Loris Hemlof 09/07/10 10:56 PM Report Abuse

A privatized education system with corporate sponsorship from a levy on revenue would offer the best school management and free education.

jason 12/07/10 04:30 PM Report Abuse

Would it be a good idea to have the evaluation of "best" linked somehow to the Australian Curriculum? [see http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Home]. I have to say as a parent that is the best thing I have seen for at least taking the guesswork out of what they should know if the school is doing it's job.

JPH 14/07/10 10:22 PM Report Abuse

What we need to do straight away if the Coalition is elected, in terms of education, is make the My School website actually useful- rather than using the basic skill exma results for schools, I'd rather know my school's Year 12 ATAR results, both the top, bottom and average as well as having the top, bottom and average mark provided for every single subject the school has students in. There also should be a ranking system! Though I believe the basic skills exams are important, what's more important is knowing your school's Year 12 results; after all these are what govern one's entry into tertiary education.

Tess 14/07/10 11:28 PM Report Abuse

WHAT ABOUT THE INTERNET FILTER??? WHAT SORT OF EDUCATIONAL MESSAGE ARE YOU SENDING OUT IF YOU CLEARLY SUPPORT IT? SHAME ON ANY POLITICAL PARTY THAT SUPPORTS THE INTERNET FILTER. THEY WON'T BE GETTING MY VOTE. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET TONY ABBOTT'S STANCE ON THE MATTER? CLEARLY THIS IS A YES OR NO ISSUE. COME ON TEAM ABBOTT...HAVE THE GUTS TO SAY NO TO SOMETHING THAT IS CLEARLY DESTRUCTIVE AND INSANE!!!

Trevor Targett 15/07/10 08:00 AM Report Abuse

Those that have seen preliminary reports on the curriculum being considered by the Labor Govt should be scared.

For example, Geography will not include any reference to maps, GPS etc, as they are, and I quote 'a distortion of navigation based on western laziness'.

For Civics/Study of Society, kids will be taught that 'Australia is a racist country and needs to accept that their way isn't always correct'.

Any curriculum changes should be developed by the teachers (who have to teach it) and industry (who have to accept workers/job seekers that come through the system). It should not be developed by do gooder/self interest groups, or academics who are academics because they can't cut it in the real world!

JPH 15/07/10 07:02 PM Report Abuse

I believe the Coalition, if elected should change the current system of Australian history and geography which is taught from year 9 to 10, to the Australian version of both subject areas being taught from year 7 to 10. All Australians should be able to pass the Howard government's citizenship tests.

TheFixer 17/07/10 10:25 AM Report Abuse

I think the whole Education system needs to over hauled.
1 National Carriculum
2 Performance Evaluation for ALL teachers by an outside source so as to ensure no vested interests/transparncy
3 Lower School starting age to 4yrs old (as many other countries do)
4 Abolition of School Dress Codes etc and focus on EDUCATION rather than trying to turn State Schools into quasi private schools
5 get back to basics...........3xR's

Flyboy 17/07/10 12:18 PM Report Abuse

Our entire education system should be the same throughout Australia. If you get an education in Darwin, it should be exactly the same as if you studied in Melbourne.
This should be an important change to the system

Anna Scotto 17/07/10 05:23 PM Report Abuse

Mr Pine, I agree that the whole education system should be overhauled as it does not produce graduates who are ready to hit the ground running when their education system has ended. I fully support alternative schooling for children who are not so academic, traineeship should begin at year 7 with children being offered various courses for them to dable and see what suits. we all cannot be lawyers and doctors, we also need mechanics hairdressers plumbers electricians etc. My idea is this will the federal govt make use of the pensioners who can and are willing to pass on their skills and devotion to their trade to our children at school. Encourage them by giving them the time they devote to teaching as a payment increase in their pension. Who better to give the children hands on training than the people who have made their living from it. Just a thought it will also give the retireees something to look forward to,,,, passing on their skills and experience....

Clyde Hudson 21/07/10 01:27 AM Report Abuse

Gillard & Labor are going to spend $3M to assist students into apprenticeships. I have employed 2 young people and placed them onto traineeships. Interestingly both had done traineeship courses as part of their high school subjects. So Ms Gillard what is so new about this funding and project?

The first person we employed undertook a traineeship via a TAFE. We had 2 visits from them in 6 months and the course work provided consisted of less than a dozen pages! The second trainee went through a private provider and the first unit out of about 10 was a twenty page book. The worst thing for these young kids is that they are left to find a job and a traineeship with little or no assistance and the employer is in a similar boat. Labor - an education revolution. Pity its stuck in reverse.

Loris Hemlof 26/07/10 01:40 AM Report Abuse

In 1947 the USA recovered from Roswell New Mexico a crashed UFO, 4 alien bodies, 1 live alien, and a device for communicating with the 600,000 remnants of a civilization 40 million light years away. From this came an extra terrestrial exchange program with 12 people sent on a 9 month trans dimensional voyage to the alien planet and the aliens again visiting the USA in 2009 in the North Pacific. Photographs and video of aliens of a consistent appearance are available on the Internet. Australia should also establish an open extra terrestrial technology exchange program with all alien technologies available to all industry on the Internet. We [us and the Aliens] should make an effort to link our Internet with the alien Internet with automatic translation. This is in our defence national interest for unless we allow aliens to openly interact and visit earth without being attacked or controlled by the US military, alien civilizations may stay away or worse.

albertokang 26/07/10 08:33 AM Report Abuse

How do you plan to achieve this? Where will the Money be funded from?

Bev 26/07/10 01:43 PM Report Abuse

What a ghastly idea. There should be a minimum standard required - a minimum which is set rather high, not a lowest common denominator - of all teachers. If they can't spell, if they can't form a sentence properly, if they can't find China or Panama on a world map, if they can't name the Prime Minister of England or the Leader of the Opposition of Australia, they simply should not be teaching our children, full stop. We should be working towards a much higher standard in our teachers right across the board, not rewarding the "best". The obvious outcome of this is that all the "best" teachers would be snapped up by schools in wealthier areas, and we would end up with a double education system. What then would be proposed by the government: let's make pass marks lower in the lower socio-economic areas? You'd sure have to do that, because the standard of teaching there would obviously be lower.

What an appallingly rightist idea.

May 26/07/10 07:07 PM Report Abuse

Tertiary : University and Trade Training.

Moving Forward, its so reminiscent of that slogan, the American Democrats used during the Clinton administration, after the Lewinsky affair. MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action. Are the Labor party trying to suggest Kevin Rudd was one great big indiscretion, like Clinton: I thought that was Bob Hawke? The idea is that we don't look back, we go into a "deep sleep" on the trail behind, littered with ALP service disaster. I think instead of "forgetting" we should look back, even further, to the Dawkin's revolution. The Dawkins Revolution was a series of Australian tertiary education reforms instituted by the then Labor Education Minister (1987–92) John Dawkins in the Hawke and Keating administrations. The idea was to forget about what might be good for Australia and focus on how to keep the Labor party in power, forever. Some bright spark, must have been Barry Jones ( fall guy for everything ) decided the population had to be more educated, then they would vote Labor? Well how did that one go guys? They closed down all the tertiary training colleges and turned them into Universities. They applied slash and burn to Trade schools. Yes that's right, good excuse for skilled immigration, hey, because they decimated the skills base of Australia. They now are talking about skills training again, as if they invented it. You can do that sort of thing in fairy tales. I was reminded last night, in the debate, when I heard Julia Gillard's insincerity, laid on with a trowel, of the croaking witch in Snow white and the seven dwarfs, trying to coax snow white into eating the apple that would make her sleep for a hundred years. Similarly, the serpent in the Garden of Eden........I wonder if Tony Abbott, could be that Prince, who might waken "Australia" again to a new and better future?

may puttock 01/08/10 09:22 PM Report Abuse

I'm reversing the order of my next posts, because I'm getting profanity warnings again........and I just can't locate the hidden profanities????

may puttock 01/08/10 09:27 PM Report Abuse

No the posts are not being accepted again.

What to do??

may puttock 01/08/10 09:30 PM Report Abuse

The Political parties, especially the ALP needs to get up to speed with the current Social Theory:

Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1977. So what you might say? Well, the point is it completely transformed all social theory, the transformation is a work in progress. Whether you realise it or not, the slogan, "Moving Forward" is an exemplar of Prigogine's opus! "Moving Forward" is to Prigogine, what E=MC2 is to Einstein.

Prigogine's book, "The End of Certainty" explains that determinism is no longer a viable scientific belief. He re-itroduces the arrow of time to physics and progresses to chaos theory and the concept that we are always making order out of chaos. This theory has had a huge impact on all social sciences, systems and theory.

Under this theory we know the irrelevance of pointing to a person's beliefs in the old epoch, we are in transition out of that epoch. Tony Abbott's religious beliefs 20 years ago, do not and can never define him in the current context. He has "moved on" to a new gestalt. We are all collectively in social evolution and it is absolutely "correct" that we change our minds and that we transform over time.

The point that I have been making about the Dawkin's Education revolution is that, Prigogine's ideas were " PEAKING" in fashion-ability then. The ALP set out to capture the future vote with the Dawkins plan, to destroy manufacturing and trade training and set in place the building blocks of universal University education, seeking to ride a wave into the future. But, as Prigogine warned the future cannot be determined, just as Climate cannot be determined by models, the World is a chaotic system and any ordering is time dependant and will inevitably collapse.

Bev 01/08/10 09:53 PM Report Abuse

Here's an idea, Mr Pyne: how about reading the comments which people make on this and other threads? Perhaps then you could explain why people such as May and myself get told to review our comments and "remove any profanities", when they contain no such things? I have had this happen on a few of these "Comments" pages, also being asked to remove swear words, and again my posts contain no swear words.

I really hate to quote a famous redhead, but: please explain.

allan 03/08/10 11:27 AM Report Abuse

Julia Gillard's policy on education seems to have been cleverly pushed into the background. Her record in relation to the development of league tables as a result of the implementation of the MySchools website is atrocious. If you are interested in an educated point of view then read the comments about the myths of MySchool at the following site:
http://www.acsso.org.au/MySchoolMyths.pdf

allan 03/08/10 11:29 AM Report Abuse

I support the idea in principle, but who will decide what standards the teachers need to reach in order to receive higher incomes. Once again popular teachers who give out lollys will receive the respect of their studentsa and the subsequent respect of their principals. I'd better start buying more sweets.

StJoesTech 03/08/10 12:20 PM Report Abuse

The plan seems to be get rid of it then panic when you realise you should have kept it. Some good Technical Schools (both Government & Catholic) have been closed while poorer ones were amalgamated. Computers may be the way but who makes them? Who lays the the NBN or Cells? Who widens the Westgate? Who fixes the leaky tap or wires the solar panels? Who fixes my car when it won't start?
What is the Liberal policy on new Tech's?
www.stjoestech.org.au

Alison 04/08/10 07:21 PM Report Abuse

The way to improve our education standards is to lower student numbers in grades 1 to 3 to only 15 students. This will ensure that students receive increased attention and achieve strong foundation learning. This strategy would also increase teacher and teacher aide numbers. In addition, more classrooms would require building therefore helping the building industry.

Michelle Finch 07/08/10 07:52 PM Report Abuse

Paying performing teachers is a great idea ONLY if the criteria is fair. Instead of measurement against subjective or ambiguous outcomes how about a large part of performance is based on a student and teacher survey? If the kids and their parents are happy, a teacher must be doing something right! I am a teacher and an excellent teacher, but I would not like to be paid increases based on grades or learning outcomes, given that rural schools often face challenges that negate high grades and other curriculum issues. The real concern is to FAIRLY measure teacher performance.

may puttock 09/08/10 12:13 PM Report Abuse

This is a post I prepared for the ALP, but it is important that we remind ourselves that voting Coalition is more important than just for the economy.

I have placed this post in the ALP School chaplancy thread, the Debt thread and "No school, No play", which I think is a disasterous policy.

How timely were my remarks on Globalization yesterday?

Well, you may not know that Bruce Grant, co-author of Gareth Evans book, AUSTRALIA'S FORIEGN RELATIONS, gets a guensey in the Faifax press today. ie This is the ALP view, front line and centre. This is the Kevin Rudd, Stephen Smith, Julia Gillard view: The crux of this article is here:------ “The cluster of global institutions such as the United Nations and its agencies do not have direct access to the world's people, who remain under the control of 200 or so national governments.”

The significance of this, is that the UN Rights cabal want to displace STATES, altogether, they want to Institute, by Treaty, Legislation and sanctions, UN Rights over everything.

-----We the people don’t want universalist, one size fits all, UN Rights displacing our responsibility to be descent people, descent human beings. We do not want to be treated as children------The more Human RIGHTS, as Legislation displaces the Individual’s personal responsibility to do the RIGHT THING, the more the community will breakdown.

Personal responsibility is at the heart of what it is to be human, it is at the source of all great Literature and Art, take that away and the creative spirit of humanity is broken, it dies. You have taken away, what it means to be human-----We cannot let this happen.

------We must fight against these universalist and Absolutist bodies like the UN. We must fight against hollow people like Kevin Rudd et al. We have been fighting the simple, one size fits all mentality, throughout the whole 20th Century. We fought off communism and we must continue the fight. The Absolutist tendencies, of Communism are alive and well in the new UN inspired Rights Bodies.



http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/turning-our-backs-on-the-world-20100808-11q5z.html

may puttock 09/08/10 03:10 PM Report Abuse

The ALP have a schools Policy called NO SCHOOL NO PLAY. It is getting criticism from a few, including me. You may not agree with my appraoach, but at least you can appreciate my tongue in cheek comments. I hope!

My generic posts, with the Masterchef Moniker seem unintelligle to Robert Stephendon. I put them in various places hoping someone will get the connection?

---- I'm sorry, its just that I think this policy shows a complete lack of understanding-----I have to say again, the ALP just does not GET IT!

If someone loves their sport, but avoids school, you don't punish them. Heaven forfend!!Where do you get ideas like this? Like I've been saying, in completely different and various contexts, you can never have a one size fits all approach.

If someone loves sport, this expresses who they are, this says that they are a happy joyful person who has an interest in something----it may not be the thing you want them to focus on---This is where excellent teaching skills and one on one teaching comes in-----Schools need to be flexible enough for the child who has a different learning style, who is progressing at a different rate.

The last thing you do is punish them for the very thing they love. Frankly for me, the whole school, merit tables is just a disaster for kids, who don't fit the mould. Often the kid who does not fit the mould is the diamond in the rough.

You have to think beyond this MySchool mentality. A really talented teacher, can use that love of sport to introduce other disciplines. Haven't any of you seen those "feel good" films about the talented teacher breaking through?-----It can happen, if you allow a more flexible approach, if you have enough staff for a "one on one"approach, from time to time. Not just a specialed teacher, but the "creative" teacher.----If you have teachers who really CARE and for whom teaching is a challenge and a Love.You cannot have time servers teaching kids. GOOD TEACHING IS A PASSION.

Get real or get off the block.

I'm beginning to think if you lot were really "personally responsible", you would put up the white flag and say, "Okay, you got us, its true, We are clueless".........and you all just walked away, and said, "We are throwing in the towel, because we know Australians deserve better than this, we are going to " Do the right thing and resign and let the other team see if they can do better".

Wouldn't that be great, if people accepted when they have got it wrong, with good grace------

and let someone else have a go?

Concerned 10/08/10 02:56 AM Report Abuse

MOWBRAY College has again fallen foul of Fair Work Australia.

A decision issued last week found the college had breached its legal obligations to employees by failing to consult them about major changes and redundancies.

Debra James, general secretary of the Victorian Independent Education Union, which covers all teaching and non-teaching staff at the college, said it seemed Mowbray was continuing its poor form of 2009.

“They were the first Victorian independent school in 170 years to incite industrial action - a dubious honour - when they failed to back-pay staff as committed to,” she said.

“Now the college is engaging in sham consultation by talking with staff after major decisions have already been made.”

Ms James claims Mowbray has already made five leadership positions redundant and had called meetings with canteen staff and cleaners to discuss cost-saving initiatives, including contracting work out.

Fair Work found Mowbray failed to meet its legal obligations on a number of counts, including:Consulting far too late, when final decisions had already been made;

Only consulting with those in redundant positions, when required to consult all staff affected by change;

Refusing to recognise the union as the representative of employees; and

Failing to provide relevant information to the union.

Mowbray College principal Margaret Goddard would not comment specifically on the Fair Work findings. But she said the college was undertaking a restructure to consolidate and enhance its academic and pastoral leadership.

“Mowbray College is entering a new era and embraces the future with a fresh leadership team committed to improvements at the college for the benefit of our students, our staff and the entire school community,” she said.

Educator 10/08/10 09:55 AM Report Abuse

I do not believe in both the Coalition and Labor party's idea of raising teacher's salary depending on their student's grades. Any teacher would know that depending on the socio-economic area that you teach in, it can be either easier or harder to teach. I believe that this initiative would discourage good teachers from going to low socio economic areas that actually need the best teachers, as it is harder to get the same outcome there than in high socio-economic areas. If you want to raise the standards in education, raise the ENTER score for VCE students to get into Teaching, reassess the University courses for education, stop spending money on the buildings and spend money on children welfare officers in schools.

Mel 10/08/10 05:57 PM Report Abuse

The teachers get enough!!
simply more schools are needed as class numbers are average 32in my area,how can teachers possibly deliver better education in these conditions.
My son struggles in all aspects of education and because of this he is neglected to some degree with the huge classes.
Get the numbers down in classes and then concentrate on rewarding the teachers.

Bev 10/08/10 10:43 PM Report Abuse

Is 32 really considered a huge class? What age group are we talking here?

Mel 11/08/10 12:16 PM Report Abuse

All grades in primary school and have heard The high schools much the same!!!(my daughter attending ther next year!)
When your child struggles and you hear the teachers say we don't have time for him and his needs,Would you be conserned???!!
The schools prinicipal has admitted they are "huge classes"!!
Iam currently looking into private schooling as all the money goes there and maybe my son may have some chance at a good education.
But i'm wasting my breath really as pollies don't listen 1 iota!!!! may as well be sending this mail to the brick wall standing beside me!!!

Thuan Le 13/08/10 07:07 PM Report Abuse

The way Julia Gillard suggests people to become teachers is unacceptable. Everyone should be trained properly to become a teacher, otherwise they will not be qualified to teach.

Mark Smith 16/08/10 10:27 AM Report Abuse

Doubts about school computer use:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4032737.stm

This study would indicate access to technology in itself does not
improve education outcomes.

So Labors insistence investing vast sums of money in enabling access
to computers will improve education outcomes is really a fallacy. Clearly the study would indicate the provision of computers can in fact be a hindrance to optimal education outcomes.

So investing billions of dollars in a Technology system simply because
it is the fastest available at the time without investing in the capacity of future generations to utilize the technology effectively is really a wasted effort.

As we know technology is not a panacea for the lack of good teachers.

Unless the education institutions are able to invest firstly in having sufficient qualified dedicated teachers to guide students in achieving their potential what is the use of having the fastest broadband and a computer in every student’s hand?

Also so what if we have the fastest broadband and we lack the means to
exploit it because we have invested all our wealth in the Technology itself whats the use.

Clearly there has to be a balanced approach which accounts for the
fact new technology is of little use unless it can be utilised effectively.

Clearly we need more qualified inspiring teachers and tutors from primary to university if we are going to create enough enthusiasm in our children for addressing the critical shortages we have in science and mathematics.

John Cochrane 29/09/10 08:29 AM Report Abuse

Without intending any offence to other members here, I think Julia Gillard's National Curriculum is a disaster for Australia. NSW has a K-12 curriculum which has the highest standard in the country and the H.S.C. is of the highest standard, ranking just below the International Baccalaureate. Julia Gillard was boasting about how great it is to reintroduce the teaching of traditional grammar. N.S.W. schools have been doing this for about ten years. A dumbed down national curriculum would have a knock of effect on our universities (which are already dumbed down to a certain extent) which would have to teach in First Year what was not taught in schools. I also believe that the national curriculum is politically biased with a left-wing bent. If there is to be a national curriculum, much more debate and scrutiny is needed.

Loris Hemlof 28/10/10 03:47 AM Report Abuse

I strongly believe in a 10% levy on corporate revenue for sponsorship of the payers choice of free private child education, care, and boarding school. The commercial corporate sponsor / private school relationship, is the best manager of building construction and developer of custom curriculum to create real productive private sector workers.

Barry 09/11/10 10:35 AM Report Abuse

The NSW HSC has been so dumbed down that HSC Physics as an example, hardly contains any calculations to be made. Instead HSC Physics has questions in it like "Explain the effect of the scientist on society". If the NSW HSC is indeed the best that Australia can offer, we are a joke. Let us have a National Curiculum under Labor and then when the Coalition get in, revise it to make it decent. That way we will not have to worry about individual Labor State Governments messing up their kids education. (One 16 year old girl in NSW asked me where England was. I told her "Next to France" and she gave me a blank look. Another 16 year old NSW boy did not know when to write "there" instead of "their").

Michael 17/02/11 11:20 PM Report Abuse

I must admit, this is a bit concerning for me. I have been involved, and worked in schools, and can see this system getting abused. My reasons are as follows;
1. By whose standard of 'good'?
2. Would a principal reward those who he deems to be friends, or use higher pay to coerce teachers into a position that they are not willing to take?
3. This has the ability to corrode the professional relationship between school admin and teachers. In seeking the best education for students, this working relationship needs to be maintained through honesty, responsibility and professionalism seeking the best for children who are our future generations.

Is it really wise to promote better education by rewarding teachers according to a principal's varied judgment?

In my desire to become a teacher the pay is not concerning me and I know that I will have to work hard to achieve the same high standard set before many teachers. I have a love for knowledge and learning and look forward to this challenge! It is an honour to be given the chance to teach other people valuable skills. What does concern me is not having a curriculum that meets the needs of 21st century learners and a principal who cannot lead and take the authority entrusted to him to help teachers make the most of the time they spend with children, ensuring a quality education. I just hope throwing money into the mix will not be like throwing fuel on a fire. Haven't we already seen this with the Rudd/Gillard Government?

Mervyn Jacobi 04/05/11 07:03 AM Report Abuse

Having been one of the people who have been disadvantaged because of the standard of living enforced on the workers over the last forty years, I have to say that better education should have been achieved forty or fifty years ago, so the politicians over the last forty years at least, would have had a better grasp of intelligence and hopefully integrity, then we would not have these times of recession and workers with their families, losing their homes as they couldn't afford the mortgage. These lawyer treasurers don't know how to organise a tax system to ensure that our top salaries are held at respectable level and our workers can receive a reasonable wage and live with reasonable living conditions. No treasurer over the last forty years has been intelligent enough to do that, Liberal/National or Labor.

MK 04/06/11 05:59 PM Report Abuse

The last of my 4 children has just finished VCE. The 4 of them were educated in Victoria and NSW. They have managed to achieve in spite of state systems that reward mediocrity. Students are passed at VCE level and marks are altered by principals fraudulently; this makes a mockery of education in this country. Teachers are loathe to fail students regardless of how disruptive and unsuccessful they have been at school. The education system is a tragic JOKE. No discipline. The teachers are caught between parents and students with a massive feeling of entitlement to their rights, and principals who are ingratiating themselves to a system which tolerates no real disagreement with the central planners in Canberra or the capital cities. This is what years of Labor state government has left us with. This is the practical reality. Teachers who do not tow the line are ostracised and may lose their jobs. Emergency teachers are not invited back.

MK 04/06/11 06:03 PM Report Abuse

I am not a teacher, however, the 32 students referred to above is a large amount. Go into a class and have a look at the dysfunctional ferals the teachers must deal with. I have come across parents who breathe a sigh of relief when the children they can't control come to the end of the holidays and go back to the teachers to baby sit.

Ricardo3399 03/08/11 10:07 AM Report Abuse

The new National Cirriculum will be a success or failure not because of the program that hopefully will be put in place but rather the content of what will be taught. Have seen a draft of it and it doesn't look good.
Students in my school have the worst writing skills I have seen because of the insistence of using technology to complete set pieces of work. The push for the Ultranet to be used in reporting and to set work. What of those students and their families who do not have access to a computer? It remains to be seen whether the current Minister will dole out computers for every child.
Current administration is shabby at best.

Maxbj 10/08/11 03:12 PM Report Abuse

We need to introduce political science into our primary education so that our young receive an open education into politics, governments, mps and policies of parties.

As they become more knowledeable they will then make educated choices when they are of voting age.

Presently the uneducated working under some union pressure and mis information hold the key, not forgetting the many unfortunate voters that fall into the charismatic trap that some politicians emenate ,and once again have no idea of the party policies.
Voting should not be compulsory, only the dedicated and concerned voters in our community should be able to make a difference. Or lets make the first woman prime minister.??? No wonder we are in the poo................

Jillian Maclure 19/08/11 11:12 AM Report Abuse

I beg of you READ this and DO IT IN AUSTRALIA .... PLease

Holland kills the multiculturalism that is killing it

HERALD SUN ^| Monday, June 27, 2011 | Andrew Bolt
Posted on Saturday, August 13, 2011 12:42:40 PM by Fred Nerks
The Netherlands, where six per cent of the population is now Muslim, is scrapping multiculturalism:
The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands.
A new integration bill (covering letter and 15-page action plan), which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: “The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society.”
The letter continues: “A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own citizens. It is necessary because otherwise the society gradually grows apart and eventually no one feels at home anymore in the Netherlands...”
The new integration policy will place more demands on immigrants. For example, immigrants will be required to learn the Dutch language, and the government will take a tougher approach to immigrants to ignore Dutch values or disobey Dutch law.
The government will also stop offering special subsidies for Muslim immigrants because, according to Donner, “it is not the government’s job to integrate immigrants.” The government will introduce new legislation that outlaws forced marriages and will also impose tougher measures against Muslim immigrants who lower their chances of employment by the way they dress. More specifically, the government will impose a ban on face-covering Islamic burqas as of January 1, 2013.

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.news.com.au ...

Rebecca 22/08/11 10:37 PM Report Abuse

So how exactly do you propose to evaluate staff? By how much the kids learn?

I'm actually Pro- paid by ability to teach, rather than an arbitrary (and proven false) payment on time served. But there are inherent problems with an 'outcomes based' system.

So where are your 'liberal' ideas then? Every child is different, learns at different rates, and has the freedom of choice to ignore a teacher, not do homework, abuse school staff, the list goes on.

So a teacher can expect that in a society going the way it is now, they'll be paid less and less for more and more work?

Maija 21/09/11 02:17 PM Report Abuse

You need to qualify your idea of 'best teacher'. Sometimes it is not the one teacher, but the collective sum that contributes best to the learning of the child. If you were the poor nfortunate to get one of the lower streamed classes, where the average mark is a D or E - on what basis are you rated? Are you rated on whether the whole class passes, or improves their marks or whether the student likes you as a teacher? How are you then rated against your peers who have classes that are streamed in the upper eschaleon? Is this comparable? Do parent or student ratings come into play? What if you are the teacher who has to teach outside or their subject area - if you a specialist music teacher and now has to teach maths? What if you contribute to extra-curricula activities - sport, socials, debating - does this rate?

Alicia86 06/10/11 04:54 PM Report Abuse

This idea may put unhealthy pressure on teachers! Give them a good curriculum to work with, show them positive teaching methods, but give them a bit of space to breath and don't add to the pressures they already have! If a teacher continuously is getting sub standard grades for their students maybe then assess their capabilities as a teacher.
I would have loved to have learnt about past inventions, such as the compass and early navigation, instead of mainly Math and English in Primary School. Have inspiring content that will gain the young minds attention. Have variety, study Math, English but balance it out with History and Science.

tombrown 19/11/11 06:04 PM Report Abuse

What exactly is it that teachers teach?Absolutley nothing they just get away with minimum standards,indoctrinate with leftard bullshit,and then kick em out on the street with no idea of how to get a job or what is required to get a job,Old maija is a classic,we need more money so we can teach more betterer,and turn bogan kids into um,um,leftards!

dfordoom 13/01/12 05:18 PM Report Abuse

Our present education system is a system of political indoctrination, not education. It exists in order to produce more Labor voters. Political content needs to be entirely removed from the classroom. We should not be subjecting children to propaganda about so-called global warming and multi-culturalism. That's the simple reason standards are so low - teachers must be forced to stick to teaching.