The “Education Revolution”
As a parent I acknowledge that we all want our children to have the best start in life that we can give them. We want their schooling to give them the intellectual and physiological skill sets that will allow them to pursue any sort of career that they may desire. There is however a notion among both the Far left Greens and the Ruddites that a university degree should be part of every Childs education. These people would have it that a degree would be a prerequisite for every job; a manual labourer would just about require a degree in Ditchology to use a shovel in a drainage trench according to the Ruddites.
When I was at school many of my fellows left their education at 15 and actually learnt their professions as apprentices or they worked their way up through the ranks in the places of employment. Only a relatively small number completed the last two years of high school and then an even smaller number went on to partake in tertiary study. None the less as a society we managed to train enough doctors , lawyers scientists and academics to meet our needs.
Lets look at the sort of education that the Leftists really wants to see for our children at the three levels of our system.
At the primary level we have a large number of fans for the teaching of language with methods that result in children that can’t work out unfamiliar words, and who want to praise children for their every effort (or lack there off), no matter how they have understood the information, this ethos tells them that the child’s “self esteem “ is more important than their actual learning and understanding. They don’t want any sort of assessment or exams that might actually show what the child has learnt because they claim that it may harm the aforementioned “self esteem”. When their innovative teaching methods are shown not to produce better outcomes than that which the replace they still fight tooth and nail to retain them and usually they will complain that the failure is due to a lack of resources. Like wise it is the leftist that gave us for a period assessment schemes that were more like the dodo race in Alice in Wonderland than something to measure the progress of our children.
Once children reach High School the teachers, following the education union agenda, really try to do a number on the children working hard to ensure that they are indoctrinated with the leftist orthodoxy on the environment, ethics, politics, religion, sexuality, and lifestyle. In fact want to make all of their charges into copies of themselves. Now under the coalition government we have seen their worst excesses stridently resisted, “Outcomes based education” would still be abusing the children of Western Australia if the current federal government had not insisted that it stop. Despite some very vociferous objections the coalition Education ministers have worked very hard for common sense in the way that our children are taught at school.
The attitude to history is a good example. Under the leftist agenda as a nation that has grown from a British colony is something to actually be ashamed of, largely based upon the notion that the British “stole” the land from its indigenous people. So we have seen the story of this nation has been quietly ignored to become nothing more than an adjunct to more amorphous subjects like “people and society”. Even though our nation now comprises immigrants from all over the world it is important that all students have son understanding of how this nation came to be and just how the good and bad aspects of our society have resulted from what is a rather admirable struggle to forge a new kind of society on a largely empty land.
Under the Ruddite rule there will be nothing to stop the excesses of the education unions and we will see more disasters for our children like “outcomes based eduction.”. What is the point of giving every high school student a lap top computer if what they will learn on them is more of the leftist orthodoxy courtesy of the education unions?
Then we come to the matter of the “higher education sector” The aphorism that I am reminded of here is the old but still very true one that says “ those who can, do; those who cant teach. Our universities have become the refuge of the leftist ideologues, particularly in any of the humanities departments. The hard sciences and the engineering departments tend to be filled with far more pragmatic people. This however is not really what we should be considering here when it comes to what we want or need from tertiary education. Believe it or not I think that there is a great deal to recommend any scheme that allows any person in this country to attend a university. And the reality is that under the present regime just about anyone who has the ability and the determination can study at the university of his or her choice. The HECS scheme even ensures that if someone does not ultimately get a well paying job after their studies they will never have to pay back the debt. Let us however consider the necessity, incurring that debt in the first place.
The purpose of tertiary study should be to acquire skills that enable someone to undertake a profession. And hopefully become a valued member of our society. But It seems to me that far too many people end up with degrees that are ultimately only marginally useful in their lives or in their workplace. This is why I think that the Coalition’s emphasis on technical and trades focused education is so much better than just pumping more money into the Leftism factories that we call universities. We need more Doctors more scientists but we also need more plumbers and electricians. We don’t need every young person staying at school until they are in their late twenties and then being useless to any profession.
Make no mistake, the Ruddites may be offering an “Education Revolution” but the revolution that comes to mind is the “Cultural revolution” in China that proved to be a disaster that took many years to recover from and it devastated a whole generation of the Chinese.
Maybe that is why Ruddite brother number one is so fluent in mandarin….
Don’t take the risk Comrades.
8)


I’ve seen you produce some garbage, Iain, but fair dinkum this post takes the cake. You’ve managed to cram in every paranoid, bollocks conspiracy theory and cliche into one single post. All teachers are Marxist mind-benders, ‘those who can’t teach’, degrees for ditch-diggers, Rudd the Maoist and universities as “leftism factories”. It’s like you’ve tried to write a parody piece – except that I think you actually believe this stuff.
No wonder nobody comments here anymore.
You will just love tomorrows effort then Mark :grin:
Won’t be around to read it champ, I’ve got kids to indoctrinate. Ciao.
You are a good example of why voting should not be compulsory.
“Won’t be around to read it champ, I’ve got kids to indoctrinate.”
That moron is a teacher!! No wonder the kids are running about fawning over Kevin Rudd, you know if he (KRudd) was up on the Gold Coast right now, they’d call him a toolie.
And another thing, don’t you find it funny Iain, that so many leftists insist that we Conservatives are morons and can’t write and are whatever else they can think of that day, yet they keep coming back, over and over and over. It’s like they’re starved of attention or something, maybe feelings of inadequacy?
Sure MK
But I am prepared to give the ones who come to debate here at least some credit for being prepared to argue their case here or at any other conservative site. That at least takes a bit more courage than to confine themselves to venues like LP or Sear’s blog where it’s group think all the way.
It’s like they’re starved of attention or something, maybe feelings of inadequacy?
Personally, I just find it amusing.
And it’s a good idea to expose yourself to other political opinions, even if you do find them laughable.
Denial is a lovely human trait don’t you think grub? It allows you to deny reality and live in a tent of your own creation.
MK, the reason I drop in here occasionally is because I like to spend a little time each week or two mixing with an intellectual dwarf or two. And since you and Elijah both comment here, it’s like a one stop shop for meanness and stupidity.