RE: [As Alan Mitchell (chief economist at the Australian Financial Review) recently noted, researchers at the federal Department of Family and Community Services warned three years ago that “long term benefits … of early interventions in early childhood continue to be asserted in broad public debates, despite limited empirical support”.
True, successes are reported in some overseas experimental interventionist programs but these relate to children of disadvantaged parents likely to have a bad home environment rather than to children generally. Moreover, the gains in the experimental programs come mainly from reductions in crime, which hardly solved the participants’ problems. And even gains from Head Start, which is not an experimental program and has been operating in the US for many years, appear to fade out - perhaps because of poor subsequent school performance].
I suggest that the author read Stephen Law's book "The War for Children's Minds", Chapter 3 particularly. The beneficial change in behaviour resulting from the introduction of one hour of discussion of open ended ethical and societal questions from as early as the first school year appears to be well worth the effort with the intellectual and other personal development aspects significant bonuses which should be with each child for the remainder of his or her life. In a comparison trial at Clackmannan the beneficial advantages enjoyed by the trial students, compared to the control students had further increased two years after the trial finished. The advantages of including all students in such discussion groups is quite obvious from Law's analysis even thought the most advantage is probably for children with dysfunctional parents.

Des Moore says "The more important justification for improved education standards lies in building a society in which the majority understands the basis of our culture and history and the importance of acceptable standards of behaviour, including the acceptance of personal responsibility for one’s actions. This latter requires more than just literacy and numeracy. In short, improved education has both material and cultural objectives."

All very well Des, but when most of the workforce is overseas migrants then it doesn't matter what Aussies learn in school because they will not be part of the Aussie workforce.

Des said "Visions of government education of the young smack of the old socialist ideology that served the double purpose of getting women into the workforce and reducing parental influence at an early age." Someone who watched Today Tonight last night where some Brisbane mothers were angry their children weren't allowed to eat lollies and chips and other junk food at school could be excused for thinking that not all parents are responsible or capable enough to rear their children alone. When did the rearing of children transfer from being a societal resonsibility to the sole responsibility of the parent. What do you do in the case of stupid parents? What do you do in the case of handicapped children? What do you do in the case of out of control monsters?

In the 1960s teacher trainees had their university fees paid plus they had scholarships that allowed them to live frugally. Likewise nurses were paid while they worked and studied and lived in subsidised accomodation. I think these 2 classes of workers were better off then than they are now, having to pay HECS fees with no guarantee of [low paid] permanent employment. In fact most students did not pay tuition fees for their first degree.

Now I am aware that school vouchers are the policy tool of choice for Friedman economists but I do not believe that destruction of the government school system will improve Australian literacy standards.

Ah, education !
My ears are still ringing from "Australia must become the clever country". Well, what went wrong ?
i tell you what happened ! Students were pushed into education for education's sake. No-one in the hierarchy bothered to think that education only works when you have comprehension & the ability to use that education. We now have a huge number of young people taking up valuable time & space in the education system for no apparent benefit to our society whatsoever & because of this education push we don't have enough apprentices to become competent tradesmen. what exactly, apart from not wanting to work, is it that makes everyone want to go to Uni ? I really believe we need tougher entry requirements for Uni. Just about every mutt who doesn't like work simply goes to Uni and becomes another burden on the Taxpayer.
Yes, we need education but it needs to be better & more useful education than what we have had in the past 30 years. We must foster the talented not foster the lazy & useless.

"Well, what went wrong?" -indivudal

Dawkins and Nelson. The former vertically integrated universities and CAEs. The latter let the commercialisation of universities become completely out of hand, especially regarding the govenance of offshore provision to international students with private providers.

Over the past month, I have contacted Julia Gillard's parliamentary office on four occasions and her electoral office one, for copies of briefing papers on a new education committee to be establsihed to fix Humpty, but one fears that she will just pull together VCs past and present to review the problem: And it was then AVCC, which is responsible for the mess we are in now.

In most revolutions its leaders have been "eaten" by their own offspring. Unless Kevin Rudd deals decisively with the counter-revolutionary force that emanates from the incestuous relationship between academics, government bureaucrats, and teacher unions, and which prevents the take-off of a high education based on both the merits of its teachers and the performance of its students, the head of the Prime Minister will roll like that of most revolutionaries.

http://daringoutlook.blogspot.com

Individual,

Moreover, only the top 10%-20% should be able to go to university, else in is not higher education. Equality in access is the must. Universities often can confuse Continuing Education with higher education. School teachers can TERs [UAis?] as low as 70! How can they be seen to have mustered there subject? Likewise, in one secondary I know the English Department has to rewrite the student reports from the PE department, as latter are illiterate.