NSW will remove 65,000 years of Aboriginal history from its syllabus. It’s a step backwards for education
- Written by Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland
The NSW Education Standards Authority has announced that teaching of the Aboriginal past prior to European arrival will be excluded from the Year 7–10 syllabus as of 2027.
Since 2012, the topic “Ancient Australia” has been taught nationally in Year 7 as part of the Australian Curriculum. In 2022, a new topic called the “deep time history of Australia” was introduced to provide a more detailed study of 65,000 years of First Nations’ occupation of the continent.
However, New South Wales has surprisingly dropped this topic from its new syllabus, which will be rolled out in 2027. Instead, students will only learn First Nations’ history following European colonisation in 1788.
This directly undermines the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration of 2020. This is a national agreement, signed by education ministers from all jurisdictions, which states:
We recognise the more than 60,000 years [sic] of continual connection by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as a key part of the nation’s history, present and future.
If the planned change to the syllabus goes through, the only Aboriginal history taught to NSW students would be that which reflects the destruction of traditional Aboriginal society. It also means Aboriginal students in NSW will be denied a chance to learn about their deep ancestral past.
The significance of Australia’s deep time past
Bruce Pascoe’s groundbreaking 2014 book Dark Emu (which sold more than 500,000 copies), and the associated documentary, have highlighted an enormous appetite for learning about Australia’s deep time past.
Hundreds of thousands of Australians engaged with Dark Emu. As anthropologist Paul Memmott notes, the book prompted a debate that encouraged a better understanding of Aboriginal society and its complexity.
It also generated research that investigated whether terms such as “hunter-gatherers” are appropriate for defining past Aboriginal society and economic systems.
Read more: Farmers or foragers? Pre-colonial Aboriginal food production was hardly that simple
In schools, teachers have used Pascoe’s book Young Dark Emu to introduce students to sophisticated land and aquaculture systems used by First Peoples prior to colonisation.
The book raises an important question. If you lived in a country that invented bread and the edge-ground axe – a culture that independently developed early trade and social living – and did all of this without resorting to land war – wouldn’t you want your children to know about it?
For many students, the history they learn at school is knowledge they carry into their adult lives – and knowledge is the strongest antidote to ignorance. Rather than abandoning the Aboriginal deep time story, schools should be encouraging students to engage with it.
Learning on Country
One of the strengths of the current NSW history syllabus is the requirement for students to undertake a “site study” in Years 8 and 9. Currently, NSW is the only jurisdiction that has made this mandatory.
Site studies are an excellent opportunity for students to learn on Country. Many teachers organise excursions to Aboriginal cultural sites where students can directly engage with local Traditional Owners and Elders.
New South Wales is brimming with sites of cultural significance to Aboriginal people. The map below highlightssome of these, ranging from megafauna sites, to extensive fish traps, to the enigmatic rock art galleries and ceremonial engravings (petroglyphs).
How students will miss out
The Ngambaa people and archaeologists from the University of Queensland are currently investigating one of the largest midden complexes in Australia. This complex, located at Clybucca and Stuart’s Point on the north coast, spans some 14 kilometres and dates back to around 9,000 years ago.
Middens, or “living sites”, are accumulations of shell that were built over time through thousands of discarded seafood meals. Since the shells help reduce the acidic chemistry of the soil, animal bones and plant remains are more likely to be preserved in middens.
For instance, the Clybucca-Stuarts Point midden complex contains remains from seals and dugongs. Both of these animals were once part of the local ecosystem, but no longer are.
The middens also extend back to before the arrival of dingoes, so studying them could help us understand how biodiversity changed once dingoes replaced thylacines and Tasmanian devils on the mainland.
Local school students, especially Aboriginal students, will be actively participating in this cutting-edge research alongside the Ngambaa people, archaeologists and teachers. Among other things, the students will learn how the Ngambaa people sustainably managed land and sea Country over thousand of years during periods of dramatic environmental change.
But innovative programs like this will no longer be as relevant if Australia’s deep time history is removed from the NSW syllabus.
An opportunity for leadership
The study of First Nations archaeological sites, history and cultures tells us a broader human story of continuity and adaptability over deep time. Indigenising the curriculum – wherein Aboriginal knowledge is braided with historical and archaeological inquiry – is a powerful way to reconcile different approaches to understanding the past.
The NSW Education Standards Authority’s proposed changes risk sending young people the message that Australia’s “history” before colonisation is not an important part of the country’s historic narrative.
But there is still time to show leadership – by reversing the decisions and by connecting teachers and students to powerful stories from Australia’s deep time past.
Authors: Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland
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