Australia: Safe schools become unsafe schools
An architect of the school curriculum has demanded a stop to the “outsourcing’’ of religious instruction and sex education to “ideological interest groups’’. Ken Wiltshire , who reviewed the national curriculum for the Coalition government last year, said controversial subjects should be taught only with parental consent. He said the Safe Schools furore showed the danger of letting “ideological groups’’ devise lesson plans without Education Department input. “Governments should never outsource the development of curriculum content to interest groups, particularly those with an ideological purpose or agenda,’’ he told The Australian . “There is no quality assurance. No controversial material should be taught in schools without the agreement of parents, acting in concert with the school.’’ Emeritus Professor Wiltshire — a professor of public administration at the University of Queensland — said the furore over Safe Schools showed why education authorities shoul