Comment on yesterday's posts about the Queensland education meltdown

(From Education Unbound)

Recent reports out of Brisbane concerning the poor literacy standards of Queensland Year 7 students should make all parents sit up and take notice, but there is more to the story and the official responses to it than just the issue of poor literacy.

Colin Lamont who has had experience both as a teacher and as Queensland chairman of the Australian Council of Educational Standards has put his finger on the real issue when he lays the blame squarely on educational bureaucrats and not the teachers. This is not to say that teachers are all perfect. Many who went through the system in the later 70's and 80's were themselves products of a flawed education, but on the whole most teachers try hard and let's be honest they are teaching primary and secondary kids here not university students. So why is there so much fuss about teacher standards? Because it deflects attention from the real masters of the system and the real culprits in the mess that is public education - the educational nomenclature in their ivory towers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane etc. What made the Sunday Mail test so relevant is that its marking was not controlled by the bureaucracy and so could not be massaged to hide the failings of the system.

Make no mistake - it is the system that is at fault not teachers as a group. The response of the Education Minister was clearly written for him by a member of his Department. It is designed to soothe and reassure that the Department is doing something about literacy but that in general all is well in the cloud-cuckoo land of state education. Likewise the response of the Teacher's Union reflects only the cosy relationship of the leadership of that group with the Department. Both have a vested interest in things as they are. Both will screw the actual teachers in the front line as the easiest scapegoats. When I was growing up, "professional" meant working "autonomously" today it means keeping your mouth shut about the failures of the system. The failure of the current Education System is systemic not individual. It is time we got rid of bureaucrats and employed more teachers to teach basic knowledge that kids can use to access other areas of life. Education is about opening doors not giving guided tours.

(For more postings from me, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and DISSECTING LEFTISM. Email me (John Ray) here.)

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments containing Chinese characters will not be published as I do not understand them