“One student was told in an industrial relations class that if she wrote a paper arguing in favour of WorkChoices industrial relations reform, she would be marked down. Another, studying to become a teacher, was forced to read textbooks accusing the Howard government of racism towards Aborigines. A third was welcomed into her classroom with a lecturer's boasts of working as part of the Labor party's successful election campaign.”

Nothing changes, then. Universities, and public schools continue to be hotbeds of left-wing seething and plotting, turning out students who have all of the ‘desired’ political rhetoric, but who can barely read and write.

And, it must be really bad now, if Laborite students are complaining about it. It seems that we are now dealing with a mob so far to the left, that they have yet to be identified and given a name.

While it is no surprise that the ‘private schools unions’ support the same left-wing drivel of their state counterparts, private school managements have more control over the extra-curricular rubbish, which is purely political – nothing at all to do with education. “Social justice” indeed! It’s up to students to work out their own ideas on social justice, not have extremists ramming their opinions down their throats.

However, this author’s politics, and those of the Young Liberals need to be taken into account. We don’t want to see one lot of ideology replaced by another. There should be none of it in education

Young Liberals really do show a strange understanding of the political spectrum. I don’t know how they would have coped if they had gone to La Trobe University in the 1970s, when to be left-wing was to be left-wing, to belong to the Communist Club or the Worker-Student Alliance, to praise Chairman Mao as the “Great Helmsman”, to blather on about the imminent collapse of capitalist society and the rout of the running dogs of US imperialism as the worker-student paradise came to fruition, to occupy buildings, to disrupt lectures, to bash opponents. Now, being anti-WorkChoicesforemployers or seeking to “overcoming inequalities between social groups” seems to be enough to qualify as left-wing.

An education system that “maximises the educational capacity of each student” is important. That is one reason that I oppose the Liberal Party. I lived through its 1992-99 rule Victoria when it did more damage to education in this state than any left-wing academic, and more damage than the teachers union, which has been an overall force for good in education for all the years that I belonged to it.

Mr. Right,

The most recent PISA tests confirm that, far from turning out students who are barely read and write, Australia’s education system achieves in the top ten countries in the world.

HRS,

I’ve never known a high school student to be cautious in asking a question because of being white or male.

Making education fair... let's see, that would involve cutting public funding for rich private schools so that public education could compete on a level playing field, wouldn't it?

Oh, I see.

ChrisC,

"The most recent PISA tests confirm that, far from turning out students who are barely read and write, Australia’s education system achieves in the top ten countries in the world."

But, how well are the "top ten countries" perorming? Real life indicates every day that neither students nor their parents (letters and emails to teachers from the latter) can read properly, spell properly or write properly. Have a look at shop signs. Have a look at the spelling written under people being interviewed on TV.

I would like to believe the PISA tests, as you do, and feel more comfortable. But I do not believe any progaganda coming from education bureaucrats, teachers' unions (teachers are not much better than their students, hence the poor qualities in students), or politicians.

Desperate governments and their lackeys fudge figures all the time to get the heat off themselves. Rarely, if ever, does anyone follow up on their claims to see how empty they are.

I'm not really sure what BOAZ_David implies from a reading of my comments, except that he must whole-heartedly agree with the author and therefore cannot accept some criticism about it's argument and must then attack me and my apparent motives, and abilities.

My point was to point out that the author and all involved are just as ideological as the others they want (somehow) silenced.

The consistent use of ridicule, buzz phrases and over used anti-left rhetoric is tiresome.

And the prize for assuming way too much than can be garnered from reading one commentary goes to BOAZ_David for his assumptions about my motives or even my political leanings.

Thanks for proving that point the first impressions or simplistic analysis are often wrong.
John

Renegade Scientist,

I am no liberal party supporter. But I studied at Latrobe University for two year in the social sciences department and they were pretty much, across the board, radical lefties. Robert Manne was considered 1) far right wing at that stage by my lecturers and tutors and 2) persona non grata to some extent.

The courses were heavily biased with left leaning material. I came out the end convinced of the leftist causes which I’m sure they were very happy about. I have since had the fortune to have seen through the hollowness of much of what passes for leftist thought today. It general, it is heavy on style and form and very light on substance. Hence the soft lefties adoption of symbolic acts to the exclusion of practical solutions.

Anyone who suggests that the left isn’t advancing its agenda through Universities and higher education in general, is truly blinkered. The point isn’t that leftist voices shouldn’t be heard. But there should be some balance.

The soft-lefties are fighting a losing battle since the whole world has moved to the right over the last 20 years. This is evident in the shift to the right of western left-leaning parties. Blair’s new Labour and Rudd’s for that matter are two examples.

Bushbasher,

WTF, “chilling” “creeps”. It’s so typical of the soft left. Really, you’d think they would save that language for the Burnmese generals, or Saddam Hussein. But no, the people they really hate are the conservatives who don’t share their vacuous agenda. Sad really, while they are manning the trenches looking out over No mans land for the Conservatives, they are much more likely to be stabbed in the back by one of the fascistic groups that they refuse to criticise because it might mean sharing a conservative cause.