In response to an article in The Sydney Morning Herald last Saturday the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia,  said

“there would always be a place for rote learning and exams”, and …..”the situation that faces most people within NSW is that sooner or later they will be obliged to take examinations that require them to demonstrate rote learning.”

A School Principal is quoted as saying…”knowledge is important and committing information to memory will always have a place in the school curriculum.”

I’m having difficulty with understanding the need for this memory exercise when we should be focusing on and assessing higher order skills. Although many good assessment tasks are being used throughout NSW, we are still overshadowed by the spectre of needing to regurgitate memorised facts.

What’s the opinion out there?