Actually you are not quite right David Jennings when you say "Australia has a 99% adult literacy rate."

For some time I have been involved in adult literacy and it is given that some 50% of Australian adults have some degree of illiteracy. Anywhere from partial to total. This is a figure that is not generally realised. I have often found it interesting to observe the number of adults in a doctors waiting room, for instance, who never pick up anything to read. Instead a great proportion just sit there and do nothing. Perhaps this is some indication of an inability to read the written word. People who can't read go to great lengths to disguise this fact of course.

Correct/Factual Snake. And...we are all unique with our own intelligence, talents and skills therefore never to be rated!

I followed the link to the ABS study and I agree that on its own terms it does suggest a 99% literacy rate. Whether that is literate enough to be highly successful is another question.

Ozzie (aka my stalker), you're wrong by about 20K. I won't tell you which way though.
I'm so glad that this is an anonymous site. It would suck to meet a creep like you.

David Jennings
If you dig a little deeper, you will find that the Australian Bureau of Statistics survey is closely related to the International Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey.

When comparing similar countries, (and it has been done), the Australian education system is very mediocre indeed.

When 30% of the workforce in Tasmania is now classed as being illiterate, and other states are not much better, it does make one wonder about the state of the education system, that so often likes to describe itself as being “excellent”.

And who taught the teachers to teach so many students to be illiterate and innumerate? The universities taught the teachers to teach so many students to be illiterate and innumerate.

And who originally taught the parents who had the children who are now illiterate and innumerate? The teachers originally taught the parents who had the children who are now illiterate and innumerate.

I rest my case, (unless you wish to proceed).

Rehtcub,

People such as real estate agents and solicitors take money from someone, extract a percentage for their own bank accounts, and pass the remainder on.

They produce nothing, export nothing, and generate no wealth. They are feeders and not producers, and you can’t run a country for very long if most of the people in it are feeders.

As for “smart heads” verses “a good set of hands”, modern companies now want both. They want smart heads AND a good set of hands.

I know that many academics consider themselves to be “white collar” and somehow elite, but seek employment in a new greenfield site and you will quickly learn that there is no such thing as white collar / blue collar at those sites, because it is TOO INEFFICIENT.

White collar / blue collar is old school, (or old university), and to retain the notion of “white collar” shows how elitist and archaic most of the universities in Australia actually are.

Please stay awake and get with it, (before its too late).

But if real estate agents and lawyers don't add value then why do people pay them? The fact is that they have a skill set that adds value to a transaction, be it drafting a workable contract or making a house saleable.

There is also an obvious circularity in Vanna's argument against teachers. The teachers are bad, the teachers taught the parents, then the parents taught the children... but who taught the teachers? The academics!! But who taught the academics ... well..
The education sector is a little bit more complicated than that. Its easy to run down teachers.

Grim if the median wage is $37,500 then yes we do have to 'mind the gap' because it would be hard to pay off a mortgage on that income. It would be hard to pay off most mortgages on $75,000.

Still if the starting salary is now about $54,000, then yes that is above median wage, but its still below average wage. It also means that after ten years they've only added $21,000 to their wage. But surely in most cases their skills and experience have increased a lot more. The other issue is how would you get the smartest Australian graduates to go into teaching? Leaving aside the issue of median wage, if the rate of salary increase is low, wouldn't these graduates just go where they will be best compensated?

Lucy Montgomery,
People such as real estate agents and solicitors don’t add value, they add costs and add artificial value. (IE value on paper only).

This is what happened in the US, where artificial house price values finally caught up with the country, and then everything came crashing down.

If teachers and academics want more money, then perhaps they can get a second job like everyone else. I’ve been employed by 3 companies at the same time, doing one full time job and 2 part time jobs.

It could reach the stage where everyone in the public has to have at least 2 jobs to pay for public servants who only want one job, and then they only want to work no more than 38 hrs per week.

I can just imagine a teacher or academic doing cleaning at night to supplement their income (like so many other people are presently doing).