Antipodean links

[erudito]

For the first time, more than 13.5m Australians are enrolled to vote.

Poll finds people overwhelmingly support the Federal surplus being spent on schools and hospitals. About that.

Academic study of Australian attitudes to space exploration finds that ordinary Australians just don’t measure up to the high standards of humanities/social science

Comments

[aussiemandias]

What gets up my beak is the basic lack of understanding of who pays for what.

The public just don't get that schools and hospitals are the responsibility of the states. And so the teachers' federation run ads saying that 60% of federal funding goes to public schools, deliberately misleading the public into thinking that this is an outrage.

But you know all this. It's just a pet hate of mine.

But does it impact

[erudito]

I am doubtful whether such ads have much of an impact.

Latham's promise to cut funding for wealthier private schools seems to have helped generate the swing against Labor last time.

[korgmeister]

What the heck is wrong with exploiting the mineral resources of other planets anyway?

So far we haven't even been able to find anything out there alive on them. You can't steal land and resources from things that don't exist.

[quatrefoil]

The question asked students to discuss the impact of Government legislation on employees. Which is, in fact, a biased question. It frames the issue as being all about (current) employees. It leaves out employers and possible employees.

Well, I don't see where in the rules it says that every question has to canvas the entirety of an issue. I also can't see that this is a biased question since if you accept the Howard government line on this, government legislation is supposed to be fabulous for employees.

Coverage

[erudito]

How good or bad the legislation is for current employees is reasonably an open question. But if two sides of a debate frame an issue differently, then a question which accepts one side's framing is biased. It is not a matter about whether a question has to cover all aspects, it is about whether its implicitly or explicitly accepts one's sides basic premise(s)

[catsidhe]

Just a thought here, but given the amazing, unprecedented, miraculous levels of unemployment, does it not follow that those who are “competing for entry-level jobs” are indeed unrepresentative?

Moreover, this was a question addressed to soon-to-be high school graduates. They will be thinking strongly about joining the workforce. And given that this was a technical subject, they likely won't all be thinking about uni first. That means that the respondents will themselves be entry-level, and will have that at the front of their minds when answering.

And what was the actual question?“Discuss, using examples, the impact of government legislation on employees.”

I stand by what I said.

Simple comparison

[erudito]

Compare to this alternative question

Discuss, using examples, the impact of government legislation on employees and employers.

It is immediately obvious that the two extra words both provide the basis for a far more complete examination and, moreover, one which provides a much better basis to look at how labour market regulation works.

The original question is biased.

Re: Simple comparison

[catsidhe]

No, it is not. The students are not being asked to consider what will happen when they go out and start a business. This was a technical subject, and if that were to be a consideration they will cover it in their apprenticeship.

They were asked to consider how legislation (any and all legislation, none was specified) will affect them as employees, which is what just about all of them will be at some time, for most for their entire lives.

This obsession with being an employer is going beyond silly. Certainly it is going beyond the point of any rational concern. There are subjects, courses, times and places to learn about what your rights and responsibilities are as an employer. A subject where high school students learn how to operate shop equipment does not strike me as one of them.

Re: Simple comparison

[catsidhe]

Moreover, exactly how much time in the exam do you think was devoted to this one question?

If you want to have an entire exam devoted entirely to industrial relations, fine, great, wonderful. Just don't call the class which prepares for it “industrial technology”. Maybe you could call that subject, oh I don't know, how about “industrial relations”?