Junior secondary science education in Australia and the reform for public understanding of science: The case of the state of Victoria

Abstract

The call for reformation of secondary science curriculum has been common to many English speaking countries in recent decades. A significant change occurred in the mid-1980s with the establishment of a state-based curriculum, the National Curriculum in the United Kingdom. This science curriculum was prescribed in levels or age groupings with descriptors or reference statements written for each level describing the learning outcomes that are expected for each student. This style of curriculum framework was adopted later in both Australia and New Zealand. Concurrent with this development was the establishment of national goals in education in the United States of America by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It is now opportune to examine this trend of outcome based curriculum frameworks. Behind this trend are a number of assumptions that should be tested, including that students can successfully learn science in a carefully presented linear progression, and that outcomes based frameworks will provide students with scientific literacy, that is, sufficient level of scientific understanding to cope in the modern world. This article contains three sections: