THE ROOTS OF THE CRISIS IN SCHOOL EDUCATION

Universities are indoctrinating trainee teachers in “wokeness and political activism’’,
with only 10 weeks of a four-year degree dedicated to teaching children literacy and
numeracy, the first national audit of education degrees reveals.

The Institute of Public Affairs has analysed 3713 teaching subjects in education
degrees offered by 37 Australian universities. 

One-third of all subjects relate to what
the IPA describes as “woke” ­theories of identity politics, decolonisation and social
justice.
Just one in 10 subjects relate to teaching children how to read, write and learn
mathematics.

Bella d’Abrera, the director of IPA’s Foundations of Western Civilisation Program,
said only 218 subjects covered the teaching of mathematics, 43 subjects involved
phonics-based reading instruction, and 37 subjects covered grammar skills.

“Instead of being taught how to master core academic curriculum such as reading,
writing, mathematics, history and science, prospective teachers are being trained by
university experts to be experts in critical social justice, identity politics, and
sustainability,’’ she said. “We are setting Australian students up for failure by
spending so little time teaching our teachers core literacy and numeracy skills,
while university courses focus on woke issues and activism.

“The system is clearly failing both trainee teachers, as well as the students they go
on to teach, and it is in urgent need of reform.’’

The IPA audit found that university teaching degrees included 1169 subjects in
“critical social justice’’, compared to 371 subjects that instructed how to teach
literacy and numeracy skills.

The University of Canberra offers a unit in Indigenous education that criticises the
way “anthropocentrism’’ promotes economic prosperity.

“It is well evidenced that social and ecological wellness in Australia has been in
accelerating decline since contact where colonial processes and Western
perspectives have elevated rational, analytical ways of knowing and robust
anthropocentrism, most recently to prioritise individualism, economic prosperity
and global competitiveness,’’ the unit description states.

Monash University offers a study unit on “rethinking Indigenous education’’ that
introduces trainee teachers to “radical thinking and alternative models of ­education

... Student will engage with Indigenous and black scholarship that envisions the
abolition and replacement of existing models and practices of settler colonial
education,’’ it states.

Monash University’s bachelor of education instructs trainee teachers to “theorise
social justice ... 

The unit aims to develop in you a strong grasp of the concept of
‘cognitive justice’, and the associated notions of ‘epistemic’ and ‘epistemological’
justice,’’ it states.

Student teachers at Monash also learn to teach mathematics through a “social
justice” lens.

At Victoria University, students who want to learn how to teach children of
different backgrounds are required to use a “critical pedagogy framework to 

challenge dominant discourses that perpetuate notions of privilege, power and
oppression’’.

Federal, state and territory education ministers have ordered universities to change
their education degrees by mandating that new teachers are trained to teach
children English and mathematics, and to manage classroom behaviour but
universities will not be required to teach the core content until the end of 2025.