Rudd's vision
I just have to keep telling myself that he's better then Howard.
But mandatory reporting of grades? Ranking schools against one another? (Are they going to do exit polls?!)
Seriously though, all I can see this doing is increasing elitist attitudes and competition between schools (particularly across the public/private divide), and putting more pressure on students to perform.
Rudd means well, wanting to make student's grades better across the board, but forcing them to compete with one another is not the answer. I can see youth suicides increasing, as well as competition for university places being even more fierce.
Ultimately, I think it will lead to a broader divide between the academic class and the unqualified people. The government will probably be able to check your grades when you apply for a job with them, so all the hard work you've done to make up for what you didn't do in school shows up. And where you went to school will reflect on you in a way that it never did before. Is this what we want for our children?
I personally don't want them to have to compete with kids from "better" schools for spots at uni if those kids are going to get looked upon better. On the flip side, I don't think that kids who don't perform to the same standard as their peers in "good" schools should suffer for it.
It seems like Rudd has discarded the fact that people have different, non-academic talents and taken academic performance as the measure of our country's worth. Yes, the school system can always be improved, but this seems a pretty non-sensical way to go about it. And I think that in a lot of places it is a lot worse.
I'd prefer that they fix the mental health system, promote TAFE education and adult learning, fund cultural institutions and give teenagers a hiding rather than document and rank the grades of every school and student in the country.
But hey, it doesn't matter what I think. I just voted for him.
But mandatory reporting of grades? Ranking schools against one another? (Are they going to do exit polls?!)
Seriously though, all I can see this doing is increasing elitist attitudes and competition between schools (particularly across the public/private divide), and putting more pressure on students to perform.
Rudd means well, wanting to make student's grades better across the board, but forcing them to compete with one another is not the answer. I can see youth suicides increasing, as well as competition for university places being even more fierce.
Ultimately, I think it will lead to a broader divide between the academic class and the unqualified people. The government will probably be able to check your grades when you apply for a job with them, so all the hard work you've done to make up for what you didn't do in school shows up. And where you went to school will reflect on you in a way that it never did before. Is this what we want for our children?
I personally don't want them to have to compete with kids from "better" schools for spots at uni if those kids are going to get looked upon better. On the flip side, I don't think that kids who don't perform to the same standard as their peers in "good" schools should suffer for it.
It seems like Rudd has discarded the fact that people have different, non-academic talents and taken academic performance as the measure of our country's worth. Yes, the school system can always be improved, but this seems a pretty non-sensical way to go about it. And I think that in a lot of places it is a lot worse.
I'd prefer that they fix the mental health system, promote TAFE education and adult learning, fund cultural institutions and give teenagers a hiding rather than document and rank the grades of every school and student in the country.
But hey, it doesn't matter what I think. I just voted for him.