The government has been engaged in the development of a new nation wide curriculum for some time now. The curriculum authority ACARA is currently calling for feedback and survey responses on the General Capabilities.
You need to register to view the General Capabilities and to respond to the consultation online.
To help engage more people in this important consultation I've copied the conceptual statement, and continuum for the ICT general capability, as well as the survey and turned these into PDFs for download. The website is licensed CC NC SA - so I republish this content here under that license.
The survey needs to be returned by 7 August 2011 to generalcapabilities@acara.edu.au with the subject heading General capabilities survey.
The Australian Curriculum consultation website provides this overview as introduction to the General Capabilities:
The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA 2008) states that school education is to support all young people in Australia becoming successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens.
The Melbourne Declaration identifies skills essential for twenty-first century learners – literacy, numeracy, ICT, thinking, creativity, teamwork and communication. It describes individuals who can manage their own wellbeing, relate well to others and make informed decisions about their lives; and citizens who behave with moral and ethical integrity, relate to and communicate across cultures, work for the common good and act with responsibility at local, regional and global levels.
In the Australian Curriculum general capabilities play a key role in realising these goals. General capabilities encompass a set of knowledge, skills and dispositions that will assist students to live and work successfully in the twenty-first century. They have been developed to align with the national goals. They also build on significant state and territory initiatives introduced over the past decade and are informed by recent international best practice.
The Australian Curriculum includes seven general capabilities:
- Literacy
- Numeracy
- Information and communication technology (ICT) competence
- Critical and creative thinking
- Personal and social competence
- Ethical behaviour
- Intercultural understanding
Throughout their schooling, students develop and use these capabilities in their learning across the curriculum, in co-curricular programs and in their lives outside school.