Victoria’s new lesson plan rollout delayed almost a year due to IT issues

The cost of rolling out explicit teaching plans across Victorian schools has blown out by $1.6 million, with some plans delayed by almost 12 months.

In June 2024, Victoria’s Education Minister Ben Carroll announced high-quality lesson plans in English, maths, science, design and digital technologies that would place explicit teaching in every classroom.

But the digital platform used to host and distribute the lesson plans – called ARC 4.0 – has been delayed by almost 12 months as suppliers redesigned content to align with the Victorian Teaching and Learning 2.0 model.

Teaching plans for phonics, maths and English have been in use in classrooms for much of this year, and the science teaching plan was launched on Thursday, but the resources for design technology and digital technology have yet to be deployed.

According to documents seen by The Age, the cost of the software program has blown out from a budgeted $1.11 million to $2.7 million as the government contract reveals at least $248,800 was granted to White Rose Education to review and rewrite existing mathematics lesson plans.

The project, initially planned to be completed in 2024, is not due until December 31, 2025.

Carroll said the resources would help to reduce teacher workload as well as support the delivery of high-quality teaching in every classroom.

It would also cut costs for schools that would otherwise need to purchase similar products from commercial suppliers.

But Victorian Liberal MP and opposition education spokesperson Jess Wilson said a year on from the minister promising to make best practice common practice in Victorian classrooms, the rollout had been “beset by delays, cost blowouts and botched lesson plans in need of a rewrite”.

“What faith can families have in Victoria’s education system when the government is running red ink through their own lesson plans?”

Australian Education Union deputy president Meredith Peace said off-the-shelf lesson plans for teachers weren’t the solution to address “unsustainable workloads and teacher shortages”.

Peace said teachers wanted a significant cut in their administration workloads so they could spend more time on lesson planning and working to meet the individual needs of their students.

She said teachers wanted additional classroom support, more teachers and intensive tutoring for children at risk of falling behind as well as action to avoid out-of-field teaching.

“The needs of students have never been more complex and diverse, and over one quarter [of students] in public schools have a disability. Teachers know that off-the-shelf lesson plans aren’t what they need to meet the individual needs of students.

“They need better support inside and outside the classroom and a dramatic cut in the excessive administration and compliance workloads that are dragging their focus away from their students.”

A Department of Education spokesperson said the scope of the original lesson plans project had to be expanded to provide schools with Phonic Plus, a new comprehensive systematic synthetic phonics program.

“This followed feedback from schools and teachers, so teachers have one less thing to worry about when preparing lessons for students,” he said.

“The response to these resources has been overwhelmingly positive, with more than 80,000 downloads of lesson plans, easing the burden of lesson planning for Victoria’s hard-working teachers.”

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