New media literacy lessons aim to tackle crushing civics results

Australia Broadcast Center

17-05-2025

Australia's governor-general is on a mission to reverse declining civics scores among Australian students.
She's driven by two factors: young people's poor understanding of how democracy works, and their lack of faith in our institutions — both at record lows.
"I think misinformation and disinformation is the great scourge of our time," Her Excellency, the Honourable Sam Mostyn, said.
But even for a trailblazing business leader with a lifetime of achievement, the task of improving young people's ability to engage in democracy is enormous — and the stakes even higher.
"It's one of the things that can weaken us as a country. We don't want to have a generation coming through that don't understand how to access our civics, how to be participants as citizens," Ms Mostyn said.
She plans to be a "visible" governor-general, and throwing her weight behind moves to improve civics knowledge will be a key part of that.
One such move she's backed is a push to include more civics in the national curriculum.
The ABC can reveal a new teaching model will be rolled out across Australian schools to counter poor results in recent civic exams and fight back against misinformation and disinformation.
It will be woven into different subject areas and is part of Australia's first media literacy strategy announced in December. The move will complement other initiatives by the government, schools and other groups around the country.
If the mission to improve civics understanding fails, the consequences will be felt not just by students leaving school but by the entire nation, according to Ms Mostyn.
"I think there is [a lot at stake] if we are to be a truly great nation," Ms Mostyn said.
For her, Australia's civic institutions and democratic history are the glue that unites Indigenous heritage, British colonialism and millions of new migrants.
"A three-part braided story of our country: 65,000 years of attachment to this continent, with the longest ever continuous culture … the arrival of the British with these institutions that we still cherish. And then the last 50, 60 years of over 8 million now-Australian citizens coming from somewhere else," she said.
Stirring words to inspire, but it's a story too few young Australians know about.
Test scores released by ACARA (Australian Curriculum and Assessment Reporting Authority) this year showed that just 28 per cent of Year 10 students and 43 per cent of Year 6 students are proficient in civics.
It's the worst result in 20 years of testing.
"What we've seen is that trend continuing, but it has had a more steep decline," ACARA CEO Stephen Gniel, said.
He said with fewer than one in three Year 10 students being proficient in civics, it's something "we need to take really seriously".
One school taking it very seriously is Ambarvale High School.
On the fringes of south-west Sydney, it lies in a fast-growing region where paddocks are quickly turning into housing development.
It's the kind of place politicians love to visit at election time.
Last year ACARA listed the school as one of its top-performing despite 87 per cent of students being ranked in the bottom half of educational disadvantage.
The school is punching above its weight with civics studies by finding new ways to engage students in a subject kids can find dull.
"A focus in my team is on getting kids involved in real-world examples. We've taken our kids to Parliament House, we've taken our kids to have a Q&A forum with the local member of Campbelltown, Greg Warren," head teacher Jo Novak said.
"When we hold our general elections for senior leaders, we set up our voting booths and we have the kids do paper votes and cast it into a ballot box."
But there's more to the problem than exposure to the mechanics of democracy.
The ABC recently held a community engagement event at the school and the message from students was clear: adults are a big part of the problem.
As non-voting observers of the recent federal election, these 15 to 17-year-olds were put off by the negativity on display and attempts to engage them on social media.
"I thought anything on Instagram was insulting to younger generations," Alex said, speaking about the parties' social media campaigning.
Her friends, who will all be voting at the next election, agreed.
"A lot of the stuff online like TikTok, Instagram, was jokes and memes. Nothing really serious," Lili said.
As well as better communication, they wanted to see meaningful policies for young people and were eager to be involved in civic life.
"They do really question whether the political parties are taking their views on board," Ms Novak said.
A recent senate inquiry into civics education and political participation found arming young people with the skills to weed out misinformation was critical.
"Whether it's a news story, a television show, an online video or a social media post, our young people need to learn how to sort fact from fiction, and work out whether something is credible or not," Mr Gniel said.
Brisbane State High School was an early adopter of explicit teaching of media literacy, designed to guide students through identifying misinformation and biases in traditional and new media.
"Building the skills within a student to look at something and go, 'Can I trust that? Or what question should I ask first? Or who made that? And what vested interests do they have in it?'," teacher Aimee Gust said.
Similar lessons will now be rolled out nationwide with ACARA unveiling a new teaching resource tomorrow called curriculum connections: media consumers and creators.
The new national curriculum lessons will be available to teachers from kindergarten all the way though to Year 10.
The key skills it will aim to equip students with include understanding and analysing contemporary media and creating media content.
It also aims to empower students to be critical of media bias, understand misinformation and how to be ethical in sharing material online.
Some experts though, like Trisha Jha from the Centre for Independent Studies, believe there is a case for broader reform of civics education.
And ACARA's chief said changes in schools needed to be accompanied by work at home too, suggesting families chat about civics education and Australian democracy.
"It's really important. We've just been through a great opportunity for those conversations, haven't we, with a federal election?" Mr Gneil said.
It's a big task but the governor-general hopes to use high office to push for high-stakes change and is buoyed by the efforts of others.
"I'm hugely optimistic. We have huge opportunity to strengthen our democracy," she said.