17^th December 2012
National Education Cur­riculum for Ancient History and Modern History – Years 11 and 1
The ECAJ has cau­tiously welcomed the Federal government’s National Education Cur­riculum for Ancient History and Modern History in Years 11 and 12. The final versions were published on Thursday by the Aus­trali­an Cur­riculum Assess­ment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).
Executive Director, Peter Wertheim, described the new national cur­riculum for each subject as “a sig­ni­fic­ant improve­ment” on the draft versions that were published earlier.
“The electives for study in the Ancient History cur­riculum for Years 11 – 12 include Israel and Judah during the approx­im­ately 400-year long First Temple period and the ancient site of Masada imme­di­ately after the destruc­tion of the Second Temple,” Wertheim said. “The content descrip­tion for Masada is far from perfect, but overall the treatment of ancient Jewish history in the cur­riculum is balanced and accurate, and corrects several factual and con­cep­tu­al errors that the ECAJ high­lighted in its sub­mis­sion to ACARA”.
In the modern history cur­riculum there is a unit on “Germany 1918 –1945”. The content descrip­tion includes “Nazi ideology”, “Nazi policies of antisemitism” and “the Holocaust”, which the ECAJ sub­mis­sion argued strongly should be included. “For students who choose Modern History as a subject in Years 11 and 12, this unit will provide an oppor­tun­ity for a more in-depth study of the Holocaust and the ideology and events leading to it. It will build on the basic study of the Holocaust which is part of the mandatory history cur­riculum for all students up to Year 10”, Wertheim said.
Wertheim also pointed to the Modern History elective entitled “The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East”, the original draft of which he said “contained factual errors and tenden­tious language”. “The ECAJ sub­mis­sion suc­cess­fully made the case for these defi­cien­cies in the content descrip­tion to be rectified and the final version is a much better quality document.”
Wertheim praised Jewish educators Susi Brieger, Avril Alba, Suzanne Rutland, Konrad Kwiet, Gil Davis and Mariela Sztrum, saying, “The community is in their debt for their invalu­able input into the ECAJ’s sub­mis­sions. We need many more educators of their calibre. As a community, we invest far too little in Jewish education at the Uni­ver­sity level”.
Contact:
Peter Wertheim AM | Executive Director
phone: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888 e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au