Political Correctness gone wild - BC/AD to BCE/CE

20/10/11

Education bureaucrats have backed down from removing the traditional BC/AD way of dating from Australia’s national history curriculum, according to Senator Brett Mason, the Shadow Minister for Universities and Research.

“To remove references to BC and AD would have been Political Correctness gone wild,” said Senator Mason.

In Senate Estimates today, Senator Mason questioned senior officers of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), who are tasked with the development of the national school curriculum, about their decision to replace the traditional BC/AD dating designation with “Before Common Era” (BCE), “Common Era” (CE), and “Before Present” (BP).

A spokesman for ACARA was quoted in the media as saying that “BCE and CE were to be introduced because this was an increasingly common standard for the representation of dates.” (“The Daily Telegraph”, 2 September 2011)

“This decision created major community outcry and no wonder. The BC/AD designation is the best known and most commonly used when writing about historical events in the English language, going back fifteen hundred years,” said Senator Mason.

“Ask people in the street and I will be surprised if more than 5 per cent know what BCE/CE means, whereas the significance of BC and AD would be almost universally known.

“The Coalition has been very strongly against this change, and it is good to see that the pressure by the Coalition and the community bore fruit.

“The ACARA officials have promised that the use of BC and AD will be retained as the way that the national history curriculum designates dates.

“A clarification will be inserted into the national history curriculum document that terms BCE, CE and BP are merely examples of other historical dating designations used by academics, so that students are aware of their meaning, should they encounter these terms in their readings.

“This seems to be an appropriate reflection of the state of affairs: while BC and AD are universally used, other designations, such as BCE, CE and BP are merely used within academia. It is important that students are aware of this fact, but it is just as important that they continue to work within the traditional BC/AD framework.

“The retention of BC/AD as the dating designations in the history curriculum is a victory of common sense.”