You know what our problem is? If the American politicians would decide to remove year 11 and year 12 from the secondary schools, the Australian politicians would think "yeah it is a good idea, lets do it". Huh, Teach for America program? so lets do it "Teach for Australia". What a disappointing program to push people with ZERO experience into teaching in classrooms coz simply they know Mathematics, English or a bit of our terrible history ignoring the fact that teaching is one of the hardest job in the world. But you know how the politicians are trying to convince us? They say "NOOOO we are putting them through an intensive training" trying to deceive themselves and other naive people. You know what? in 2009, the ranking of Monash university in the world was 45 and in 2010, guess what? it's 225 and the Australian Education System will keep going down and down and down.

You must be a teacher rumrum4, only a teacher could think that way.

Many of the schools in south east Queensland would do much more for their senior pupils in maths & science if they had some people who knew the subjects, rather than trained teachers who don't. An engineer or 2, with knowledge of the subjects would be more use than Biology teachers, struggling to even comprehend what they are supposed to be teaching.

In PNG, the Rabaul senior college got tired of hiring teachers who couldn't. Once they hired an electrical engineer, & an architect, the kids started to learn maths & physics.

When I was 15 I spent 6 days at the army cadet school for under officers. This included some methods of instruction lectures. I then took charge of a platoon of 14 year old new school cadets for 2 hours each week.

I did not only teach them to march, but gave them their weapons training, then oversaw their live fire time on the rifle range.

If many 15, & 16 year old kids could handle this type of teaching, after 6 days training, surely educated adults should be able to manage something a little less dangerous.

The fact that they probably think that teaching is nothing special would be a major help in this.

That's true, I am a teacher as people who don't teach cannot know what's happening inside the classroom. Those kids have the skills to drive the best scientist in the world crazy and I am going to watch those teacher with ZERO experience standing in the classroom getting tortured by those kids.

rumrum4,
I am not a teacher but come from a family of teachers. On the whole i agree with you. We debated this a while back and at that time i made the point that despite the apparent ongoing training these people are not prepared properly to teach. Most will be doing their bit of community service on the way to their political career or for the cred on their CV.
Hasbeen does have a point in that teaching standards are sliding, i see this in the school my kids attend, but worse is the weak standard of teaching and assessment employed by RTO's in this country. The required TAA course to gain eligibility to teach with an RTO is appallingly inadequate, also having done courses with these organisations i consider the spoon fed manner that they call assessment to be appalling. Basically unless you truly are dumb you can not fail. This is not good enough.
We train kids and adults then send them out to the world with inadequate skills and knowledge and then wonder why our reputation as an education nation is an international joke.

nairbe,
Now I totally agree with what you said, but you know what, it is nothing to do with those poor teachers but with the leaders. You don't believe it if I tell you that I couldn't complete entire chapters this year for all levels, you know why? because of the huge support of the leaders to to the small tiny teachers (general who allowed to teach year 7 - 10) and dominate us by taking kids for days and weeks outside the school for their own amusement. Can we say anything to those leaders? of course not coz we are going to be on the black list. Does the government know about these stories? Absolutely YES. Are they going to do anything about it? 100% no but on the contrary, the government will reward them. Do you know nairbe that we were forced to write positive reports without any negativity simply to deceive parents and the department of education and after about 3 weeks of that, one of those low class students was arrested by the police for stealing. Now the only place I can vent is this "Opinion online" otherwise I am not brave enough to be another Russel Crowe (the insider). I hope that makes it clear.

rumrum4,
I am not entirely sure who you mean by leaders but i get the picture. I was involved on the building oversight committee redeveloping our school and leaned much. I have also given up on the P&C as a toothless tiger.
Our principle in an incompetent with poor admin skills and even less leadership qualities more interested in his next promotion than our school. From his level up there seems very little interest in anything but themselves and the politics of the department.
As for teachers, i support them whole heartedly, but they must also accept change, we have teachers that have been teaching the same grade at our school for 22 years. This is not healthy for the students or the teacher.
The good old you must not be negative policy is a nice thought but is hardly honest. I was taught that when doing my TAA and have not taught a class at tafe as i was left feeling so unprepared. Coming from a teaching family i get the years of study not just in a subject but in areas like sociology and child psychology that are required to complete the teachers tool box.

nairbe, I am sure you got it. Now let me give you another true story example. My brother is a doctor in Melbourne and he is saying that the government are putting them under pressure of not sending much people to MRI or other examinations that could cost the government $500 each. One of his friend was fined $100,000 simply coz he was helping more patients a day. Well, how on earth I will hear about those stories if I don't have a doctor in the family. So if more people will die that means I am going to blame the doctors but now I am not because I know the doctors don't want to be another victim just like the friend of my brother, coz who knows, the next fine could be $200,000. So in other words that doctor was working free for one year.

Rumrum4,
You are getting into new ground now. The political appointment of public servants and the lack of separation between departments and government have continued to become a bigger problem in this country over the past 25 years.
If the operation and implementation of policy was to be done by the public service without political interference and constant changing of the boundaries as the minister overreacts to the media.
I know i am a dreamer but it would simplify the process for all involved and the political heat would not have to roll down through the departments.

Hi naireb
Of course, I always say that we are living in this great and blessed country "Australia" and I don't ever take it for granted coz I know what it is like in other countries. But what makes me sad is two things:
1- If I criticize the government, I wouldn't hesitate to give my real name, address and phone number coz I am sure I will be safe, but I cannot criticize the people that I work with coz that could affect my career and the government will not support me in this case.
2- As a teacher, it would not affect my pay at all (not even by 5 cents) as long as I am a hypocrite, but the victims would be those innocent kids.
But again I thank God that I am living in this great country that because of this free discussion we agreed with each other coz in the end I like Australia to be the best country in world and I will always defend it against any enemy foreign or domestic.