What you don’t know about how history is taught in Victorian schools

It is clear from recent discussions about the history curriculum in the media that there are a few things politicians, journalists and the public don’t know about what influences the history being taught in Victorian schools.

Firstly, the Victorian curriculum for history is based on and respectful of the Australian curriculum, but they are not the same. There are some differences from the primary years through to year 10, and many differences at years 11 and 12.

The Victorian curriculum for history is based on the Australian curriculum, but they are not the same.Credit:Simon Schluter

The fact that something appears in the history curriculum does not mean it will be taught. There is simply too much in the curriculum to teach in the amount of time that schools allocate to the subject. Also, the history curriculum is full of options. Teachers are expected to teach some core material and then choose from the options. It’s quite possible some options in the history curriculum are not being taught anywhere.

It appears that there is less history being taught in Victoria every year. Students in years 7-10 are generally doing less than 60 hours of history each year, if they are doing any history at all. To expand the provision of science, numeracy and literacy education, schools are reducing the provision of other subjects and disciplines, particularly the humanities. Many secondary history teachers report that the number of hours allocated to history each week is being squeezed.

It is difficult to know how much history is being taught in primary schools. Primary teachers often create “integrated” units of work which combine multiple learning areas, so the amount of time actually spent on history will vary considerably across different classrooms and schools.

History has not been mentioned in a Victorian government education strategy since 2015. In the Coalition government strategy before that, it was mentioned only once and there were no history-related actions or targets.

In recent years, the Department of Education and Training has announced that “all students” will study Australia’s role in the Vietnam War, and “all students” will study the Holocaust. However, both of those topics appear in the curriculum that is generally taught at year 10, and history becomes an elective subject at most schools after year 9. In fact, history teachers report that some schools are making it an elective after year 8.

Why is that a problem? Because the experts who designed the first Australian curriculum were under the impression that history would be a mandatory subject through to year 10, so there is important content covered in each year.

If a student doesn’t study history in year 10, they miss out on Australian and world history after 1918. If a student doesn’t study history in year 9, they miss the only opportunity at secondary school to learn about Australia’s history between 1750 and 1918 (unless they choose to take up history again in the senior years).

No one collects data on how many students are still doing history in years 9 and 10. It is possible most students are not learning any history beyond 1918 — that is what we hear anecdotally from history teachers. All we can know for sure is that only 12 per cent of Victorian students are still studying history at year 12. The proportion is much higher in NSW.

Only 12 per cent of Victorian students are still studying history at year 12.Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

Another thing you probably don’t know is that quite a few of the people who are teaching history in primary and secondary schools have no prior training in history and are not required to do any training. According to the Australian Council for Education Research, about a quarter of secondary school history classes in Australia are being led by people who have no post-school training in history.

Out-of-field teaching in history wouldn’t be such a problem if schools were required to support these teachers to do regular professional learning in history. That’s how out-of-field teachers in both primary and secondary schools can become experts in the subject. History can be a very sensitive subject; it needs to be taught well by people who know it and know how to teach it.

The 2018 Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership review of teacher standards recommended that all teachers should be required to undertake professional learning that includes “up-to-date discipline-specific knowledge and skills relevant to their deployment and the curriculum they are expected to teach”. The recommendation has not yet been implemented.

So, if young Victorians don’t know the history you think they should, it’s not because of the wording of a single dot point in the curriculum, and it’s not because their history teachers were lacking. The history teachers I meet at professional learning events are knowledgeable, committed and passionate about their subject.

However, until history is appropriately valued and resourced by governments, school systems and schools, there are going to be limits to what history teachers can do.

Deb Hull is executive officer of the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria, a not-for-profit professional association established by teachers to foster excellence in history education.

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