But Australian Prime Minister John Howard says a single national curriculum would improve standards and stop thousands of students being disadvantaged when they move between states.
Education minister Julie Bishop outlined the plan in a speech to a history teachers' meeting in Perth, saying it was time for a back-to-basics curriculum set by a national board of studies.
The minister said state governments had failed to protect students from "trendy educational fads".
The states, she said, had ideologically hijacked school syllabuses, wasting $180 million in unnecessary duplication.
New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma said his state's educational standards would suffer if it was forced to adopt a national curriculum and he questioned the commonwealth's ability to run such a system.
"They can't get it right on Telstra (and) here they are telling us that they can get it right on school curriculum," he said. "I mean, be serious."
Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford also rubbished the idea.
"Making outlandish and extremist comments of this kind are not the way to improve the quality of education in this country," he told the ABC.
While Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley dismissed the plan as a blatant grab for power and accused the minister of using "ridiculous and extreme" language.
Labor's education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said the plan showed "extraordinary arrogance" and was an attempt to control everything taught in the nation's classrooms.
The Australian Education Union branded the proposal insulting and ill-informed.
Private school teachers also rejected it, the Independent Education Union (IEU) describing Ms Bishop's speech as "political opportunism at its best".
"Ms Bishop's approach is both confrontational and muddle-headed," IEU federal secretary Lynne Rolley said.
The Federal Education minister has commissioned a study to determine whether there is a need for eight separate curriculum in Australia. The report is due by the end of the year.