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Breaking
News: Week of 29 January 2007
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Saturday – Sunday, 3 – 4 February
- ABC News
- WA Govt promises to address teacher shortage [10:50 pm]
"The Western Australian Government will review teacher recruitment practices, after revealing more than 260 teaching positions are vacant, two days before the start of the 2007 school year.
"Education Minister Mark McGowan says there are 200 full-time and 64 part-time vacant positions, but maintains there will be enough teachers in all classrooms when school starts on Wednesday.
"More than 60 per cent of the vacancies are in country areas.
"State School Teachers Union spokesman Mike Keely has blamed a lack of incentives, an ageing work force and many teachers leaving the profession early in their careers.
"It's a difficult, it's a demanding occupation and let's face it, if you begin teaching as a teacher you're not exactly on top of the salary rung," he said.
"The State Government says teachers will be withdrawn from administration and special literacy and behaviour management programs to alleviate the shortage. [emphasis added]
"An international human resources planning firm will conduct the review of teacher recruitment practices.
"Opposition education spokesman Peter Collier says he is not surprised at the number of teacher vacancies across WA.
"As a direct result of the fact that the teacher situation has been so manifestly mismanaged by the Government, there is every probability and possibility that the quality of education in some classrooms throughout the state will deteriorate," he said.
"WA Council of State School Organisations spokesman Robert Fry says it is always a challenge getting teachers to the Pilbara, but it is worse this year.
"He agrees the Education Department needs to offer more incentives to encourage teachers to stay in remote areas.
"What we must do is ensure when a teacher does in certainly the rural remotes, they have the appropriate housing, they have all the facilities that they need to encourage them to stay for the medium to long term," he said."
From ABC News Online at link
- The West Australian
- WA teacher recruitment under review [added to their website at 4:15 pm]
"The Department of Education and Training will undertake a review of teacher recruitment practices, following the release of figures showing a significant shortfall of teaching staff in Government schools."Education Minister Mark McGowan said an international human resources planning firm would review and advise the government on how to improve recruitment.
"Mr McGowan said urgent action was being taken by the department to call in relief and specialist teachers to ensure every class was supervised.
“Just two days before the start of the 2007 school year, we have 200 full time and 64 part time vacancies in our State school system,” he said. “Country areas account for around 65 per cent of the vacancies, but we have problems filling positions throughout the State. [emphasis added]
“There were 1500 applicants for teaching posts, of which only one third accepted the offer made to them.
“We have a team of about 50 staff working on filling vacancies and since Thursday they have made 192 new appointments. By the time school starts, it is anticipated that the number of vacancies will have dropped further.
“While the most likely cause is a booming economy and a wide range of employment choices for graduates and existing teachers, I want to make sure that our recruitment strategies are competitive,” the Minister said. [No Minister, you've missed the point, again. Web]
"Mr McGowan said the review would start immediately to determine why applicants were not accepting positions and whether different practices were needed.
"He said he would also write to the Commonwealth Government proposing HECS relief for every year of country service by graduate teachers."
From The West Australian Online at link
- Labor launches 'education revolution' [added to their website at 4:39 pm]
AAP
"All four-year-old children would have access to early childhood education under a federal Labor government, Opposition leader Kevin Rudd has promised."The policy, to cost $450 million a year, is the first concrete announcement of Labor's so-called "education revolution".
"Labor has marked education as one of the major battlegrounds on which it will fight for the hearts and minds of voters in the federal election later this year.
"Last week it released a discussion paper detailing the government's failings in the sector, while at the same time pledging to make Australia the best educated country in the world.
"Under the scheme unveiled by Mr Rudd in Brisbane, all four-year-olds would be given access to 15 hours of play-based learning and development programs every week.
"The programs would be available at private and public early childhood centres across the country..."
Full story in The West Australian Online at link
- Foreign uni graduates lack English: study
See below for this story in The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Melbourne Age
- Foreign students facing tougher tests [added to their website at 4:10 pm]
AAP
"Australia will toughen up English-language requirements for foreign graduates after a report showed poor language skills among many overseas students..."
"Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) president Professor Gerard Sutton said a toughened language requirement, jointly developed with the immigration department, will come into effect in July next year..."
Full story in The West Australian Online at link
- The Adelaide Advertiser
- Editorial
Top marks in the classroom
"Whatever the outcome of this year's federal election, the recasting and upgrading of Australia's education system is emerging as an urgent priority in 2008."Education, from pre-school to tertiary, can no longer be left to the whims of individual state governments and their often conflicting philosophies and perceived community values.
"Of course, there is still a crucial role for states to play but, first and foremost, there must be national benchmarks and standards.
"States appreciate some local needs, both in the curriculum and in eventual employment demands.
"But there is a real need for interchangeable national standards, particularly in the ranking of schools, to cater for the increasingly mobile society. Federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd this week identified education as an issue of national concern, in the same way Prime Minister John Howard stamped his authority on the River Murray.
"As the world becomes more competitive, it is no longer enough to strive for a bland government education system in which one size fits all.
"In South Australia, for example, the individual ability of students is assessed but there is continued opposition to the ranking of schools.
"The flow of students to the private school system is evidence of a growing disenchantment with the state system.
"Primary school children continue to be shielded from the pain of failure both in the classroom and on the sporting field only to find, after four years in the secondary system, they must be high achievers to win a university place.
"Tragically, some children are leaving school without the basic comprehension and writing skills to fill out a form or write a job application. [emphasis added]
"Overseas students are helping to finance the university system, and while there are incentives to encourage mature age people to seek further tertiary education or training, more must be done.
"Globally, Australia's education system is falling behind the most ambitious and progressive countries and our schools are clearly under-resourced both in teaching staff and facilities..."
"There are few more urgent tasks for the next government – Liberal or Labor – than to improve the situation in the classroom."
Full editorial in The Adelaide Advertiser at link
- SA school bills shock
by David Nankervis
"South Australian public and Catholic schools are the most expensive in the nation, a national survey of parents shows.
"Parents in this state will spend an average $5600 on each child attending a government school this year – $660 more than parents in the cheapest state, Queensland, according to the Australian Scholarships Group."And parents of Catholic school students will spend an average $10,100 – $1100 above the national average, the survey reveals.
"Seventy per cent of SA's 240,000 students attend state or Catholic schools..."
Full story in The Adelaide Advertiser at link
- Parent push for diabetes group
by Louise Treccasi
"Children suffering from Type 1 diabetes may be missing out on an education because their illness is not being managed correctly at schools, parents say.
"Parents of school-age children with the chronic illness have united to form a Family Voice Type 1 Diabetes group."The group is working closely with the Education Department and Women's and Children's Hospital to have a greater say and provide advice on how it can support the management of Type 1 diabetes in schools..."
Full story in The Adelaide Advertiser at link
- The Australian
- Private schools in costly boom
by Dorothy Illing and Michael McKinnon
"The drift towards private education is placing growing pressure on infrastructure, forcing schools to take out bigger loans and raise fees.
"An independent review of a commonwealth fund for capital programs warns of rising costs in non-government schools."It says these are being driven by factors such as changes to the curriculum, school starting age, the push for smaller class sizes and rising building costs..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Op Ed
Alan Gold: Growing internet dependence sapping our life skills
Where will this computer generation be if they have to figure things out for themselves
- Four Higher Education articles, including:
- The Melbourne Age
- Costs in state schools hurt those struggling
by Farah Farouque, Social Affairs Editor
"Increasing demands on parents to pay for extra-curricular activities, such as school camps and excursions, and cover costs of books and uniforms are hampering the educational experiences of children from low-income families, a new report says."A study by welfare group Brotherhood of St Laurence details how parental income affects children's feelings of belonging to a school and even constrains academic results.
"The study, which has been tracking — in the style of the 7 Up movies — a diverse group of children born in 1990 into their teens, urges schools to think more creatively about mitigating expenses for struggling families..."
Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
Similar story in The Melbourne Herald Sun
- The Washington Post
- Staff Is Reeling After Bold Move
All Employees Must Reapply for Jobs
by William Wan
"First came disbelief. Then came anger. Now come the questions as teachers at Annapolis High School begin grappling with their superintendent's order last week that all employees must apply to keep their jobs."How many teachers will be rehired? Will administrators change the curriculum or class hours?
"But the biggest question is this: Will it work?"After failing to meet federal No Child Left Behind standards for four years straight, the 1,600-student campus faced state-mandated reforms if it failed a fifth year. So, in a surprising move Wednesday, Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell said he planned to jump-start the restructuring of Annapolis High on his terms. Every staff member -- from custodians to the principal -- must reapply to stay in his or her job, an action called "zero-basing." ...
Full story in The Washington Post at link
- The Guardian
- Why homework isn't working
Leading academic says too much study after school turns children off education and sparks family rows
- The West Australian
- Teachers sent from offices into classrooms (page 7)
by Bethany Hiatt
"Teachers are being hauled in from desk jobs to front classrooms in a last-minute move that the State Government hopes will temporarily solve staff shortages in public schools.
"Education Minister Mark McGowan conceded yesterday that two days before the start of school there was a shortfall of 264 teachers.
"The admission is proof of a worsening teacher shortage – something the Department of Education and Training has consistently denied for the past few months. This time last year, there were just 32 vacancies.
"Despite many warnings by the teachers' union and the Opposition, Mr McGowan said he first heard of the big shortfall last weekend.
"It caught us by surprise to a degree," he said. "It's not the ideal situation. I'm willing to accept responsibility as Minister – I'm not going to blame other people."
"Principals, deputy principals and office-based teachers such as relief co-ordinators or teachers involved in specialist literacy programs have been told to return to the classroom.
Nearly two-thirds of the vacancies are in rural schools. The Pilbara is the worst affected, but the department is also struggling to fill positions in city schools.
Secondary schools are worse off than primary schools, with most shortages occurring in maths, science, English and home economics.
"Only a third of the 1500 people who applied for teaching posts this year actually agreed to take jobs when they were offered.
"Mr McGowan said it was harder to lure young people to remote schools when the economy was booming because jobs were plentiful elsewhere and he had directed the department to review its recruiting methods.
"The West Australian understands that international recruitment firm Gerard Daniels will review the recruiting strategies to find out why applicants are refusing positions. [We've got some thoughts on that... Web]
"Mr McGowan said he would also call on Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop to waive part of the HECS debt for graduates who agreed to teach in country schools.
"State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said the department had long been “hiding reality” and using specialists in classrooms was a quick fix that robbed other teachers of their expertise.
"Shadow education minister Peter Collier said he was accused of scaremongering when he raised teacher shortages in rural schools. “Either the former minister (Ljiljanna Ravlich) was misleading us or there are serious mismanagement problems in the department,” Mr Collier said."
From The West Australian at link
- Sidebar stories
- Irish chalkie eager for bush challenge (page 7)
by Bethany Hiatt
"Human interest story" about 29 year old Dublin man heading for Tom Price. It's his first visit to Oz: he's in for "an experience"!
- Flashback: Unions want action over teacher shortage [from 8 November 2006 West Australian] (page 7)
- Letter to the Editor (page 19)
- Keep it up
"Paul Murray just gets better and better. His smooth, succinct humorous slaughter of the OBE fracas, Alan Carpenter's self-destruction and Eric's word games (We're not that stupid, Premier, 27/1) were a definite tear-out to keep.
"I look forward to any future Murray micro-surgery on Government madness. Could he describe the actual teaching and school experience of the OBE architects since its thunder-and-lightning inception on the dark moors?
"Could he compile a little book on the writings of the senior Education Department bureaucrats – especially the curriculum counsellors – maybe in the form of an objective OBE Year 12 comprehension test of levelling purposes?
"Accepting a conclusion that WA's outcomes-based education (secondary) may be one of the most expensive implementation flops in educational history, can we ask: were the senior education bureaucrats self-deceived or consciously leap-frogging on the OBE trend, seeking to bulge their CVs and salaries by supporting a vulnerable minister who was fundamentally well-intentioned?
"She has spilled her political blood trying to tough out what a little army of trusted senior experts must have told her was terrific – ultimately – for kids. She paid the price for getting it wrong. They still lurk in the shadows waiting for the next education gimmick to ride to the top. I ask, have they ever taught in a school?
"I hope the war-weary teachers barricade the carpark and direct the government cars into neighbouring targets – say local governments, hospitals, global warmers. Why does education so appeal to would-be reformers?
"Well done Paul Murray and The West Australian."
Betty Cockman, Dongara
- Union sets strategy to retain teachers [added to their website at 11:34 am]
AAP
"Lighter workloads and access to experienced mentors would help prevent new teachers from quitting the profession in large numbers, a teachers union says."A new national survey of 1,300 beginning teachers found half would not be teaching in 10 years.
"Top concerns were workload, lack of respect from students and parents, low pay and large class sizes.
"The Australian Education Union (AEU) report, Beginning Teacher Survey 2006, surveyed 1,300 teachers with one to three years' experience.
"The survey showed that even new teachers who have changed professions to enter teaching do not see themselves having long term careers in the industry," AEU federal president Pat Byrne said in a statement.
"Lack of resources means new teachers have less incentive to stay in the profession, and this will continue to drive teacher shortages."
"NSW Teachers Federation vice-president Bob Liscomb said the survey results were worrying.
"That's of great concern because the Department of Education in NSW has figures that indicate between 2006 and 2011, approximately 40 per cent of teachers will either resign or retire," said Lipscomb.
"And if you can't hold on to the new teachers, there's going to be significant problems in the not-too-distant future."
"The NSW Department of Education currently employed 58 teacher mentors, Mr Lipscomb said.
"They support new teachers by being present in classrooms and offering advice on a host of issues.
"The program is highly successful in aiding retention, and the federation wants it expanded to 300 mentors so all new teachers can benefit.
"We also believe the cost is relatively insignificant in terms of increased retention of teachers," Mr Lipscomb said.
"The AEU survey showed 49 per cent of rookie teachers had never participated in an ongoing induction program and 40 per cent had been asked to teach outside their area of expertise or qualification.
"Nearly 39 per cent said they had no instruction or experience in classroom behavioural management.
"The federation also believes lighter workloads for the first three years of teaching will help improve retention.
"Teaching is probably the only profession where one is expected to do exactly the same on the first day on the job as someone who's been in the job for many years," Mr Lipscomb said.
"The Tasmanian government, for example, provides every beginning teacher with a reduction of two hours of face-to-face teaching to enable them to consult with their colleagues, to get support, to develop professionally and reflect on what they're doing."
"Catholic schools in NSW already had adopted the practice of lighter workloads, Mr Lipscomb said."
From The West Australian Online at link
- Rudd in $450m vow to turn child-care centres into schools (page 7)
by Rhianna King, Canberra
See similar online stories from other newspapers, below.
- ABC News
- Teachers' union flags mining approach to staff retention
"The State School Teachers Union of Western Australia says the Education Department should follow the mining industry's lead and offer better incentives to retain teaching staff.
"The Minister for Education, Mark McGowan, says WA is facing a shortage of more than 260 teachers this year, many of them in regional areas.
"The Minister says the shortage can be eased by moving staff from administration and special literacy and behaviour management programs.
"The president of the State School Teachers Union of Western Australia, Mike Keely, says if teachers were offered a better deal they would be more likely to relocate to regional areas.
"If you want experienced, well trained teachers in those areas you've got to do the same as you would if you were a mining company and that is recognise that there's a shortage and you have to provide the right incentives for people to go up there and to stay there at a reasonable period of time," he said."
From ABC News Online at link
- The Sydney Daily Telegraph
- Brats drive out teachers
Exclusive by Bruce McDougall
"Bad behaviour by students is helping to drive teachers out of the job after as little as 12 months in the classroom."Fears about their ability to effectively control troublesome children - and even "difficult'' parents'' - are partly responsible for the high burnout rate, new data shows.
"As 750,000 children return to school across NSW, a national survey of beginner teachers has found up to 20 per cent believe they will not last five years.
"More than 10 per cent of the 1300 new teachers surveyed said they would stay in a public school for just one to three years.
"But new primary and secondary teachers also have expressed strong concerns about their workload, pay and large class sizes.
"One said: "Unless you are a teacher you do not understand the actual load on us. The extent of the physical and emotional aspects of this job needs to be acknowledged through remuneration and respect.''
"The Australian Education Union, which conducted they survey, said many new teachers were "not prepared for the lack of respect from some students and parents''.
"Children are (now) much more independent, much more outspoken and much more demanding,'' AEU president Pat Byrne said yesterday.
"They expect much more individual attention than used to be the case. They (new teachers) obviously find it pretty stressful.''
"Mature newcomers who change professions to enter teaching also do not see themselves having long term careers in the industry.
"The survey found 10 per cent of all new teachers planned to move to the private school system and 14.5 per cent to another job outside teaching.
"About a third of those surveyed said they were required to teach outside their area of qualification and expertise.
"Forty per cent claimed they received most of their professional support from other beginners.
"More than 22 per cent said their preparation for the reality of the classroom was poor or very poor..."
Full story in The Sydney Daily Telegraph at link
- The Australian
- Rudd brings learning into play
by Steve Lewis and Verity Edwards
"An election battle looms over preschool education after Labor unveiled a $500 million blueprint for play-based learning, which the Coalition immediately promised to trump.
"Unveiling his first detailed and costed policy, Kevin Rudd yesterday promised "universal access" to early childhood education for every four-year-old child."The Opposition Leader said the estimated 100,000 four-year-olds denied access to teacher-run childhood education would be given a guaranteed 15 hours, costing $450million.
"In the first instalment of his so-called education revolution, the Labor leader announced plans to pay 50 per cent of the HECS cost for 10,000 early childhood graduates. University numbers would be boosted by 1500 places a year, to meet an expected surge in demand for early childhood specialists.
"The extra university places and the HECS break would cost a further $48 million.
"In a pitch to working families, Mr Rudd said it was critical for kids to get a "decent start in life, whatever side of the tracks they may grow up on".
"Our intention is to ensure that four-year-olds, at the very beginning of life, at the very beginning of their experience of the education system, have every quality opportunity available to them," he said.
"Mr Rudd denied Labor was taking the "fun" out of growing up, instead arguing that play-based learning was essential to improved education outcomes at a later stage.
"There is a huge literature now on play-based learning. What we're talking about is not taking the fun out of childhood," he said.
"Education is the pathway to the future."
"Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said Labor was admitting the failure of the states to take their responsibilities on early childhood education seriously..."
Full story in The Australian at link
Similar story in The Melbourne Age
- More uni English woes tipped
by Cath Hart and Verity Edwards
"The federal Government has failed to act on a pledge made last year to tackle poor English skills among overseas students studying at Australian universities bytightening language requirements.
"The delay was likely to result in another jump in the number of overseas students who graduate from Australian universities but cannot communicate in a professional workplace, an immigration expert said yesterday..."
"Education Minister Julie Bishop and outgoing Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone announced last May that the English language proficiency requirements for skilled migrants would be increased."But the changes have not yet been introduced, despite being slated for the second half of 2006, according to details released at the time..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- First lesson is the high cost
by Elizabeth Gosch
"Twenty years ago all you needed on the first day of school was your HB pencil and a ruler, but these day laptops and iPods are filling students' bags as parents stretch the family budget to keep up with the demands of a modern education.
"Recent studies show it would cost more than $100,000 to educate a child starting preschool this year - and that's in the government system. Putting a child through preschool to year 12 in the private system will set you back more than $350,000."Families are battling to keep up with the rising cost of education as the "necessities" balloon out to include internet access, laptops, private tutoring and even iPods to get podcast lessons..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Ministers slam small schools' funding cuts
Two federal ministers have attacked the Rann Government as "vindictive" for cutting funding to small schools in South Australia, threatening the future of communities in the Adelaide Hills.
- Letter to the Editor
- Technology and teaching
"It's only right that Kevin Donnelly should be concerned about the state of Australian education ("The evolution of education", Inquirer, 27-28/1), but it’s also worth noting that he makes his comments at some remove from the so-called "chalk face"."Certainly, he was once an English teacher in a working-class suburb of Melbourne but that was before technology had come to dominate the classroom. I write in defence of all those who have stayed in the classroom and have to deal with this dramatic change. I do this from a position of some experience, having spent 40 years as a teacher of secondary English.
"I’m sure that Donnelly would agree that the way to get students interested is to start with a well-disciplined classroom. That is, an area where students are prepared to listen, as well as to have their opinions considered by both their teacher and their peers. This is happening less and less. Most young people are used to being entertained, and teachers who try to implement the kind of texts that Donnelly advocates find their jobs increasingly difficult. They are accused of being "booooring". So, those who write curricula make an effort to include language-based activities, which did not exist when Donnelly was a teacher, to cover things such as text messages, e-mails and blogs. Like it or not, these are things that mean something to most contemporary students."
Judith Eagle, Kingston, Tas
- The Sydney Morning Herald
- Pressured to pass poor students
by Harriet Alexander, Higher Education Reporter, with AAP
"University teachers are passing overseas students despite poor English and substandard work because of pressure from administrators to minimise the failure rate, academics say."One recently retired academic said he passed overseas students who handed in work he would never have accepted from domestic students.
"And a former teacher at the University of Central Queensland's Sydney campus said exams in the legal course were open book and multiple choice so they were easy enough for the overseas students to pass..."
"John Forge, a philosophy science lecturer who worked at universities in NSW and Queensland for more than 30 years, said he resigned in disgust at the degradation of standards. "If you failed more than 25 per cent you had to explain yourself," Dr Forge said. "The assumption was, if they got in they must be up to the standard, so if you want to throw out more than a quarter there's something wrong with the admissions process and they're not going to admit to that.""Another former lecturer, at Central Queensland University, estimated up to half of her class plagiarised assignments because the standard of English they handed in was so superior to the level at which they spoke.
"Sometimes sections of their essays were written in a different font, indicating they had been cut and pasted from the internet. "I found about 40 students of mine that had plagiarised but I was told by a colleague, don't fail that many, they'll just target you." ... [emphasis added]
Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link [See following editorial on this story.]
- Editorial
Entrepreneurial? No, just foolish
"The news that the demographer Bob Birrell has found a high proportion of overseas students who complete degrees at Australian universities cannot speak or write English satisfactorily is alarming - particularly so for the universities they attend. The results of his study cast grave doubt on the value of degrees attained by those students: in essence, they cannot have gained the knowledge which their degrees say they have."Anecdotal evidence suggests the only way such students can pass is by plagiarism or other forms of cheating. Universities with large overseas student enrolments connive, too, at the debasement of their standards. Exams are made easy. Staff who fail too many in a class are disciplined. Such rules are worse than self-destructive. Universities which charge students with poor English large fees for such degrees are close to engaging in a form of fraud - taking money for something they know to be of reduced value.
"There is a reason, of course, universities are so desperate to debase their coinage. They are no longer supported by the Federal Government with funds sufficient to maintain their activities. Fee-paying students, particularly foreign students, fill the gap which the Federal Government has opened in their budgets. Other countries' universities are also under funding pressure, but not as much as here. As the Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, pointed out last week, Australia is unique among OECD countries in having cut government spending on tertiary education in the past decade. Nor is the story told by Dr Birrell's results a new one, as scandals such as that at Newcastle University have shown. His research confirms, though, that the measures implemented to reduce the problem are not working. Universities are supposed to admit only students who pass the Immigration Department's English proficiency test. But as the Herald has reported, some let in those who failed it. Courses to improve their English are supposed to bring these up to standard. Clearly they are not doing so.
"Unless things change, the problem will get worse. With Asian nations, particularly China, investing heavily in tertiary education, the fee windfall which universities receive from their 250,000 overseas students has probably passed its peak. Competition is fierce among the world's universities, and for the ablest students, an Australian institution is rarely the first choice. The quality of entrants is thus likely to decline, and that will depress standards still further, or produce a financial crisis. If that brought about a re-evaluation of universities' importance for this country's future, it might be no bad thing. Far better, though, if before that the Federal Government could see where its extreme parsimony is leading our universities, and change course."
From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
Also some interesting Letters on this topic in The Melbourne Age
- Op Ed
Rudd revolution will take more than rhetoric
by Julie Bishop, federal Minister for Education, Science and Training
- The Melbourne Herald Sun
- School fees essential
by Milanda Rout, education reporter
"State schools have no choice but to charge fees for subjects because of a government funding shortfall, principals and teachers say.
"The Herald Sun yesterday revealed state schools were charging up to $1000 for subject levies and threatening parents who did not pay.Victorian Principals Association Fred Ackerman said schools only charged subject contributions because they had no choice.
Full story in The Melbourne Herald Sun at link [See following editorial on this story.]
- Editorial
Education fee for all
Access to free public education for all children is one of the cornerstones of our society.
- The Independent
- The Adelaide Advertiser
- Behaviour experts for schools
Experts will be brought in to schools to help students with learning difficulties, mental illness or hyperactivity disorders.
- The West Australian
- Editorial
McGowan must instil culture of accountability in bureaucracy (page 18)
"Education Minister Mark McGowan has said he is not going to blame other people for the need for last-minute stopgap measures to try to fill teacher vacancies on the eve of the new school year. He should rethink that.
"There are compelling indications of institutionalised incompetence in the Department of Education and Training he inherited. Worse, the department appears to have been less than forthright with him, to put it mildly.
"It is simply unacceptable that education bureaucrats should be scrambling about in the days before schools are to open to try to find teachers for classrooms. Teachers with desk jobs have been dispatched to classes at the last minute as a temporary measure to fill some vacancies. The chaos points to serious mismanagement of teacher recruitment and school postings, and worse. It is not surprising that the public school system has a poor reputation among many parents, for whom private schooling is increasingly attractive.
"Mc McGowan acknowledged on Monday that two days before the start of the school year there was a shortfall of 264 teachers. At the corresponding time last year, there were 32 vacancies.
"Tellingly, he said he first heard of the shortfall at the weekend. If that was the case, he was not adequately informed about a looming crisis in his portfolio – and he not only has a right but also an obligation to demand to know why he wasn't fully briefed in good time. After all, he is ultimately responsible, as he has acknowledged.
"Mr McGowan's evident surprise on learning about the extent of the problem is consistent with the department's persistent denial of it over time. When State and private school teachers' unions called on his predecessor, Ljiljanna Ravlich, in November to look for ways to overcome a looming teacher shortage before it reached crisis point, she said the department told her it had an adequate supply of teachers. At the same time, the department had been recruiting British teachers for country schools. And it has been reported that private schools are recruiting promising teacher students before they sit their final exams, with the department lagging behind with its late staffing decisions. There are also many anecdotes about teachers who want to work in State schools not being offered jobs and the outcomes-based education fiasco n doubt resulted in the loss from State schools of experienced teachers.
"There is some irony for the Government in that in this booming economy when revenue is flooding in, it is facing shortages of essential frontline workers – not only teachers but also police and nurses. To some extent, this can be blamed on the growth of attractive jobs in the private sector.
"But, in education at least, there clearly has been mismanagement and inadequate planning. Mr McGowan has the job in front of him to pull the department into line and to insist on competence in establishing and meeting the staffing needs of schools. With proper planning, there is no need for last-minute panic as schools are about to open.
"More importantly, Mr McGowan should instil in the department a culture of accountability and competence, which is sadly lacking. That would be a step towards restoring public confidence in the State school system." [emphasis added]
From The West Australian at link
- Letter to the Editor (page 20)
- Take my advice
"I am prepared to offer Mark McGowan the following advice on how to improve recruitment of teachers for DET at half the price he is paying the international recruitment agency.
"Just take the following steps: increase teachers' salaries to achieve parity with those on the east coast; get the Federal Government to introduce a scheme whereby a graduate's HECS debt is diminished proportionally for every year of service; get rid of any vestiges of the OBE regime we have here in WA; pay significant bonuses to teachers prepared to work at remote country schools; and start investing some of that Budget surplus in school infrastructure to get buildings and plant to an acceptable level for all students in the State.
"Boom time is the time to get this right. There's a start."
Greg WIlliams, Bicton
- ALP to cut cost of maths, science study [added to their website at 3:55 pm]
AAP
"Labor has unveiled the second part of its "education revolution" by proposing to slash the cost of maths and science degrees."Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd aims to meet a shortfall of teachers of those subjects by knocking thousands of dollars from course fees and halving student loan repayments.
"The $111 million four-year plan launched in Brisbane will cut the cost of an average three-year maths or science degree from $21,000 to as low as $5,000.
"The scheme would see the course fee reduced by 50 per cent and Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) repayments for graduates working in relevant fields, including teaching, also halved.
"Mr Rudd said the number of high school students studying advanced maths and science had dropped off rapidly since 2000.
"Maths and science are in a state of crisis in Australia and if you don't deal with a crisis what follows is a slow death," he said.
"He said encouraging school leavers to study the subjects and to go on to become teachers was vital for Australia's economic prosperity.
"Maths, science, engineering - the enabling disciplines - are critical to our economic competitiveness."
"Labor's education spokesman Stephen Smith assured universities they would not be left out of pocket by the scheme.
"The announcement follows Labor's $450 million pledge on Monday to provide all four-year-olds with access to early childhood education if it wins this year's election.
"Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said Labor's plan would neither attract more students to maths and science nor produce more teachers of the subjects.
"Ms Bishop said the cost of undertaking a course and reducing HECS debts had been proven to make no difference to enrolment.
"Promoting science and maths to school students and improving pay and conditions for teachers were better ways to attract people to the profession, she said.
"The Australian people do not want a revolution in education," Ms Bishop told reporters in Canberra.
"What they want is for the state and territory governments and the commonwealth to accept shared responsibilities in this country and work together to produce the best outcomes that we can."
"Scientists and universities and scientists mostly welcomed Labor's policy.
"For too long the federal government has failed to address the growing skills crisis and decline in demand for technical degrees," Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia chief executive John Vines said.
"Labor's policy will encourage more secondary students to continue technical training with a view to entering the teaching profession without massive debts".
"Eight of Australia's leading universities said they supported increased public funding in cases where a strong public benefit can be demonstrated.
"We do believe, however, that some caution should be exercised in proposing HECS reductions up front," Group of Eight chairman Professor Glyn Davis said.
"Such a mechanism has not yet been proven as successful inducement for students to choose specific courses of study," Prof Davis said."
From the West Australian Online at link
- Combined classes to tackle lack of teachers (page 9)
by Bethany Hiatt
"Some State schools may be forced to combine classes when the new term starts today in a last-ditch bid to cope with a shortage of teachers.
"The Education Department was making frantic efforts to fill its vacancies yesterday after Education Minister Mark McGowan admitted this week that public schools were facing a shortfall of more than 260 teacher days before the start of the school year..."
Full story in The West Australian
- Lack of key staff a crisis: Omodei (front page)
by Robert Taylor, State Political Editor
"The State Opposition claimed shortages in key areas of the public service were at crisis point yesterday after police called for volunteers to work extra shifts, a new report warned WA faced a nurse shortage and it emerged some State schools may have to combine classes today because of a lack of teachers..."
"[Opposition Leader Paul] Omodei said the Government fattened the public sector with desk jockeys and that WA faced shortages of police, teachers, nurses and child-protection officers despite the public service increasing by 18,000 in the five years from 2001.
"The Labor Government is employing bureaucrats and fat cats behind desks instead of employing front-line people delivering front-line services to essential areas of health, education and law and order," he said..."
"Yesterday, the Education Department was scrambling to put teachers behind desks after Education Minister Mark McGowan admitted this week WA public schools had a shortfall of 264 teachers just days before the new school year..."
Full story in The West Australian
- How State let slip a top maths graduate (page 9)
It's a familiar story...
"Top University of WA maths teaching graduate Judy Scott desperately wanted to teach in a public school..."
"Ms Scott, 23, of Wembley, did part of her teaching practicum in Esperance, so country schooling held no fears for her.
"She did not apply to any private schools. But by December, with no job offer from the department in sight, she decided she could not put her life on hold any longer and took a job in a Catholic school after Mazenod College head-hunted her to teach boys in Years 8 to 11..."
Full story in The West Australian
- New study shows half of young chalkies want out (page 9)
Recap of stories that appeared in other newspapers yesterday
- Some schools have no cleaners (page 9)
"Some primary schools in the western suburbs will start the school year with no cleaning staff.
"The West Australian understands that about 10 schools do not yet have cleaners.
"WA Primary Principals Association president Colin Pettit confirmed that a number of schools were having problems attracting cleaners.
"Education Minister Mark McGowan announced this month that about 30 cleaners were needed to fill vacancies in city schools and 40 in regional areas. Education and Training Department deputy director-general administration and finance Peter McCaffrey said more than 500 responses to a campaign for cleaners were being processed." [So much for our jives about the cleaners teaching classes Web]
From The West Australian
- Inside Cover (page 2)
Lil and Eric have gone camping...
© The West Australian
- The Melbourne Age
- Editorial
No, minister, you may not leave the room
"Back-to-school week for government schools and, as many children take their first steps on a long journey to prepare them for adulthood, their parents should be confident in an education system that it is their right to use in full expectation of its qualities. The reality is starkly different: it is not always easy to have confidence in a system that is ill-equipped, understaffed and underfunded to the point where even the most basic structural facilities are beyond repair."A disturbing report published in The Age today [follows this editorial] brings into focus the appalling, almost Dickensian, conditions of some of Victoria's public schools: leaking roofs, unsafe playground surfaces, old and ergonomically unsound classroom furniture and outdated, unhygienic toilet facilities sometimes so squalid that students are refusing to use them..."
"The Age has obtained the latest round of grant applications from Victorian public schools. Yesterday, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said she was shocked by the applications and called for more transparency and accountability from the states, which administer the program the Government controls. She also threatened to withdraw the Commonwealth funding to the states, and fund the schools directly..." [emphasis added]
"On a broader scale, almost day by day, education is becoming more of a key election issue. At the front of the class is Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, who this week put his hand up just before John Howard to announce Labor's preschool policy: $450 million a year by 2012 to ensure access by all Australian children to 15 hours' preschool a week. In starting at the very beginning, Mr Rudd has indeed chosen a very good place to start. The scheme, of undoubted benefit to working parents, would give all children the chance of invaluable early education. It also means the Government, whose own preschool policy was comprehensively gazumped by Mr Rudd, must make its plans even more comprehensive in this election year."In the long-term, though, is another cause for worry: teacher shortages. A national survey of 1300 new public-school teachers published in The Age yesterday [see link], shows four out of 10 teachers do not think they will stay in the profession for more than 10 years. The survey, conducted last year by the Australian Education Union, also found that 40.1 per cent of teachers nationally — 57 per cent in Victoria — had been asked to teach in areas outside their qualifications. Contributing factors to the disillusionment include poor pay, class sizes and behaviour.
"This does not augur well for the teaching profession, which can hardly afford further losses to its ranks. Worse, any impact of teacher shortages, or those who are forced to take classes in subjects outside their areas of expertise, will be felt by the most vulnerable people of all: the schoolchildren themselves. Public education, already suffering from funding shortfalls and structural deficiencies, needs to attract more teachers, not repel them." [emphasis added]
Full editorial in The Melbourne Age at link
- Op Ed
It's time for parents to pay fees to government schools
by John Roskam
"... Education in government schools shouldn't be free. Or, put another way, government schools should be allowed to charge compulsory fees from parents. The level of fees could be means-tested so that those families genuinely unable to pay would not do so, but everyone who could afford to pay would be required to make a contribution."The notion that government schools should be free, regardless of family wealth, is an accident of history and an idea whose time has passed. In the 19th century, "free, secular and compulsory" were the defining characteristics of education provided by the government. These principles might have been appropriate when they were enshrined in Victoria's Education Act of 1872, but more than a century later they are out of date..."
"There are two key reasons why government schools should not be free."The first is the basic one of equity.
"Defenders of free education in government schools have never questioned why the children of millionaires should have access to 12 years of free education paid for by taxpayers, when the state's most disadvantaged students in our most disadvantaged schools are starved of resources.
"There are few other public services that are provided free of charge to the rich and poor alike. In principle at least, in Australia health services are provided through public hospitals equally to everyone. But those who can afford to make a contribution to these services are required to do so through the Medicare levy. Medicare is no less a "public" system simply because it is funded through both general taxation and a compulsory personal income-tested levy. Similarly, government schools would be no less "public" if they were funded from a combination of government and private sources. The test of whether something is public is not who pays for it, but who can use it.
"The second reason why government schools should be able to charge compulsory fees is because it would improve the quality of education. It isn't only that schools would receive a substantial funding boost and that principals would be freed from the obligations of pursuing recalcitrant parents.
"More importantly, the conversion of education from a free service into one paid for by parents out of their hip pocket would dramatically increase the accountability of government schools. Parents would insist on higher standards from the government education system and the system would be forced to respond. If a service or a product costs nothing, or practically nothing, it is likely to be taken for granted. (The best example of this phenomenon is our attitude to water.) On the other hand, if we pay a charge for something, we have higher expectations of what we have purchased and we will care about it more..."
John Roskam is executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs.
Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
- Independent schools get staff boost
by Tim Colebatch, Economics Editor, Canberra
"Non-government secondary schools in Victoria now have 15 per cent more staff per 100 students than government schools, and the gap has widened with the Howard Government's boosts to their funding, a report shows."The Productivity Commission's annual report on government services, compiled for the federal and state governments, shows that while the Bracks Government increased staffing in government schools by 7 per cent between 2001 and 2005, non-government schools increased staffing by 15 per cent.
"The report, released today as Victorian students return to begin the 2007 school year, reveals that 40 per cent of Victoria's secondary students are in non-government schools, as well as 31 per cent of primary students..."
Full story in The Melbourne Age at link
- Op Ed
Innovation is the key to flourishing schools
by John Keating [Associate Director of the Centre for Postcompulsory Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Melbourne]
- The Australian
- Op Ed
Daniel Donahoo: Kindy no place for the three Rs
Labor's policy ignores the fact that the young learn best by playing
"Federal Labor's "education revolution" policy, set out on Monday, is far from revolutionary. Indeed, in terms of supporting early childhood learning and development, the policy falls short of delivering a comprehensive approach to early childhood development. There is more to the development of young children than just education.
"Labor, perhaps unwittingly, is vindicating the push of parents and professionals for children to learn to read and write at an early age. Their plan is to transfer responsibility for early childhood education and child care over to the commonwealth Department of Education. This policy brings about a key shift in federal policy by placing early childhood development into the hands of educationalists. Linking early childhood development with educational theory is a dangerous move and it doesn't do justice to the way young children learn and develop."The evidence is clear that, before the age of six, children best learn though play. Play is the work of children. As adults we find this difficult to understand, but children's developmental needs before school are best met through facilitated play, not learning how to read or do arithmetic. Primary school is far more structured than the exploratory, free-play environment of kindergarten and Labor's proposal to locate more kindergartens in primary school facilities isn't a good one.
"Kevin Rudd's early childhood education policy - a $450 million investment in 15 hours of kindergarten for each child - fails to convey the important messages about early childhood that the public still needs to learn. It neglects two important aspects of the evidence based around the early years that still need communicating and strong policy backing. First, it fails to acknowledge that supporting the learning and development of children must begin at birth, not when a child starts kindergarten. It does very little to support the work of early childhood professionals in the childcare industry who are doing exactly the same job as kindergartens, but from children aged from three months to six years..."
Daniel Donahoo is author of Idolising Children (New South Books, out in March).
www.danieldonahoo.com
Full story in The Australian at link
- Students fail to make grade on citizenship
by Dorothy Illing
"About half of Australia's Year 6 students and even fewer teenagers are proficient at civics and citizenship education being taught in schools.
"The Report on Government Services 2007 reaffirms recent findings that many students' knowledge of key events, such as Australia Day and Anzac Day, is poor."Based on a 2004 national assessment of students' citizenship and civics knowledge, the report looks at the performance of schools across a range of benchmarks, including literacy and numeracy.
"The worst performing area appears to be civics and citizenship. The report says that 47 to 53per cent of Year 6 students were at a standard considered to be "proficient" by experts.
"But in Year 10, the proportion was 36.5 to 42 per cent..."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Editorial
New year challenge
Management credibility is urgently needed in the West
"Alan Carpenter has just returned from his first annual leave since becoming Western Australia's Premier just a year ago. He'll be hoping this year is far better than the last, which was 12 months of almost continuous upheaval resulting in the resignation of two cabinet ministers and demotion for two others..."
Full editorial in The Australian at link [scroll down to third editorial]
- The Higher Education Supplement has 20 stories today, including:
- Letters to the Editor
- Most Talked About: Preschool learning has a huge impact on later success
"Research and practice consistently conclude that a child’s access to early learning opportunities has a huge impact upon later success in education, employment and community life. Many teenagers and young adults imprisoned in our jails have experienced severe disadvantage in earlier life, including the lack of opportunity for proper pre-primary education. Kevin Rudd is therefore to be congratulated for putting such an important emphasis on all Australian four-year-olds having access to quality preschool education ("Rudd brings learning into play”, 30/1)."Those of us who want to see reductions in crime, drug abuse, violence and youth unemployment in our society will welcome federal Labor’s commitment to universal access of Australian children to teacher-run preschool education."
Robert Van Zetten, Highton, Vic
"The very flexible and curious four-year-old brain is growing connections faster than at any other time in life. It’s ready to be taught how to think, or question, for itself. Thinking programs used to test children in Singapore have shown that four-year-olds are certainly capable of learning a wide range of creative and critical thinking skills. The mindset and confidence to use these vital life skills for independent thinking need to be established as early as possible. I hope the policies of both political parties will encourage children beyond plasticene and paint in these often wasted years of brain development."
John Langrehr, Hazelwood Park, SA
"We don’t need children starting formal school learning at the age of four, as suggested by Kevin Rudd. They are dragged away from home and their childhood early enough as it is. Children of my era, the 1950s, mostly attended school from the age of seven through to 15 and I believe we graduated much more competent in maths and English than most children of the present day."
Brian Whybrow, Birkdale, Qld
"Labor's Kevin Rudd has shown some adeptness with the timing of education announcements just before school commences. An undetailed “education revolution” and now a buyout of state and territory responsibilities for preschool. Apart from its eventual annual cost of nearly $500 million a year, I get the impression that given the five-year time lag to produce the necessary teachers that probably no child that might benefit from it is actually alive yet."
M. Gordon, Flynn, ACT
"Isn't it amazing how quickly Howard Government ministers see the light when they have the help of Labor’s new star, Kevin Rudd? Julie Bishop is full of plans and good intentions but that’s not good enough for a government that’s been in office for more than a decade. Why is the Coalition only now ready to actually do something about the appalling mess the education system has become under its stewardship? It will take more than a flagpole in every schoolyard and fiddling with school report cards to secure Australia’s economic future."
Amy Wood, Wagga Wagga, NSW
"Can we assume that part of Kevin Rudd’s education revolution will be to get rid of the left-wing ideology that has taken the place of education curricula for the past three decades. I invite him to read one page – any page – of the Queensland Year 12 English curriculum. It is absolute gobbledegook."
Brian Halesworth, Hamilton, Qld
"If he could write the curriculum, Don Watson, in his book Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language, would begin with language: “From the first hour of the first day at school and every day thereafter for twelve years children would study the beautiful arrangement of words.”
"Far too many students complete their secondary education with mediocre speaking skills and often deplorable incompetence even in the fundamental simplicities of spelling, punctuation and grammar. Universities now seem routinely to insist on their students enrolling in mandatory remedial English courses in first year, based on the assumption they have learned little of basic expression in their years at school.
"The majority of secondary students, on completing their education, cannot recount a
cogent explanation of the grammatical components and structure of a sentence. Until the late 1960s such competence would have been taken for granted after just three years in high school."It’s imperative that there be a persistent concern in schools about levels of literacy and especially the skilful teaching of accurate grammar and precise expression. “The slovenliness of our language,” wrote George Orwell, “makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”
"The increasingly manipulative cant of the media, politicians, educrats, looney curriculum designers (who now would have mobile phone text messages as English text in Year 12 in the new South Australian curriculum) and others in positions of authority can only be recognised, resisted and hopefully quelled by a non-complacent community well trained in the use of its native language."
G. R. Horsell, Croydon, SA
- Confronting the humanist question
by Tony Fry
"... HECS cannot be understood merely as a partial user-pays funding system. It commodified higher education, opening it to the judgment of value for money by students who began viewing education as a product."How value can be judged can, of course, vary, but chiefly it has been steered towards cashable career ends. Here we have the rub. Combined with the structural changes that brought more functional content into universities, HECS prompted a vocational bias towards course selection.
"After all, at some point the commodity had to be paid for. Obviously not every student chose their university pathway on this basis, but many did. Now, almost two decades later - and combined with the effect of the Howard Government jacking up the costs, tinkering with the system and making universities far more dependent on income generated by their customers - the functionalist institution is fully in place. A culture of learning has been displaced by a culture of earning..."
Dr Tony Fry is a consultant, writer, independent scholar and former university teacher.
Full story in The Australian at link
- The Wry Side
Finding a job in jargon is nice work if you can decode it
by Emma Tom
[From the folks who gave us Outcomes descriptors? Web]
"Australia's job market is getting curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say if she ever wandered through the wonderland of the weekend employment pages.
"Interested in work as an Enforcement Technician, Database Spatial Analyst or Accounts Receivable Collections Officer? How about as a Manager Procurement Agent or Quality Advice Consultant? (Excuse the surplus of capital letters but a paintball approach to punctuation is one of the defining characteristics of the genre.)"For the record, the lucky punter who scores the Manager Procurement gig will be expected to provide leadership to the procurement branch for delivery of a holistic approach to procurement services achieved through - you guessed it - the effective delivery of strategic procurement plans..."
"I certainly don't remember anyone standing up in careers class and saying, "when I grow up I want to be a PD/H/PE Co-ordinator or an APS Level 5 (Administrative) Assistant Site Manager or a PeopleSoft 8.8 Analyst/Consultant"...
Full story in The Australian at link
- The Sydney Morning Herald
- More cash fails to budge school scores
by Harriet Alexander
"Literacy and numeracy levels have fallen in NSW public schools despite increased government funding per student..."
"Just over 92 per cent of year 3 students in NSW achieved the reading benchmark, and nearly 96 per cent met the writing and numeracy benchmarks. By year 7, less than 80 per cent of students could meet the numeracy benchmark."The NSW Government spent $9,546 on each primary student and $12,024 on each secondary student in 2004-05..."
Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link
- The Guardian
- ABC News
- WA Opposition calls for teacher pay rise
"The Western Australian Opposition wants the Government to give teachers a 20 per cent pay rise to attract and retain people in the profession.
"Almost 200 teaching positions are not filled in Western Australia, most of those in regional areas.
"The Opposition's Education spokesman, Peter Collier, says a pay rise for teachers would encourage people to enter and stay in the profession.
"If we're going to make teaching a viable career option, we need to look at remuneration, that is salary but also conditions," he said.
"New South Wales are offering their teachers around 20 per cent more than we are offering in Western Australia."
"Education Minister Mark McGowan has attacked the idea, saying it will cost the state $1 billion and would not necessarily encourage people to enter the profession."
From ABC News Online at link
- The West Australian
- Labor offers HECS cut to boost maths, science (page 4)
See the AAP story on yesterday's Breaking News and The Australian's story on today's.
- Education department denies plan for fly-in, fly-out teachers (page 4)
"The Education Department has denied claims by the teachers' union that it is considering using fly-in, fly-out teachers in understaffed schools but did not rule out such a measure in the future.
"State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said he believed the move was being considered after Education Minister Mark McGowan revealed that State schools were still lacking 222 teachers as thousands of children went back to school yesterday.
"The union office has certainly heard that there have been some discussions about it, probably in the North-West," Mr Keely said.
"Asked if the department had any plans to fly teachers in and out of schools as a temporary emergency measure, acting director-general Sharyn O'Neill said: "No, not at this point in time.
"The department is looking to recruit teachers to fill vacancies for the whole year wherever possible. We are monitoring the situation, particularly in two schools in the Pilbara, with contingency plans in place if vacancies cannot be filled over the next few weeks."
"A spokesman said the department was not prepared to reveal what the contingency plans might be." [Surely a State Secret ! It might be as clever as waiting until classes start to attempt to appoint teachers ! Web]
From The West Australian
- Editorial
Doctrinaire AWA policy a big handicap for Rudd
"... [Rudd's] gradually unfolding plan for what he calls an "education revolution" is well designed to attract mainstream voters who are worried about the quality of public education available to their children, though he will have some hard questions to answer down the track about where the money will come from to fund high-cost education policies.
"And his most recent policy idea to cut HECS bills for maths and science courses to encourage students to take them has superficial appeal, though it is bound to be challenged as being inequitable because it would create a favoured class of students based entirely on subject choice. Also, there would be problems of definition of what is or isn't a science course..."
Full editorial in The West Australian
- The Australian
- Rudd plan to slash uni fees for maths, science
by Dorothy Illing and Steve Lewis
"The cost of getting science and maths degrees would almost halve under a Labor government, which would slash HECS fees to lure more students into those fields.
"Unveiling the second chapter of his so-called "education revolution", Labor leader Kevin Rudd said the $111 million plan would attack the maths and science crisis in schools and universities."If I'm elected prime minister of this country I want to encourage our brightest and our best to pursue careers in maths and science because our country needs it," he said yesterday.
"Yesterday's announcement of the blueprint, New Directions for Maths and Science, comes after Labor released its $500million early childhood policy on Tuesday, the first stage of its education package to be rolled out in coming months.
"But several peak bodies reignited the debate over whether HECS fees, which have more than doubled under the Howard Government, deter students from study.
"They warned that simply reducing student debt would not overcome the fundamental problems associated with these disciplines, including underfunding of universities.
"Under Labor's blueprint the HECS rate for science and maths would drop in 2009 from $7118 a year to $3998, the same level as nursing and teaching.
"Graduates who then took up jobs in maths and science fields - particularly teaching - would get a 50 per cent HECS remission for up to five years after graduation.
"The two-pronged package of financial incentives was rubbished by Education Minister Julie Bishop, who continued to argue that HECS fees were not a disincentive for students.
"And she brushed off questions about the Howard Government's own policy to cap HECS for nursing and teaching, a move designed to attract more students into those courses to address labour shortages.
"The reason that students are not going into the teaching of maths and science is because of the conditions of the teaching profession," Ms Bishop said.
"The peak science lobby, the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, welcomed Labor's announcement but said it would not improve teaching and infrastructure in universities.
"Therefore it is unclear how today's proposal will avoid some of the problems that have arisen despite similar reductions in HECS debts for teaching and nursing," FASTS president Tom Spurling said..."
Full story in The Australian at link [There are similar stories in virtually every Australian daily newspaper.]
- The Sydney Morning Herald
- Op Ed
Read to babies and we'll all be better off
Mem Fox is a literacy consultant who also writes picture books. She is also the author of Reading Magic: how your child can learn to read before school and other read aloud miracles. http://www.memfox.net
- The Melbourne Age
- Letters to the Editor
- What do you think we pay taxes for?
"John Roskam seems to have it backwards ("It's time for parents to pay fees to government schools", Opinion, 31/1). Government schools are not "free"; there's something called "taxation" that is meant to provide the funding for government services — including health and education.
"Millionaires or anyone else with the financial means can choose to opt out of government services and spend their money sending their children to expensive private schools and have their medical needs catered for in private hospitals. Of course, if millionaires chose to use the public health or education systems, they would be fully entitled to do so, being taxpayers themselves.
"It's a pretty simple concept, really: health and education services for all provided by taxation from all, with a private sector catering to those who wish for something different and have the means to pay for it. Sadly, it's long since been hijacked by successive governments of all stripes to deliver the ridiculous situation where billions are spent on subsidising the private health insurance of the wealthy few while public health services are left crumbling and where public funds are pumped by the hundreds of millions into the county's elite private education sector at the expense of public education which is left to crumble and wither.
"No amount of pontification from either John Roskam or the Prime Minister can alter the facts that the poor and the working majority are being robbed blind to fund the private luxury choices of the rich. Cease public funding of private enterprise and private services and there is automatically an abundant amount of cash for all government services — which is exactly how it was always meant to be.
Adrian Bain, St Leonards, NSW
It ain't broken, just broke
"John Roskam seems to have added two and two to make five several times in his article. The notion that schools should be free, compulsory and secular has more to do with desiring an educated populace than an "accident of history". These characteristics of the education system have stood the test of time (although the PM is working hard to undermine "secular") because of the benefit to the nation of intelligent and informed citizens — and Roskam offers no evidence that they are "an idea whose time has passed".
"Furthermore, the idea that the solution to the private school drift and the woeful state of our disadvantaged state schools is to introduce fees is ludicrous. The first and most obvious step would be for a bold government to cut funding to private schools and invest the money in making sure all children have equal access to quality, free education.
"Finally, how dare Roskam suggest that state education is "values-free". There are many wonderful and important values being in state schools. Even the "disadvantaged" ones.
"(If you publish this letter, please withhold my name and address: I am employed by a private school!)"
Name and address withheld
- The Adelaide Advertiser
- 6PR radio, Perth
- Congratulations to Bernadette Dell for an outstanding interview with Howard Sattler on 6PR. She gave a brilliant summary of the English Teacher's Forum's position on retaining levelling in Year 12 English, and very eloquently expressed the turmoil teachers, parents and students are facing undere the current regime. Howard gave Bernadette a good 10-15 minutes of air time.
- CNN
- Texas bill proposes fine for missing teacher meetings
Associated Press
"Austin, Texas -- Parents beware: Miss a meeting with your child's teacher and it could cost you a $500 fine and a criminal record."A Republican state lawmaker from Baytown has filed a bill that would charge parents of public school students with a misdemeanor and fine them for playing hooky from a scheduled parent-teacher conference.
"Rep. Wayne Smith said Wednesday he wants to get parents involved in their child's education.
"I think it helps the kids for the parents and teachers to communicate. That's all the intent was," Smith said..." [Given it's Texas, I'm surprised it's not a summary execution! Web]
Full story at CNN at link
- ABC News
- National curriculum would lower education standards, NSW says [4:00 pm]
"New South Wales Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt says a national curriculum in Australian high schools would lower standards and be of no benefit for students.
"Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop is using a new report, revealing differing standards and curricula across the country in major subject areas, to step up her push for a national curriculum.
"But Ms Tebbutt says NSW is very proud of its education system and she does not believe a curriculum controlled by the Government would improve student outcomes.
"Inevitably when you have a process of developing a national approach to curriculum, you are going to see a move to a lowest common denominator as you try to accommodate all the different curriculum that are currently in place, and that is a concern for New South Wales," she said.
Conditional support"Meanwhile, Western Australian Education Minister Mark McGowan has given conditional endorsement to a proposal to develop a unified, national education system.
"Mr McGowan says he supports a system that is consistent but not identical.
"He says it is important that the state can still provide courses that a relevant to Western Australians.
"I certainly will not be endorsing a system that removes the study of Western Australian history or removes the study of Western Australian geography," he said.
"If that's what the Federal Minister is proposing we won't be a part of that, but what we will be a part of is lining up courses as best we can between the states to make it easy for students to move between states." [emphasis added]
"Earlier today the Victorian Government questioned the motives behind Ms Bishop's criticism of state curricula.
"Victorian Education Minister John Lenders says all the states agreed to adopt a uniform approach five years ago.
"The Minister [Bishop] is trying to make an issue where there is not one," he said.
"It's a federal election year and I think you have to take with a big pinch of salt any comments by a Minister who goes state bashing."
"The ACT Government has given qualified support to the latest calls for a national year 12 curriculum as long as it does not involve standardised testing.
"Education Minister Andrew Barr says the ACT would be happy to talk with the federal and state governments about a uniform curriculum.
"But he says he will not support anything that undermined the current continuous assessment system.
"It would seem to be a bad and retrograde step to want to tinker with the ACT system," he said.
"However, we're quite willing to discuss ways to have a more uniform curriculum across the country."
From ABC News Online at link
National school curriculum commonsense: PM [9:37 am]
"Prime Minister John Howard says it is commonsense to have similar school curricula taught across Australia."Mr Howard's comments follow the release of a new report that compared high school systems across Australia.
"The Australian Council for Education Research (ACER) has found the content being taught across different states in key subjects is largely similar, but assessment and reporting procedures are different.
"Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop is using the report to boost her call for a national education system.
"ACER chief executive Professor Geoff Masters says a national system would be a better use of resources.
"There's also the question of students who are moving interstate, students who want to use their results to go interstate and apply for tertiary study," he said.
"As I said, there's just no way at present of making comparisons at the subject level from one state to another."
"Mr Howard says it makes sense for the states and territories to teach similar curricula.
"It is very unfair and very disruptive and very damaging that you still don't have a situation where a child can go from Western Australia to Queensland without suffering a very significant disadvantage," he said.
"Now this is something that I've heard parents complaining about for years."
"Professor Masters says other areas of schooling would need to be standardised for a national system to work.
"There are seven different systems in this country for examining what students learn," he said.
"There are seven different formats for reporting student results, so even though across the country students are studying pretty much the same chemistry course....there's no way of comparing chemistry results from one state to another."
"The Australian Secondary Principal's Association has backed the idea of a nationally consistent school curriculum.
"Association president Andrew Blair says the states and territories as well as education professionals must all be involved in drawing up the curriculum framework.
"There's not a great deal of sense in our view that you might have a population of 20 million people in this country and you have eight separate curriculums run by eight separate state and territory departments to manage school education," he said..."
Full story at ABC News Online at link
- The West Australian
- WA gives qualified support to national school curriculum [added to their website at 2:00 pm]
AAP
"Western Australia has given qualified support to a federal government plan for a national school curriculum."Education Minister Mark McGowan said he supported a nationally consistent school curriculum that allowed for regional variations rather than a single uniform curriculum for the whole country.
"Education Minister Julie Bishop has released a report showing little consistency between states and territories on critical education issues.
"The minister is devising a plan to standardise the core subjects - English, maths, physics, chemistry and Australian history - at Australian schools.
"Mr McGowan said a nationally consistent curriculum would standardise assessments and reporting methods to help students moving interstate.
"We do believe that if children are coming from other states to here or children are going from here to other states that their schooling should be able to line up as best it can," Mr McGowan said.
"But he said there should be state variations in topics such as history and geography to account for regional differences.
"A child studying environment and geography who lives on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, is not particularly going to relate to the Great Dividing Range and the Barhop was state bashing ahead of this year's federal election.
"Julie Bishop rolls out with it all the time, knocking the state education system, knocking public schools, saying we're beholden to unions is blatantly untrue."
From The West Australian Online at link
- Focus on teaching staff lost: Barnett (page 11)
by Bethany Hiatt
"The number of teacher positions not filled this year was unprecedented because the Education Department had lost its focus on staffing, Colin Barnett said yesterday.
"The former Liberal education minister said Labor Education Minister Mark McGowan and former minister Ljiljanna Ravlich had taken their eyes off the ball to be starting the year with such a huge shortfall.
"Yesterday, the department said it still had 190 vacancies across the State, mostly in country high schools.
"Mr Barnett said the Government had not done enough in the past five years to make country teaching attractive. [emphasis added]
"In his most difficult year, 1999, there were 76 vacancies because only half the usual number of graduates was available due to the change from three-year degrees to four years. And extra primary teachers were needed to reduce class sizes and early childhood teachers for a new program.
"He overcame the problem for the next year by telling the department to start appointing in July.
"I am not convinced by the line that we have a booming economy therefore we can't staff schools," he said. "You know how many teachers you need a long time before the start of the school year, they should have been appointed." [emphasis added] [Yes, but if you're slack, you don't offer positions until the end of January. Web]
"Mr McGowan said WA now had many jobs available compared with Mr Barnett's final year in office when WA was in recession. He said 1500 graduates applied to teach this year, a rise of 50 per cent, but only 500 took jobs.
"The problem was getting teachers out of the metropolitan area. "We have a generous incentive scheme... but we obviously need to do more," he said. Recruiting was being reviewed.
"Education acting director-general Sharyn O'Neill said that usually half the graduates who applied for teaching positions took up job offers, but this year only a third did so."
From The West Australian
- Bishop calls for Year 12 subjects to be similar (page 11)
by Bethany Hiatt
"Vast differences between the way Australian history and English were taught to final-year high school students in different States highlighted the urgent need for a national curriculum, Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said yesterday..."
"WA Education Minister Mark McGowan said that he welcomed increased collaboration between States but would not commit to a system that focused on the Eastern States and was managed through Canberra. [emphasis added]
"Shadow Federal education minister Stephen Smith said he favoured a national curriculum with sensible local variations."
Full story in The West Australian
Similar online stories from The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Melbourne Age
- Pay increase for education assistants (page 10)
"Education assistants have won a 12.5 per cent pay rise over three years.
"Education Minister Mark McGowan said the increase recognised the role the assistants played in supporting teachers in public schools.
"Under the agreement, ethnic assistants who work with migrant or refugee students would be entitled to higher pay.
"Education assistants care for the needs of children with disabilities, such as taking them to the toilet, restraining them and giving medication."
From The West Australian
- The Australian
- Push for national school system [Headline]
by Steve Lewis and Lisa Macnamara [additional reporting: Dorothy Illing]
"Labor premiers have been challenged by the Howard Government to embrace a national education framework, after a high-level report found "bewildering" inconsistencies across school curriculums.
"In the latest challenge to states' rights, Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop yesterday promoted a unified system - and signalled she would push the national agenda at a key meeting in April."I am concerned that students, teachers and parents are being let down as many aspects of school education get hijacked by teachers unions and state education bureacrats," Ms Bishop said.
"Instead of learning basic facts in subjects like history, children are being taught according to an ideological agenda.
"The problem is the growing number of students at the tail end who don't have the fundamental skills to even hold down a job." [emphasis added]
"The push to forge a national curriculum in subjects such as maths, history and English came as South Australia continued to resist John Howard's $10 billion plan for the commonwealth to take over the Murray-Darling river system.
"Canberra's "nationalist" drive follows the High Court's landmark decision last November to support a unitary industrial relations system.
"Ms Bishop, addressing a business audience in Brisbane, ramped up her push for national consistency as she released a report highlighting the depth of the problem across five subject areas.
"The Australian Council for Educational Research study portrayed an alarming jigsaw of Year12 curriculums.
"In one of the most glaring cases, the study found 27 different types of maths classes for pre-university students. It also found 20 differenthistory courses, with only twocalled "Australian history".
"There was only 25 per cent consistency in English courses, while 50 per cent of history classes used the same material.
"The results were more positive in more challenging subjects such as chemistry and physics, where there was up to 95 per cent consistency across the nation.
"Flagging a showdown with the states at the national meeting of education ministers in April, Ms Bishop cited the growing number of remedial English and maths classes being taught in universities as evidence that the states were failing on standards.
"There is nothing to stop the state and territory governments from adopting a nationally consistent approach at any time in the past," she told the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia.
"The differences ... are grounded in history of the states and territories and their education systems, and in the different setsof compromises that have had to be struck by curriculum and assessment agencies with their respective stakeholders over the years."
"With a population of just 20 million people, Australia had nine different senior secondary certificates with a "bewildering array of variations", Ms Bishop told the conference.
"There are differences in the number and types of subjects that are offered, assessed and certificated; differences in assessment methodologies ... and differences in the codes used to report results."
"ACER chief executive Geoff Masters said the findings reinforced the need for common subject content.
"There's a pretty strong case for having a very significant proportion of courses common across all states and territories," Mr Masters told The Australian.
"But state ministers hit back at their federal counterpart, saying her national agenda was politically driven and out of date.
"They had been working together towards greater national consistency for several years.
"NSW already has a rigorous, highly regarded curriculum and end of school credential, and we are concerned that any move to impose a national system would result in a lowering of standards for NSW students," NSW education minister Carmel Tebbutt said.
"Where it can benefit students and the wider community, NSW supports moves towards greater national consistency, something we have been working co-operatively towards for several years.""Victoria treated the proposal with scepticism.
"Unlike the Howard Government, the Victorian state Government regulates 2300 schools in Victoria and deal with these issues on day-to-day basis and are in the best position to assess what students need," Education Minister John Lenders said.
"What Victoria doesn't want to do is lower the high-quality educational standards in Victoria just to meet some artificial target proposed by Ms Bishop to satisfy a political agenda."
"South Australian Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said the federal Government had commissioned many reports into curriculum issues without serious financial investment. "This is just another distraction to take attention away from federal Labor's funded education plan for real improvements in science and mathematics."
"The ACT welcomed alignment of curriculum standards provided it did not compromise its education system.
"Federal Labor education spokesman Stephen Smith said he favoured a national curriculum "with the obvious and sensible local and regional variations".
From The Australian at link
Similar stories in most daily newspapers
- The Sydney Morning Herald: "Some state education systems were lowering standards to the point where one in five West Australian students were functionally illiterate at the end of year 7 and the number of year 12 Queenslanders studying "soft option English" had tripled in the past 15 years. "In some states SMS messaging is part of a tertiary entrance English course," [Julie Bishop] said."
- The Melbourne Age: "It is difficult to justify the development of essentially the same chemistry syllabus seven times across Australia, the use of seven different ways of examining this syllabus and seven different formats for reporting student results," Professor Masters said."
- Lessons plagued by duplication
by Dorothy Illing
"Australian students are learning a lot of the same things but in up to 27 different courses because of massive duplication across school curriculums.
"A report based on the first comparison of year 12 curriculums across all states and territories calls for national core topics to be introduced across subjects and a common set of standards of achievement."The report shows that up to 95 per cent of what is taught in chemistry, physics and advanced maths is common.
"Despite this many state authorities are creating different courses, standards and expectations of what students should learn.
"Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop yesterday seized on the Australian Council for Educational Research study, which she commissioned, to push her case for greater national consistency in schools.
"With a population of just 20 million people, Australia has nine senior secondary certificates with a bewildering array of variations," she told a conference in Brisbane.
"There are differences in the number and type of subjects that are offered, assessed and certificated; differences in assessment methodologies" and differences "in the codes used to report results".
"She signalled that she would put her national agenda back on the table at the April meeting of education ministers.
"The study covers five subjects - English, mathematics, Australian history, chemistry and physics - in the final years of secondary school.
"It finds many common areas in maths, physics and chemistry, but the story is different for English and history.
"Only 25 per cent of the curriculum in English is consistent across the states and territories and the figure is 50 per cent for Australian history.
"Most of the states agree on types of texts, such as prose fiction and contemporary literature, but there are no common texts.
"Written communication is accepted as a key skill across borders, along with the role of context in text; understanding values, ideas and beliefs; and establishing meaning in text.
"There is, however, very little consistency across Australia, or within jurisdictions, in what students are required to study" in English, the report says.
"Indeed, subject English currently is perceived so differently in different states and territories that the jurisdictions differ in their description of language itself." ACER chief executive Geoff Masters said the findings raised the question of whether there should be common subject content.
"There's a pretty strong case for having a very significant proportion of courses common across all states and territories," he said.
"That was not to say individual states could not include their own material.
"The report calls for a future senior curriculum developed independently and managed across states and territories.
"It would have clearer language and symbols to describe the curriculum and assessment, more consistency, clearly stated achievement standards, and greater comparability of results."
From The Australian at link
- Op Ed
Maps may be all the states are left with
by Mike Steketee
"Another week, another few steps down the road towards Canberra serfdom for the states.
"Last week, John Howard announced that the federal Government was taking over control of the Murray-Darling Basin. Earlier this week, Kevin Rudd - who boasts that he will work more effectively with the states than his opponent - promised an early childhood education plan that would increase Canberra's involvement in an area where the states are responsible."Yesterday, Education Minister Julie Bishop said she would insist the states provide more consistent school curriculums and results that could be easily compared between jurisdictions..."
"Letting a thousand flowers bloom is a nice idea, but it can be a damn nuisance if you are operating a business in more than one state or moving your children from one school system to another."
Full story in The Australian at link
- Op Ed
Julie Bishop: Education key driver of economic prosperityThe federal Education Minister makes the case for the states to provide higher teacher salaries with an element of merit-based pay.
[Edited extract from Julie Bishop's address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia in Brisbane yesterday.]
- Letters to the Editor
- Tell Kevin Rudd: there is no job security in science
"While the prospect of a cheaper education is wonderful ("Rudd plan to slash uni fees for maths, science”, 1/2), would someone please tell Kevin Rudd that there is no point in halving my university fees if there is no job for me in science afterwards."This money would be much better spent on increasing the number of post-doctoral fellowships and PhD scholarships to entice bright students into science. As an almost completed PhD scholar, I would actively discourage anyone going into science today. Regardless of the size of the HECS debt you end up with, you will spend your life in short-term contracts, living from grant to grant, and you’ll never achieve financial security. I suggest anyone considering science to satisfy their altruistic streak, choose medicine instead. At least there is job security."
Meagan Walsh, Banyo, Qld
- "HECS levels do not influence students’ choices, according to Julie Bishop. Except for nursing, of course, where the federal Government already provides a lower HECS fee as an incentive."
Isabelle Wharley, Willoughby, NSW
"In response to Daniel Donahoo ("Kindy no place for the three Rs”, Opinion, 31/1), Kevin Rudd said loudly and clearly that early childhood education under Labor’s policy would involve activity-based learning and that children would be taught by early childhood (ie, not primary-trained) specialist teachers, for whom university places would be increased by 1500 a year. Second, no qualified early childhood professional would concentrate on trying to teach pre-school children to read and write.
"Furthermore, there is nothing new about “placing early child development in the hands of educationalists”. For example, early childhood centres have been the responsibility of the Department of Education in South Australia for many years.
"What is needed is affordable, government-owned childcare services that provide free, high-quality care and education for needy families. Isn’t it ludicrous that, while childcare is unaffordable to so many, the federal government subsidises a childcare business whose CEO is now said to be the richest under-40-year-old in Australia?"
Freda Briggs, Emeritus professor of child development, University of South Australia
- "Daniel Donahoo claims that Labor’s plan does not include four-year-olds in childcare centres. This is simply wrong. We have said explicitly that every four-year-old, no matter what type of care they are in, will be entitled to 15 hours of play-based learning every week, delivered by a qualified teacher, for a minimum of 40 weeks a year.
"As our policy document clearly outlines, Labor does not see childcare as just a babysitting service, contrary to Donahoo’s claims. Childcare should be a place where children are engaged and stimulated as well as cared for. That’s why we will invest in early learning in childcare centres."
Jenny Macklin, Opposition spokeswoman on families and community services
- The Adelaide Advertiser
- Axe HECS for teaching students
by Xanthe Kleinig, Education Reporter
"University fees for all teaching students should be waived, according to the Australian Education Union."It says high debt levels are discouraging all students, not just those in maths and science who will benefit from federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's plan to cut HECS.
"It's becoming increasingly difficult to attract and retain young people to the teaching profession," said AEU president Andrew Gohl.
"A waiver of HECS fees for all students training to be teachers, regardless of the discipline, would be a genuine "revolution" that would reinvigorate the teaching ranks."
From The Adelaide Advertiser at link
- The Melbourne Age
Saturday – Sunday, 3 – 4 February
- The Sunday Times
- Editorial
State to blame for teacher crisis (page 63)
"The Carpenter Government likes to boast about WA's "V8 economy", the lowest unemployment in history and budget surpluses. But there's no point in all this economic sunshine if schoolchildren are without teachers.
"Frankly, the Government can keep its boom economy if it means starving hospitals of funds to hire more nurses and stops the police service from putting more officers on the beat."WA taxpayers are entitled to expect some benefits when the economy is so strong and the Government is awash with revenue.
"The State Government's prime areas of responsibility are health care, education and law and order.
"But it is not delivering.
"Worst of all, the Government – elected on a promise to put education front and centre of its agenda – has failed miserably to staff schools with teachers.
"Education Minister Mark McGowan accepted responsibility for the embarrassment this week, but has been unable to explain what went wrong.
"The teachers union warned – in writing – the previous minister, Ljiljanna Ravlich, of the looming crisis in November last year. The letter was ignored and two days before school returned this week the Department of Education revealed that 270 teaching positions had not been filled. What a disgrace. [emphasis added]
"The Government, rather than admit to a blatant case of failing to plan properly, tried to blame its predicament on the booming economy, claiming high-paid jobs in the mining industry made it difficult to keep teachers. Are we really to believe that teachers are leaving the education system in droves to work in the mines?
"One country high school was reportedly short of 18 teachers. After week one of the school term 160 teacher positions had still not been filled.
"The crisis could also be worse than what the Government is telling the public.
"The teachers union and TAFE College lecturers claim that apprenticeship courses are being cancelled because there are not enough teachers. [See article on this below.]
"That would be unacceptable at a time when industry is crying out for skilled workers.
"Mr McGowan says he has a plan to fix the problem. Unfortunately, it's all a bit late.
"The Government has not got off to a good start in 2007."
From The Sunday Times at link
Teaching Crisis Consequences (page 8)
- Primary schools have been forced to combine classes. The Education Department maintains multiage groupings have educational benefits.
- Teachers have been taken from literacy, numeracy and special needs programs to front classrooms.
- Principals and their deputies have been forced to abandon their normal duties to teach.
- Year 11 politics students at Eastern Goldfields College have to combine with Year 12 students.
- Pressure on TAFE colleges to cancel apprenticeship courses.
From The Sunday Times
- Wearing jeans could mean detention (page 8)
by Braden Quartermaine
"Students wearing jeans to school in WA are being threatened with detention or exclusion from classes.
"A ban on denim came into effect at the start of the new school year this week, but outraged parents are flouting the ban and sending their children in jeans because they can't afford the new uniforms."Education Minister Mark McGowan backed the hard line yesterday, saying schools could police the new rule as they saw fit.
"Mr McGowan said making students wear uniforms instilled discipline..."
Full story in The Sunday Times at link
How about dealing with REAL issues, Mr McGowan, such as principals forcing teachers to use levels in Years 8-10 [to calculate letter grades], after you announced that they were not to be used???
- Country posts may pay more (page 8)
by Paul Lampathakis
"Giving teachers who go to the country more pay and their preferred future postings are among measures Education Minister Mark McGowan is examining to cure WA's teacher shortage.
"He said yesterday he was looking also at recruiting teachers from Canada, New Zealand, Tasmania and South Australia, in addition to Britain, where they are being sought.
"And he has written to Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop, asking that teachers' HECS bills be wiped for each year they served in rural / regional schools.
"The Government has engaged international recruiting firm Gerard Daniels to provide advice on the issues and expected a report in about six weeks.
"We need proper discussions with the State School Teachers Union about targeting measures at teachers prepared to go to regional locations where we are having the most problems with staffing," Mr McGowan said.
"It's not just money, there might be other incentives as well, to do with subsequent postings (or) with conditions in which people live.
"And wiping away the HECS for every year that a person teaches in the country, that would absolutely solve the problem," he said. [emphasis added]
"The HECS bill is such a huge burden on new graduates that if... graduates in those very difficult-to-staff rural and regional areas didn't have to pay HECS for those years, that would be a massive incentive. [You're being very, very optimistic, Minister. Web]
"He said the situation was improving, with 174 teachers needed by the end of Friday, compared with about 270 at the beginning of the week." [But will the well run dry? Web]
From The Sunday Times
TAFE teacher crisis (page 8)
by Andrea Mayes
Apprentice courses 'cancelled'
"Despite a record Budget surplus and a V8 economy, state schools are critically short of teachers - and there are signs the crisis is spreading to the TAFE sector.
"TAFE staff and unions claim apprentice training courses are being cancelled in urgently needed trades such as electrical and metal fabrication because of a lack of staff."Schools across the state are short 174 teachers, down from 264 when schools reopened this week.
"State School Teachers Union president Mike Keely said the teacher shortage was the most acute he had seen.
"It is by far the worst I am aware of,'' he said.
"The sad thing is that our union and the national union has [sic] been producing evidence that the crisis has been building for the past half-dozen years or more, yet our research was ignored.''
"SSTU TAFE organiser Ramona Mitussis said TAFE lecturers across the state were being asked to do up to 10 hours overtime a week because of a lack of staff and some courses had been cancelled.
"Pre-vocational courses and night classes had been cancelled at Pilbara TAFE, and there were reports C.Y. O'Connor TAFE in Northam was waitlisting students doing metal fabrication because of a lack of staff.
"Union executive member Gary Hedger, a Challenger TAFE lecturer, said his TAFE was short at least three full-time staff members in electrotechnology and first-year apprentice courses in this area had been delayed until more lecturers could be found.
"There is a core band of us who have been there for a number of years, and in the past we've been able to juggle the classes and take on extra hours, but this year it's just too much,'' Mr Hedger said.
"If we refused to do overtime the whole system would collapse. It's very stressful when you're having to cover for extra classes and it means there's no time to prepare adequately.'' ...
Full story in The Sunday Times at link
- The Sunday Melbourne Age
- Principals give Howard an F
by Kate Hagan
"School principals have slammed the Federal Government's record on education, with 70 per cent rating its performance as poor or very poor."A total of 1052 primary and secondary school principals from around Australia, including 170 in Victoria, delivered the damning report card in an Australian Education Union survey, released today.
"Union federal president Pat Byrne said the survey, which aimed to provide a snapshot of government schools, highlighted principals' frustration with funding shortfalls.
"Ms Byrne said the share of federal funding for public schools had declined since the Howard Government was elected. Nearly 70 per cent of students attend government schools.
"In key survey findings:
- 82 per cent of principals said their schools needed more modern equipment, naming computers, playground equipment and air-conditioning as priorities.
- 73 per cent said upgrades were needed to buildings, including toilet blocks and classrooms.
- 64 per cent reported teacher shortages in 2006, and 47 per cent said the problem was worse than in 2005.
- More than half reported classes of 30 or more students at their schools.
"The principals' top three priorities for additional funding were more help for students, improvements to buildings and more teachers.
"Ms Byrne said another $2.9 billion was needed each year to meet national goals of schooling agreed to by federal, state and territory governments.
"Public school principals are telling us they don't have enough resources to maintain facilities or to give students with special needs the attention they deserve," she said.
"Schools across Australia are now getting $1 billion less than they would have been if the (federal) funding share for public education had been maintained at 1996 levels.
"The Federal Government has had very healthy budget surpluses over the past few years, there has been an opportunity to make substantial commitment to public education in Australia, and that hasn't occurred."
"A spokeswoman for federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said funding for private schools had increased in line with enrolments, which were up 20 per cent since 1996, compared with a 1 per cent increase at government schools.
"In 2006-07, an estimated $3.4 billion is (to be) allocated to government schools, an increase of $340 million or 11 per cent over last year and an increase of 118 per cent since 1996," the spokeswoman said.
"The Australian Government's commitment to schools is clearly and convincingly demonstrated by its continuing trend of providing increased funding for school education each year."
From The Sunday Melbourne Age at link
- Lenders plan to open school pools, libraries
by Kate Hagan
"Schools may be required to open up libraries, swimming pools and basketball stadiums built by the State Government to local communities."Education Minister John Lenders said he was "pushing very strongly" for the schools to share the spoils of the Government's $1.9 billion rebuilding program..."
Full story in The Sunday Melbourne Age at link
- The Weekend Australian
- Editorial
A core curriculum for all Australians
Why should schooling change at every state border?"The politics of Australian education are pathetically predictable, with sensible ideas that will disturb the status quo in schools always exciting ire among state ministers. Yesterday, they responded to a proposal from their federal counterpart, Julie Bishop, for common school subjects across the country as if she wanted to put cannibalism on the curriculum. But Ms Bishop's proposal that all schools across the country adopt a common curriculum makes a great deal of sense. Australia is a big country, but Australians are one people and the idea that students in Bunbury and Bundaberg need to learn entirely different things in radically different ways makes no sense. And no sense in some of the areas that matter most is what we have now. As a new report from the Australian Council of Educational Research makes clear, a great many of our school syllabuses have all the consistency of 19th-century rail gauges, particularly in areas especially important to education union ideologues and curriculum commissars - English and history. There are 18 university entry high school English courses in Australia, but no novels, poems or plays are on all of them. And less than half the topics taught in Australian history are common across the country. The existence of nine state and territory systems ensures ample opportunities for fads and fashions to be imposed on children. From the social engineering exercises of the Victorian curriculum introduced at the end of the 1980s to the utterly discredited Outcomes Based Education plan that crippled the credibility of the Carpenter Government in Western Australia last year, the absence of a single set of national standards and subjects means education planners get away with curriculum crimes at a state level that would never be allowed if all the whole country were involved. [emphasis added]
"There is no need for it to be like this. The laws of physics do not change in the middle of the Murray. Nor does the Nullarbor transform the rules of grammar. And curriculum experts in maths and science around the country know it. According to the ACER, course content in advanced mathematics, physics and chemistry is almost identical all over Australia. But not in the humanities, the subjects that shape what students understand Australia to be about. There the education establishment pushes barrows piled high with their different political values. It beggars belief that what students need to know about our national achievements, and failings, differs in Darwin or Devenport. And it makes no sense for students who share a common culture to be taught different novels in different ways.
"The tide is running against states' rights education orthodoxies. The Howard Government has long pushed for basic skills to be taught in schools and for pupil progress to be reported in ways parents understand. And it looks like Labor under Kevin Rudd is not interested in backing state governments that impose education fads such as OBE. [emphasis added] But nobody should expect an outbreak of common sense on the subject of a national curriculum. State ministers are responding to Ms Bishop's suggestion just as they always do when anybody advances an idea that involves change. Canberra should butt out because everything is under control, some say. Others will add that schools are a state responsibility, before demanding more money from the federal government. The especially brazen will bluster that a common curriculum will dumb down standards in their state. There is nothing new in any of this. When the last Labor government was in power in Canberra, the Liberal states used these lines. And while the roles are now reversed, the arguments remain the same. But Ms Bishop should persevere. The idea of a common curriculum is one whose time must come. It does not mean that across the continent every school should teach exactly the same thing in exactly the same way at exactly the same time every day. It does not mean there is no room for regional diversity. But it does mean that just as knowledge and core Australian values do not change at state lines, neither should the way they are taught."
From The Weekend Australian at link
- School heads defend diversity
by Verity Edwards
"Principals have conceded that national examinations for all senior high school students are inevitable as part of a uniform curriculum, but they say local diversity should be safeguarded.
"Australian Secondary Principals Association president Andrew Blair said that although it made "absolute sense" to create a national curriculum, the states should have input."It really is time to think about education in an Australian sense rather than a state and territory sense," Mr Blair told The Weekend Australian.
"But he said a national curriculum, if introduced, needed to incorporate local needs and could not be confused with "back to basics" curricula. [emphasis added] [Why not? Web]
"Saying that a student in the Tiwi Islands needs to be studying the same curriculum as a student in Melbourne doesn't make sense," he said.
"Education Minister Julie Bishop intensified her push for a national curriculum on Thursday, releasing an Australian Council for Educational Research report that showed there were nine different education certificates across the states and territories, up to 27 different pre-university maths options, 20 different history courses and only 25 per cent consistency in English courses.
"John Howard yesterday called the plan "common sense and fairness", saying a national curriculum would ensure the 70,000 children moving between states each year would not be disadvantaged.
"It is very disruptive and very damaging that you still don't have a situation where a child can go from Western Australia to Queensland without suffering a very significant disadvantage," the Prime Minister said.
"Mr Howard said a national education system would not mean every school's curriculum would be identical and that every classroom should be teaching the same subjects at the same time every day.
"But the states were less supportive of the idea. NSW Premier Morris Iemma said his state would not be part of a national curriculum that downgraded standards, describing the idea as "political hot air".
"We have a rigorous curriculum, we have rigorous standards," Mr Iemma said. "We are not going to participate in any process that is going to see NSW lose."
"South Australia's Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said a national curriculum would not benefit students "one iota" and would not fix low retention rates.
"I don't think that guaranteeing that every child in Australia reads the same Shakespeare play is going to make any difference," Dr Lomax-Smith said. "Taking over a curriculum so a boffin in Canberra can write exam questions is not going to solve the problems in South Australia."
"Victorian Education Minister John Lenders questioned the federal Government's motives, and his ACT counterpart, Andrew Barr, said he would not support anything that undermined the territory's continuous assessment system."
From The Weekend Australian at link
- A first-class national curriculum is within reach
"The discovery that the curriculum in school-level sciences and mathematics ("Push for national school system”, 2/2) shows “up to 95 per cent consistency across the nation” has been known to educators for at least two decades if not longer.
"As we have a de facto national curriculum, it should not prove impossible for the states and territories, with support from the commonwealth, to jointly develop a national system of examination and certification in these areas in short order. With some open-mindedness and flexibility over a reasonable period it should be possible in other curricula areas as well.
"The question is not whether it could be done but at what levels of education. Complete national frameworks for Years 10-12 are possible within five years given the existing commonalities.
"Where there are legitimate reasons for regional variations, these can be handled by having two-part examination papers, with major credit going to the national core topics and minor credit for local issues.
"Over the past decade or more there has been a great deal of work on national curriculum guidelines. There seems to be no substantial reason why Australia should not have a first-class national curriculum and accreditation framework in place within the next decade."
Ian Welch, Mawson, ACT
"In 1969, my daughter began her education in the Victorian education system after starting school in the UK. Because my employer required me to move frequently, she was subjected to the systems in Queensland, the ACT, Victoria again, and South Australia before completing her secondary schooling. Two of her younger brothers also had to adapt from state to state systems as I moved. Every time they moved, they were subjected to incredible strain as they found that they were way ahead (and bored) in some areas and had no concept of what was being taught in others. Somehow they survived and completed tertiary studies in South Australia and NSW. Why has nothing changed in almost 40 years? Is it because state politicians are much more concerned with their own self importance than they are with the children entrusted to the care of their education systems?
"Go, Julie Bishop, I wish you all the best."
Mick Hawkins, Warradale, SA
- The West Australian
- Alston (page 22)
© The West Australian
- Editorial
National study standards the pressing need (page 22)
"In a nation that took nearly 100 years to link mainland State capitals with a uniform railway track, the idea of creating a national school curriculum could be used as a definition of the politically impossible. Though the proposition has some superficial appeal, the States will never all surrender their final say on what is taught in their schools and how.
"Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has spoken of a need for a common national curriculum under a national board of studies. If this means the establishment of a centralised curriculum factory in Canberra to provide education fodder for the States, it won't – and shouldn't – happen. One obvious objection to such a proposition is that ideological faddists, with whom education bureaucracies are already infested, could gain uncontested control in a centralised agency over the content and style of schooling throughout the nation. [emphasis added]
"That said, there is a compelling case of increased consistency across the States in what is taught and when, and for the establishment of national standards to which school systems should aspire. Those who argue that, in this time of high mobility, children who move from one State to another should not be penalised by incompatible curriculums have a valid point. It is also undeniable that there is a lot of unnecessary duplication with each State independently doing its own thing on curriculum.
"However, these points don't amount to a convincing argument for a nationally set curriculum, for visiting vapid uniformity on the offering of schools across Australia. What is needed is glaringly obvious: the States must work co-operatively to achieve more consistency among curriculums. Because they have plenty of common ground, much duplication in curriculum development could be eliminated over time and that should result in significant savings. [What? Little local educrats give up some of their power? It won't happen. Web]
"On top of that, they should agree to the establishment of standards across the range of subjects at various levels of schooling. The performance of State school systems could be measured against these standards, which would have to be administered at the national level.
"Ms Bishop has correctly identified anxiety among parents and others about the quality of schooling in State systems. A set of national standards would give her an instrument with which States could be encouraged or embarrassed into improving the results of students in their schools." [If the current OBE fiasco hasn't embarrassed WA educrats, then nothing will! Web]
From The West Australian
- How Mr Reliable will take on Labor's new kid in town (page 8)
by Andrew Probyn, Federal Political Editor
The political landscape has changed since the election of Kevin Rudd to lead Labor. With the Federal election just nine months away and Parliament resuming next week, some key battlegrounds have emerged.
Schools and unis
"Labor has pinned this as one of the coalition's weaknesses. HECS fees have got uncomfortably high, underfunded unis are growing more reliant on overseas full-fee paying students and, according to one report out this week, they're churning out graduates with sub-standard English.
"The PM has recently conceded unis could do with more funding, so expect more onthis front, maybe even a Budget splurge on higher ed to nobble Mr Rudd's call for an education "revolution".
"There'll be more said on nationally consistent standards in primary and secondary schools – a fertile ground for State-bashing." ...
Full story in The West Australian
- Letters to the Editor (page 26)
- Two Letters on the teacher shortage crisis, with emphasis on the poor working and living conditions in rural schools, and the shabby treatment teachers receive from Education Department bureaucrats.
- The Melbourne Age
- Letter to the Editor
- School fee support
"Having beggared ourselves for 15 years to put three children through private schools, I support John Roskam's plan for the payment of fees to government schools (Opinion, 1/2).
"When my daughter started private school in 1966, we got a tax deduction for her fees, but that soon stopped. My grandchildren went to the local state school while staying with me from overseas, and the few hundred dollars we paid were nothing compared to the $12,000 each we would have paid for private schooling.
"Not that I'd be so keen now on paying an education levy similar to the Medicare levy, since I feel I've done my bit for education, but I can see the point for those who can afford it. For parents paying private school fees, there could be something like the refund we get now for belonging to private health insurance. Parents using the state system could claim back 80 per cent of what it costs to educate their child (or pay only 20 per cent), as one does with Medicare. And there would have to be the equivalent of bulk-billing for those who need it.
"No one would accept such an elitist system, of course. They would rather see wealthy parents move to where there are high-quality state schools, funded by government and free (except for a few hundred dollars in book and camp fees). And if state schools in less affluent areas actually improved, then parents would leave the private system. There would be a blow-out in education costs for government as parents demanded more for their money from their state schools. Remember that parents paying fees to private schools are saving governments enormous sums, despite government grants given to these schools."
D. Murison, Hawthorn East
All Alston cartoons are © The West Australian Newspaper
All media quotations, photographs and cartoons © their respective publishers
This page last updated 13 August, 2008 0:35 AM
