As you can see, this new PLATO website is primarily an archive of three years' detailed coverage of education news [more than 10,000 articles] and relevant discussion and debate on education issues in the WA Parliament [Hansard].

Not only has the News Archive been preserved intact, but most documents linked from the original archive (and there are many) have been preserved. Similarly, all embedded graphics (especially Alston cartoons) have been maintained.

You will note that when you click on the source link for older articles, you'll often be taken to a "Page not found" or similar web page on the news medium's website. This is because most media delete stories 6 – 18 months after publication, and is the reason why I always transcribed significant articles in full onto PLATO. All links to the PLATO Forum have been removed as the Forum no longer exists.

Links to the WA Hansard website should be preserved +/- forever.

I have also included the original and complete Interesting Quotes / Quotes of the Month page [but again without the Forum links]. It's a very interesting read.

For those who wish to keep abreast of education news across Australia and around the world, the RSS Education News Feeds page includes the feeds that I used when compiling the PLATO education news each day.

By popular request: An OBE Satire Highlights page has been added [1 May 2009].

Please email me if you find any bugs in the site and I will fix them. Creating this reduced website required a huge amount of editing over a very short time frame and some undoubtedly slipped through.

Way back in May 2006, I told Greg Williams that I was willing to maintain the website "providing that it took no more than an hour or two a week". Right!! But I'm still happy to spend a couple of hours a week on the website – just not 4, 6, 8+ hours a day.

Expanding and maintaining the PLATO website was an amazing experience, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world... but "retirement" is very nice.

Best wishes
Web [PLATO Webmaster]