I am concerned that recent reforms to the NSW Higher School Certificate are based on a narrowly conceived vision for education which will see students graduating with a basic but limited set of workplace skills, largely incapable of developing aptitudes for life outside work as family members and members of the wider community.

The most concerning points

The narrow focus on workplace skills

The recent controversy in HSC English regarding the reduction in the number of prescribed texts to be studied and the optionalising of the study of novels and poetry in Year 12 – subsequently reversed by the New South Wales Educational Standards Authority (NESA) with regard to the study of novels – would have come as no real surprise to those who have examined the NSW Government’s “Stronger HSC Standards Blueprint” (Blueprint) released in 2016 as part of a series of reforms to the HSC to be implemented by NESA.

This government document has a narrow focus on workplace skills and ignores other important aims of education that seek to develop students into well-rounded individuals.

The Blueprint fails to ask the key questions “what type of people do we want our children to be by the time they leave school?” and “what qualities do they require in order to lead fulfilled lives as individuals and as members of the wider community?” I believe that such a ‘big picture’ document should be presenting carefully considered statements specifying the qualities we need to nurture in our students, such as critical and creative thinking and becoming active citizens of our democracy and empathic members of local and wider communities.

Do we want responsible, communicative individuals who can sustain rich and meaningful relationships within and beyond the family unit? As I see it, the Blueprint fails to mention the types of important human qualities that make us human and allow us to live harmoniously with each other.

Qualities such as compassion, consideration of others, perseverance, tolerance and the ability to act with dignity – a type of ‘cultivation of the self’, where reasoned, thoughtful actions form the basis of interactions with others – are not mentioned.

I believe these qualities are important for all individuals in everyday social situations, such as chatting over the fence or being a member of a political party or sporting club, but also crucially important in the workplace.

Beyond examinations and the future workplace, the document does not acknowledge in any detail, the wider life of the student.

The Blueprint promotes students as robotic automatons for the workplace

The Blueprint projects an Orwellian vision of education where students are cast as economic units – “the future workforce”. The HSC is described as a “platform” to “increase productivity”; the inclusion of buzzwords such as “agile”, “flexible” and “responsive” signal that the most important goal of education is to provide employers with workers who possess “transferrable skills” and a “solid foundation” of literacy and numeracy skills for jobs. The document seems to aim to reduce individuals to compliant workers, skilled for the workforce perhaps, but little else.

Educators Ivor Goodson and Scherto Gill point out that when learning is reduced to the acquisition of employability skills, “people are treated as economic objects”, reducing their capacity for positive social interaction and fulfilling relationships.

Other important personal qualities such as self-awareness, self-esteem, respect for self and others, as highlighted by the by the psychologist Carl Rogers, are also ignored in the Blueprint.

More testing

How much testing can our students take? Not content with NAPLAN testing for students in Years 3, 5 and 9, the Blueprint introduces the requirement that for students in Year 9 will be required to achieve a Band 8 in NAPLAN in reading, writing and numeracy from 2017. This means that 14 year olds – three years or so from sitting for their HSC, in the midst of adolescence and while establishing a sense of self-identity and membership in friendship groups and the wider community, will be saddled with the additional pressure of achieving this ‘benchmark’. And if they don’t meet this standard, they will have to keep attempting the test until they do.

This reform is all about competition, high stakes testing and national curriculum and assessment systems. It is not about what is best for our students.

The Blueprint ignores the federal educational framework

The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) states that syllabuses are developed “with respect to some overarching views” including those encapsulated in the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008). However, nowhere in the Blueprint is the Melbourne Declaration, of which all Australian education ministers were signatories, mentioned. This is an important omission because the Melbourne Declaration is a broad statement which seeks to develop students as well-rounded human beings through two main goals of schooling: the provision of “equity and excellence”; and the development of young people as “successful learners”, “confident and creative individuals” and “active and informed citizens”.

The Melbourne Declaration acknowledges the significance of the arts and the central role schools have in developing “the spiritual, moral and aesthetic dimensions of life; and open up new ways of thinking.” It’s a shame the authors of the Blueprint ignored this key national document.

There’s more to life than work

While no one would argue that high order literacy and numeracy skills are essential for every individual, what is the point of highly literate and numerate individuals who lead unfulfilled lives? Individuals whose identities and creative outlets are linked to nothing but the workplace, where their capacity and desire to communicate and express themselves is diminished by a school career that at best, operated at a functional, instrumental level, aiming to slot them into jobs and little more? What are the future social ramifications for such a narrowly conceived education?

I guess we will find out over the next decade or so.

Apart from stating the obvious regarding the importance of literacy and numeracy, the worthwhile inclusions are few and far between in the Blueprint. For example, the “character attributes” of “curiosity, flexibility and resilience” are commendable inclusions but are not explicated to contexts beyond the workplace. The document does not attend to any substantial degree current geo-political events, seismic shifts in immigration and fails to acknowledge the subsequent challenges for education systems. Unfortunately, it accurately reflects the NSW Government’s blinkered vision of education – just take a look at the Government’s ‘Premier’s Priorities’ where the sole aim for education is to … wait for it … improve test results.

Says it all, really.

Don Carter is senior lecturer in English Education at the University of Technology Sydney. He has a Bachelor of Arts, a Diploma of Education, Master of Education (Curriculum), Master of Education (Honours) and a PhD in curriculum from the University of Sydney (2013). Don is a former Inspector, English at the Board of Studies, Teaching & Educational Standards and was responsible for a range of projects including the English K-10 Syllabus. He has worked as a head teacher English in both government and non-government schools and was also an ESL consultant for the NSW Department of Education. Don is the secondary schools representative in the Romantic Studies Association of Australasia and has published extensively on a range of issues in English education, including The English Teacher’s Handbook A-Z (Manuel & Carter) and Innovation, Imagination & Creativity: Re-Visioning English in Education (Manuel, Brock, Carter & Sawyer).