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The Forum > Article Comments > Australia, a clever country? Education and life chances > Comments

Australia, a clever country? Education and life chances : Comments

By Janet Taylor, published 9/4/2010

Less than a third of young people gain university qualifications so it's important support is provided for non-university pathways.

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If less than a third of Australians have a university legislation, that’s a very good thing. University is obviously important for in the practical professions: engineering, law, medicine, economics, accounting and so on.

However, too many university students are wasting their time and taxpayers’ money on piddling degrees which do more harm than good for them and society.

The easy-option students are the ones who take humanities and the like: the ones who come out perpetuating dangerous, often downright false, Left dogma. Look at history – students are bound to the garbage put out by hard-Left academics. If they don’t re- produce what these uncontrolled tyrants want, they fail. This filters down to kids at school through graduate teachers, and hence we get the loony-Left opinions and interpretations – opinions and interpretations of history, not history itself – that constantly appear in public discussion, leading to the History Wars which still continue as the arrogant old warriors and fabricators battle for their fading images and reputations which, to them, are more important than the truth.

A relatively small proportion of useful occupations need to be backed by a university education. We need productive people who actually provide what society needs and wants.

Adam Smith described universities as having “…chosen to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices found shelter and protection after they had been hunted out of every other corner of the world.”

Not much has changed since the 18th Century.
Posted by Leigh, Friday, 9 April 2010 2:01:39 PM
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"to “invest” in education and training resources to: provide appropriate learning opportunities for all young people, including those with low academic achievement and learning difficulties; ensure affordable schooling and further training that does not exclude those on low incomes; and provide adequate income support for young people from low-income families to allow full participation in education and training." would cost lots more money Janet, money that would have to be raised via increased taxes or re-allocated from one of the myriad worthy and un-worthy groups, communities and organizations already in receipt of large amounts of largesse handed over each and every year by our well-rewarded 'executive' public servants ... sorry, Public MANAGERS and our senior 'people's representatives' who rubber stamp such allocations behind the closed doors of a Cabinet.

Whilst I have no doubt that you and your colleagues at the Brotherhood sincerely believe that "a clever country is a compassionate country" - along with many other fair-minded Australians, such a view is not shared by the wealthy individuals (and their families) who profit from the billions of $$$ of Corporate Welfare handed over every year to the 'executive' employees of large national and many foreign corporations, and the billions more wasted on 'defence' equipment (sometimes obsolete and un-reliable) used to kill un-armed and innocent civilians in far-off countries with no prior grudge, proven hostility or threat towards our nation.

Many of these individuals hold university credentials in the arcane, self-styled professions of accounting and economics, 'professions' that have brought enormous social divisions and human suffering to our modern world, something that the often selectively mis-quoted Scottish Moral Philosopher, Adam Smith, would have found anathema
Posted by Sowat, Friday, 9 April 2010 6:22:18 PM
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Nice rant, Leigh. I guess you didn't get into uni when you were young.

Did you actually read the article, which is as much about increasing participation in TAFE and apprenticeships as it is about university education?
Posted by CJ Morgan, Saturday, 10 April 2010 7:39:53 AM
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Australia, a clever country?
If we change the present education system, maybe ?
Posted by individual, Saturday, 10 April 2010 9:37:25 AM
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Well said CJ. Those were my thoughts as well as soon as I saw that post!
Posted by David Jennings, Saturday, 10 April 2010 2:07:42 PM
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Sadly some comments prove the old adage, "You can lead a child to wisdom but you can't make them smart".
Posted by examinator, Saturday, 10 April 2010 3:45:43 PM
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"Less than a third of young people gain university qualifications so it's important support is provided for non-university pathways." Janet

Circa one-third is a perhaps too high an enrolment, if we regard university education as truly "advanced" education. In past decades only 15% of the population were capable of surviving university courses. More recently,university entrance has become less competive and course work has been dumbed down. Being able to demonstrate a knowledge of often only a single text book and basic competences using a template is not higher education. I suggest the previous standard is apt for a clever country.
Posted by Oliver, Saturday, 10 April 2010 6:10:41 PM
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Education is not the key to wisdom & knowledge, it is merely a vehicle. Why ? Because education is a bookshelf provided by our predecessors, it is not new knowledge. New knowledge comes from those few who contribute to stacking this bookshelf with new information not by those who read the books & put them back again. Far too many believe that mere learning & passing exams makes them intelligent. That's the big mistake upon which the so-called intellectuals of today base their philosophies. It's a bit like building a brick house, you don't achieve anything with just a few bricks, but if you add more bricks you end up with a house. Learning without having any concept of how to apply the acquired knowledge is like revving the motor without engaging a gear. You use up fuel & get no-where. We're wasting valuable resources & talent with this indoctrinated stupid notion that education is the key to everything. It is merely one a whole bunch of keys. Have you ever wondered why so many educated people are so utterly stupid ? Because they only know what they've been taught !
Posted by individual, Monday, 12 April 2010 6:29:41 AM
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We could start by subsidising to students all their texts, and providing adequate income support to students on a right-basis, regardless of their age, work history or parents' circumstances. It sounds like there's been a conservative and corporate backlash at easy access to tertiary education for the poor and the powers of society want to keep our egalitarian myth going while also undermining the ability of the poor, even poor and highly able, to study at university. The older generation owes us this. They chose to bring us into the world, yet supported and developed policies that would undermine advancement opportunities for those without resources or family support to study. Also while opening the floodgates to the worlds tired, poor huddled masses and selling off uni places to the highest offshore bidders who use them to buy residency.
Posted by Inner-Sydney based transsexual, indigent outcast progeny of merchant family, Monday, 12 April 2010 9:40:32 AM
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Its actually the foreign students who subsidise the continued education of the Australian students. the local Aussie students are the Asian man's burden....
Posted by David Jennings, Monday, 12 April 2010 9:51:44 AM
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