The Robert Menzies Institute welcomes the news that Australia’s longest serving prime minister has formally been included in the Australian National Curriculum.

This follows the Robert Menzies Institute’s advocacy to the Federal Education Minister in 2021 on the need to teach Australian students about the role of Australia’s longest-serving prime minister in the development of modern Australia. The Institute believes that Menzies is essential to the Australian story and should be covered in detail in a balanced and non-partisan way.

The Institute’s CEO, Georgina Downer said of the changes:

‘I am pleased to see the inclusion of Sir Robert Menzies in the Australian National Curriculum. As Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, Robert Menzies left modern Australia with a significant legacy across the fields of education, foreign policy and trade, immigration, social welfare and home ownership. It is impossible to understand the social and economic changes in Australia through the 1950s and 1960s without understanding the influence of Menzies.’

Menzies is to be covered in the Senior Secondary Curriculum for Modern History under ‘Australia, 1918 –1949 (End of WWI – Election of Menzies)’, which includes:

· (ACHMH126) ‘The impact of the rise of communism, its influence on the election of Robert Menzies and the Coalition in 1949, and the contrasting economic and social policies offered at the 1949 election’.

· And (ACHMH127) ‘The role and impact of significant individuals in the period, for example W.M. Hughes, Sir John Monash, Vida Goldstein, Ben Chifley, John Curtin, Robert Menzies’.

The Robert Menzies Institute sees this as the first step towards what we hope will be increased study of Menzies to the development of modern Australia. Menzies had a great passion for education, and led major reforms in the university sector, the funding of independent schools, and the teaching of science. The Institute works to honour that legacy through our schools’ program. This program is designed to assist school educators in delivering Menzies-related curricula with easily accessible teaching resources. These will have a heavy focus on curriculum points to make them relevant for teachers and students alike. They will also have an emphasis on primary sources and engagement, to allow students to explore and assess the Menzies era, its achievements, and contentious issues for themselves.

Last month, the Institute hosted a stall at the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria’s Annual Conference, where we engaged with Victorian history teachers on Menzies-related aspects of the Victorian Curriculum.

With the advent of Menzies being covered by the National Curriculum, we look forward to expanding this engagement and making resources available to teachers across Australia.