ACARA news, July 2018

Australian Curriculum website: technical issues


27 July 2018
We are currently experiencing some technical issues with the Australian Curriculum website resulting in intermittent connectivity and display problems. These issues are currently being worked on. We apologise for any inconvenience. 

Australian Curriculum: Mathematics recognised as global leader


25 July 2018

ACARA is working with the globally renowned Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) to develop an exemplar world-class mathematics curriculum that any country could use to inform their own curriculum design.

Charles Fadel, founder of the CCR, says: “We are taking the Australian Curriculum in Mathematics as a starting point because our international analysis shows it is already one of the best curricula worldwide”. 

Although at an early stage, this joint project with the CCR could be used to inform any future refinement of the existing Australian Curriculum: Mathematics. 

Read the news item on the CCR website.


Australian Curriculum comparison studies released


18 July 2018

We have published three studies comparing the Australian Curriculum with the curricula of British Columbia, Finland and Singapore. 

The three international comparative studies were produced as part of ACARA’s research program to consider international trends and developments in curriculum design.   

British Columbia, Finland and Singapore are recognised internationally as high performing in education rankings and international assessments. An international comparative study with New Zealand will be published later this year.  


Data updated on the National Report on Schooling data portal


18 July 2018

ACARA’s interactive resource the National Report on Schooling data portal has been updated with new data on schools and schooling including:

  • The addition of new data (calculated from the Australian Bureau of Statistics – Census of Population and Housing) on:
    • student enrolment rates
    • participation and attainment in education and work.
  • A new time series view of student attendance measures.
  • A new view to compare Indigenous and non-Indigenous apparent retention rates, and the publication of these data for 2017.

See the National Report on Schooling data portal.


Machine-readable content on the Australian Curriculum website


16 July 2018

A new version of machine-readable content for the Australian Curriculum website is now available. This content can be downloaded from http://rdf.australiancurriculum.edu.au for the purposes of importing the Australian Curriculum into databases. Further technical information is available.

Technical information for machine-readable Australian Curriculum (MRAC) content

For those who have previously downloaded the MRAC information, a SPARQL endpoint will be available, along with JSON manifest files of the data.

The new data will start from version 2018/05.

There will be a few changes:

  • Mode, year level mode and year level mode strands will no longer exist in the new data.
  • An abstract predicate will only appear once per learning area.
  • New elaborations going onward will not have elaboration codes attached.

Release of National Report on Schooling 2016


04 July 2018

The National Report on Schooling in Australia 2016 has been released today. ACARA produces this report on behalf of the COAG Education Council.

The national report is published as an annual record, complemented by the more up-to-date interactive data contained in the National Report on Schooling data portal.

The 2016 report includes a dashboard representing any statistically significant changes in key performance measures, such as student participation:

ANRS 2016 dashboard

See the National Report on Schooling and the data portal.