ACARA CEO, Stephen Gniel

Speech to The Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit, 2 March 2026

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodian of the lands we are meeting on here today.

The land of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. 

And I’d like to pay my respect to Elders past and present.  

I extend that respect to First Nations peoples joining us today. 

It’s great to be back at this event and have the opportunity to speak with a room full of educators who, every day, in some way live the Australian Curriculum like I do. 

And those teachers and principals who enact it in our schools and our classrooms. 

Curriculum debates can sound abstract from the outside. To educators, they are anything but abstract.  

The debates and decisions show up in priorities, reforms, reviews, lesson planning, in the small instructional decisions made every day, and in the long arc of what students carry with them when they leave school.  

So today I want to talk about the Australian Curriculum not as an abstract policy, but as the documentation of our hopes for our nation, our children and young people — its purpose, how it is being refined, and where it is heading next. 

At its core, the Australian Curriculum exists to answer a simple question: what should every young Australian have the opportunity to learn? Regardless of postcode, school system or sector. 

Importantly, the Australian Curriculum is first and foremost an explicit statement of the priorities and aspirations we hold for our young people. 

And what the Australian community values as the knowledge, understanding and skills that our young people should attain while at school.  

Through the curriculum we want all young Australians to become confident and creative individuals, successful lifelong learners, and active and informed members of the community. This is what our curriculum articulates. 

The purpose of our national curriculum is grounded in the Alice Springs, or Mparntwe, Education Declaration, around two national goals: excellence and equity.  

Excellence meaning high expectations for every learner.  

Equity meaning that background or circumstance should never determine educational opportunity. 

It is about our national community – to exemplify a shared commitment to high expectations of achievement across the country, to respectful and rational discussion of different perspectives, values and beliefs, and to democratic processes as the means of promoting the common good of all.  

And it codifies our national aspirations – it must support every student to develop strong literacy and numeracy skills in their early years of schooling and to then go on to develop deep discipline knowledge within the learning areas, along with the capabilities to enable them to thrive in times of rapid social and technological change, and to contribute to our nation’s progress as a prosperous, compassionate, tolerant and just society.  

However, it is more than this. 

Our national curriculum must, as far as possible, anticipate the conditions in which young Australians will need to function as individuals and members of the community when they complete their schooling and prepare them for entering and shaping our future world.  

This has aways been challenging, now more than ever, as the world in which our students are learning is in a state of constant change. 

It is a technology-rich world, where communication is instant and information is immediately accessible.  

The way we interact with each other personally, socially, and at work has changed forever.  

Knowledge is growing and information is changing extremely quickly, creating new possibilities.  

These are lofty goals to aspire to, after all we are talking about a few million teenagers and younger children, the more than 300,000 teachers delivering in classrooms and their school leaders in almost 10,000 schools in cities, regions and the bush. 

Everyone should care what is in the curriculum, and many, many do – including those in this room. 

There is not a day that goes by that some commentary isn’t made about curriculum, what it doesn’t have enough of, what it should have more of, what it has too much of and the changed future we are preparing our young people to navigate. 

This reflects that education and curriculum is at the heart of our aspirations for children and young people, and that we value what they learn. 

The Australian Curriculum makes clear to teachers what is to be taught and to students what they should learn, and the quality of learning expected of them.  

It also provides parents, families and the broader community clarity of those knowledge, skills and understandings that that we collectively as a nation agree on enshrined through approval of the curriculum by all Australian education ministers. 

The curriculum structure reflects this ambition and prioritises these knowledge, skills and understandings. 

Much of the curriculum has stood the test of time and will continue to serve us into the future. That is why our Australian Curriculum is discipline-based.  

Let me be clear, these disciplines – science, mathematics, English, Humanities, the arts, health and PE, languages and technologies – are the foundation of learning because they reflect the way in which knowledge has traditionally been, and will continue to be, developed and organised.  

Each of these disciplines offers a distinctive lens through which we interpret the data of experience, formulate hypotheses about the meaning of that experience, determine what counts as evidence and a good argument for evaluating competing hypotheses, and make judgments about truth, value and courses of action. 

And, importantly, they continue to serve as the foundations for higher-order thinking.  

Yes, even in the age of AI and more accurately because of AI.  

The disciplines remain the core knowledge and become more important within the context of AI. It’s just simply that they will not be in themselves sufficient to prepare our young people for this future. 

That is why embedded within the discipline areas are the capabilities that students must develop and use in their learning.  

They are addressed through the learning areas, not in addition to, and are identified wherever they are developed or applied in discipline content descriptions. 

Ask any parent or punter whether it will be enough for students to learn content and content only if we are preparing for today and the future of tomorrow.  

Will it be enough for my child, niece, grandchild, friend to be able to read, write and know simple mathematical concepts?  

No, they will need to be able to use these to ensure they are literate and numerate, digitally literate and use critical and creative thinking to solve problems or challenges we don’t even know exist today or make new discoveries to improve our lives. 

This is about preparing our children for the future, the knowledge and how to use it. 

Recent events have also reminded us of curriculum’s role in laying the foundations for the type of country and community that we want to live in. 

Following the horrific events at Bondi on 14 December last year, ministers recently approved a focused review on antisemitism.  

Working with the Prime Minister’s Antisemitism Education Taskforce, ACARA’s review will examine how the Australian Curriculum can support an understanding and rejection of all forms of antisemitic thought and antisemitic actions, a deep understanding of Jewish Australians’ history and culture, and an understanding of Australian values. 

A well-designed curriculum helps to build the foundation of social cohesion – an understanding of historical events, encourage empathy and help young people develop the personal and social skills to interact with others together with a commitment to shared values. 

ACARA will report back on this work to Education Ministers by the end of the year, after careful research and consultation. 

Education alone cannot eradicate hatred. But ignorance is never a cure for it. 

Alongside this, other curriculum improvements are underway to support our teachers. 

Early numeracy is foundational to long-term learning success. We know from national data that improvement in numeracy has stalled. 

Around one in three Australian students are not reaching challenging but achievable numeracy standards, and around one in 10 require additional support.  

These are not statistics to gloss over. 

That’s why it is right for us to have a national focus on numeracy.  

In this context, ACARA proposed to education ministers that we undertake a targeted review of Foundation to Year 2 mathematics.  

This is now underway. It’s a refinement of the Maths curriculum.  

The aim is clear.  

Provide advice on the prioritisation of content and greater mathematical details to improve clarity for teachers about what students will learn.  

Set out specific sequencing of content, highlighting related concepts and the sequence of introducing concepts.  

And ensure the inclusion of explicit content on foundational consumer and financial literacy.  

Think of it as keyhole rather than open-heart surgery.  

This approach ensures the curriculum remains responsive to the needs of teachers and students. 

The goal is to improve coherence — to support teachers with clarity and reduce the sense of overload.  

When early learning for our youngest students is well-sequenced, it builds strong foundations for future learning and prevents the need for future intervention.  

Prevention is always less exhausting than repair. 

So, striking a balance between curriculum stability and responsiveness to emergent issues is the challenge.  

We know that constant reform can be destabilising. 

But complete rigidity ignores emerging evidence and societal change.  

Deliberate evolution — through thoughtful, evidence-informed refinement — is productive. 

It’s why the Australian Curriculum, while now set within an agreed 10-year review cycle, includes the scope for targeted updates – such as the focussed work on F-2 Maths, and antisemitism. 

As the Alice Springs Declaration makes clear, we want young Australians to leave school equipped to thrive in a complex, rapidly-changing world. 

That means they need strong foundational knowledge. It also means students need to have the capacity to reason, adapt, create, collaborate, and act ethically. 

Meeting these expectations requires trust. It requires time. It requires professional respect. Curriculum documents do not teach children. Educators do.  

You interpret, adapt and bring the curriculum to life in diverse schools and learning contexts across the country.  

You make decisions every day about emphasis, pacing and how to engage the range of learners. Professional agency is not incidental; it is essential. 

So, what do we owe young Australians? 

We owe them clarity about the knowledge and skills that matter.  

We owe them a curriculum that is ambitious and coherent.  

We owe them a system that thoughtfully refines rather than reforms impulsively.  

We owe them honest rebuttal of mischaracterisations and open engagement when there are legitimate concerns. 

As we look ahead — to refined early mathematics, to future curriculum reviews, and to the ongoing challenge of educating young Australians well — the task remains the same.  

To hold high expectations; for our students and people in our schools and classrooms. 

To pursue excellence with equity and equity of excellence.  

And to ensure every student leaves school with the knowledge and skills and dispositions to support their next steps – whatever pathway they choose. 

The curriculum sets the expectations. You as educators animate it and bring it to life to inspire a generation. 

Together, we prepare students not just to pass assessments, but to inherit and shape a complex, unpredictable world with knowledge, skill and integrity. 

In the end, curriculum is not a document. It is a promise.  

And that promise lives in your classrooms every day and one that I believe – and hope you agree – remains profoundly worth pursuing. 

Thank you.