How important is it that every schoolchild develops a balanced understanding of the challenge of sustainability, including the science of climate change and the kind of environmental threats that they and their offspring will inherit? My own view is that for children now in the education system, a sophisticated understanding of these matters will be as important to their future as literacy and numeracy.

In recognition that the curriculum must be both relevant to the lives of students and address the contemporary issues they face, Australian educators have been involved in a five-year process of national curriculum redesign. It has been agreed that Australian school curriculums need to give special attention at all stages and across multiple subject domains to three priority areas: sustainability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture, and Australia's engagement with Asia.

Successful learners will understand how their actions can hinder or promote a sustainable future.

Reasonably enough, the federal Education Minister wants to be assured that the new national curriculum will meet the needs of the education system, for which he has responsibility during his term of office. He has appointed a two-person commission to review the curriculum and make recommendations about it by midyear, so that if necessary, modifications can be implemented in 2015. In his announcement he said that he was looking to his nominated reviewers to evaluate the development and implementation of the Australian Curriculum and its robustness, independence and balance.

A few days after the minister's announcement, 176 education leaders from across Australia signed an open letter to the minister expressing their concern at the timing of the review and the suitability of one of the two reviewers. They also pointed to the difficulties that this process will impose on a system that is still being bedded down after five years of professional deliberation by curriculum agencies and educators across the nation.