Catholic schools have called for the “ideological” national curriculum to be abolished, as new research reveals more boys are slipping behind girls in their academic performance. NSW Catholic Schools chief executive Dallas McInerney said every Australian school should be able to use the newly released NSW syllabus instead. “Curriculum and education should be about enlightenment, not indoctrination,” he said. “The national curriculum is very vague and not teacher-friendly and is not written for practical application. “Everything looks like it is drafted by the sociology department of a university. “Australian schools would be better off if the NSW curriculum was rolled out right across the country.” New research released by NSW Catholic Schools shows that boys are twice as likely as girls to struggle with reading and writing. Citing data from the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy, it says boys are over-represented among the lowest-performing students. “Boys are twice as likely as girls to score in the lowest performance bands in the literacy domains,’’ it states. “Even in numeracy, where boys traditionally outperform girls on average, the lowest performers are equally likely to be boys.’’
The report suggests that Australia’s “highly disruptive classrooms by world standards are more likely to disadvantage boys’ learning”. Boys are more likely to be diagnosed with autism or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), it warns. “Boys are more likely than girls to be classified with a disability,’’ the report states. In NSW Catholic schools, boys make up 50 per cent of students, but 59 per cent of students with a disability. The report shows that the gender gap in literacy grows over time, with twice as many teenage boys needing remedial support for writing, compared to girls, in year 9. The feminisation of education is also revealed in the report, which shows the proportion of male teachers has fallen to a record low of 28.1 per cent, compared to 33 per cent in 2001. While more girls are studying the male-dominated STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths, the report notes “it need not come at the expense of equivalent efforts to help boys struggling in literacy’’.
At St Gregory’s College, a Marist Catholic school in the western Sydney suburb of Campbelltown, principal Matthew Brennan champions boys’ academic, social and spiritual growth. The school boasts its own farm, as well as vocational training in construction and hospitality. “Boys need structure and routine and boundaries; if you get an unstructured day, the boys are more restless, less engaged and more likely to make a mistake,’’ Mr Brennan said. “Boys and girls learn differently, and girls mature earlier. Boys generally want to please, and if you treat them with kindness and respect, they give it back tenfold. “Competition is a big thing for boys … they need to run around and burn off energy so they’re more settled in class.’’ Mr McInerney said the NSW syllabus – which emphasises the explicit instruction of facts and knowledge – would help boys catch up to girls. “It’s a content-rich, knowledge-rich curriculum which is scaffolded with direct instruction guidelines – it’s really a winning formula,” he said. Mr McInerney is on the board of the NSW Education Standards Authority, which wrote the state’s new syllabus.
National Catholic Education Commission executive director Jacinta Collins, a former Labor senator, said there were “deficiencies‘’ in the national curriculum. She said Catholic schools were using their own lesson plans, based on the Mastery in Mathematics program that sets out sequential step-by-step lessons. “Many of us, including the current government, accept there are deficiencies in how the curriculum has been supplied, ‘’ she said. “Teachers just don’t have a curriculum delivering the resources they need. “Catholic systems around the country are working on ways to enhance the curriculum to ensure there is better evidence-based and well-evaluated material available to support teachers in the classroom.’’ Dr Edward Simons, the executive director of Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS), said he was committed to “ensuring students have access to a knowledge-rich curriculum supported by clear, evidence-based instruction’’. “MACS is currently required to adopt the Victorian curriculum, but we will be examining the best models in use nationally and internationally to determine what will be most impactful for our 120,000 students,’’ he said. Woke teaching in schools and universities is emerging as an election issue.
Source: Compiled by APN from media reports