The team reviewing the national school curriculum for the Abbott government has not offered any concrete suggestions for change in its interim report.

The reviewers, Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire, instead used their 17-page first report to outline the process they were following to finalise recommendations for the government by 31 July.

They also emphasised the need to "get [the national curriculum] right before it is fully implemented across the country" – tacitly rejecting the view of many educators that the review was premature given the new material was yet to be fully introduced in all states.

The education minister, Christopher Pyne, triggered a new debate over Australia's culture and history when he launched the review in January, saying it aimed to remove "partisan bias" and address concerns the curriculum downplayed "the legacy of western civilisation" and the importance of Anzac Day.

But the interim report did not make specific reference to such aspects of the curriculum, instead stressing the importance of a "robust, relevant, independent, balanced and up-to-date curriculum".

The report, completed at the end of March but released on Tuesday, said the team had received more than 1,500 submissions from "a broad range of stakeholders", a sign of the significant community interest in the review.

"Given that stakeholder consultations are ongoing, this preliminary report will not draw any conclusions about the issues or key messages emerging from these consultations," it said.

"The development of the Australian curriculum has not been without discussion, debate and disagreement. Every citizen of Australia is a stakeholder in this discussion, so it is natural and health for there to be keen debate about the content of the school curriculum."

As of the time of the interim report the reviewers had held four formal panel meetings.

The Greens claimed credit for the report's release, given a pending Senate order to produce review documents.

The party's spokeswoman on schools, Penny Wright, said the report reinforced her concerns that the review was hasty and unnecessary and she was not surprised by how little had been achieved by the reviewers.

"Given the vacuity of this current document, Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire have essentially only three more months to review six years’ worth of work by hundreds of experts," Wright said. "A report with a poor process like this can have no integrity. Minister Pyne should dump this implausible review."

A spokesman for Pyne said the document was a preliminary report to inform the minister on progress.



Wiltshire, a conservative commentator whose appointment was controversial given his past strong criticism of the national curriculum, had held "extensive discussions" with representatives from the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, the English Department for Education and UK-based think tanks, the report said.

The review team was also hiring subject area specialists to evaluate the various areas of the curriculum, the report said. These specialists were being asked to provide advice on the "comprehensiveness, structure and sequencing" of the content.

They would consider how each learning area compared "with the curriculum of two other relevant countries".

One of the questions to be answered was "whether the curriculum for this learning area encourage a love of learning, a joy of discovery, and a quest for knowledge and related skills", the report said.

Labor has previously argued the curriculum review was a politically motivated attempt to distract from concerns over the future of needs-based school funding.