A new report, First We See: The National Review of Visual Education, provides a vision for the visual education of Australian students into the future.

The report is the result of a two-year review of Australia’s visual education that examined existing programs and good practice from across the education system, a framework for the future of visual education and four key recommendations.

First We See: The National Review of Visual Education was jointly released by the Australia Council for the Arts and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in cooperation with the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. It was written by Professor Diana Davis from the Australian National University.

The four key recommendations of the review include:

- The centrality of visuacy for all Australian students – visuacy as a democratic visual education concept be recognised as a core skill area and that a visual education curriculum separated from the performing arts and incorporating visuacy as a primary goal be developed for each of the compulsory years of schooling.
- Preparing teachers – appropriate pre-service training and ongoing professional learning opportunities in visual education be instituted for (a) visual education specialist secondary teachers and (b) generalist primary teachers.
- The potential of partnerships – the potential of partnerships between schools and appropriate external agencies/organisations to contribute to visual education be explored and a programme of implementation determined.
- A visual education research agenda – a national visual education research agenda be developed along with an implementation plan and staged timeline.

http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/news/news_items/national_review_of_visual_education_released