Aboriginal history to be focus of new curriculum

SYDNEY - Australian school children will learn more about the country's Aboriginal history and relations with Asia in the country's first national curriculum, officials said on Monday.

The new approach, detailed in a draft document, follows Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's historic 2008 apology to Australia's Aborigines for their mistreatment since white settlement in the late 18th century.

"This is not a black armband view of history," Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who is also the education minister, told ABC public radio.