The Trend of the Australian Curriculum as Inclusive Curriculum : Focusing on New South Wales

[出版社版]This paper discusses the trend of the Australian Curriculum that introduced as the first national curriculum in Australia from 2011 and the New South Wales Syllabus developed in New South Wales. The Australian Curriculum has been introduced on receiving as the results of PISA in recent years. This trend has much influence on the education for students with disabilities in state level. The Disability Discrimination Act and the Disability Standards for Education are strongly support that students with disabilities access ordinary curriculum with Reasonable Adjustments. In addition to that, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that Australia has already ratified aims to put inclusive education into practice. Although the Reasonable Adjustments to ordinary curriculum is obviously important, the Australian Curriculum is expected to be inclusive itself. New South Wales is developing the inclusive syllabus of the Australian Curriculum named the New South Wales Syllabus. The New South Wales Syllabus is “standards-referenced” and many adjustments for students with educational needs are proposed. In addition, programs for improving literacy or numeracy are enforced especially for students with learning difficulties from kindergarten until year 3. These programs are supporting the access to the Australian Curriculum that regards literacy and numeracy very important especially at the early stage of school education. On the other hand, it is not clear how we can assess the extent to inclusiveness of the Australian Curriculum. At the commonwealth level, the curriculum for students with disabilities has not been discussed enough. It is necessary to investigate the historical discussion on the curriculum for students with disabilities at each state level and make the formulation process of the Australian Curriculum clear from the viewpoint of these as the themes to be resolved