Education… stuck in politics

I have found education the most difficult topic to deliver a speech about or even write a paragraph. Bureaucrats and politicians have over the decades had so much disposition regarding education Australia’s divided state networks continue to cause conflict. The more ground research I do at the coal face the better.

The latest meeting of prime minister and state premiers again highlights the disagreements, all to do with money. Take away the conflict over finance and a debate on logics would immediately ensue, and the forming of a standard system of education across the country could finally be in sight. No agreement on finance so of go all the politicians and bureaucrats to prove the next door neighbour wrong, first thing on the agenda lets prove we get better results under our system and out the door goes millions of tax payers dollars on so called independent enquires.

One obvious thing I have found is politicians and bureaucrats do not teach children, they focus on elections. A long standing prime minister stated in a one liner ‘it’s all to do with numbers’, politics that is. Education is a lot to do with numbers but not the numbers politicians and bureaucrats concentrate on.

Independent studies and reports, many have been carried out by governments in an effort to convince the public of what direction to take. Pay a few hundred thousand you get a scant picture, pay millions and you can acquire a detailed report focusing on the points you prioritise favouring certain key issues. For millions you can foster whatever you want the public to hear, and with public money.

This has been done so many times by different levels of government over decades in different states the countries education system is difficult to operate in especially if you are a teacher.

There are very few male teachers in the primary education system in NSW, we would be led to believe this is perpetrated by the lower pay rate within the primary teaching as to the high school teachers. I have spoken to many teachers and headmasters none have mentioned pay rate problems. Ongoing conversation with not only teachers but bureaucracy lead me to believe pay is not an issue, however the secret lobbying of far leftist women’s groups has drawn my attention.

One thing is for sure, teachers like to teach and achieve the best results possible no matter what the circumstances. Even lower social economic areas blanketing some schools with students with far less opportunity as others strive to improve results and in many case’s lift literacy and numeracy skills further than those that pass the naplan test, but improvement by comparison is not noted in naplan only a pass on the vertical scale.

In comparison at the other end of the scale in university, some vertical standards have been tampered with catering for the influx of persons with plenty of money filling widening university placing’s mainly from overseas. An engineer can design the gearbox or he can’t, vertical achievement scales at this level of education and in this instance is imperative.

Australia needs a board of education far removed from politicians and bureaucrats, made up of teachers and headmasters veteran in the system. They have been at the coalface and taught children, politicians, bureaucrats and especially accountant’s, one whom could be in charge of education at the next election should not foster reports and hand down instructions on things they know little about.

The education of our children has been left to these kind of influences for to long leading to our current status quo, fancy fixed expensive independent reports and divided state curriculum’s driven by politics and financial bureaucrats over decades equals poor results.
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