Research shows ethics education teaches kids right from wrong. Why can so few students access it?

RDNE Stock Project/ Pexels How important is it that kids learn to tell right from wrong? Businessman and former university chancellor David Gonski recently called for ethics classes to be rolled out in all Australian schools to boost social cohesion.

At the moment, ethics does not get dedicated time in the school curriculum.

Some might argue children don’t need school ethics classes if they already learn ethics from their parents and other adults in their lives.

But our research shows formal ethics education can make a difference.

In the largest ever review on the subject, we found teaching ethics can improve students’ ability to reason through ethical issues and prioritise doing the right thing.

Ethics education in Australia Ethics has been part of the national Australian Curriculum for more than a decade.

It sits alongside literacy, numeracy and four other subjects as a “general capability”.

This means it’s a cross-curriculum skill every Australian child is supposed to learn in all subjects.

So in theory, ethics education is the responsibility of all teachers, even when teaching mathematics , art or biology.

In practice, no-one is responsible for teaching these skills.

Australian research has found even teachers who value general capabilities, such as ethics, struggle to teach them explicitly.

This is because the focus is on what gets tested.

In turn, this means “the intentions of the Australian Curriculum […] are not being realised”.

In most Australian states, the only structured ethics offering in schools is during religious instruction.