Australian Education: Proposed Changes are Big Trouble

Last night SBS had an edition of their usually excellent ‘Insight‘ program, where people involved in a modern issue come to say their piece in an attempt to deliver and overall balanced snap shot of the story.  Last night was based on the issue of the creation of ‘League Tables’ and transparency within the Australian education system.  Present was Australian Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard who also serves as Minister of Education.  For those who are not in the know, the current Australian Federal Government want to basically overhaul the existing education system and make it considerably more like the United States and United Kingdom models, which is an incredibly bad thing, but you would not realise that from the somewhat one sided presentation given by Insight.

Australian Labour: Also No Clue on Education

I have commented before how the previous Australian Federal Government had little to no clue about how to run an effective education sector (here, here, here, here and here).  Sadly it would seem that the current Federal Government is just as bad, trying to introduce measures which are, to say the least, expressly counter productive to the desired goals.  Julia Gillard has come out and said that schools will be compared to each other and the results published for the public to see.  Why is this a bad idea? Why will it only cause problems?  Read on!

Australia Internet Filter: List Leaked

For those who may have missed it, the Australia Federal Government are currently trying to introduce mandatory internet filters to the entire country.  Ignoring the technical side of things, which in themselves are ludicrous, the ethical and democratic arguments certainly bury the idea for any sort of rationally thinking person.

MP James Bidgood: Nuttier Than A Fruitcake

This fruitcake, ironically, has no nuts in it

James Bidgood is a member of parliament for the Australian Federal Government and over the past couple of days, it has been shown that he grip on reality may be tenous at best.  The first scandal he has been involved in involved him taking a photo of a protester about to set himself on fire and sold it to the media.  Now that by itself might be a minor story about expectations of Politician’s behaviour but far from real actual news of any real note.  But it now seems that Bidgood is no stranger to odd behaviour as reported by The Australian, where Bidgood is on record as stating that the World’s current financial troubles are the direct work of the Judeo-Christian God.  That’s right, Yahweh has entered the stock market game and he’s pissed!

Compulsory University Fees

A while back the John Howard led Federal Liberal Government did away with Cumpolsory Student Union fees right across all Australian Universities.  At the time, 80% of students surveyed said they disagreed with this decision and it was very unpopular both with University management and students alike.  Still, Howard did not listen and went ahead with it anyhow.  The result was clear, as I have previously noted, and University support services were savaged and student associations collapsed.  Now the Federal Labour Government has gone part of the way to fix this mistake.

Professor Peter Mortimore: Not ignorant about education

Professor Peter Mortimore has come out and released a pretty stern warning regarding the Australian Federal Government’s proposed educational reforms and I find that I fully agree with what he says.  Of course, any person involved in any modern educational facility can easily see the proposed reforms really make little sense (as I’ve noted previously) but let us see what the good Professor says.