Thursday, July 06, 2006

What a laugh

Beazley against history revival | News | The Australian

Beazley and the State education ministers do nothing to help their credibility by their poo-pooing (or should that be "pooh-poohing"? - my education has gaps) reaction to the Federal proposal to get history back to some fundamentals. Teachers being so highly unionised, what else can the Labor side say?:

KIM Beazley has dismissed the push by federal Education Minister Julie Bishop to reinstate the teaching of traditional Australian history in schools as an "elite preoccupation"...

South Australian Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said: "We believe the necessary facts in a child's education should be determined by teachers and experts in the field, not politicians."...

Tasmanian Education Minister David Bartlett said he was "horrified" by the proposal and added: "If this is a stalking horse for John Howard's personal Australian history being taught inschools then I am not interested."

What a hoot! Problem is, I strongly suspect that most of the public would be well on side with the Federal government on this one, and don't like teachers setting the agenda (or coming up with unintelligible methods of reporting progress). It's just that the educational academics (and many teachers) don't realise it. Or think they know what is best anyway.

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