Robotics education and training in Australia.

Australia invests a lot into education and training and the industry generates $134b in revenue and employs more than 765,000 people — almost 5% of Australia’s working population. The Australian government aims to invest $32.4b into Australian schools by 2029 representing an annual increase in funds from 2018 of $1.0b each year.

Robotics education in Australia runs a wide and varied range, from students in Prep using simple robots to learn directional terminology all the way through to academics in higher education performing world leading research.

Primary education in Australia encompasses students from approximately five years of age (Foundation) and runs for between six and seven years of schooling. Grades 7-10 are sometimes referred to as Middle Years. Primary and Middle Years Education focuses predominantly on the use of robots as a pedagogical tool. Robot platforms are easy to use for novice students and serve as a way to engage students with the curriculum requirements necessary at school.

All states in Australia follow either the curriculum guides set down by the Australian Curriculum, or a version that is very similar. Within the Australian Curriculum lies the subject ‘Technologies’, which can be further broken down into Digital Technologies and Design and Technologies. The following graphic and table outlines the topics that are taught within this subject.

It is worth noting that the teaching of robotics is not specified within the curriculum documentation. Instead teachers are free to use a variety of different tools to meet the teaching of the Curriculum’s requirements. Robotics is a fun and engaging tool to meet these requirements.

Generally speaking, the programming of robotics falls into the Digital Technologies area, whereas the construction of a robot will address the Design and Technology area. It’s important to note that the Technologies subject is not focused on teaching a particular platform, but rather the skills required to build or operate a platform.

In a Primary Education setting, it is common to have a single teacher responsible for a whole class for the majority of their teaching week. This permits the teacher more scope and flexibility to blend different learning objectives into rich tasks that concurrently cover several topics. As a result, this means that the use of robotics can be an effective and engaging way of covering multiple subjects. In Middle Years education we start to see the introduction of specific subjects not necessarily integrated with other subjects.

While the predominant use of robots at this age level is as a pedagogical tool, extra-curricular activities like robotics competitions are increasingly becoming popular, which serves to teach students explicit robotics knowledge and understanding. Students learn how to build and program robots and have the chance to create their own unique solutions to address the open ended challenges that these competitions promote.

The Technologies subject is required to be taught from Foundation through to Grade 8, with schools given the option to provide the subject as an elective in Grades 9 and 10.

In the Australian Curriculum, as well as specific subjects that are required to be taught, there are multiple ‘General Capabilities’ that are defined, concepts that are expected to be embedded into all areas of the curriculum. Robotics is a tool that neatly fits one of these General Capabilities – Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This means that robotics can be used as a tool to enhance other areas of the curriculum and there are many examples of robotics being used to supplement subjects such as English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, Music and Art.