Civics education advocacy – follow-up

6 April 2025

A few weeks ago there was some media chatter about Civics and Citizenship education, including around the release of the NAP CC Sample Assessment as well as a report by the Joint Standing Committee into Electoral Matters – which SEV had made a submission to, and appeared at as a witness. We released this statement which included a call for much better support for teacher professional learning, substantive experiential learning for students, and holistic monitoring and evaluation of Civics and Citizenship education.

I wanted to write a follow up to share the responses we got from our incredible community.

A member of our Committee of Management, a Politics teacher with decades of experience across different school sectors, told us that they had never worked at a school that delivered Civics and Citizenship as a subject.

Another teacher wrote:

‘When I was Head of Humanities at [school name] I had to fight so hard to get two weeks of Civics introduced at Years 7 and 8. It was gone the year after I left. I also had a total **** fight with the deputy headmaster about the decision to put the Civics element of Hums at Year 10 into an elective, meaning the vast majority of students they're churning out only study anything Civics-related at Year 9 level’

Our teachers' concern about students’ level of Civics and Citizenship knowledge was also encapsulated by this response to our 2024 members’ survey:

‘Over time I have noticed that my students have less of an understanding of civics and citizenship. For example, in a recent classroom discussion I was shocked to discover that my Year 11 and 12 students did not know who the Victorian Premier was and had a very vague understanding of the concept of a democracy.’

Contrastingly, though – some of the teachers we work with and speak to also reported having been able to firmly establish solid Civics and Citizenship programs at their schools. This included positive commentary from teachers about a wide variety of programs that they’ve been able to develop to support students in their respective school contexts:

• some of these are standalone Civics and Citizenship courses
• some are, instead, integrated into English or other Humanities subjects
• some include practical opportunities for students to be active citizens
• some electives that also work to support students to thrive in VCE Politics, Sociology and/or Legal Studies, and beyond.

Unsurprisingly, the most positive reports have come from teachers where they’re given time to collaborate, plan and learn together – sometimes aided by external professional learning. What this tells us is that there are engaged teachers, schools and students craving more in this space.

So where does this leave us? We’ve had an exciting number of emails from teachers of Civics and Citizenship who want to talk Civics and Citizenship, participate in professional learning and create resources so here are our next steps

Get involved in our advocacy

Social Education Victoria is a ‘broad church’, with members across all sectors and with a range of perspectives across the political spectrum. We’re committed to sharing our members’ perspectives with integrity and a little audacity, recognising that teachers are often not able to give their opinions about these issues directly to the media. We welcome input and feedback from you – oddly enough, we aspire to be a democratic organisation in a meaningful sense.

Our advocacy has a few audiences:

• our schools
• the education community including the Department of Education and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority
• the media, when the next ‘moment’ inevitably arises.

Get paid to share your Civics and Citizenship resources (for Victoria’s Curriculum 2.0)

The new Victorian Curriculum for Civics and Citizenship begins implementation from 2026, and we are keen to develop corresponding resources for this for our community to use. If you’re creating resources for the new curriculum that you think other teachers might find useful – which we can pay you to develop and optimise before we share them – please get in touch with us.

Professional learning events for Civics and Citizenship

This year we are working in partnership with the Victorian Electoral Commission and Victorian Commercial Teachers Association to deliver Civics and Citizenship professional learning.

The VEC’s Government and Democracy event – taking place on Friday 6 June at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership in East Melbourne – is free to attend, and they can even cover CRT costs if you’re at a remote or regional school (subject to application). You can sign up for this here.

The VCTA are also hosting a Civics-focused event on Friday 20 June – we’ll share further details via our newsletter once we know more.

You can also access Parliament Victoria’s Civics and Citizenship Professional Learning here.

We will also be presenting online members Civics and Citizenship PD in Semester 2. We have some ideas, but would love to hear from you – let me know what kind of topics would you like to see us focus on.