2. Formal civics education in Australia
   1. Democracies are strengthened when citizens are aware of their rights and responsibilities, are informed about matters of policy and understand how government works. The consensus amongst inquiry participants was that civics and citizenship education is vital to the development and maintenance of good democratic systems.
   2. In Australia, formal civics education is largely the responsibility of primary and secondary schools, with civics and citizenship forming part of the Australian Curriculum. Specific details about the Australian Curriculum and the individual curriculums of the states and territories were discussed in Chapter 1 of this report.
   3. In addition to school-based education, several federal institutions provide programs and resources that are directly linked to the civics and citizenship components of the Australian Curriculum.
   4. This chapter discusses civics and citizenship education in formal school education. It discusses several issues raised in evidence concerning how the curriculum is delivered, both at a national level and at the state and territory level. The chapter also covers the role of cultural institutions that offer civics and citizenship education to Australian students.

Improving national consistency and accountability

2.5A strong theme arising from this inquiry was the lack of consistency of state and territory and individual schools’ implementation of the Australian Curriculum. Many inquiry participants agreed that what the Australian Curriculum sets out is not necessarily what is implemented in each school – highlighting a gap between policy and practice, with many students not having the same opportunities as their peers in other jurisdictions.[1]

2.6There were concerns from stakeholders that the Department of Education and Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) are not utilising their roles to hold jurisdictions accountable for the curriculums they teach, particularly after the results from the National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship (NAP-CC) present a consistent decline in proficiency levels.

2.7The Central Land Council noted that ‘the reality is quite different’ between the intention of the Australian Curriculum and what is being taught:

Whilst we know that civics education is mandated within the Australian curriculum, what is not so clear is which agency is primarily responsible for the delivery of that and for ensuring that children and young people are provided with opportunities to engage with the current civic education program and what this access and participation looks like. Like many other scenarios, we suspect that, between the intention of the curriculum and what is experienced on the ground, the reality is quite different.[2]

2.8The Rule of Law Education Centre warned that when civics and citizenship content is embedded in other subjects ‘there's no accountability’.[3] It added that although key elements for formalised civics and citizenship education were agreed upon in 2012:

… there has been no method of review or audit of each State or Territory’s curriculums to make sure they contain the minimum civics and citizenship content that was agreed upon.[4]

2.9Many stakeholders agreed that this embeddedness can have a significant impact on teachers as they then find it difficult to make connections across different subjects and plan their content. Resources and materials available for schools and teachers also vary considerably and are dispersed across many sources.[5]

2.10The Social and Citizenship Education Association of Australia (SCEAA) emphasised that while ACARA is responsible for creating the national curriculum, it does not have:

… the responsibility to provide the pedagogy for the teachers and for the schools. They are not a statutory corporation that is charged with providing professional learning.[6]

2.11This means that states and territories work independently to ensure that the curriculum is explicit and clear for their teachers. For example, the NSW Education Standards Authority said that:

What we've tried to do with our work is make sure that we are far more explicit and clear for what teachers need to teach their students. We believe that has made life a lot easier already for teachers. Certainly, the overwhelming feedback we're have receiving is that's the case. As I've said previously, one of the things that guides our work is to make sure we have the essential content that every student in New South Wales needs to know.[7]

2.12Social Education Victoria told the Committee that although the Department of Education provides guidance and a ‘critical literacy toolkit for the humanities’, teachers can exercise considerable autonomy in their approach:

I've seen lots of teachers trying to improve it, sharing practice and things like that, but it is really inconsistent. There are wildly different ways of thinking about the curriculum, using the curriculum and offering it, or not offering it, to different students.[8]

2.13This results in little opportunity to access ‘practical insights into classroom implementation’, presenting challenges to better understand approaches taken across schools and articulating best practice for teachers.[9]

2.14Variations of the curriculum can also significantly affect barriers that some students are already facing, such as socioeconomic inequalities and geographic location. The results of the NAP-CC illustrate this:

• Students at metropolitan schools scored significantly higher than their peers in regional and remote areas
• The education and occupation of a student’s parents heavily influenced their civic knowledge
• Indigenous students and those speaking a language other than the test language “performed worse in the civic knowledge domain.”[10]
  15. To address these issues, many inquiry participants agreed that the curriculum should be mandated, state and territories should be required to fully implement civics and citizenship in their respective curricula, and that there should be a system of transparency and accountability.[11] Social Education Victoria said that mandating the curriculum would assist schools and teachers to have ‘clear guidance on what should be taught’.[12]
  16. Many educators who responded to the Committee’s civics education survey also agreed that civics education should be compulsory with mandatory teacher training.[13] Box 2.1 provides some examples.

2.17Most recent school leavers who responded to the Committee’s survey also agreed that civics education should be mandatory. One participant who graduated from a public secondary school in NSW two to three years ago said that civics education should include:

Exactly what a Member of Parliament or Senator does and how exactly the voting system works should be taught as Australia’s voting system seems somewhat unique compared to the rest of the world, e.g. the United Kingdom and the United States of America.[14]

2.18The Law Council of Australia suggested that the Department of Education work with the curriculum authorities in each state and territory to better understand how the civics and citizenship content is being taught and consider ‘opportunities for national alignment’.[15] It also recommended that ACARA should include best practice guides on its website to support teachers in delivering civics education and conduct more regular reviews of the Australian Curriculum to ensure ‘it remains fit for purpose’ and reflects contemporary issues.[16]

2.19SCEAA suggested the establishment of a national research centre to ‘conduct audits and gather data on teaching practices to ensure that all students receive a robust civics education’.[17] It also advocated for ‘national benchmarks for civics and citizenship education that are contextually grounded, ensuring that every student, regardless of location, has equitable access to this essential curriculum’.[18]

2.20The Rule of Law Education Centre similarly agreed that students should have opportunities to engage with civics education that is consistent with their peers across jurisdictions.[19]

2.21The Department of Education acknowledged that because state and territory governments and non-government education authorities are responsible for implementing the curriculum,[20] ‘we lack a real understanding of how that is played out on the ground and what the difference in approaches results in’.[21]

2.22ACARA told the Committee that bringing the curriculum ‘to life’ can be different for individual schools as the difference in the context can be quite vast:

Bringing that to life, of course, is really different in the middle of Melbourne compared to a remote community in Far North Queensland or in Arnhem Land. The closer you get to the classroom, the more the context matters: What are those students experiencing? How do we make that real for them in their world?[22]

2.23It added that it is ‘not ACARA's role’ to require states and territories to report back on how each jurisdiction implements the curriculum, nor does it regulate this.[23] ACARA emphasised that its role is to set the content of the Australian Curriculum and conduct the NAP – results of which are openly accessible and provided to each education minister and education department.[24]

2.24ACARA added that it does not make recommendations to the relevant minister and instead the purpose of the NAP results is to take them ‘into account when we're doing the review of the curriculum’.[25]

2.25Members of SCEAA also noted that ‘there has been no action coming out of the NAP-CC report’ and commented that it merely ‘exists as a piece of evidence’, with suggestions that the report should ‘create an opportunity to build better teaching and learning and better opportunities for professional learning’.[26]

Effectiveness of the civics and citizenship curriculum

2.26The current implementation of civics and citizenship education through the Australian Curriculum has resulted in significant variation across jurisdictions, resulting in students receiving vastly different content depending on their location. This prevents the development of the knowledge and skills students need to be informed, engaged and responsible citizens who can effectively contribute to democratic processes.

2.27The South Australian Commissioner for Children and Young People (CCYP) summarised many inquiry participants’ views on the civics and citizenship curricula:

We know that the quality, content and timing of school-based civics and citizenship education varies considerably across schools, if it is delivered at all. Civics education is not taken seriously in many schools and time constraints limit the opportunities for young people to develop the knowledge and skills they need to be active citizens.[27]

2.28A lack of a standardised approach to civics and citizenship concepts results in varied implementation. This section will examine the issues with implementation at the state and territory level, including:

• limited time allocated to teaching and learning in a crowded curriculum
• teacher knowledge, training and time to deliver civics content
• school resourcing
• flexibility in curriculums
• barriers related to social, socio-economic, linguistic and regional and remote disadvantage.
  29. Stakeholders, including students, emphasised the importance of civics education and the urgency of strengthening the curriculum. Box 2.2 provides examples of responses from students collected through the Committee’s civics education survey.[28]

Insufficient time and place in the curriculum

2.30Stakeholders agreed near-unanimously that a key reason for the low levels of proficiency in civics and citizenship amongst students, particularly at the high school level, is the insufficient time devoted to the topic in the curriculum.

2.31While the Australian Curriculum models how civics and citizenship should be taught nationally, civics teaching is often embedded within other subjects in a crowded curriculum,[29] and covered ‘in a short, superficial fashion’.[30]

2.32Dr Libby Tudball, among others,[31] noted that civics and citizenship education is generally incorporated into larger humanities subjects where it is:

… often pushed out by history and geography in the secondary years. There is no doubt that there is evidence amongst the primary years of a more integrated approach and more consistent learning across that area, which may explain the fact that the NAP-CC results for primary young-age students are a little better than for the secondary years.[32]

2.33A key reason for the lack of consistency in how the civics and citizenship curriculum is being taught appears to be competition for time and resources. The South Australian CCYP found that teachers in South Australia (SA) identified that civics and citizenship was taught sporadically, if at all, and only when time allowed.[33]

2.34As Social Education Victoria put it, ‘decades of neglect of [civics and citizenship education] has resulted in school timetables often giving minimal time to civics subjects, and it frequently being “lost” in under-resourced integrated subjects’.[34]

2.35This was supported by a survey of teachers’ experience with the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) curriculum conducted by the University of Queensland in 2021. It found that 45 per cent of respondents believed that the content of the civics and citizenship curriculum in Years 7 to 10 could be covered in each year.[35]

2.36Mrs Brooke Byars, teacher and Head of Department for Humanities and Business at Woree State High School highlighted this point too and said that students will only receive one lesson of civics and citizenship a week: ‘How are we going to get through the Australian curriculum, how are we going to inspire students, in one lesson?’[36] Mrs Byars added:

The kids love to unpack this—they really do—but, in the grand scheme of things, we've got one lesson. We are making some changes to our timetable next year, in that we can then run civics and citizenship over a period of time. I think that will see success. We'll have some great success stories there from doing that. But, again, it still doesn't have the same weighting as history and geography, where it's probably just as important.[37]

2.37The Australian Council for Student Voice recommended that the approach to civics and citizenship education across Australia should ‘be more consistent, with all jurisdictions encouraged to adopt a genuine application of civics and citizenship learning as a stand-alone subject area’.[38]

2.38Professor Lisa Hill, Professor Rodrigo Praino and Ms Isabella Courtney argued that Australia’s system of compulsory voting means that ‘targeted programs that teach the value and mechanics of voting should not only be embedded in all civics curricular but should be a compulsory component taught by trained instructors’.[39]

2.39The Rule of Law Education Centre argued that the question of whether civics should be taught as part of a general humanities subject or as a standalone course was less important than ensuring that civics is taught formally and explicitly to all students.[40]

2.40Additionally, some witnesses argued that civics education should be mandated for a minimum number of hours. For example, Mr Simon Zulian, a secondary teacher in New South Wales (NSW) said that because there is ‘no mandated curriculum time allocated specifically to civics education’, some schools can ignore that part of the curriculum entirely, and in others:

… a tentative mention of historic events that touch on democratic values or processes is considered sufficient to satisfy the minor civic and citizenship requirements placed upon them.[41]

2.41Mr Zulian recommended that ‘civics and citizenship should be a discrete subject within the curriculum, with a specified number of teaching/learning hours allocated to it’.[42]

2.42Democracy Matters similarly advocated for a mandated ten hours, but leaving the question of how those hours are delivered to individual schools:

The Commonwealth Government mandates ten hours of civics education in secondary schools for students 14 and 15 years of age (young people can enrol with the AEC from the age of 16). […] How the mandatory hours are delivered should be a school based decision, eg within a curriculum area, through a program organised by year coordinators, as part of end of year, post exam program or as a school based action research project. Funding should be tied to delivering the ten hours and ACARA should evaluate and report on civics education outcomes.[43]

2.43Some states are leading by example, such as SA which recently implemented a compulsory civics class in Years 7 and 8 and increased lesson times for this cohort from ‘the national average of 32 minutes per week, to the equivalent of a 60-minute lesson per week, with increased opportunities for democratic engagement within each school’.[44]

Civics and citizenship in the senior curriculum

2.44A widely supported recommendation was to incorporate civics and citizenship into the senior secondary (Years 11 and 12) curriculum for all students, on the basis that students in those year levels are close to voting age and, for many, will be in their final years of formal education.

2.45Requirements for senior secondary schooling varies by state and territory, presenting ‘obstacles in achieving consistency and coherence in civic education curricula nationwide’.[45] Each state and territory has its own secondary certificate, none of which have a requirement for any civics and citizenship education.[46]

2.46Subjects under the Australian Curriculum for senior secondary schooling include English, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Earth and Environmental Science, Physics, Ancient History, Modern History, and Geography.[47] ACARA noted that civics and citizenship ‘is not one of the agreed Australian Curriculum Senior Secondary subjects’[48] and emphasised that ‘is to maintain the level of flexibility for students to choose that pathway and be prepared for that next phase of their life’.[49]

2.47Ms Kate Rankine, a Legal Studies teacher in SA highlighted that:

From a civics perspective the timing of this could not be worse. This is the moment when we most want the importance of this material to be given priority as in a few short years we will be expecting these young people to vote in elections and serve on juries.[50]

2.48While some subjects taught in Years 11 and 12 have a civics component, such as Legal Studies or Politics, these are optional rather than core or compulsory subjects. As the Civic Engagement Youth Advisory Group noted, ‘senior secondary subjects like legal studies are not only optional but also very theory focused and of little practical use for a future voter’.[51]

2.49The South Australian Youth Forum made a similar point, highlighting that, for students who don’t choose a senior subject like Legal Studies, which not every school offers, ‘it's really hard to find unbiased information, particularly online, and also navigate your own way through civics’.[52]

2.50More directly, a member of the South Australian Student Representative Council noted: ‘I've heard this from friends at other schools as well: if you don't pick legal studies, you will not know anything’.[53]

2.51A further reason to expand civics education into the senior years was made by Ms Rankine, who argued that the subject matter of civics classes is too complex for students in earlier school years:

To give an example, a sample of twenty 16 year olds who have chosen to study Legal Studies and are academically above average did not even understand what I meant by the term “civics” when asked about it today.[54]

2.52One educator who responded to the Committee’s civics education survey agreed that there is more value in teaching civics and citizenship to students in Years 10 to 12:

I think it should be taught to Years 10, 11 and 12, as they will be voting soon. Having it added to a really crowded 7/8 curriculum with students who struggle to read and write is onerous and not as great a value. Students in Years 7 and 8 are not ready to become great citizens! (Private school, Regional area, Tasmania)[55]

2.53Professor Rosalind Dixon, Professor Murray Print and Dr Sarah Moulds also considered compulsory civics education in the senior curriculum. Professor Dixon said that students in Years 11 and 12 already face challenges and assessment priorities to complete high school, which emphasises that ‘it is even more imperative’ to focus on civics education in Years 7 to 10.[56]

2.54Professor Print acknowledged that the focus on the end-of-school examination ‘is really bound up very tightly’ but said that not including civics and citizenship in the Years 11 and 12 curriculum was ‘definitely a missed opportunity’.[57] Professor Print said that it is essential for schools to provide fundamental civics and citizenship education up to Year 12, given the lack of opportunity for democratic learning in non-school contexts.[58]

2.55Dr Moulds agreed that civics and legal literacy education should be mandated in Years 11 and 12 across all Australian schools, emphasising that children and young people should be treated as ‘citizens now’, rather than ‘citizens in the future’.[59]

2.56The Australian Youth Affairs Coalition, noting the difficulty of including formal civics education for senior students, suggested instead a refresher class for all Year 12 students.[60]

2.57The NSW Department of Education said that its public schools offer a ‘Life Ready course’ for students in Years 11 and 12 which covers ‘participation in democratic electoral processes—for example, enrolling to vote and voting in government elections’.[61]

2.58Students who participated in the Committee’s survey also shared suggestions on the timing and integration of civics and citizenship in the current curriculum. A snapshot of these responses is provided at Box 2.3.[62]

Challenges for teachers

2.59The Committee heard that the delivery of formal civics and citizenship education in schools is of mixed effectiveness as it largely depends on a particular teacher’s knowledge, training, capacity and confidence, the importance placed on the topic at a broader school level and time pressures.[63] The optional and flexible nature of civics in most curricula also allows teachers to spend less time on it, or to ‘opt out’, to meet time constraints.[64]

2.60Social Education Victoria highlighted that ‘school leadership, timetables, external pressures and resourcing’ impact how teachers approach the subject:

It is hard to teach civics if it isn't in the timetable. It's hard to improve a dull civics program when the school leadership isn't prioritising it, and nobody is able to get a replacement teacher to allow them to attend [personal development]. It is hard to collaborate as a learning area or faculty when you have one 45-minute meeting every term. It's hard to teach anything when there is a teaching crisis, and some classes are being taught by casual replacement teachers for months at a time.[65]

Lack of expertise and knowledge

2.61A significant theme in this inquiry was that many teachers responsible for teaching civics and citizenship to Australian students themselves lack expertise and knowledge in the area. Dr Tudball and Dr Keith Heggart argued that the low NAP-CC results is linked to a lack of emphasis on civics and citizenship in teachers continued professional learning.[66]

2.62The Committee was advised that many social science teachers do not study content and curriculum units related to civics and citizenship at university, and do not have opportunities to develop this knowledge in teacher education programs.[67] There is also no national government funded professional learning programs available to renew teachers’ knowledge of civics and citizenship.[68] Teachers are consequently not well prepared to teach the subject, both at the primary or secondary level.[69]

2.63Box 2.4 provides an example of some of the responses from educators collected through the Committee’s civics education survey.[70]

2.64SCEAA highlighted this lack of formal training as leading to ‘varied levels of understanding’ and ‘low levels of confidence’ amongst teachers of civics and citizenship classes.[71] As a result, many teachers rely on their own understandings of civics and citizenship, influenced by their personal values and worldviews and students can receive extremely varying levels of education.[72]

2.65Mr Zulian made a similar point:

A lack of options for formal teacher training or a pathway for expertise in the subject is problematic. Many teachers often do not feel equipped to address content in this field adequately, leading to a reliance on individual enthusiasm rather the rigorous structures around a formal syllabus. This creates a patchwork of teachers, many of whom lack confidence to deal with public affairs in an impartial manner in a classroom environment which in turn undermines universal and quality civics education.[73]

2.66Many stakeholders agreed that if teachers are not confident to teach an area of content, they will avoid teaching it. For example, SCEAA pointed out that teachers will focus on the subject matter they are most confident with:

If I am a new graduate and I don't have a lot of confidence in teaching civics and citizenship, if I move into an area that is taught under a banner of HASS, I'm going to teach what I'm comfortable with. I'm going to teach the areas, probably, of history and maybe a bit of geography, but I won't necessarily teach civics and citizenship, if that's what I'm not confident with and that's not where I feel that I have the level of self-efficacy that I need.[74]

2.67The Rule of Law Education Centre similarly noted that the flexibility of the curriculum and syllabuses meant that teachers can choose to focus on a different content area:

If a teacher does not feel equipped and confident to teach an area of content, or if they are disinterested, then they can choose to focus on a different content elaboration contained in the syllabus to meet the teaching hours requirements for that subject area. Inequitable access to civics education is the unfortunate result of teachers choosing their own elaborations and content.[75]

2.68Many inquiry participants agreed that to address this, strengthened professional learning and reliable, high-quality online resources should be developed for all teachers as a priority.[76] This should be incorporated as part of their initial training and for professional development throughout their career.[77]

2.69Professor Print added that the curriculum should be ‘clear and unequivocal’, and added that:

My experience in 30 years of doing these sorts of things has been that teachers are happy to teach it as long as there's a good curriculum, a good base upon which they can teach, resources they can use, and they've got a sufficient background in a nonpartisan sense.[78]

2.70The Rule of Law Education Centre emphasised the need for civics to be both a curriculum priority and a teaching practice priority, with civics becoming a dedicated unit as part of their university education degree and be available for both pre-service and in-service teachers.[79]

2.71The Australian Professional Teachers Association also recommended more government support, including funding for HASS teacher associations to develop and disseminate best-practice approaches for the teaching of civics and citizenship.[80]

2.72The NSW Department of Education told the Committee that as part of its most recent curriculum reform, it is supporting teachers by providing ‘useful, practical support’ resources which ‘are designed to show what good implementation looks like for these syllabuses’.[81]

2.73Similarly, in SA’s recent curriculum reform it is ‘investing in our educators, by working towards having a specialist civics and citizenship educator in every public secondary and birth to year 12 public school’.[82] The SA Government said that by developing civics and citizenship as a cross curriculum priority, not only will students consistently engage in democratic studies and active citizenship, but teachers will be able to use a ‘strengthened curriculum without overcrowding the curriculum’.[83]

2.74ACARA supported the SA Government’s recommendations to consider funding opportunities for ‘further professional development for civics and citizenship specialisation in teachers’ and more ‘support with setting up a network for teachers across Australia’ to ensure national consistency.[84]

Discomfort in leading debate about contemporary issues

2.75Civics education is enhanced when students are given the opportunity to contribute to debates and discussion on political and social issues through an ‘open classroom climate’.[85] However, a lack of training and knowledge in civics can lead teachers to lack confidence in leading such debate about contemporary issues.[86]

2.76Teachers have raised concerns that issues can sometimes be controversial in nature as they are aware that there may be parental or media backlash against some topics such as climate change, racism, social justice and global citizenship.[87]

2.77As Social Education Victoria argues, addressing some controversial topics needs to be understood as an essential part of teaching civics and citizenship:

There needs to be a better understanding that teaching civics and citizenship is political and that it might hit on controversial issues. It would be helpful if decision-makers understood this before publicly criticising teachers who are doing the brave and often thankless work of broaching challenging issues in their classrooms. Such criticisms do have a real chilling effect on teachers' appetite for teaching these sorts of issues.[88]

2.78Students reported being aware that teachers were uncomfortable discussing political issues. According to the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition, many students said that their experience of civics and citizenship education was:

… limited to a rote-style delivery that focused on the role of key institutions such as electoral and parliamentary systems, rather than creating opportunities for them to engage in meaningful learning that develops critical thinking, awareness of social issues, and preparing them to become active citizens.[89]

2.79The South Australian Youth Forum made a similar point, highlighting that teacher reluctance to engage in political topics leads to less engagement from students:

We're finding that, at the moment, there's a lot of social aversion, taboo and stigma around having open conversations about civics education and political engagement, especially in classroom and educational settings. Civics education is very centralised around the middle-school Canberra trip and is not very consistent throughout. There isn't necessarily a supportive, positive and open environment, in which young people can engage in genuine conversations and ask genuine questions about politics and civics engagement.[90]

2.80Teacher Mrs Brooke Byars highlighted this point too: ‘I think some teachers probably don't have those conversations, because they're afraid of crossing the line’.[91]

2.81Victorian Trades Hall Council emphasised that teachers ‘should be trusted to be able to carry out these debates in a non-partisan manner’ and recommended that the curriculum should not just teach political facts, but political policy.[92]

2.82Professor Dixon recommended resourcing for professional development opportunities to allow teachers ‘to see how to do debate based education without straying into partisanship’.[93]

2.83Similarly, the Political and Legal Educators Association of Western Australia recommended:

Greater investment in resources and professional learning will enable them to discuss contemporary social, political, and legal issues while facilitating deeper analyses that draw out relevant connections to mechanisms of governance in Australia.[94]

Relevance and practical elements

2.84A further explanation for the declining proficiency seen through the NAP-CC is that the current curriculum is presented in a way that does not engage students, nor sufficiently prepare them to cast an informed and formal vote.

2.85Students themselves, from Beaufort Secondary College Middle Years Humanities Class, argued that young people are not engaging with civics in part because the language and methods used are inaccessible to them: ‘A lot of the language used by government cannot be understood by the average teenager’.[95]

2.86Box 2.5 provides some free text responses from students across Australia, gathered through the Committee’s civics education survey. The responses address questions such as ‘How satisfied are you with the civics education you have received?’ and ‘How should civics education in schools be improved?’.[96]

2.87According to the South Australian CCYP, students have also described the curriculum as containing too little and being ‘either “too early” or “too late” depending on their school and subject choices’.[97]

2.88Mr Matthew Hawkins, a Legal Studies teacher, and Ms Rankine both agreed that the civics and citizenship curriculum requires too much of teachers, and too much of students at too young an age.[98]

2.89Mr Hawkins said that the civics and citizenship curriculum is ‘fundamentally uninteresting’.[99] Additionally, Ms Rankine said that complex content means that students are being prevented from meaningfully engaging with it:

Complicated and technical concepts are being introduced too soon - the students are not ready from a cognitive or maturity standpoint. Civics content should be introduced when students are receptive to it and this requires them firstly to understand it and secondly to appreciate its immediate relevance in their lives.[100]

2.90The Australian Council for Student Voice made a similar point, highlighting that the framing of civics education is difficult to relate to for many students:

The curriculum emphasises student acquisition of political and historical content knowledge such as the Magna Carta, the history of our Constitution, the operation of Parliament and the structure of the legal system. Students have shared with us that while these topics are important for them to learn, they are difficult to relate to the typical student and fail to contribute to an engaging experience. Research supports the notion that teachers are not necessarily successful in engaging students in these learning experiences.[101]

2.91Evidence from the Australian Professional Teachers Association supported this point and argued that failing to address contemporary issues ‘leaves students ill-prepared to navigate the complexities of modern society and participate meaningfully in public debates and democratic processes’.[102]

2.92Many inquiry participants advocated for greater access to practical experiences, and more practical learning in the classroom, so that students can better understand why they’re learning particular topics.

2.93The South Australian CCYP warned that there is a significant number of young people making it through years of schooling without knowing about the key systems and democratic processes that affect their lives, including how to cast a valid vote.[103]

2.94Mr Aiden Senaratne highlighted this point too and said that the Cairns Youth Council had heard that because democracy was taught near the end of primary school, many young people had ‘forgotten what was learned by the time they reached voting age’:

The impact of this was highlighted when one of our fellow youth councillors recalled that both of their older siblings had been fined because they did not enrol to vote after turning 18, likely due to not receiving adequate education. The youth councillors who shared their reflections agreed that, beyond the basics of the democratic system, students were not taught in detail how to vote and did not feel properly equipped to independently evaluate campaign materials or decide who to vote for. Some of us felt there was too much emphasis placed on international political systems and ideologies, with little time spent on Australia's political system, and that maths and science were valued more highly than civics.[104]

2.95The Australian Council for Student Voice said that in its discussions with teachers and school leaders it heard that ‘particularly those in regional and rural locations, indicated a strong desire for greater access to practical experiences’.[105]

2.96The South Australian CCYP and Professor Lisa Hill et al agreed that the content of civics education must be practical enough for students to ‘cast an informed and formal vote in a manner that makes voters feel efficacious’.[106]

2.97Professor Lisa Hill et al emphasised that in a system where voting is compulsory, such knowledge should be an ‘essential part of education’:

In a compulsory voting system that is particularly complex, a dedicated teaching module on how ballot papers work and the best way to fill them in so as to gain political representation that reflects an individual’s political preferences (we call this ‘congruent’ voting) should be treated as an essential part of education, not an add-on that may or may not be delivered at the discretion of schools, instructors or even students.[107]

2.98Similarly, Professor Dixon argued that civics and citizenship ‘cannot be simply dry book knowledge for students’ and suggested that a reform of the curriculum should ‘involve more applied programs that combine knowledge, student voice and motivation’:

… reform in this area must involve both basic curriculum development and space within the curriculum and school day and year for what we might call applied programs that link student voice, democratic education and motivation to engage with our democracy.[108]

2.99On this point, the Gilbert and Tobin Centre of Public Law is trialling ‘a new, more democracy oriented model of the student representative council’ in some NSW primary schools to give ‘students practical knowledge and experience of civics and an opportunity to create a mindset of engagement and participation’.[109]

Vulnerable students

2.100Vulnerable cohorts – such as First Nations students, students living in regional and remote Australia and students with disability – experience unique challenges which can affect when and how they receive civics education at school. Limited civics education has lifelong impacts and can result in reduced electoral engagement and participation in the future.

2.101During the Committee’s visit to Northern Australia, it heard about the barriers that First Nations children and young people face in remote communities such as Maningrida in the Northern Territory. Civics education, and education more generally in Maningrida is ‘very, very poor’,[111] largely due to low attendance rates and language barriers:

Students' attendance—because the Western calendar does not meet and collaborate with the Bininj calendar and world, kids were being forced to attend school a long way from their homes and homelands, living like refugees in Maningrida, or trying to live.[112]

2.102The Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation suggested that civics education outcomes, along with broader academic results, would be improved if the school calendar better reflected the culture and climate of Northern Australia:

School attendance in the wet season is about 89 to 90 per cent, but, as soon as it's dry season, everybody's gone out to homelands, so it drops down to about 23 per cent. We run the Remote School Attendance Strategy, and so our staff do a lot of work trying to get families to take the children, but they're not actually here in Maningrida. So it would probably make more sense to have a different type of school calendar, which we've recommended before, saying, don't have school in dry season, or have school out on the homelands during dry season.[113]

2.103Many students with a disability face barriers preventing them from learning about civics education at school too. For example, Down Syndrome Australia (DSA) said that a high number of students with disability ‘attend a segregated school in their secondary years’ which, anecdotally, significantly impacts their access to curriculum and content matter that students are taught.[114]

2.104DSA said that HASS subjects are removed or reduced in timetables for students with intellectual disability for other kinds of education, such as life skills and work experience.[115] It added that opportunities for students to attend camps or experiential learning away from home such as a trip to Canberra can also be inaccessible for students with disability as they are often overnight. DSA said that this is ‘a significant missed opportunity for hands-on education on electoral matters’.[116]

2.105Deaf Connect said that there is ‘a significantly widespread poor level of political literacy by deaf voters’.[117] It highlighted the importance of mandating the inclusion of Auslan resources and open captioning on videos to ‘ensure the consistency of access to civics education irrespective of deaf students access to inclusive education supports’.[118]

Cultural institutions as part of formal education

2.106As well as the education delivered in classrooms, a range of cultural institutions offer civics and citizenship education to Australian students, including parliaments, electoral commissions, libraries, museums and galleries.

2.107The Parliament and Civics Education Rebate (PACER) is a travel subsidy available to schools that conduct trips to Canberra. The PACER program has existed in its current form since 2006 and supports students in Years 4 to 12 to participate in learning experiences in Canberra that complement civics and citizenship education delivered in the classroom.[119]

2.108To be eligible for the subsidy, schools must participate in programs conducted at three of the four mandatory PACER institutions in Canberra: Australian Parliament House, Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD), the National Electoral and Education Centre (NEEC) at the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and the Australian War Memorial.[120]

2.109The Department of Education said that if schools have difficulty attending the mandatory institutions, for example if bookings are at capacity, there are alternative PACER institutions which also offer a range of civics and citizenship education-related programs. These include Government House, High Court of Australia, National Archives of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Australia, National Capital Authority, National Gallery of Australia, and National Film and Sound Archive.[121]

2.110The standard PACER rebate amount is calculated on a per student basis and varies depending on the distance the school is from Canberra. The basic rebate per student ranges from $20 per student for schools that are between 150km and 499km from Canberra to $260 for schools that are more than 4,000km from Canberra.[122] Since its inception, the PACER rebate has been amended to provide an additional $120 per student rebate for schools on islands or in remote areas.[123]

2.111In March 2023 the Minister for Education, the Hon Jason Clare MP, announced a new pilot program that further increased the per student rebate. The pilot program is still in place at the time of writing. Under the pilot, the following per student rebates are provided to schools:

• a temporary 50 per cent additional base rebate
• a new rebate per student of $5 for schools within 150 km of Canberra
• additional loadings for low socio-economic schools
• additional loadings for geographical remoteness for schools located in outer regional, remote or very remote locations.[124]
  112. According to the Department of Education:

Under these settings, a student travelling from a remote, disadvantaged school in NSW (600 kilometres from Canberra), would attract a rebate of $157.50, compared to $45 under the standard PACER settings. A student from a very remote, disadvantaged school in the NT (3,200 kilometres from Canberra) would attract a rebate of $2,040 instead of $510.[125]

2.113Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 100,000 students visited Canberra each year as part of PACER.[126]

2.114The Parliamentary Education Office (PEO) in Parliament House delivered, in the 2023-24 financial year, tours including role plays of chamber or committee processes to over 96,000 students and expects this to rise to over 120,000 in 2024-25.[127]

2.115The PEO’s immersive program focuses on allowing students to explore how laws are made, the roles and responsibilities of Members of Parliament and Senators and how governments are formed and held accountable.[128]

2.116The NEEC also offers in-person programs, focused on Australia’s electoral system including voting in House and Senate elections and referendums; as the PEO noted the two programs complement each other with their respective focuses.[129]

2.117Similarly, MoAD offers in-person programs on a range of topics related to civics and political participation.[130]

Access issues

2.118Despite PACER’s focus on improving access to Canberra’s cultural institutions, for many schools a trip to Canberra remains unviable. The Committee heard that the rebate is ‘far from generous and the costs exclude many students’ who attend schools in lower socioeconomic or regional and remote areas.[131] This means that many students may miss out on access to practical experiences that can reinforce what they have learnt in the classroom.[132]

2.119Data provided by the PEO demonstrates this: in 2023, 803 NSW schools visited the PEO, substantially more than the next highest, Victoria (254 schools) and Queensland (138 schools). States and territories further away demonstrate the geographic difficulties schools face in travelling to Canberra:

• Western Australia: 86 schools
• South Australia: 72 schools
• Tasmania: 20 schools
• Northern Territory: 14 schools.[133]
  120. Members of the South Australian Youth Forum highlighted the access issues their group had encountered:

Before coming to make these submissions, we did have talks with our young people from many different schools across South Australia about the Canberra trip and what you get taught about voting, and there were such, I guess, disparate answers, with a lot of our regional young people not having the opportunity to either go to parliament or go on the Canberra trip. I think the majority of our group have said that they have no clue about the voting system. We did a massive survey last year on young people's awareness of the political system and had so many responses, such as, 'I'm freaking out, help,' or 'I'm finishing school and I don't know how to vote or what local government is.'[134]

2.121Echoing the theme that civics education isn’t offered at the best time for students, another noted:

… quite often that opportunity [the Canberra trip] occurs when you're too young. Also, some students miss out on that opportunity due to attending regional and marginalised schools, which don't necessarily have the funding or resources to send students on those trips, and that creates limited access and opportunity for all South Australians.[135]

2.122Participation may also depend on the availability of teachers, parents or carers. The Speaker of the House of Representatives noted that, as well as the travel costs themselves being ‘prohibitive’ for many schools, many other barriers make a school’s visit to Canberra difficult:

It's the fact that normally parents or carers will need to give up time from work to also accompany the students. It's the fact that teachers who may be doing split classes will also have to be taken away, and sometimes there's backfilling for teachers as well. So there is quite a considerable cost. Schools do a lot of fundraising to come here.[136]

2.123As Dr Heggart pointed out, the impact of this is that students from wealthier schools, or those closer to Canberra, will be able to access these programs to a far higher degree than the students who are already less advantaged.[137]

2.124Both MoAD and DPS particularly highlighted that the loadings applied to PACER are announced too late in the school year for many schools in regional or remote areas to plan a trip to Canberra and suggested that rates could be announced two years in advance to assist those schools to better plan their trips.[138]

2.125The PEO also noted that, as well as these concerns, there is a practical limit:

In calendar year 2023, over 91,000 students participated in an education program, that's both our digital and onsite programs. … that's about 2½ per cent of the student population. At present, the office has booking capacity to offer 100 programs per week and that's both the onsite and videoconferencing programs. These are consistently fully booked and there is a waiting list which we are actively managing so if we do lose a school we can back fill that spot. The short way to say that is that there's a lot more demand than we are in a position to meet.[139]

Digital and physical outreach

2.126To address the inability of many schools and students to visit Canberra, many cultural institutions, including the PEO and Australia’s electoral commissions, have developed outreach programs. These include online materials available for school use and physical visits to conduct in-person sessions.

2.127The PEO offers three Australian Curriculum-aligned digital programs to students which contain classroom activities for which all materials are provided online.[140]

2.128Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the PEO also expanded its delivery of video-based courses, particularly for those schools unable to travel to Canberra. In 2023, 22 per cent of the digital programs were delivered to students in regional and remote schools.[141] These courses have attracted strong demand following the end of travel and in-person restrictions, highlighting that the PEO will have to consider the appropriate balance between on-site and video-enabled programs in their resourcing decisions.[142]

2.129The PEO argued that, to increase the impact of their work, further expansion of their digital programs would be the best approach – addressing both the access issues and logistical challenges noted above. Currently the PEO hosts 80 in-person and 20 digital programs per week; an additional six educators and one administrative assistant would allow that to increase to 60 digital programs every week.[143]

2.130Australia’s electoral commissions also offer a range of outreach programs. The AEC provided examples of some of the ways it reaches students outside of Canberra:

• Get Voting – an outreach program that offers schools free resources to conduct school elections using a preferential voting system.[144]
• AEC for Schools website – provides free education resources and programs for teachers to deliver civics and electoral education.[145]
• DemocraCity for Schools – AEC commenced its trial in July 2024 to reach schools unable to travel to Canberra, including those in regional and remote areas, and in lower socioeconomic areas. The program provides an immersive 3D electoral education video game which allows ‘students to explore the history of Australian democracy along with key election activities and concepts such as representation and ballot paper formality’.[146]
  131. The Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) offers a ‘Passport to Democracy’ program which ‘supports the electoral participation of young Victorians by engaging them to achieve positive change on a community issue they care about’.[147] The VEC highlighted that because the program provides teachers with access to resources, teaching tools and in-person support with the preferential count if it is their first time, teachers are more confident to ‘download the lesson plan and teach it within half an hour in the classroom’.[148]
  132. The Northern Territory Electoral Commission (NTEC) said that it delivers an educational program in Darwin and Alice Springs called ‘Democracy Dash’:

This is a scavenger hunt type event where students dash around the city visiting about 10 civic institutions to learn more about their work and therefore democracy. Some of the stops include Parliament House, the local council, court and legal aid. The democracy dash has been running since 2017 and we now run about five or six events across Alice Springs and Darwin every year. That also includes free buses for the attending schools.[149]

2.133The NTEC also provides in-school electoral education sessions linked to the Australian Curriculum in civics and citizenship for different year groups and assistance for running school elections.[150]

2.134In addition to digital programs, the PEO engages with students in remote and regional areas who are unable to travel to Parliament House, focusing on electorates with low visitation rates to Canberra, as well as those with high levels of relative disadvantage. The PEO also provides resources to all MPs and Senators for their use when they visit schools and other groups within their own electorate, as well as directly to teachers.[151]

2.135In the last three years, the PEO has travelled to Perth (four electorates, 2022), Western Sydney (two electorates, 2023) and the NT (two electorates, 2024) and provided their program to a combined total of just over 1000 students.[152]

2.136Additionally, since 2022, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Milton Dick MP, has implemented a Parliament in Schools program. The Speaker works with local Members to visit schools to make civics education accessible to more students, especially those who can’t visit Canberra. Since September 2022, the program has visited over 125 schools across 43 electorates throughout Australia, including remote areas.[153]

2.137However, as the Speaker of the House of Representatives noted, ‘while this has proven to be a very positive experience in practical terms, it barely scratches the surface’.[154]

Committee comment

2.138In a democracy where voting is compulsory, all Australians must be given equitable opportunities to be informed, engaged and responsible citizens who can effectively contribute to democratic processes.

2.139The Committee heard many examples of stories of the focus and dedication that teachers bring to the classroom, demonstrating their ongoing commitment to improving education and awareness of civics and citizenship for Australian students. However, the current way that civics and citizenship content is taught in Australian schools is fragmented as it varies significantly across jurisdictions and even between schools. It can also depend on a single teacher within a school who is passionate about the subject.

2.140As a result, many young people leave school without the knowledge and skills necessary to actively participate in Australian democracy, engage with civic practices and institutions, or understand basic processes like how to enrol to vote and cast a ballot correctly.

2.141The evidence presented to the Committee identifies several factors contributing to this variability. The most significant issue is the lack of a standardised approach to civics and citizenship. This creates challenges with implementation at the state and territory level, including limited time allocation due to the subject’s embeddedness in other areas, as well as gaps in teacher training, knowledge, and confidence, relevance and practical issues.

2.142There was overwhelming support from stakeholders to strengthen and nationally align the curriculum. Beyond the advantage this would provide students, teachers would have access to simpler and clearer curriculum content.

2.143The Committee acknowledges that the Australian Curriculum is updated every six years and therefore the following recommendations should be considered for inclusion in the next version in 2027. This timeline should allow the Australian Government enough time to develop, trial and implement all recommendations. The Committee also notes that constitutional responsibilities do not permit the Commonwealth to be overly prescriptive in relation to the teaching of civics and citizenship. However, there is scope for a more robust and consistent approach.

2.144As a first step, the civics and citizenship curriculum should be mandated nationally, requiring all states and territories to fully implement it as a standalone subject in their respective curricula.

2.145The teaching of civics and citizenship in Australian schools remains significantly under-researched compared to other disciplines. This inquiry showed that there is no national body collecting data on how this subject is being delivered across the jurisdictions.

2.146To address the significant gaps in oversight and consistency, ACARA and the Department of Education should be given responsibility to collect data from state and territory curriculum authorities on the implementation of the civics and citizenship curriculum. This process should focus on identifying how the curriculum is being taught, ensuring national alignment and that students are receiving at least the minimum mandatory content across Australia.

2.147Data collection is essential to promote greater transparency and identify and address variations between jurisdictions, with an aim to create a robust, unified framework for a standalone civics and citizenship curriculum in the next version of the Australian Curriculum.

2.148The Committee recommends that the Department of Education, in consultation with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and curriculum authorities in each state and territory, immediately commence investigating the viability of fully implementing and nationally aligning the civics and citizenship curriculum across Australia. This should be done with a view to creating a nationally mandated standalone civics and citizenship curriculum in the next version of the Australian Curriculum.

2.149The Committee recommends that the Australian Government, working through National Cabinet, annually collect data from each state and territory outlining how the civics and citizenship component of the Australian Curriculum is being implemented.

2.150Given the uncertain place of civics and citizenship in the Australian Curriculum, students will have very different experiences of being taught it, depending on factors including which jurisdiction they live in, what school they attend and even what teacher they have within that school. This level of variability risks undermining understanding of and engagement with Australia’s universal voting rights and compulsory voting system.

2.151The current system, where significant discretion is left to individual schools and teachers, has coincided with a decline in proficiency levels. To reverse that decline and address the disparities across different school systems and individual schools, the implementation of a mandated curriculum – including a specified number of teaching hours – should be a national priority. Specifically, a minimum of 10 hours per year of civics and citizenship education should be mandated for all students in Years 9 and 10.

2.152A nationally consistent curriculum would not only benefit students, but also provide teachers with a clearer, more detailed and specific curriculum to teach. Appropriately equipping teachers will be further discussed below, but a mandatory and clear curriculum, with defined time allocations, would significantly address teacher uncertainty about teaching civics and citizenship to their students.

2.153The Committee recognises the progress made by some states including NSW, Victoria and SA in mandating civics and citizenship within their curricula. The Committee considers that ACARA and the Department of Education should draw on the experiences and best practices from these states as they work to nationally align the curriculum.

2.154The Committee recommends that within the enhanced civics and citizenship curriculum, the Australian Government mandate a minimum of 10 hours a year of civics and citizenship education for all students nationally across Years 9 and 10.

2.155The current content of the civics and citizenship curriculum was a focus for stakeholders in this inquiry – with many expressing concerns its ‘dry’ and theoretical nature is inadequate for meaningful student engagement. A strong and consistent message from stakeholders was that the curriculum needs to be revised to better teach students both the value and mechanics of voting, as well as the relevance and importance of civics to their everyday lives. Students should be engaged through more applied programs that integrate knowledge, student voice and motivation to create a more engaging and impactful learning experience.

2.156The Committee acknowledges the flexibility of the senior secondary curriculum, which allows students to prepare for the next stage of their life. However, this stage is also a critical time for exposure to civics and citizenship education, given their proximity to voting age, and noting that for some students it will be their final opportunity for formal education.

2.157The Australian Government should develop a mandatory course for all Year 11 and 12 students, regardless of their school, modelled on NSW’s Life Ready course. This course would aim to equip senior students with the knowledge and skills needed to participate effectively in democratic and electoral processes.

2.158To ensure the course is well-designed and effective, at least two pilot programs should be implemented across all state and territories. The findings of these pilots should inform the integration of this course into the next version of the Australian Curriculum, making it a permanent and essential component of senior secondary education.

2.159The Committee recommends that the Australian Government develop a mandatory civics and citizenship course for all Year 11 and 12 students to prepare them to participate in electoral processes. Noting successful programs in some jurisdictions, a minimum of two pilot programs should commence across all states and territories by July 2026, with a view to integrating the programs in the next version of the Australian Curriculum.

2.160Teachers are being overwhelmed by a crowded and challenging curriculum which often results in civics and citizenship being deprioritised in favour of other subjects. In addition, the resources and materials available to teachers are inconsistent and often from disparate sources, making it difficult for them to access what they need.

2.161The Committee heard overwhelming evidence from stakeholders that teachers need a clear and explicit curriculum, and high-quality, nationally aligned resources that provide a strong foundation for teaching civics and citizenship. As well as this, teachers must have the necessary expertise and knowledge to effectively teach this subject to all Australian students.

2.162When a curriculum is mandated and streamlined, it should also become a mandatory element of teacher professional development. Strengthened professional development for teachers must include mandated civics and citizenship training, as well as components focused on debate-based education. Teachers who are confident in teaching civics and citizenship can then be more confident to lead debate on contemporary issues.

2.163The Committee also considers it important that support is given to establishing a national network for teachers to promote consistency and support the sharing of best practices across Australia.

2.164The Committee recommends that the Australian Government, through a standing item in National Cabinet, work with state and territory governments and teacher associations to develop and disseminate practical, high-quality and nationally aligned teacher professional development resources for the teaching of civics and citizenship to all Australian students. The new resources should be in place for the next version of the Australian Curriculum and should be reviewed and updated annually.

2.165The Committee recommends that the Australian Government, through National Cabinet, work with state and territory governments and teacher associations, to mandate civics and citizenship, and debate-based education, in all national professional development for Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) teachers.

2.166The costs involved with organising school trips to Canberra for civics and citizenship education purposes remains a concern to the Committee, particularly for those located in lower socioeconomic or regional and remote areas. These costs often result in many students missing out on access to practical, experiential learning opportunities that can reinforce what they have learnt in the classroom.

2.167The Committee heard that the additional loadings that are applied to the PACER program are announced too late in the school year for many schools in regional or remote areas to plan a trip to Canberra. In the past two years, these announcements were made in March, for that calendar year.

2.168Announcing the loadings two years in advance would allow schools in regional, remote and very remote areas sufficient time to plan and organise trips to Canberra, ensuring more equitable access to these valuable educational experiences.

2.169The Committee recommends that, to encourage more schools from regional, remote, and very remote areas to visit Canberra, the Australian Government announce the additional loadings to the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate (PACER) program two years in advance to assist schools in these areas to plan a visit.

2.170The Committee recommends that the Australian Government, as part of the Federal Budget process, increase the additional loadings to the PACER program to allow more schools from regional, remote and very remote areas to access trips to Canberra.

2.171With the expansion of the PACER program, Canberra’s cultural institutions face increasing pressure to accommodate the growing number of student visitors. Programs are frequently fully booked, meaning that some schools are being turned away.

2.172Despite PACER’s focus on improving access to Canberra’s cultural institutions, a trip to Canberra remains unviable for many schools due to financial or logistical challenges. For these schools, digital courses developed by cultural institutions, including the PEO at Australian Parliament House and electoral commissions, serve as the only way for students to experience the immersive learning offered.

2.173To meet the high demand for both on-site and digital programs, the Committee recommends increased support for the PEO to expand its capacity to host more schools and to further develop and deliver high-quality, video-enabled programs to students nationwide.

2.174The Committee recommends that the Australian Government, as part of the Federal Budget process, increase funding for the Parliamentary Education Office (PEO) at Australian Parliament House to specifically accommodate the increasing number of students visiting Canberra each year and to continue to deliver and expand digital outreach programs to students nationwide.

Footnotes

[1]Ms Laura Newman, Executive Officer, Social Education Victoria (SEV), Committee Hansard, Canberra, 8 August 2024, p. 28; Ms Christine Williamson, Senior Policy Officer, Central Land Council (CLC), Committee Hansard, Maningrida, 24 July 2024, p. 12; Mrs Justine Hanks, Education Manager, Rule of Law Education Centre, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 28.

[2]Ms Williamson, CLC, Committee Hansard, Maningrida, 24 July 2024, p. 12.

[3]Mrs Sally Layson, Chief Executive Officer, Rule of Law Education Centre, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 25.

[4]Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, p. 5.

[5]Professor Rosalind Dixon and Rose Vassel, Submission 78, p. 4.

[6]Dr Libby Tudball, Committee Hansard, Melbourne, 16 October 2024, p. 15.

[7]Dr Paul Cahill, Executive Director, Curriculum, New South Wales Education Standards Authority, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 50.

[8]Ms Newman, SEV, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 8 August 2024, pages 26-27.

[9]Political and Legal Educators Association of Western Australia (PLEAWA), Submission 50, p. 3; Dr Jia Ying Neoh, President, Social and Citizenship Education Association of Australia (SCEAA), Committee Hansard, Melbourne, 16 October 2024, p. 13.

[10]PLEAWA, Submission 50, pages 3-4.

[11]Ms Newman, SEV, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 8 August 2024, p. 28; Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, p. 1; Professor Murray Print, Submission 96, p. 2; University of Sydney, Submission 62, p. 3.

[12]Ms Newman, SEV, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 8 August 2024, p. 28.

[13]Committee Survey Results, Appendix C.

[14]Committee Survey Results, Appendix C.

[15]Law Council of Australia, Submission 109, p. 12.

[16]Law Council of Australia, Submission 109, p. 13.

[17]Dr Neoh, SCEAA, Committee Hansard, Melbourne, 16 October 2024, p. 13.

[18]Dr Neoh, SCEAA, Committee Hansard, Melbourne, 16 October 2024, p. 13.

[19]Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, p. 10.

[20]Department of Education, Submission 38, p. 3.

[21]Ms Julie Birmingham, First Assistant Secretary, Teaching and Learning, Department of Education, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 23 May 2024, p. 2.

[22]Mr Stephen Gniel, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 54.

[23]Mr Gniel, ACARA, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 51.

[24]Mr Gniel, ACARA, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 53.

[25]Mr Gniel, ACARA, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 54.

[26]Dr Tudball, Committee Hansard, Melbourne, 16 October 2024, p. 14; Dr Deborah Green, Secretary, SCEAA, Committee Hansard, Melbourne, 16 October 2024, p. 14.

[27]South Australian Commissioner for Children and Young People (CCYP), Submission 26, p. 1.

[28]Committee Survey Results, Appendix C.

[29]Australian Professional Teachers Association (APTA), Submission 57, p. 8; Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, p. 8.

[30]Australian Historical Association, Submission 84, p. 4.

[31]APTA, Submission 57, p. 8.

[32]Dr Libby Tudball, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 23 May 2024, p. 36.

[33]South Australian CCYP, Submission 26, p. 5.

[34]Social Education Victoria, Submission 17, p. 1.

[35]Mr Matthew Hawkins, Submission 27, p. 2.

[36]Mrs Byars, Woree State High School, Committee Hansard, Cairns, 25 July 2024, p. 1.

[37]Mrs Byars, Woree State High School, Committee Hansard, Cairns, 25 July 2024, p. 2.

[38]Australian Council for Student Voice (ACSV), Submission 30, p. 3.

[39]Professor Lisa Hill, Professor Rodrigo Praino and Ms Isabella Courtney, Submission 19, p. 6.

[40]Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, pages 6-7.

[41]Mr Simon Zulian, Submission 40, p. 2.

[42]Mr Zulian, Submission 40, p. 3.

[43]Democracy Matters, Submission 79, p. 4.

[44]South Australian Government, Submission 125, p. 3.

[45]Professor Hill et al, Submission 19, p. 7.

[46]Professor Hill et al, Submission 19, p. 8.

[47]Professor Hill et al, Submission 19, p. 8.

[48]Department of Education, Submission 38.1, p. 7.

[49]Mr Gniel, ACARA, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 23 May 2024, p. 12.

[50]Ms Kate Rankine, Submission 67, p. 2.

[51]Mr Kuba Meikle, Civic Engagement Youth Advisory Group, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 19 June 2024, p. 31.

[52]Ms Amber Brock-Fabel, South Australian Youth Forum, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 19 June 2024, p. 9.

[53]Ms Sania Ali, South Australian Student Representative Council, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 19 June 2024, p.14.

[54]Ms Rankine, Submission 67, p. 1.

[55]Committee Survey Results, Appendix C.

[56]Professor Rosalind Dixon, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 4.

[57]Professor Murray Print, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 4.

[58]Professor Print, Submission 96, p. 1.

[59]Dr Sarah Moulds, Submission 116, p. 3.

[60]Australian Youth Affairs Coalition (AYAC), Submission 53, p. 5.

[61]Ms Megan Kelly, Executive Director, Curriculum and Reform, New South Wales Department of Education, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 47.

[62]Committee Survey Results, Appendix C.

[63]APTA, Submission 57, p. 4; Dr Keith Heggart, Submission 13, p. 3; Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, pages 10-11.

[64]Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, pages 10-11.

[65]Ms Newman, SEV, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 8 August 2024, p. 22.

[66]Dr Tudball, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 23 May 2024, p. 36; Dr Keith Heggart, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 23 May 2024, p. 36.

[67]Social and Citizenship Education Association of Australia (SCEAA), Submission 14, p. 3; Associate Professor Deborah Henderson, Submission 60, p. 2.

[68]SCEAA, Submission 14, p. 3; National Capital Educational Tourism Project, Submission 110, p. 4.

[69]Dr Keith Heggart, Submission 13, p. 3.

[70]Committee Survey Results, Appendix C.

[71]SCEAA, Submission 14, p. 4

[72]SCEAA, Submission 14, p. 4.

[73]Mr Zulian, Submission 40, p. 2.

[74]Dr Green, SCEAA, Committee Hansard, Melbourne, 16 October 2024, p. 16.

[75]Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, p. 11.

[76]APTA, Submission 57, p. 4; Mr Zulian, Submission 40, p. 3; Professor Dixon and R Vassel, Submission 78, p. 4.

[77]Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, p. 2; AYAC, Submission 53, p. 5; Associate Professor Henderson, Submission 60, p. 2.

[78]Professor Print, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 5.

[79]Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, p. 12.

[80]APTA, Submission 57, p. 4.

[81]Ms Kelly, New South Wales Department of Education, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 48.

[82]South Australian Government, Submission 125, p. 3.

[83]South Australian Government, Submission 125, p. 3.

[84]South Australian Government, Submission 125, p. 4; Mr Gniel, ACARA, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 55.

[85]Australian Council for Educational Research, Submission 64, p. 18.

[86]Rule of Law Education Centre, Submission 39, p. 11; Dr Simon Knight, Submission 23, pages 4-5.

[87]Dr Heggart, Submission 13, p. 4.

[88]Ms Newman, SEV, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 8 August 2024, p. 23.

[89]AYAC, Submission 53, p. 1.

[90]Ms Eleanor Buckham, Member, South Australian Youth Forum, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 19 June 2024, p. 13.

[91]Mrs Byars, Woree State High School, Committee Hansard, Cairns, 25 July 2024, p. 3.

[92]Victorian Trades Hall Council, Submission 86, pages 6-7.

[93]Professor Dixon, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 6.

[94]PLEAWA, Submission 50, p. 2.

[95]Beaufort Secondary College, Submission 10, p. 2.

[96]Committee Survey Results, Appendix C.

[97]South Australian CCYP, Submission 26, p. 3.

[98]Mr Matthew Hawkins, Submission 27, p. 3; Ms Rankine, Submission 67, p. 1.

[99]Mr Hawkins, Submission 27, p. 3.

[100]Ms Rankine, Submission 67, p. 1.

[101]ACSV, Submission 30, p. 3.

[102]APTA, Submission 57, p. 8.

[103]South Australian CCYP, Submission 26, p. 3.

[104]Mr Aiden Senaratne, Cairns Youth Council, Foundation for Young Australians, Committee Hansard, Cairns, 25 July 2024, p. 7.

[105]ACSV, Submission 30, p. 2.

[106]South Australian CCYP, Submission 26, p. 3; Professor Hill et al, Submission 19, p. 6.

[107]Professor Hill et al, Submission 19, pages 9-10.

[108]Professor Dixon, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, pages 1-2.

[109]Mrs Rose Vassel, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 3 October 2024, p. 2.

[110]Committee Survey Results, Appendix C.

[111]Ms Cynthia Brown, Director, Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, Committee Hansard, Maningrida, 23 July 2024, p. 1.

[112]Ms Brown, Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, Committee Hansard, Maningrida, 23 July 2024, p. 1.

[113]Ms Amanda Ewart, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, Committee Hansard, Maningrida, 23 July 2024, p. 2.

[114]Down Syndrome Australia (DSA), Submission 43, p. 2.

[115]DSA, Submission 43, p. 2.

[116]DSA, Submission 43, p. 2.

[117]Deaf Connect, Submission 105, p. 4.

[118]Deaf Connect, Submission 105, p. 4.

[119]Department of Education, Submission 38.1, p. 2.

[120]Department of Education, Submission 38.1, p. 2.

[121]Department of Education, Submission 38.1, p. 2.

[122]Department of Education, Submission 38.1, p. 2.

[123]Department of Education, Submission 38.1, p. 2.

[124]Department of Education, Submission 38.1, p. 2.

[125]Department of Education, Submission 38.1, p. 3.

[126]Ms Birmingham, Department of Education, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 23 May 2024, p. 3.

[127]Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS), Submission 51, p. 4.

[128]Parliamentary Education Office (PEO), Submission 22.1, p. 7.

[129]PEO, Submission 22.1, pages 7-8.

[130]Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD), Submission 102, p. 3.

[131]University of Sydney, Submission 62, p. 4.

[132]ACSV, Submission 30, p. 2; Professor Murray Print, Submission 96, p. 3.

[133]PEO, Submission 22.1, pages 11-12.

[134]Ms Brock-Fabel, South Australian Youth Forum (SAYF), Committee Hansard, Canberra, 19 June 2024, p. 9.

[135]Ms Eleanor Buckham, SAYF, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 19 June 2024, p. 10.

[136]Mr Milton Dick, MP, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 11 September 2024, p. 3.

[137]Dr Heggart, Submission 13, p. 4.

[138]MoAD, Submission 102, p. 8; DPS, Submission 51, p. 2.

[139]Ms Jackie Morris, Department of the Senate, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 13 September 2024, p. 7.

[140]PEO, Submission 22, p. 2.

[141]PEO, Submission 22.1, p. 4.

[142]Ms Jackie Morris, Department of the Senate, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 13 September 2024, p. 7.

[143]PEO, Submission 22.1, p. 18.

[144]Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), Submission 15, p. [3].

[145]AEC, Submission 15, p. [3].

[146]AEC, Submission 15, p. [4].

[147]Victorian Electoral Commission, Submission 74, Attachment A, p. 6.

[148]Ms Sue Lang, Strategic Communications Adviser, Victorian Electoral Commission, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 8 August 2024, pages 30-31.

[149]Ms Karen Parker, Manager Corporate Information and Training, Northern Territory Electoral Commission (NTEC), Committee Hansard, Darwin, 24 July 2024, p. 1.

[150]Ms Parker, NTEC, Committee Hansard, Darwin, 24 July 2024, p. 1.

[151]PEO, Submission 22, p. 2.

[152]PEO, Submission 22.1, p. 9.

[153]Speaker of the House of Representatives, Submission 132, p. 1.

[154]Mr Milton Dick, MP, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Committee Hansard, Canberra, 11 September 2024, p. 2.