Thursday, 4 December 2025

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (23:48): (2223) My adjournment matter is directed to the Minister for Education, and the action I seek is for the minister to immediately overhaul the failing curricular focuses in our Victorian schools. I ask that the minister produce a better solution for students by effectively removing inappropriate ideological material from the curriculum in favour of a focus on improved core skills. One urgent priority must be fundamental literacy. The Australian Early Development Census reveals only 53 per cent of children starting school are at the expected developmental level, compounded by the draconian 2020 and 2021 Victorian lockdowns and a distinct reduction in parents reading to their children. Teachers have observed significant declines in foundational learning skills, with large numbers of children never catching up. We need increased financial investment to support learning and diagnose students, embedding a direct explicit teaching approach to improve learning in phonics and writing. Increased financial support should not be optional or incidental and should be provided to every Victorian student.

Furthermore, we must address the glaring gap in preparing students for the real world. A recent article on 23 November in the Daily Telegraph highlighted that nearly half of young secondary students miss a month of school annually because they find the curriculum irrelevant. Research developed with UNICEF found that financial security and housing are primary concerns for 40 to 50 per cent of young people aged 12 to 17. Minister, students are asking, ‘How am I going to buy a house and how am I going to budget?’ They want practical learning that helps them to be workplace ready with essential life skills like financial literacy to help them buy or live in a home, and this is now more important to most students than climate change. Students also benefit from resilience, problem solving and essential life skills, AI and cyber ethics and general character development. These skills are more essential for their future than many current curricula focus on.

The importance of developing ethics and human compassion is also critical, especially with the increased use of technology and AI. The humanitarian element of ethical and compassionate processes is what separates human decision-making from AI technology. In recent data, students voiced they felt schools are not providing them with the skills they want and need. More than six in 10 students believe they will be worse off than their parents, and meanwhile, suicide remains the leading cause of death in young Australians. So we have a duty to listen. Minister, when are you going to declutter the curriculum, remove the ideological rubbish and enable all Victorian students to read, do basic budgeting, develop ethical character and learn the skills that are useful and important to them?