Education and Smarts ....

I wrote the following mini-rant in an off-the-cuff response to an article I found one morning in the SMH (http://www.smh.com.au) ... those of you who have been listening to me rant rave and otherwise comment on education in Australia for the last little while will realise that this is one of my pet hat boxes. I would like to say that I resisted the urge to attack the newspaper's clear political leanings in posting the original article - it IS an election year after all!!

So - here's my 2p worth ...

"In response to the article noted above:

Provocative title piece - but no, I'd be willing to bet that as a nation our GNIQ (gross national intelligence quotient) has either stayed steady or increased over the past 20 years.
It's easy in an election year to play the blame game, but how about the fact that the current education model is outdated? The needs of students aren't being met whatever sector they are lucky enough (or otherwise) to be being educated in - you're never going to convince me that every single year 12 student should still be at school! Why are they still there? Because unfortunately somewhere along the line it became a prerequisite for most higher paying jobs (that is, jobs above the national minimum) that a candidate hold a degree. Naturally the number of degree places on offer hasn't increased in proportion to the number of jobs.

Call me radical, but address the REAL needs of employers through the education system, couple that with a vocational system that works (and give vocational studies students the same access to HECS and PELS - or whatever you're calling it this week! - as their university degree bound peers), and you'll decrease the number of students who are staying on to yr 12, decrease the pressure on teachers and actually increase the number of highly skilled workers.

By sheer dumb luck, you might also make people happier, because they might not feel like a "failure" for not getting a uni place, do a job they are actually suited for (how many uni graduates end up working in areas related to their first degree 10 years after finishing) and then, believe it or not, they might not see education as a complete waste of time."