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Last year protest in Sydney were organised to rally against aboriginal deaths in custody in Australia as well as in solidarity with protests across the United States following the killing of an unarmed black man George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Australian school students will be taught for the first time that First Nations Australians experienced European colonisation as an invasion under proposed changes to the national curriculum. The changes, released for discussion by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) on Thursday, also said the terms Aboriginal and Indigenous be replaced with First Nations Australians or Australian First Nations Peoples.
First Nations kids could learn about the impacts of colonisation and invasion in their classrooms for the first time under proposed changes to the national schooling curriculum.
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority released draft changes to a broad range of subjects in the national curriculum including English, Science, Math, and the Humanities.
The changes stem from a review by an ACARA Indigenous advisory group which found “outdated” ideas did not reflect calls for truth-telling and inclusive language, including broadening terminology to include First Nations Australians as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The review called for greater recognition of the connection to Country, land and seas and the impact of colonisation, dispossession, with the refresh comparing and examining existing curricula in New Zealand, British Columbia, Singapore, and Finland.
Proposed changes to the national curriculum will also take references to Australia’s ‘Christian heritage’ out of civics in favour of ‘secular’ and ‘multi-faith’.
The authority in charge of the nation's school curriculum wants school children to have a better understanding of how First Nations Australians experienced colonisation.
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