What romantic nonsense.

Peter Garrett hasn't made a decision since he got elected and won't even be in parliament in 18 months.

What will make a difference is for the government to stop providing education and leave it to private and community-owned schools offering choice and competition.

When schools have to compete for kids because they come with per-head funding, and parents are free to choose a school based on its record of job preparation, university entrance, or whatever parents are looking for, then we'll see real change.

Until then, dream on.

Sadly, the author has no perception whatsoever of the practical implications of his pipedream. Which, equally sadly, is an abiding characteristic of our politicians and academics. However attractive the theory may be, they fail abysmally every time they try to put one into practice. And for a topic as critical to the nation as education (compared, say, to pink batts, school outhouses, the NBN etc.) it is absolutely essential to have implementation skills.

But first, the throwaway line: "Brave leadership in government saw the focus of educational reform shift..."

"Brave leadership"? Opinion-poll-driven governments these days cannot even manage cowardly followership.

But what is actually offered as a solution? It seems to boil down to "the highly regarded Finnish education system", plus a couple of snipes at performance-related pay, and standardized tests.

Finnish teachers have a Masters Degree education, and are paid accordingly. Which is a very positive approach, and one that can only benefit the education process. However, it should be noted that they have taken the best part of forty years to manage the transition. Does anyone in the current Australian Education system have the vision and foresight to plot a road map that will lead us in the same direction?

Even if such a plan were produced, subsequent union negotiations alone would take forty years. The demand for Masters-Degree-level salaries would come first, of course. For all existing teachers, not just the new ones. You know how these things work.

The only possibility that has the remotest chance of success is opening the system, at a Local and State level, to competition. A voucher system will put the power into the hands of parents, and eliminate the dead hand of unnecessary bureaucracy that inhibits innovation and progress. Selecting the most appropriate staff for the needs of the kids, would drive the school management.

Leaving it to Canberra, let alone the "former front man of Midnight Oil", to make the choices on our behalf is a guarantee that no positive change will ever occur.

"Brave leadership" indeed. Pah.

Must have been a good dream Dan!, perhaps a more realistic outcome will be education returning to a much greater historic norm. As the worlds finite energy resources continue to decline, more and more people will return to an agrarian type lifestyle, ergo, education will follow and future students will not reach any level of university graduation but will graduate into a garden or farming lifestyle that will permit them and their families to survive in a much more constrained world.

The 'Midnight Oil' frontman will be history just like his namesake!

Geoff, if a lack of fossil fuel ever does force the population back to an agrarian life style, it won't be in our lifetimes.

Dan too many "educators" on some sort of pipe dream, or perhaps something stronger, has reduced the academic achievement of most of our kids below that required to operate effectively in a modern world.

This silly idea of teachers all leading their little group of mobile experiments, down the garden path, to your own little dream world, is the last thing we need.

Your little dream would be the destruction of the kids who find themselves moving from school to school, with different pipe dreams pertaining to each.

You are paid to teach what the curriculum tells you to teach, for the kids benefit. If you don't like the job, try another.

While the article is fluffy, I think there are a few valid points. One relates to the current obsession with out-of-context data and league tables. I'm quite happy to have schools compared, but I think more care needs to be put into the modelling of those comparisons. Perhaps if we centralised the process, rather than leaving it to the Courier-Mail (as we seem to do here in Queensland), we could ensure that a clearer picture was presented. A school may produce plenty of OP1s and score well above average on NAPLAN, but turn out students without the work ethic, attitude or sense of social justice to be either a good employee or a good citizen. Another school may score more humbly on the academic front, but turn out the best tradesmen and citizens our society could ask for. I'm not sure how one captures that information.

It's also interesting, Pericles, that you rightly raise the Masters-level qualification required of Finnish and other Scandinavian teachers. I believe wholeheartedly that teachers should have expert knowledge and mastery of their subject area AND of teaching. Our various boards of registration also echo those sentiments, but do little to encourage them. And yes, salary does come into it. I have a Masters degree, which may stand me in good stead if I want to climb the ladder, but doesn't see any other reward. And, of course, those who climb the ladder are progressively removed from the classroom to do administrative duties. Too much knowledge, or too much teaching ability, removes Australian teachers from the field in which they have proven themselves.

I'd be careful before lauding the Scandinavian approach, however. When I was completing my BEd, Scandinavian students were well represented in the cohort. They attended the same lectures and tutes, they did the same practical components and were judged on the same assessment criteria. They generally wrote 500-1000 words more on each assignment, and were awarded an MTeach instead of a BEd. That degree was not available to domestic students - perhaps because it was a Masters degree in name only.

It was not I who singled out the Finnish system, Otokonoko.

>>I'd be careful before lauding the Scandinavian approach, however.<<

I was simply pointing out that shifting the focus of teaching recruitment from its present level, to insisting upon a Masters Degree, is not accomplished with the stroke of a pen. The teaching profession in my experience is a highly sensitive organ, and one that is notably progress-averse. If there is a hint that new pay scales would be required to accommodate the better-qualified intake, you can bet that they would demand that those scales apply to all existing teachers, too. Immediately.

But to set your mind at rest on those qualifications...

>>They generally wrote 500-1000 words more on each assignment, and were awarded an MTeach instead of a BEd. That degree was not available to domestic students - perhaps because it was a Masters degree in name only.<<

According to the published literature on the topic, the Finnish system works as follows:

"First, students take a Bachelor’s degree, which comprises 180 ECTS credits, and after that a 120-credit Master’s degree. They take basic, intermediate and advanced studies (120 cr) in their major subject, and basic and intermediate studies (60 cr) in their minor subject. The complete 300-credit degree takes about five years"

http://www.oaj.fi/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/OAJ_INTERNET/01FI/05TIEDOTTEET/03JULKAISUT/OPEKOULUTUSENG.PDF

Possibly, it takes that long because they are all as thick as short planks. But more likely, it is a fairly rigorous programme.

I think teachers are taken far too seriously, particularly by themselves.

Up to junior high school the best teacher would be a recent good year 12 graduate, with a 6 month methods of instruction course, chucked in to do the work. The best teachers I had were the least academic, but young & enthusiastic, the worst were the boffins.

When I was 14 I joined the school cadets. At the end of the year I, with 2 others, was sent to a 7 day CUO [cadet under officer] school. A CUO was the school boy officer, in charge of a platoon of 30 cadets. This CUO school for NSW cadets only, had 450 students.

Perhaps because I was more interested I passed out in the top 20, with my schools other 2 in the 3 & 400s. The course had included about 10 hours of army methods of instruction training.

Because of this I was made up to under officer at 15, where as I was probably meant to be a sargent, for a year. As such I taught a platoon of 30, 2 hours of drill & weapons training every Thursday. Not only this, but as one of 3 CUOs I was in charge of my platoon at our 6 rifle range live firing days, & a 7 day army cadet training camp each year. We were commanded by our really nice, [but frightened of guns] English master, who took the job because no one else would. He kept well back on shooting days.

I was one of about 600 kids doing this in NSW alone. Schools sometimes had trouble getting a teacher to run the cadet core, as many were frightened of the responsibility. They need not have been, in my experience the school boy CUOs looked after their school teacher commanding officers very well.

Perhaps we need more 15 year olds teaching schools.

Hasbeen,

My brother was also in school cadets.

When he was eighteen he told me he wanted to be a mercenary (Foreign Legion, what!)

...but he ended up being a science teacher...strange, eh?

Sorry Pericles, I didn't mean to imply that you were singling out the Finnish system. It was more of an addendum to what I had already said - a general observation.

As I said, I like the fact that the Finnish system - as well as some others in the region - requires a Masters degree of its teachers. If the author of the article wants teachers held in the same regard here as in Finland, he should be advocating a similar requirement in this country. I agree wholeheartedly that teachers don't deserve respect just because they are teachers and hold a 4-year undergraduate degree (or a 3-year degree and a 1-year grad dip). I was merely pointing out that a Masters degree, with five years' training as opposed to our four, may not be as rigorous as it sounds. I'd like to think I'm wrong, but I studied with - and keep occasional contact with - a few teachers from up there with qualifications almost identical to my own.

Hasbeen,

I couldn't agree more. Some - hell, many - teachers take themselves way too seriously (though I'd like to think I don't).

Hi Poirot I've never been able to understand people who want to go & fight, except to protect their own, glad he found a better course.

I became a navy fighter pilot, but only because I wanted to do a bit of flying, & I reckoned it would be cool to travel around on a nice big boat. I shore had no idea.

Hi Otokonoko, I hope so, I think it's only the good teacher, who can share with the kids, who get to enjoy the job.

My senior class had only 14 kids, most left at 15 back then, so we were expected to, & just naturally accepted, more responsibility than most today. That gave us a good relationship with our teachers.

It was a different world. You only got into uni with a scholarship, & we all needed top results to get the scholarship we wanted. 5 of us were doing science honors, & math 1 & 2 honors, with that instruction mostly in lunch hours, & after school. Add to that the fact the same boys were much of the senior football, & cricket teams, coached by those same teachers, after school, you can see that a lot of kids & teachers were in school for longer hours than today.

We not only respected most of our teachers, we liked & valued them, so I think the job may have been easier, despite the longer hours they put in. The math master was a bomber Pathfinder pilot in 1943 & 44, & if we could get him into talking about those days, not all that hard actually, it would be dark before we got home.

It's a pity school was not as good for my kids.