Looking at Curriculum Change in Tasmania: Will Essential Learnings Promote Successful Reform?

The release of the Labor government's policy statement, "Learning Together," in December 2000 initiated a long-term systemic reform strategy, which included the first attempt in Tasmania to formulate a new curriculum, the "Essential Learnings Framework." The purpose of this paper is to trace the historical pattern of change in the curriculum in Tasmania's education system, and to recount the main activities involved in developing and implementing the "Essential Learnings Framework" and the associated assessment system. The process for reviewing states' systemic reform policies devised by Achieve, an education organisation based in Washington, DC, is applied to identify the key issues and challenges confronting the curriculum reform. The analysis focused on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the new curriculum and assessments, and determining the extent to which Tasmania's education system provides capacity building and teacher development, accountability, and public leadership to mount successful curriculum reform. The paper concludes by presenting a set of recommendations to meet these challenges.