It is all very well to ask “what facts should be taught” and doubtless one can argue forever in some subjects in the humanities. However, in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, there is a highly applicable body of facts, (such as Newton’s laws of motion) which are unlikely to change over the period of ones career.

They are even necessary to explain why a jet engine works. And always will be.

However, in Qld’s latest Physics syllabus, there is no stipulation that they should be taught, and certainly no guide to what depth they might be taught.

It therefore rests upon the school to choose what will be taught, and choice is a good thing if it is a real choice. However I cannot chose anything but the QLD system because that is where I live. There is no choice associated with the half a dozen state systems teaching different stuff. There is only difference. The choice associated with different schools in my district teaching different stuff is open to me because I live in a city where there are a few schools. However, in many country areas there will only be one school to choose and my kids syllabus is then determined by what a particular teacher feels like. I have no choice. Instead the choice goes to a single person who is likely to have no idea what is important and what is not.

Further, I may be able to choose to which school I send my kids based on what is taught because I have a fair academic grasp of many subjects, and can, if I wish, check out each schools work programmes for all the subjects my child may take. Will all parents be able to do that? Should they have to do that?

Is it really too much to ask that in the hard sciences and mathematics, a basic list of fundamental laws and processes be taught? We mustn’t be too prescriptive, but we seem to have gone from one extreme to another.

My kids say that the outcome based curriculum creates an environment where the teacher often expects the kids to already know the outcomes expected for their year and that teachers get irritated and annoyed when kids dont as it mucks things up for them.

It makes it very unfair when competing in a class where many are being coached and tutored outside of school and attend school for the purpose of and to compete.

An outcomes based curriculum would only work if everybody in the class was at the exact same level at the same time and had the same needs that needed to be met.

What we need to do is to stop making our children compete for their education and make it a little bit more engaging, relevant and fair.

The writer needs to do a little more study of liberalism and he'll find that liberals have always been in favour of the Enlightenment approach to education. The reason is that without an adequate grasp of the body of a subject area, there is no real choice.

That lack of choice impacts more heavily on poorer people than richer ones, who can always afford tutors or private schools that will do the job of educating properly. Liberals have always been concerned most with the least fortunate in society.

I think Kevin D goes over the top a bit. There's nothing wrong with asking students to interpret Shakespeare from a Marxist point of view, although there is a problem if that is the only thing they are asked to do. But there's a lot more wrong with proposing, as this writer does, that the periodic table is some sort of optional extra. You're left back with the ancient Greeks if you don't understand how atoms are put together, and in a world like that, jet engines aren't possible and his grandfather was right!

Well said GrahamY! It is clear that, as opposed to Goldstein, you actually know something about education. A central issue, leaving aside Goldsteins palpable ignorance of maths and the physical sciences, is that it is the formal education system - the schools - responsibility to empower children from lower socio-economic backgrounds to take a full part in the world they live, and will live in. A majority of children do not come from a highly educated background. They do not, for example, have a grandfather who was an engineer. Current fashionable syllabi make no attempt whatsoever to ensure that children of all backgrounds receive an education that provides the central knowledge and understandings that are essential for informed decision making. Furthermore by far the biggest determinants of, for example, employment, unemployment and even ENTER outcomes are numeracy and literacy. It is the schools responsibility to provide those. It is the responsibility of the various Boards of Study to ensure that central ideas, content, understandings and skills are clearly stated in the syllabi.

The syllabi and associated assessment structures fail to meet any of the basic requirements: Defined, Reliable and Verifiable.

At present we have the spectacle of some students not having any formal teaching at all - ever. All they get is one assignment after another. Even Goldstein ought to be able to work out that that further disadvantages students from lower socio economic backgrounds.

But that does not worry Goldstein, he's alright Jack.

It appears to be the case that Goldsteins lack of education experience combined with gross ignorance are in inverse proportion to his arrogance.

Phrase such as 'Soviet-style centralisation, pre-fabricated experience, laundry list of facts, fossilised body of prescribed content' and 'politburo' are quite inappropriate from the academy.

Oh, I forgot, he is in a faculty of education

Most employers do not want critical thinkers.. ESPECIALLY in engineering as here exists much scope for it.

They want people that can do the job and fit in with the rest.

I feel the education system is drifting further and further away from this.

Robots, you mean, Savoir68? Interchangeable tools which do as they're told and aren't able to think on their feet? Is this what the Enlightenment was intended to produce?