Monday 9 March

Tuesday 10 March

Wednesday 11 March Independent Review of the Curriculum Framework announced

Thursday 12 March

Friday 13 March

Saturday – Sunday, 14 – 15 March

Monday 9 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Yes, teaching has changed
      
      "I am not sure if Michael Detuik still teaches, but given his statement (Another reform lost, Letters 5/3) that “many conscientious teachers, who became committed to making levels work…” leads me to suspect that he doesn’t. It has been my experience in recent years that it is virtually impossible to find a teacher committed to the nonsense that the Curriculum Council and the various school systems forced on teachers.
      
      "One could easily hypothesise that the problems emerging through national testing are a direct result of the introduction of OBE.
      
      "Mr Detuik is deluding himself if he thinks that teaching practice hasn’t changed. I started teaching in 1971 and am still thoroughly enjoying myself doing the same thing here in 2009. Do I do things exactly the same way now as then? Not a chance. Technology has made a massive difference to the way we engage our students in their learning. The curriculum today demands that students be able to use their learning to model situations and solve problems, and this is a far cry from the knowledge-based assessments that occurred when my career began. One only has to look at the TEE today and the early-70s version to see these changes.
      
      "Levelling has been denounced by people with far greater understanding of assessment than Mr Detiuk. Levelling has been abhorred by most teachers, parents and students.
      
      "Practising teachers are by far the best people to recognize relevant and valuable curriculum reform."
      
      Greg Williams, Bicton
      
      
      
    • Creative Julia
      
      "What a wonderfully egalitarian idea of Julia Gillard to ensure 40 per cent of young Aussies achieve university degrees. I'm in full support.
      
      "At the same time, let's be sure 40 per cent of the boys play AFL football, 40 per cent of the gills become supermodels, 40 per cent are in the Olympic team and 40 per cent are concert pianists.
      
      "Ability is an obsolete concept. If Ms Gillard wills it, it must happen. She orders universities to remove entry criteria and pass everyone -- hey presto, a nation of geniuses. Thomas Edison said: "Genius in 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration." Ms Gillard says it's 100 per cent political creation."
      
      Barry Walters, Subiaco
      
      
      
      
  • Editorial
    University is not the only career path
    
    "Australia has an unfortunate record of getting the balance wrong when it comes to encouraging students to follow a path to university.
    
    "The resources boom was hampered by a shortage of skilled tradesmen, the result of an ideological drive to urge more school leavers towards tertiary education.
    
    "Now, as the boom goes through its death throes and unemployment begins to rise, the push is on once again to steer young people towards university.
    
    "The Federal Government’s response to the Bradley review of higher education includes the pledge that caps on university courses will be removed by 2012, with universities able to enroll as many students as they want.
    
    "Education Minister Julia Gillard says the Government wants to boost the number of people aged between 25 and 34 with university qualifications by 8 per cent, to 40 per cent, by 2025.
    
    "That is not, of course, necessarily a bad thing. A university education always will add another dimension to a person’s education and be of potential benefit to the country as a whole. The danger, however, is that a degree may not lead to a job if the number of graduates rises too steeply in too short a period.
    
    "The University of WA, for example, plans to expand to cater for 25,000 students, an increase of 5000. Even when universities cannot fill a particular course, funding will not be cut. But nether will it be increased if a course is over-enrolled.
    
    "The Government must remember, however, that while there is obvious benefit in raising the general level of education in the country, and in encouraging people to seek a university degree, it may be setting itself up for a fall. The equally obvious danger is that when the Australian economy recovers it may once again be hampered by a shortage of skilled tradesmen.
    
    "The universities must be careful, too, that an increase in the number of graduates does not lead to a drop in standards. After all, despite the Government’s aspirations, not every student is suited to university.
    
    "The Bradley review called for an increase of $6.5 billion to lift standards and fund research. Again, this is a justified increase if Australia is to continue to compete with international universities for fee-paying students and for research investment."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Times online / PerthNow
  
  
  • WA kids 'don't know words'
    by Paul Lampathakis
    
    "WA children are starting school without knowledge of basic words, according to Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan and Education Minister Liz Constable.
    
    "Ms MacTiernan said the problem was so bad, that in some schools up to half the children were getting speech therapy, even though most had no disability.
    
    "It is important for parents to start talk to their children from infancy because if youngsters don't develop language skills in their first three years of life, this can greatly affect later learning, they said. 
    
    "They (children) don't know words - the word for nose, or eye, or head,'' Ms MacTiernan told PerthNow.
    
    "They don't know colours. It's a worrying percentage of children turning up with a worrying lack of language skills that you would need to function even at pre-school.
    
    "It's so hard to play catch-up because once you're beyond two or three years-old, it is a lot harder to acquire those skills.''
    
    "Ms MacTiernan said urgent action was needed to address the problem.
    
    "She said one measure would be making baby bonuses contingent on parents attending post-natal or ante-natal classes.
    
    "Then parents would learn about their children's developmental needs because many had lost the art of talking to their offspring.
    
    "She was chairing a parliamentary standing committee which was in the middle of a detailed study focusing on the developmental needs of WA children.
    
    "I think the community has got to provide much better resources for young parents,'' Ms MacTiernan said.
    
    "That's one thing the (parliamentary) committee is focusing on, what do we need to do to help parents recapture this ability of talking to their children.''.
    
    "Dr Constable said parents were a child's first teacher and they had to teach their children language.
    
    "But this teaching did not have to be formal. Just speaking and reading to children from infancy helped.
    
    "She said early childhood development was on of her major focuses as Minister because it was key to ensuring a good future for children.
    
    "They (children) don't know some of the simple concepts you'd expect them to,'' Dr Constable said in a recent interview with PerthNow.
    
    "The Committee for Economic Development of Australia ran a forum today titled Why Investment in Early Childhood Education Makes Economic Sense at the Parmelia Hilton Hotel, which was to address the issue.
    
    "Governor-General of Australia Quentin Bryce; Dr Constable; Melbourne University Graduate School of Education Chair of Early Childhood Education and Care, Professor Collette Tayler; and WA's Chief Scientist Professor Lyn Beazley were among speakers at the event, which ran from 9.30am to 2pm."
    
    From The Sunday Times online / PerthNow at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Govt pledges 55,000 uni places for disadvantaged students
    
    The Federal Government has committed to a goal of having 20 per cent of university enrolments filled by students from poorer backgrounds by 2020.
    
    
    
    
• The New York Times
  
  
  • U.S. to Nation’s Schools: Spend Fast, Keep Receipts
    
    Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, sent a message to the nation’s school officials last week: Heads up! We’ll be sending you billions of dollars by month’s end. Spend the money quickly but wisely. And keep receipts; we’ll be asking.
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Focus on fact is stifling schools, warns top head
    
    Dickensian teaching and the tyranny of league tables must be swept away, says Seldon
    
    Soulless schools cursed by league tables and dominated by "formulaic" exams are squeezing the lifeblood out of education, leading headteacher and political commentator Anthony Seldon will warn tomorrow. The 21st-century obsession with teaching "facts" harks back to Thomas Gradgrind's utilitarian values in Dickens's Hard Times, he will say in a hard-hitting lecture to the College of Teachers. The result is a system that stifles imagination, individuality and flair.
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • The Monday Education Section contains several articles [hard to count precisely, as several are dated '16 March 2009'], including:
    
    
    • A matter of principals
      
      Reforms to improve the leadership teams of Victorian government schools have begun to bite, with two international studies reporting the changes are among the world's best.
      
      
      
    • The heights of inequality
      
      Australian universities are dens of inequity. From the moment the first 24 students started at Sydney University in 1852, higher education has been dominated by the offspring of the well-to-do.
      
      
      
      
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Heckler
    Lust and punctuation
    
    Meeting a decent bloke is a peculiar challenge for a woman in her late 30s in Sydney, and I know I'm not alone on this one. However, it seems I am apparently raising the bar too high in my quest to meet a fellow who a) can spell and b) understand the difference between there and their, it's and its, and your and you're.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • Contract work is no haven
      

      "Teaching is not such a “haven” for all. ("When the going gets tough, get teaching”, 7-8/3).
      
      "Neither my daughter nor her friends, one to three years after graduating with teaching degrees, and with other degrees and work experience accomplished, have had anything longer than a six-month contract with the Queensland Department of Education.
      
      "Even those who agreed to teach anywhere in the state can’t get long-term work.
      
      "We will have a lot of disillusioned and frustrated teachers in a few years’ time if they enter the profession expecting a satisfying and permanent position and find schools and under-resourced and with little help for teachers of special needs kids."

      Judith Steanes, Wollstonecraft, NSW
      
      

Tuesday 10 March

• The Australian
  
  
  • Keep kids at school longer for core skills
    by Nicola Berkovic
    
    "The OECD has called on Australian education authorities to consider raising the school leaving age to ensure children have core reading and maths skills.
    
    "A report on Australian education performance also calls for more to be spent on early childhood education, noting the nation "lags far behind" other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
    
    "And echoing recommendations by the Bradley report into higher education, the OECD urges the federal Government to foster greater competition in the tertiary and training sectors.
    
    "In a radical departure from current school-leaving policies, the report says state and territory governments should consider raising the compulsory school age for students who had not achieved minimum core skills. [emphasis added] [That sounds remarkably like the "old fashioned" notion of holding back students who have failed! Web]
    
    "To ensure that the education system provides all school leavers with a minimum educational attainment level, states could continue moving towards higher minimum school leaving ages, though the costs and benefits would need to be assessed.
    
    "However, it should be ensured that all students achieve minimum core skills, before leaving school," the report says.
    
    "Experts were divided yesterday on whether it was a good idea to force students to attain certain skills before leaving school.
    
    "Students in most states can leave school at 16, but many states recently introduced requirements for students to remain in education, training or a job until the age of 17.
    
    "University of Western Sydney education professor Margaret Vickers said some students did not meet national benchmarks on standardised skills tests when they finished school, sometimes because of learning disabilities.
    
    "Should they be forced to remain as full-time students?
    
    "I'm not sure that is a very productive approach," she said.
    
    "But Australian National University economist Andrew Leigh said research showed keeping children in school longer raised their earning capacity as adults.
    
    "Forcing kids to stay in school an extra year boosts their lifetime earnings by about 10 per cent," Dr Leigh said.
    
    "He said general verbal, written, analytical and mathematical skills were transferable across jobs as the labour market changed, unlike skills specific to certain trades.
    
    "The report called for an overhaul of teacher pay, to give principals more autonomy to recruit and reward quality teachers, and to create incentives to reallocate teachers to where they were most needed.
    
    "It also criticised pay and training of childcare staff.
    
    "Recommending a shake-up of the early childhood education sector, the report says Australians had traditionally viewed childcare as a tool to support employment rather than as part of the education system.
    
    "The report says spending and enrolments lagged well behind OECD averages. Only 42 per cent of children aged three and four enrolled in pre-primary programs in 2006, compared with the OECD average of 70 per cent and more than 90 per cent in countries such as New Zealand and France.
    
    "The statistics were even more worrying for indigenous children and those with disabilities, from disadvantaged backgrounds or in remote areas.
    
    "The report recommends a more integrated system of early education and childcare.
    
    "To improve the tertiary education and training sectors, the report calls for better competition between institutions.
    
    "The central allocation of university places should be abandoned, and direct financing for the sector should follow students."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Give more uni spots to the poor: Julia Gillard
    by Luke Slattery
    
    "The federal Government yesterday urged universities to enrol an additional 55,000 students from poor backgrounds and to reform the research and innovation system.
    
    "Education Minister Julia Gillard said the Government would compel universities to enrol 20 per cent of their students from low socio-economic backgrounds by 2020.
    
    "Importantly, every higher education institution must play its part," she said. "Our elite institutions have by far the lowest proportion of low socio-economic status enrolments. While uniformity will never be possible or desirable, every institution should be able to improve its social inclusiveness."
    
    "Ms Gillard's move on equity came as Science Minister Kim Carr pledged to give universities extra money for research and responsibility for managing their research activities, in return for improvements in the allocation and use of resources.
    
    "Senator Carr revealed the Government's plans to move ahead with funding the full cost of research, in tandem with structural reform of the research system. He promised to double the level of collaboration between businesses, universities and publicly funded research agencies over the next decade, and called for a 25 per cent increase in the proportion of businesses engaging in innovation over the next decade.
    
    "The international benchmark for public sector funding of research is 50c towards the indirect costs -- such as equipment, administration and salaries -- for every $1 spent on research projects. Australian universities get 20c for these overheads.
    
    "Senator Carr said the Government aimed to bridge that gap. "However ... the Government will expect universities to provide better, more meaningful data on research costs through activity-based reporting, and to meet specific performance targets to be developed in consultation with the sector," he said.
    
    "The chairman of the group of eight research universities and vice-chancellor of the University of Western Australia, Alan Robson, said he agreed with Ms Gillard that equity was the responsibility of every university. He added that the Government should take account of graduation rates for low socio-economic status students -- an area in which the Go8 performs strongly -- rather than first-year enrolments."
    
    From The Australian at link
    
    Similar story in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald


Source: Dr Leesha Wheelahan, Griffith University
from The Sydney Morning Herald




• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
• Helping children to go to uni starts at home, says Gillard
  by Heath Gilmore
  
  "Julia Gillard says the nation needs a revolution in attitude towards higher education, starting with parents of disadvantaged children.
  
  "The federal Minister for Education said the change should begin with parents and flow through to the schools and eventually the TAFEs or universities across the country.
  
  "Ms Gillard said parental attitudes to tertiary study were crucial in determining whether their children attended university or TAFE. Other nations such as South Korea had shown people from disadvantaged backgrounds could lift themselves up through education.
  
  "Every school must make it its business to overcome the disadvantages a child brings to the classroom. But change has to be deeper. The building blocks of educational success start in the home.
  
  "In suburbs, in country towns, in remote Australia and in the poorest households across the nation, parents need to encourage a positive attitude towards education, to nurture a love of learning and to rejoice in learning success as children grow and mature.
  
  "There's no easy way to do this. Governments can't enforce changes in family behaviour, and nor should they. This has to come from within families; through parental leadership; by setting good examples."
  
  "Roderick West, the former headmaster of Trinity Grammar who chaired the last big review of higher education 10 years ago, said parents sometimes needed to be told about their failings.
  
  "They are very necessary statements to be made," he said.
  
  "I do think action also needs to be taken with parents and in the schools, but there is no point in being top heavy.
  
  "The ones we have to target are the children aged five, six and seven and teach them how to read and write, particularly the indigenous communities. If we can't get them then they are forever illiterate. Parents have such a big role to play."
  
  From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
  
  
  
• Op Ed
  Undergraduate plan must begin in the early years of learning
  by Anna Patty, Education Editor
  
  "Universities have been asked to make up for more than a decade of inequity entrenched in the school education system.
  
  "The Federal Government wants 20 per cent of undergraduate enrolments by 2020 to be people from poor backgrounds. The target is admirable but it can only be achieved by lowering university entry standards or through massive intervention during the early school years to narrow the wide academic performance gap between rich and poor students.
  
  "The Government also needs to provide a more sophisticated indicator of economic status than the crude postcode measure.
  
  "Two academics, Buly Cardak and Chris Ryan, of the Australian National University, recently found that rich and poor students with equivalent university entrance scores were equally likely to go to university. Their research suggested that students from poor backgrounds needed no extra incentive at the point of university entry.
  
  "However, what is needed is help for a huge number of poor students who perform well below their potential and who need help during their school years to score enough to earn a place at university.
  
  "Year 12 retention rates also need to improve.
  
  "Unless students lift their performance at school, universities will be forced to lower their entry standards and seek alternative ways to identify students with academic potential.
  
  "Macquarie University is already providing entry tests that ignore a student's poor performance in the Higher School Certificate by measuring their comprehension skills and other indicators of learning potential.
  
  "Such a system recognises that universities can allow bright students to realise their potential regardless of how rich or poor their background.
  
  "Universities have also introduced programs to raise the aspirations of indigenous school students and those from socially disadvantaged areas.
  
  "The University of Melbourne reserves 20 per cent of its domestic undergraduate places for students from a range of social backgrounds who are disadvantaged as a result of disability, ethnicity or rural location.
  
  "Professor Sue Elliott, its Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching, Learning & Equity), says the Federal Government's attempt to raise the representation of poor students from the existing 15 per cent to 20 per cent is "a stretch" without changes in primary and secondary schools.
  
  "In her speech yesterday the federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, acknowledged that universities could only make a difference if schools rose to the challenge and governments played their part."
  
  From The Sydney Morning Herald at link
  
  
  
• Op Ed
  A duty to relieve social disadvantage
  
  We known for a long time that students from disadvantaged backgrounds don't get access to universities in the same numbers as students from more privileged backgrounds. What we haven't known is the extent to which students from more privileged backgrounds get access to universities, particularly the elite universities.
  
  
  
• Couple refuses to pay private fees
  
  A Sydney couple is being sued for refusing to pay thousands of dollars in fees for their daughters' private school education after their eldest girl "bombed" her Higher School Certificate results.
  
  
  
  
• The West Australian
  
  
  • $98m bid to widen kindy access for WA children
    
    
    "The Federal Government will spend $98 million over five years to expand kindergarten access for WA children. Parliamentary secretary for early childhood education Maxine McKew said yesterday that research had shown disadvantaged children benefited most from high-quality pre-school.
    
    
    “Unfortunately at the moment, these are the children most likely to miss out,” she said."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
• BBC News
  
  
  • Six months teacher training plan
    
    People could qualify as a teacher in England in six months rather than the usual year, under new government plans... "By cutting the initial teacher training course to six months for the most able candidates, we will make teaching a more attractive choice for experienced people who want to get into the classroom quickly but need high quality initial teacher training," [Schools Minister Jim Knight said].
    
    
    
    
• The Independent
  
  
  • Universities 'dumb down' and ignore cheating, MPs told
    by Richard Garner, Education Editor
    
    "Universities should be stripped of their powers to award degrees if evidence emerges that they have "dumbed down", MPs heard yesterday.
    
    "Professor Geoffrey Alderman, the former academic chairman who caused uproar last year by claiming lecturers were under pressure to "mark positively" and turn a blind eye to plagiarism, told a Commons Select committee monitoring higher education that there had been a "systematic failure" to maintain degree standards for the past 20 years.
    
    "In particular, vice-chancellors have permitted and indeed encouraged the decline in academic standards in the desperate search for (a) increased income from 'full cost' fee-paying international students, (b) more favourable student retention rates, and (c) high or higher positions in various 'rankings' or 'league tables' published by a variety of media," Professor Alderman said.
    
    "Failing or expelling a non-European Union student can have serious knock-on implications as the word gets out. In the modern, mass higher education system, it seems, there must be prizes for all because the student is the customer and the customer must walk away with something for his or her money."
    
    "He said the only way to sustain standards was to give tougher powers to the sector's watchdog, the Quality Assurance Agency, to crack down on universities. "The current situation, whereby universities enjoy degree-awarding powers in perpetuity, is insupportable," he said."Where an institution is found to be derelict in its supreme duty to maintain standards ... financial penalties should be levied, followed, if necessary by the partial or complete withdrawal of the authority to award degrees."
    
    "He added: "The decline in academic standards has been facilitated by weak or non-existent survellance of them. Students who would formerly have failed their degrees are being passed and students who would formerly have been awarded very respectable lower seconds are now being awarded upper seconds and even firsts.
    
    "Students – I mean British students as well as students from overseas – are being admitted to commence their studies with levels of English so poor that universities are having to run remedial English courses to ensure that new entrants possess at least a basic level of literacy at the ouset of their studies. Cheating is rampant, encouraged in part by lenient penalties."
    
    "He cited figures to show that the number of firsts awarded by universities had doubled in the past decade, while the student population had gone up by less than half. In addition, a survey by the Higher Education Academy had revealed 9,000 cases of plagiarism in the past year, only 143 of which had resulted in expulsion."
    
    From The Independent at link
    
    
    
    
• ABC News
  
  
  • Remote Indigenous school attendance drops
    
    New figures show Indigenous school attendance rates in very remote Northern Territory schools are down from last year.
    
    
    
    
• The Guardian
  
  
  • Brain training in the nursery
    
    The government wants top graduates to go into early years teaching. They could find it suits them perfectly
    
    There is a commonly held myth that working with little children is not a job for the brainy. It is thought to suit people who like children but aren't academic. Yet an ever-growing stack of research shows the importance of children's earliest educational experiences to their chances in life. Overwhelmingly, the best pre-schools have better qualified staff.

 

Wednesday 11 March

Stop Press !

• Minister for Education's Media Statement
  
  
  • WA curriculum to be reviewed
    
    Education Minister Liz Constable has announced an expert review of the curriculum, assessment and reporting policies and procedures in Western Australian schools.
    
    Dr Constable told State Parliament that the review would be headed by University of WA academic, Professor David Andrich.
    
    “Professor Andrich will consider evaluation reports produced in the last decade and examine assessment documents,” she said.
    
    “He will consult with a range of school administrators and teachers, particularly those with leadership in curriculum, assessment and reporting.
    
    “The review will also consider the impact on WA schools of the new national curriculum being developed for English, mathematics, the sciences and history, with geography and languages to follow.”
    
    The terms of the reference for the review are:
    
    ·          to review the Curriculum Framework for curriculum, assessment and reporting purposes in WA schools, with particular reference to years Kindergarten to Year 10
    
    ·          to advise on the relationship between the Curriculum Framework and proposed national curriculum
    
    ·          to consider the impact of any proposed changes on teachers and schools in WA.
    
    The Minister said Mr John Firth, chief executive officer of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and a member of the national curriculum board, would act as an external reference for the review.
    
    “This review is in keeping with the State Government’s commitment to ensure that teachers are well supported, particularly during the implementation of the inevitable national curriculum,” Dr Constable said.
    
    “The school curriculum has been a political football in recent years and it has been teachers that have suffered.
    
    “I will make sure that teachers get the necessary support to allow them to do what they do best - teach.”
    
    The Minister said she expected Professor Andrich’s report to be finished by the middle of this year and be made public shortly afterwards.
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
• Participation aims also require school reforms
  by Jill Rowbotham
  
  "Federal government plans to lift participation of disadvantaged students in higher education to 20 per cent of the population by 2020 are aspirational, according to the University of Sydney's vice-chancellor Michael Spence, who nonetheless welcomes the initiative.
  
  "Dr Spence, for whom "elite but not elitist" has become something of a mantra since he assumed the top post at Sydney seven months ago, made the comments after Education Minister Julia Gillard announced the Government was prepared to adopt the equity targets from its Bradley review of the sector.
  
  "I think the target is great, (but) I think it's aspirational and it will not be possible, as the Government realises, to achieve it without also addressing educational disadvantage at primary and secondary school levels," he said. [emphasis added] "We have a clear ambition for the University of Sydney to train Australia's brightest regardless of their social background.
  
  "It's clear to me there are real obstacles to higher education for working Australian families and that's something our university is committed to overcoming.
  
  "One challenge is to think about the way, at admissions, we assess not just (students') attainment but potential.
  
  "The current admission system of Australian universities isbetter at assessing the former than the latter. That's not something you can change overnight.
  
  "It raises enormous equity issues of all sorts, it's something about which we need to think." ...
  
  Full story in The Australian at link
  
  
  
• Science test 'has political leaning'
  
  A highly regarded international test run by the OECD [PISA] has been accused of ideological bias for eliciting students' beliefs about the environment and sustainable development, rather than knowledge of the underlying science of issues such as greenhouse gases and acid rain.
  
  
  
• Editorial
  A success for science
  
  Embryonic stem cell research helps suffering humanity
  
  Barack Obama has defied faith and fear in bringing the US into line with Australia and Britain by overturning George W. Bush's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.
  
  
  
• Op Ed
  Daylight robbery
  
  Compulsory student charges are a left-wing racket to create cadres, insists Hal G.P. Colebatch
  
  Related story in The Age
  
  
  
• Letters to the Editor
  
  
  • Better education, not more time at school, is the key
    
    "Nicola Berkovic brings to light the recent call by the OECD to consider raising the school leaving age in Australia to ensure children have core reading and maths skills ("Keep kids at school longer for core skills”, 10/3).
    
    "I sincerely hope that this suggestion is never implemented but instead the entire structure of the curriculum at all school levels is seriously reviewed.
    
    "While many specialists in the field emphasise pre-primary programs, it is vital to acknowledge that the current primary and secondary school curricula are badly done and in desperate need of a good shake-up.
    
    "When an Australian child spends a decade in school and still comes out lacking core reading and maths skills, it is obvious that it is not the quantity but the quality that we must look at.
    
    "Our kids start school at the age of five. In Finland, the starting age is seven.
    
    "It is well known that the Finnish education system is highly successful. The idea that the longer the child stays at school the better his/her core skills will be is stupid to say the least.
    
    "If by the age of 16 a healthy child was not taught to read properly then keeping him/her at school one more year is useless.
    
    "Any problem with any core skill should be dealt with in the early primary school and not dragged through to senior school years."
    
    Anna Heifetz, Bentleigh East, Vic
    
    
    
  • "Certainly more needs to be done to ensure that students have core reading and maths skills, but a Band-aid solution—raising the leaving age—is not the answer.
    
    "Rather, the root cause of the problem should be addressed: the politicisation and dumbing down of the education system.
    
    "Teaching students fundamentals instead of providing a Marxist indoctrination would go along way to improving the situation."
    
    Jerome Appleby, Fullarton, SA
    
    
    
  • "Most early school-leavers are students who have struggled academically. Spending extra money to help them master basic skills in their early years would be far more effective than spending the same amount on forcing them to stay longer as disenchanted teenagers."
    
    Norm Neill, Darlinghurst, NSW
    


Higher Education news

• VCs salute Gillard's brave new vision
  
  University vice-chancellors have given Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard a rousing and extended round of applause, relieved that the Government had finally given them a broad vision to work to.
  
  
  
• Carr set to lift research funding
  
  In a breakthrough for university research, Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr has won a commitment from Treasury to fully fund the indirect cost of research.
  
  
  
• Research a poor cousin to exports
  
  Australia is alone in requiring its top 200 research universities to support the national balance of payments by driving growth in the education export market, globalisation expert Simon Marginson has warned.
  
  
  
  
• The Age
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Education is about quality, not quantity
    by Christopher Holmes and Jamie Alexander
    
    Enrolling more students in medicine and law could cause standards to fall.
    
    "So the Federal Government wants to increase access to higher education. It is a laudable aim, particularly in relation to traditionally "privileged" professions. However, there are good reasons for some centralised control of student numbers.
    
    "Getting a more representative student mix is not an easy task. Not much has changed since 1998 when fewer than 13 per cent of graduates in law and medicine came from low socio-economic backgrounds. But Education Minister Julia Gillard proposes to fix this by allocating funding proportional to the number of students who wish to undertake a course, rather than by giving each university a set number of Commonwealth supported places. This is fraught with difficulties. It would hand control to the universities, which could set their own entry standards and enrol as many students as they wish. In theory, universities will accept more students in areas of high demand, and fewer in areas of low demand. And more students would undertake higher education, as universities create new places to meet the demand.
    
    "The problem is that given that the central concerns of the modern university are reputation and profit, universities have no reason to take into account the impact their student numbers have on the professions that students are attempting to enter. Law and medicine provide interesting insights into the subtle interaction between universities and the professions..."
    
    "High standards of medical care and clinical training have been maintained over the years by forcing universities to meet stringent criteria — set by independent professional bodies — in the delivery of medical courses. For this to continue, the number of students accepted into medical schools needs to be equal to the number who can be trained within finite hospital resources. Removing the cap on student places would work against this standard by diluting the clinical experience that is essential to becoming a well-qualified doctor..."
    
    "Deregulation of student numbers is also potentially dangerous in areas such as law and medicine. The practical training required in these areas means that a massive increase in student numbers would have disastrous effects on the quality of services, and damage the ability of professionals to provide the best services to our society."
    
    Christopher Holmes is vice-president (education) of the Australian Law Students' Association and Jamie Alexander is vice-president (external) of the Australian Medical Students' Association.
    
    Full story in The Age at link
    
    
    
    
• The Washington Post
  
  
  • Obama Says Public Schools Must Improve
    by Scott Wilson
    
    "President Obama sharply criticized the nation's public schools yesterday, calling for changes that would reward good teachers and replace bad ones, increase spending, and establish uniform academic achievement standards in American education.
    
    "In a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Obama called on teachers unions, state officials and parents to end the "relative decline of American education," which he said "is untenable for our economy, unsustainable for our democracy and unacceptable for our children." The speech, delivered in a venue meant to underscore the changing demographics of the nation's public education system and its long-term priorities, sought to bring a bipartisan approach to education reform by spreading blame across party lines for recent failures.
    
    "For decades, Washington has been trapped in the same stale debates that have paralyzed progress and perpetuated our educational decline," Obama said. "Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though it can make a difference in the classroom. Too many in the Republican Party have opposed new investments in early education, despite compelling evidence of its importance."
    
    "Obama's speech, his first as president devoted to education, struck a tone of urgency at a time when public education is slated to receive about $100 billion in new federal money under the recently passed economic stimulus package. The money may give Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, more influence in reshaping a public education system traditionally guided by state governments and local school districts..."
    
    "Good teachers will receive pay raises if students succeed, Obama said, and will "be asked to accept more responsibility for lifting up their schools." But, he said, states and school districts must be "taking steps to move bad teachers out of the classroom."
    
    "If a teacher is given a chance but still does not improve, there is no excuse for that person to continue teaching," he said. "I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences." ... [emphasis added]
    
    Full story in The Washington Post at link
    
    Complete transcript of President Obama's speech
    
    
    
    • Op Ed
      Obama Thinks Big on Education
      
      President Obama’s education speech this morning was, in my memory, the largest assemblage of smart ideas about schools ever issued by one president at one time. Everyone will have a different favorite part — performance pay models for teachers, better student data tracking systems, longer school days and years, eliminating weak state testing standards, more money for schools that improve, more grants for fresh ideas, better teacher training, more charter school growth, faster closing of bad charters and many more.
      
      

Similar story in The New York Times




• ABC News
  
  
• WA Opposition demands answers on attempted school abduction
  
  "The Western Australian Opposition says the Education Minister must explain why parents have not been told about an attempted abduction at a Perth primary school on Friday.
  
  "The Opposition Education Spokeswoman Michelle Roberts has told Parliament the incident involved a four year old boy who was in the playground at South Perth primary after school hours with a group of other children and adults.
  
  "Ms Roberts says the matter was reported to the school, the police and the Education Department, but five days on, parents have still not been notified.
  
  "The Education Minister Liz Constable says she only found out about the incident this afternoon.
  
  "I have called, as you imagine I would have to, and would want to, have called for a full briefing and report on this because I have no other details about it", the Minister said."
  
  From ABC News at link
  
  
  
  
• BBC News
  
  
• Quick teacher training: 'No way'
  

  People who have made a career switch into teaching have been commenting on the government's scheme to "fast track" people with industrial experience into England's classrooms with just six months' training. The plan has generally been greeted negatively by those contacting the BBC News website... "There is absolutely no way that I could have coped with teaching after just six months' training," being typical.
  
  
  

• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Two education systems, but not of equal value
      
      "The reported changes to higher education are almost entirely university-focused.
      
      "Last week Julia Gillard said her brief was to pursue "two great opportunities with the leaders of two great systems of education, equal in value, driven by separate missions, but with a common purpose of preparing Australia for a new age of human capital development" ("Keeping them guessing", March 9). That view reinforces the divisions that have existed in higher education for decades.
      
      "We certainly have two systems, driven by separate missions, but they are not equal in value, and it is extremely doubtful this is the best way to develop our "human capital".
      
      "Universities have always received preferential treatment and have acquired a strong social cachet. University graduates beget university graduates, and most higher education funding has followed. The poor old TAFE colleges, through no fault of their own, are humble by comparison.
      
      "We could take a leaf out of Germany's book, where a variety of colleges provide different paths for students based on ability in academic, creative or social intelligence.
      
      "The Bradley report's ambition for 40 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds to have a bachelor's degree by 2020 is very much a university perspective. Professor Bradley merely pays lip service to the idea of a wider educational canvas in her vague assertion that "a more holistic approach" is needed in the reform of the universities and the vocational and training sectors."
      
      David Catchlove. Newport
      
      
      
    • "As an undergraduate at the University of Sydney I had the privilege of attending the lectures of the professor of philosophy, John Anderson. He made a clear distinction between education and training, and asserted that the only legitimate concern of universities was education. Yet with the possible exception of science, the only faculty primarily engaging in education was arts.
      
      "The business of medicine, engineering, law and the other faculties is vocational training, and in this respect is not different from TAFE courses designed to produce plumbers, carpenters and electricians.
      
      "The policy of overcoming the shortage of skilled tradesmen and being able to compete successfully in global markets is commendable, but it should not blind us to the value of disinterested inquiry and scholarship."
      
      Ian Edwards. Glebe
      
      
      
    • "The obsession with creating a seamless connection between vocational and university education ("Education revolution", March 10) may be postmodern and egalitarian, but it is not necessarily productive. The systems, despite genuine points of connection, have different philosophies, aims and teaching methods."
      
      Norm Neill, Darlinghurst
      
      
      
    • "That anyone can describe a university entrance system in which you can pay to enter a course despite not achieving high enough marks as "simple, fair, and objective" is mind-blowing (Letters, March 9).
      
      "Between 1992 and 2001, university income from full-fee-paying students increased from 5 per cent to 15 per cent. These students do not increase the maximum course numbers. They took the places of deserving students and artificially inflated the UAI for courses such as law.
      
      "International or fee-paying students cannot be blamed for taking an opportunity offered by an incompetent government. There will always be times when we fall short of our dreams, but this should not be because the government has stuck out a foot."
      
      Robert McLean, Annandale
      
      
      
  • No 'special' haven at selective schools
    
    Less than 6 per cent of students at most selective high schools in NSW were granted "special provisions" for last year's Higher School Certificate exams. The figures, obtained by the Herald under freedom of information legislation, are in line with the state average for all public schools and in direct contrast to those for a significant number of private schools at which up to 30 per cent of students received special consideration.
    
    
    
  • College life drove daughters to self-harm, say parents
    by Bellinda Kontominas
    
    "The school prospectus told them their daughters "deserve the Roseville experience", but for Grant and Gloria Mears that experience allegedly involved sub-standard academic results, school bullying and self-harm.
    
    "Mr and Mrs Mears pulled three of their daughters out of the exclusive Roseville College in early 2007, saying it was responsible for their eldest daughter, Anna, "bombing out" of the HSC in 2006.
    
    "The school is now suing the couple after they refused to pay about $20,000 in outstanding tuition fees and penalties..."
    
    Full story in The Sydney Morning Herald at link

 

Thursday 12 March

• Independent expert review of the Curriculum Framework
  
  
  • Minister's Media Statement [11 March]
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Principals attack merger 'bullying'
    
    [Victorian] Government bureaucrats have been accused of bullying some schools to merge as a condition of funding for new buildings and upgrades.
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Principals to lose control over school purse strings
    
    Principals will no longer have direct access to their school's bank account from next year when the NSW education bureaucracy starts paying bills on their behalf in a bid to save $120 million over five years.
    
    
    
  • Letter to the Editor
    
    
    • On the contrary, special provisions for exams are fair [from the NSW education minister and five bureaucrats]
      
      
      
      
• The Independent
  
  
  • Montessori teaching attracts a wave of career-changers
    
    One of the more unlikely beneficiaries of the economic downturn has come to light in recent weeks: more people are signing up to learn to teach Montessori. The teaching method prizes independent learning for young children, and Montessori Centre International, the institution responsible for training teachers, is reporting a significant rise in interest – as a result, it believes, of the recession.

 

Friday 13 March

• The Canberra Times
  
  
  • Op Ed
    Gillard's call harks back to class war
    by Kevin Donnelly
    
    "It should not surprise, as Julia Gillard is both Minister for Education and Minister for Social Inclusion, that her recent speech at the Higher Education Conference centred on promoting equity and overcoming disadvantage.
    
    "Gillard argues that not enough disadvantaged students defined as students from remote and regional areas, indigenous students and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds enter university, and that by 2020 at least 20 per cent of enrolments must include students from such backgrounds.
    
    "Referring to last year's Bradley Report on higher education, Minister Gillard bemoans the fact that currently only 16 per cent of undergraduates are from disadvantaged backgrounds.
    
    "The first thing to be said about Ms Gillard's command that ''every higher education institution must play its part'' (especially those she describes as elite) in implementing the ALP Government's social engineering policies is that she is consistent.
    
    "In her 1998 maiden speech, the newly elected member for Lalor and one-time member of the Fabian Society, when talking about inequality in education, argued, ''The students from my electorate are not any less intelligent than those from Higgins or Kooyong, but their educational opportunities are not the same.
    
    ''My predecessor, Barry Jones, used to say that unfortunately postcodes are probably the strongest factor in determining a person's expectations of success in life. It will be one of my priorities in politics to ensure that in the Australia of the future the famous quizmaster is, for once, wrong.''
    
    "The OECD report Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries states,
    
    ''Australia is one of the most socially mobile countries. What your parents earned when you were a child has very little effect on your earnings. Similarly, the educational attainment of parents affects the educational achievements of the child less that in most other countries.''
    
    "The OECD report goes on to say, ''In Australia, publicly provided services in the health, education and social housing sectors reduce overall income inequality by more than [in] most other countries.''
    
    "It should also be remembered that postcode (used as a proxy for socioeconomic status), is not the most significant indicator of success at Year 12. Research carried out by the Australian Council for Educational Research concludes that prior educational achievement and school environment have a greater impact than parents' education and wealth.
    
    "While it might be politically incorrect, there is also the argument that not all students have the ability and intelligence to benefit from tertiary studies. Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, argues in Real Education that it is a mistake to increase participation rates as many of those pressured to undertake tertiary studies are ill equipped to succeed.
    
    "Surveys of academics and anecdotal evidence agree that channelling increasing numbers of young people into tertiary studies over the past 20 to 30 years has led to falling standards, less academic rigour and more need to remedy students' educational weaknesses and shortcomings.
    
    "Also of concern, given the argument that the competitive Year 12 examination system prevalent in most states and territories reinforces privilege and rewards high-socioeconomic-status students, are the alternatives being considered.
    
    "So-called general ability tests, like the US Scholastic Aptitude Test; interviews; school-based coursework instead of external examinations; and introducing quotas where students' ENTER scores are adjusted according to an index of disadvantage: all are fraught with problems.
    
    "As a member of Victoria's Socialist Left faction of the ALP, it is understandable why Minister Gillard is committed to promoting positive discrimination and equality of outcomes (represented by a quota system). It is also understandable why many vice-chancellors fall over themselves to increase enrolments and win government favour and funding.
    
    "The danger, instead of being based on ability, hard work and merit, is that tertiary entry will be decided by luck or circumstance. Students whose parents, through no fault of their own, have succeeded in life or are fortunate enough to live in a wealthy area or attend a so-called privileged school will be discriminated against.
    
    "Given Minister Gillard's call for quotas for tertiary entry and the politics of envy associated with discriminating against so-called privileged students, it's clear that the ALP is returning to form."
    
    Dr Donnelly is the author of Dumbing Down and director of Melbourne-based Education Strategies.
    
    From The Canberra Times at link
    
    
    
    
• The Age
  
  
  • Student fee plan 'takes away choice'
    
    Peter Costello relived his experiences as a student activist at Monash University yesterday in a speech denouncing Rudd Government proposals to allow universities to charge students fees to fund campus services.
    
    Also see two Letters on this topic in today's Australian (below)
    
    
    
    
• The Australian
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Public spending not reckless
      
      "That Julie Novak of the Institute of Public Affairs calls state spending reckless is no surprise ("Axe this millstone on employment”, 12/3).
      
      "Nor is it any surprise that she fails to specify what this reckless spending is, but we can get an idea from history, and it seems that any service to the public is in the IPA’s eyes automatically reckless.
      
      "The last time Victorians were conned by the IPA, they elected the Liberals to government and suffered chaos for seven years as that government dumped more than 8000 teachers, closed almost 400 schools and sold public assets, killing off an income stream.
      
      "Over the past nine years, the Labor Government has allocated billions to capital expenditure on schools, employed enough primary teachers to cut the prep-to-Year 2 class size to 21 pupils, boosted teacher pay closer to the levels that applied 30 years ago and built infrastructure through the state."
      
      Chris Curtis, Hurstbridge, Vic
      
      
      
    • Unis will control student fee
      
      "The proposed university services and amenities fee will be collected by the universities themselves, who alone will determine how the money is spent ("Daylight robbery”, 11/3).
      
      "Second, it will fund not just clubs and societies, but also student services such as welfare and legal services, medical services and on-campus child care services.
      
      "Third, the proposed fee could be added to a student’s HECS loan, leaving them with no less money “at a time in their lives when they need it most”.
      
      Sebastien Willis, Australian National University students association, Red Hill, ACT
      
      
      
    • "Hal Colebatch claims that students who don’t want to join or don’t benefit from clubs and organisations should not be forced to subsidise them. I could not agree more.
      
      "But I pay for services and infrastructure I don’t directly use. I acknowledge my indirect benefit from them. It’s known as civilisation.
      
      "When students were repeatedly assaulted on a certain campus in Western Australia a few years ago, only those universities where there was a strong student guild saw any increase in security.
      
      "Colebatch is not wrong in bemoaning the political tactics of the student guilds, and I don’t dispute that this goes on.
      
      "Any nominally apolitical policies become deeply political when applied selectively. The article, though, presents only the alternatives of voluntary student unionism and a speculative corrupt system of compulsory fees.
      
      "While there are undoubtedly better ways to increase equality in higher education than either of these, I don’t see who, apart from the student unions, would have driven the issue, or who would continue to do so."
      
      Jason Heeris, Claremont, WA
      
      
      
      
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Special provisions for exams
      
      Five Letters at that link

 

Saturday – Sunday, 14 – 15 March

• The West Australian
  
  
  • OBE critic will head WA education system review
    by Bethany Hiatt
    
    "The respected academic whose report into outcomes-based education assessment led to it being dropped from Years 11 and 12 will head a review into WA's education system from kindergarten to Year 10.
    
    "Education Minister Liz Constable told State Parliament this week that University of WA education academic David Andrich would review the curriculum, assessment and procedures in WA schools.
    
    "She expected Professor Andrich to produce a report by the middle of the year, which she would release publicly.
    
    "Professor Andrich, who is a world expert on assessment methods, wrote a report in 2006 that played a pivotal role in the Carpenter government's decision in 2007 to abandon key planks of OBE in the high-stakes final school years.
    
    "Dr Constable has been under pressure to deliver on a Liberal election promise to set up an independent audit of the outcomes-based curriculum framework. Before the election, former Liberal education shadow minister Peter Collier promised an independent audit of the framework by an expert advisory group immediately on assuming government.
    
    "But it has taken nearly six months for Dr Constable to fulfil that pledge.
    
    "Dr Constable said parts of the curriculum, which has been in schools for the past 10 years, had been controversial.
    
    "The school curriculum has been a political football in recent years and it has been teachers that have suffered,” she said.
    
    "The review would also consider the impact on WA schools of the new national curriculum being developed for English, maths, science and history.
    
    "Professor Andrich would examine evaluation reports and assessment documents from the past 10 years and consult principals and teachers.
    
    "John Firth, chief executive of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and a member of the National Curriculum Board will act as an external reference."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
  • Axed truant plan slips out in letter
    by Dawn Gibson
    
    "Education Minister Liz Constable has quietly abandoned a controversial "no school, no welfare" program that was to have been rolled out in some Perth schools this year amid concerns it would punish already disadvantaged children.
    
    "In an embarrassing bungle that could further damage relations between Dr Constable and the Federal Government, the Minister did not tell Federal Families Minister Jenny Macklin of her decision before letting a charity group know in a letter on Thursday The Commonwealth has been waiting for five months for Dr Constable to decide whether she would support the trial.
    
    "At least 14 schools in the Cannington area had been earmarked for the program, which would have involved the parents of truants having their welfare payments suspended for up to 13 weeks. While the measure has been used in the Northern Territory, this would have been the first test of the measure in a major city.
    
    "While Dr Constable maintained until this week that she had not made up her mind, Education Department director-general Sharyn O'Neill said in a letter to UnitingCare West chief Chris Hall this week the Government had "decided to decline the Commonwealth Government's invitation" to take part in the project after listening to advice from senior education officers. Writing on behalf of Dr Constable, Ms O'Neill acknowledged the causes of truancy were complex. "I am committed to improving educational outcomes for children and will continue to explore initiatives that increase support for parents of children who are not attending school," she wrote.
    
    "While Ms Macklin's media spokeswoman said the office had not received any word from Dr Constable about her decision, the State Minister said the two departments would work together to "devise a fairer and more appropriate approach than can be trialled in the Cannington district".
    
    "The State Government is strongly of the view linking truancy to welfare payments would not achieve the intended outcomes," she said. "Rather, it would further impact on the lives of many disadvantaged people."
    
    "Welfare advocates and the Australian Greens welcomes the decision.
    
    "Mr Hall said there was no evidence that withholding welfare payments from parents would ensure their children would go to school. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert hoped the Government would now look towards more positive measures to reduce truancy.
    
    "However, shadow education minister Michelle Roberts said the decision showed the Government had given up on disadvantaged children."
    
    From The West Australian
    
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    PC language is artificial and it distorts reality
    by Zoltan Kovacs
    
    An excellent expose on how Political Correctness is mutilating our language.
    
    
    
  
  
• The Weekend Australian
  
  
  • Different reading methods on trial
    by Justine Ferrari, Education writer
    
    "The divisive debate over how best to teach children to read has prompted the first trial in Australia comparing phonics-based techniques with other methods.
    
    "The NSW Government is planning a pilot study assessing a reading program that teaches children letter-sound combinations as the first step in reading.
    
    "Their progress will be compared with students taught by methods that place less emphasis on phonics and more on "whole language" techniques, such as pictures and sentence structure.
    
    "It is believed to be the first head-to-head comparison of phonics with other reading programs in the nation.
    
    "In an interview with The Weekend Australian, NSW Education Minister Verity Firth said the aim of the trial was to gather evidence of what worked.
    
    "Surely all of us can agree we want the best for our kids, and stop arguing about what we believe and start talking about what we know," she said.
    
    "As Education Minister, my job isn't to find myself in the middle of internecine debates, but to try to be able to look at how reading is taught with the primary motivation of what's best for our kids."
    
    "NSW will run the trial as one of the programs funded through the National Partnership with the commonwealth on literacy and numeracy that was agreed to by the Council of Australian Governments.
    
    "Ms Firth said the state's aims were in line with the federal Government's objectives, which had called for phonics trials.
    
    "The NSW study will use the MULTILIT (Making Up Lost Time in Literacy) reading program developed by education researchers at Macquarie University, which places letter-sound relationships or phonemic awareness as the foundation of learning to read. The details of the trial are still being finalised but it is envisaged it will run for at least a year, targeting students in Years 3 and 4 reading well below the level of their peers.
    
    "The debate in the reading wars is over the importance of teaching phonics to children learning to read, with "whole language" techniques supplanting the sounding out of words as the first step in learning.
    
    "The term whole language is no longer used, proponents now call for a "balanced" approach that teaches a range of methods, such as looking at the pictures on the page, the context of the word and the syntax of the sentence, rather than starting with sounding out the letters of the word.
    
    "As reported in The Weekend Australian last month, the Australian Association for the Teaching of English has criticised the emphasis on phonics in the draft national curriculum, saying it "comes at the expense of the focus on a balanced reading program".
    
    "In its submission to the National Curriculum Board, the AATE calls for explicit reference to be made to "all three cueing systems" used to make sense of the written word.
    
    "Under the three cueing systems model, the sounding of letters is the least important skill, with children first asked to use semantics and guess the word based on the context including using pictures, and then use the sentence syntax to work out the meaning. The third and least important cue is sounding out the letters.
    
    "Literacy associate professor Kerry Hempenstall said the three cueing system had been discredited as a method for teaching reading.
    
    "It has never been validated that anyone can integrate these three methods," he said." [emphasis added]
    
    From The Weekend Australian at link
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    Gillard's TAFE learning curve
    
    Kenneth Wiltshire sends Julia Gillard a memo on improving our vaunted vocational education during the financial crisis
    
    The missing element in the package to address the impact of the global financial crisis is at last being addressed by the Rudd Government: the Australian training system. Despite its flaws and obvious inflexibility in these times of turbulence, the fundamentals of our vocational education and training system are the envy of the world.
    
    
    
    
• BBC News
  
  
  • Expectations 'too high' say heads
    
    Schools are expected to take on too many roles and have impossible expectations heaped upon them, head teachers are warning.
    
    
    
  • Warning over narcissistic pupils
    
    The growing expectation placed on schools and parents to boost pupils' self-esteem is breeding a generation of narcissists, an expert has warned.
    
    
    
    
• The Sunday Age
  
  
  • Schools at risk as fee debt soars
    by Michelle Hamer
    
    "Victoria's small independent schools face serious financial challenges and possible closure with enrolments dropping and school fee debts mounting.
    
    "Financial and liquidation experts say many private schools are under strain as the economic crisis bites and parents default on the payment of school fees. They warn that small independent schools, which flourished under the Howard government, are especially vulnerable as the economy falters, but that even some of Melbourne's established schools are finding it tough.
    
    "Anticipating a looming crisis for many families, an insurance company says that this week, for the first time in Australia, it will begin offering parents school fee insurance to cover an inability to pay fees.
    
    "There's a lot of pain out there," said a finance expert who has spent the past few months working closely with the business managers of several private schools.
    
    "They have to be very, very vigilant with their cash flow issues. The schools I deal with tell me they're seeing significant reductions in enrolments.
    
    "It's a different world for independent schools now, and it seems things will only get worse," said the expert, who declined to be named..."
    
    Full story in The Sunday Age a link
    
    
    • Keeping it private
      
      
      
  • Universities face double hit to finances
    
    Victoria's top universities are bracing for a double financial hit triggered by plummeting stock prices and a looming slowdown in the market for international students.
    
    
    
  • Op Ed
    The web we weave
    
    The worldwide web, 20 years old this month, has ushered in a new era in human history.
    
    
    
    
• The Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
  • The great school scam [late update: online only]
    
    Parents are sharing houses, providing false addresses, renting and buying property in a fierce competition to secure a place for their children at some of Sydney's top comprehensive high schools.
    
    
    
  • Letters to the Editor
    
    
    • Four more Letters on special provisions for HSC students at that link

All Alston cartoons are © The West Australian Newspaper
All media quotations, photographs and cartoons © their respective publishers

This page last updated 18 March, 2009 4:46 PM