A number of Victorians have told a truth-telling inquiry their schooling lacked depth when learning about First Nations history. They are calling for changes to the curriculum to teach the findings from the Yoorrook Justice Commission including settlement and its impacts on First Peoples. The Yoorrook Justice Commission will hand down its report next month and is expected to include more than 100 recommendations, and advice on better teaching methods.
00:00For generations there's been a debate about how Australia's history has been taught.
00:08Australian studies is currently in a very bad state. He says it's unjust to Aborigines.
00:13To teach that Australia started in 1788 is an out and out lie.
00:19Often politicised and disputed.
00:22People have got to know where we came from in a very significant sense. The modern world has been made in England.
00:29For four years the Uruk Justice Commission has been making an official record of colonisation in Victoria.
00:36Next month it will hand down more than 100 final recommendations.
00:41It's expected some of those will focus on how Victoria's history is taught in schools.
00:47By learning about the past from First Peoples perspective, we can better understand how that past connects with now, the present.
00:58Dozens of Victorians, including the Premier, have told Uruk their education on First Nations history was inadequate.
01:06I did not know of the massacres, I'm ashamed to say.
01:10They had nieces come along, they would have NAIDOC week, they would have questions.
01:17Not really being able to answer a lot of the questions was confronting.
01:21And they're moved by the truth telling.
01:24It's a gift to the children of our country.
01:28And Uruk has heard the teaching failures are ongoing.
01:32I don't think that Aboriginal history is actually taught enough at school because there are so many other things to our history.
01:39Like we have different clans, different tribes, different languages.
01:45Education experts say changing the curriculum will be challenging given histories and stories differ in regions across the state.
01:54But they say developing a framework is the vital next step.
01:58It's going to be impossible for us to actually achieve reconciliation without authentic, honest and at times uncomfortable conversations in the classroom.
02:09A bid to close the gap in history across Victoria's schools.
02:13A bid to close the gap in history across the state of the school picture is not always real.
02:24A bid to close the gap in the schools and a small part of the school be able to address all the issues.
02:27It's a Phi Phi Phi Phi Phi and a Surrey University.
02:29Aafaopoulosá, a Uruk.
02:31What are the first and several other things?
02:33I know we're ready to do it but it's time to come up.
02:35It's time to come up with our school for the school.
02:37We are ready to come up with us.
02:39And we're ready to go to school.
02:40We're ready to come up with you to the teacher's community.
02:41Please leave the school to get us all the time.
