History should be compulsory for all students up to Year 10, with elective units in Years 11 and 12 in ancient and modern history, advice to the Federal Government's curriculum board says.
The National Curriculum Board will issue today the initial advice it has received from an advisory group on the content and structure of the Australian schools curriculum.
Among the recommendations for public comment is that the modern history unit should cover the period 1750 to the present, and that the first three units should cover the history of all continents.
Human activity in Australia would be a significant component of these units.
Aboriginal history, early Asian and European contacts, settler colonialism and the development of parliamentary democracy in Australia would be taught comparatively.
At present fewer than half of Australia's secondary-school students study history.
With a significant number of today's history teachers having no training in the subject, the advice says attention should be given to the uneven state of Australian history teachers' training.
But the advice adds, ''There are many able teachers of history who are trained in the discipline and its pedagogy.''
''We should recognise and support their expertise and draw on it to develop the new curriculum.''
The head of the advisory group is Professor Stuart Macintyre, from the University of Melbourne, who held the chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University in 2007-08.
Professor Macintyre said recommendations on the proposed history curriculum would be discussed this week as part of national forums and workshops in Melbourne on the development of a national curriculum in English, maths, history and science for all Australian students from kindergarten through to Year 12. Consultations would follow until February, and a full curriculum developed thereafter.
The curriculum would be introduced in trial form at selected classes and schools in 2010 and be ready for general introduction by 2011.
Professor Macintyre said the history curriculum would probably be phased in over several years.
Though it would be uniform throughout the nation, each state and territory would include aspects specific to its history.
''Over the past 15 or 20 years, school hiring practices and timetabling have tended to [suggest] history can be taught by anyone,'' Professor Macintyre said.
It would be a challenge to have enough qualified history teachers to bring in the curriculum but it was achievable.
''The object is that by Year 10 Australian kids would have a good working knowledge of world history and where Australia fits within it.''
The National Curriculum Board was established this year by the Federal Government to oversee the development of the national curriculum by 2010 and to introduce it it from 2011. Australia has 34 organisations contributing to national curricular development.
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