For some context, this isn't really an argument about how much science should be in the curriculum, but how detailed and prescriptive that curriculum should be.

For some context, this isn't really an argument about how much science should be in the curriculum, but how detailed and prescriptive that curriculum should be. New Zealand's High School curriculum is very perspective. There is an exact list of skills that students are expected to show, and all assessments are managed centrally. Teachers are more or less expected to teach to the test first and then fit actual learning around that. It does work well when the curriculum is well designed. This article is talking about the the primary school (elementary) curriculum, which has always been much less prescriptive. There are no centrally managed assessments, just a set of learning guidelines that teachers have freedom to design a learning program around. This new science curriculum draft is taking this anti-prescriptivism approach to the extreme. It's a pretty short document that lists a few overarching mega topics. It's expecting that teachers will read between the lines and manage to teach all the important science skills within context of those topics and get them ready for high school. On the positive side, this gives teachers even more freedom to customise their teaching programs. But it also places a massive workload on those teachers to actually work out what they need to teach students. Good teachers with strong science skills might be able to achieve this, but the rest will struggle. Opponents of this draft are arguing the majority of students will receive sub-standard science teaching, find it boring and then stay away from science courses at high school. Science is one area were you really do want a more prescriptive curriculum, simply so these generalist primary school teachers know what they should be teaching.