The Shape of the Australian Curriculum Version 2.0. Retrieved from Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA): http://www.acara.edu.au/_resources/Shape_of_the_Australian_Curriculum.pdf

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2012, 4 4). Curriculum Development Process: Version 6. Retrieved from Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA): http://www.acara.edu.au/_resources/ACARA_Curriculum_Development_Process_Version_6.0_-_04_April_2012_-_FINAL_COPY.pdf

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2014, 3 24). Review of the Australian Curriculum: A statement by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. Retrieved from Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA): http://www.acara.edu.au/_resources/STATEMENT_Review_of_the_Australian_Curriculum_20140324.pdf

Australian Government. (2016). Review of the Australian Curriculum: Final Report. Retrieved from Australian Government: https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/review_of_the_national_curriculum_final_report.pdf

Hajkowicz, S., Cook, H., & Littleboy, A. (2012). Our future world: Global megatrends that will change the way we live. Retrieved from Csiro Future: https://fial.com.au/system/files/knowledge_repository/Our%20Future%20World%20-%20Mega%20trends%20that%20will%20shape%20the%20way%20we%20live.pdf

National Sustainability Council. (2013). Sustainable Australia Report 2013: Conversations with the Future – In Brief. Retrieved from National Sustainability Council: http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/e55f5f00-b5ed-4a77-b977-da3764da72e3/files/sustainable-australia-repo

Oliva, P. F. (2009). Developing the Curriculum Oliva (7thed). Boston: Pearson.

Print, M. (1993). Curriculum Development and Design. NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. . (2015). F-10 Victorian Curriculum and VCE Sciences. Retrieved from Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. : http://www.stav.org.au/documents/VCAAUpdate2015.pdf

Webster, S., & Ryan, A. (2014). Understanding curriculum: The Australian context. Retrieved from Cambridge University Press: http://assets.cambridge.org/97811076/39317/frontmatter/9781107639317_frontmatter.pdf