One issue of much concern lately on the education front is that of a standardised national curriculum. 

This issue has been hotly debated for months, especially since Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop called for a common national curriculum in October 2006.

This speech was covered in an article on The Age website, summarised in the following:

This article from The Age  website on April 11th 2007 explains the story and was one of the first articles on the matter.

 This is an overview of what happened:

Boroondara Police this afternoon attended Xavier College, where they have taken possession of a small quantity of cannabis after this morning’s reports of a student dealing drugs on the premises.

News Limited reported that a former student was expelled after allegedly selling marijuana in the school grounds in February. Three students who bought the drug were reportedly suspended from the school.

The school reportedly told students of the incident but did not inform police.

…

“Victoria Police see trafficking of a drug as a serious offence and feel that their (Xavier’s) involvement is required,” Senior Sergeant Ebinger said this morning.

“There are issues in relation to the seizure and destruction of the drug and technically the school has no legislative authority to take possession or dispose of the drug.”

The News Limited report said that the exclusive Jesuit school’s deputy head Dominic Calipari confirmed a year 11 student had been expelled in February and denied there had been a cover-up.

The article continues to relay details of the incident, interesting the end of the article includes a part about the concerns of Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks.

Premier Bracks ‘concerned’

Earlier today Premier Steve Bracks said he shares parents’ concerns about private schools failing to tell police of drug dealing on school grounds, but the policy is not a government matter.

“Private schools are independent and private, they operate independently like every other private company does in the country, so they have to make decisions themselves on what they report,” Mr Bracks said.

State schools are obliged to inform police of any suspected crime, Mr Bracks said.

He said he understood parents would want to know their child’s school was free of crime.

“I think we’re all concerned. I’m concerned, parents are concerned, of course that you want to make sure that people comply with the law, of course and that, if there are alleged offences committed, that the law applies in those cases.

This highlights an interesting difference between private and public schools.

“Private schools are independent and private, they operate independently like every other private company does in the country, so they have to make decisions themselves on what they report,” Mr Bracks said.

State schools are obliged to inform police of any suspected crime, Mr Bracks said.

If this had occurred in a public school, it would have been brought to the attention of authorities much sooner, although would most likely not have received the same amount of coverage as it is the prominence of this elite school that has caused such a frenzy.

Another interesting point is the spin that an article published on April 12th 2007 on the Ninemsn website, that of the boy as a ‘victim’ from the perspective of his mother.

Xavier College drug dealer ‘a victim’

A boy expelled from Xavier College for selling marijuana to three other students is a victim, according to his parents.

“The whole thing is incredibly unfair,” his mother told the Herald Sun.

…

“To victimise a child like this is incredibly unfair,” his mother added.

The article then went on in a similar fashion to the one above about the details and the differences between public and private schools in matters such as this. Along with this, additional information is provided.

“This incident has highlighted an issue that needs to be addressed and it will certainly be discussed in the future,” Ebinger said.

Drug counsellor Richard Smith, of the Raymond Hader Clinic, told the newspaper he had treated many students from independent schools.

“Private schools are no different. I’m not shocked. It’s common for me to have young people from leading schools,” he said.

The issue of private schools reporting scandals to the police has been a hot-topic. The Age covered certain views on this topic in their ‘Issues in the News’ section.

Police became involved after the scandal became public.
Since then, claims about bullying at Xavier College have emerged. Five students were suspended after a video of bullying pranks, filmed on a mobile phone, was released on YouTube.

…

Are there any guidelines for schools in dealing with alleged student criminal behaviour?

Public school principals are compelled to report students’ alleged criminal behaviour to police, parents and the Victorian Department of Education. This is because public schools are run by the State Government and Department of Education and must be accountable. The Department of Education has strict protocols on what public schools must do if they suspect students are involved in alleged criminal activities.

Matters are handed over to the police to investigate and take appropriate action.

Private schools are privately run businesses. They are not bound by department guidelines requiring police involvement if students are allegedly involved in criminal behaviour.

…

Xavier has been widely criticised by parents, students and anti-drug groups for failing to report the incident to police. Though the school has denied accusations of a cover-up, some believe the school wanted to keep the incident quiet.

This collection of information is very interesting and could be helpful when writing an article (particularly for The Age).

It ends with a collection of quotes, one particularly worthy of note is:

“This is all about private schools selling themselves in a highly competitive environment as drug-free places. The police aren’t going to be overly punitive for a kid who’s only using a little bit, but it can often be the trigger to get the help they need.”
Child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, MX, April 11

This story has many angles that can be covered and a huge base of information to sort through.

I feel like I have rambled a bit too much in this blog entry, it is because I find this issue to be particularly interesting. I will wind it up now.

This story has:

Impact / consequence as there is a great impact after selling drugs and the release of this information via the media.

Prominence because this is a very elite private school

Human Interest because the issue of drugs is a concern for many people, particularly because of the ability of private schools to cover this up.

The issue of bullying in schools has been present since the dawn of time, or more accurately, since schools began.  This is constantly being resurfaced as new incidences take place, particularly in feature pieces or on television programs such as Today Tonight or A Current Affair.  This following is an excerpt from an article on this matter (from The Canberra Times on 5th May2007), it should be read if this is an area of interest for you. 

ACT Education Minister Andrew Barr has ordered his department to take action over the alarming increase in the number of families seeking court orders to restrain school bullies.

The ACT Magistrates Court has received 58 applications in the past year, almost double the 29 received in 2005-06 and well above the 23 in 2004-05.

The restraining, or Personal Protection Orders, apply to children as young as eight, and the 100 per cent increase in applications over the past year has prompted the ACT Commissioner for Children and Young People, Linda Crebbin, to call for a “careful evaluation” of violence levels and anti-bullying measures in schools.

…

He [Mr Barr] would consider ways in which data on protection orders and school-based court proceedings could be monitored by the department “while still maintaining the strict privacy provisions surrounding these orders”. He said a huge expectation was placed on school principals and counsellors to be able to resolve conflicts in schools but noted some conflict spilled into schools from neighbourhood disputes and was exacerbated by the behaviour of parents.

“Schools can be part of the solution for more harmonious communities but it is unrealistic to think they can resolve every issue,” Mr Barr said.

…

“There is some suggestion that what often starts out as a text message slanging match can snowball to become a vicious and threatening exchange.” She [ACT Commissioner for Children and Young People, Linda Crebbin] said restraining orders had a legitimate use in schools to protect students from violence as a measure of last resort.

“But if our education system is going to be able to take a consistent and transparent approach to behaviour management and discipline then the department needs to know more about why this last resort is increasingly needed,” she said.

The issue of bullying is ever-present and should continue to be looked into as it is a major problem which causes both emotional and physical upset for many people.  This upset impacts upon a child’s feeling of comfort at school and willingness to learn and satisfy two goals of attending school: gaining an education and gaining skills to socialise and be an accepted member of society.

 This makes a good hard story and a feature story, particularly when focusing upon certain cases and the stories of individuals, combined with opinions and experiences of the writer.  This idea has the potential to be a big story (as it has already done so in the past).

 The most obvious news element in this story is that of currency.  Bullying as a theme is very current at the moment and is mentioned in many news stories.

Student literacy high: NSW Govt7 May 2007

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News

The New South Wales Government has released test results which show year seven and eight literacy levels at record levels.

Almost 150,000 students did the exam.

They were all in the first two years of high school.

Eighty-nine per cent of all year seven students achieved at least average literacy results.

For year eight, the figure was 90.9 per cent.

Clearly, results such as this show that there is not a huge education problem like there is often made out to be. Results are growing each year, which is a positive step in the right direction. This seems to be a trend so it could be interesting to compare the level of difficulty and the education needed to succeeded in these exams.

NSW:Years 7, 8 NSW students achieve record literacy results: gov

7 May 2007

Australian Associated Press General News

LITERACY SYDNEY, May 7 AAP – Literacy levels for NSW students in Years seven and eight are at record highs, the NSW government says.

Premier Morris Iemma announced today that the 148,000 students who sat the the English Language and Literacy Assessment last term had achieved the best ever results.

The overall literacy average for the compulsory Year seven test was 89.0, up from last year’s high of 88.8 per cent.

The overall average for the voluntary Year eight test was 90.9, up from 90.4 last year.

“These results confirm that literacy standards for NSW students in Years seven and eight remain amongst the highest in the world,” Mr Iemma said.

“This year, Year seven and eight boys and girls have recorded their best ever results in literacy.”

NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca said one of the most pleasing aspect of the results was the performance of students who needed the most help.

Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander students and those from non-English speaking backgrounds achieved record high results.

“The strugglers are doing very well here,” Mr Della Bosca said.

“What we’ve seen is further improvement in those who are needing the most help with literacy, they are getting that help and improving that performance every year that goes by.”

This year’s results show girls, with an overall literacy average of 90.3, are still outdoing the boys, who achieved an average of 87.8.

“Clearly, the issue of a gender gap … is something that needs to be continuously addressed,” Mr Della Bosca told reporters.

“Young boys need to be getting the best value out of public education, as young girls do.”

Mr Della Bosca reiterated the State Literacy Plan’s target of a 10 per cent reduction in the number of lowest performing students in Years three, five and seven by 2008.

The test results will be sent to parents in the next fortnight.

I have included this entire article (accessible via Factiva) as I find it particularly interesting and feel that it discusses many interesting points about the education system, obviously in regard to this exam.

Being a girl, I found this section particularly interesting:

This year’s results show girls, with an overall literacy average of 90.3, are still outdoing the boys, who achieved an average of 87.8.

“Clearly, the issue of a gender gap … is something that needs to be continuously addressed,” Mr Della Bosca told reporters.

“Young boys need to be getting the best value out of public education, as young girls do.”

The tradition of girls performing better on a literacy level has been very prominent over the last few years. This in itself could make an interesting article, possibly asking experts what their opinions on what the causes are and what can be done to even up the scores, or if this should even be aimed for at all.

Associated with this, I have found this collection of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.  Using some of this data, an interesting article could be written to go along with the above articles. If I was a journalist, I would investigate the possibility of writing a story such as this.

Contrary to the success in literacy, there has been a declining level of scores in numeracy.  The Daily Telegraph (May 8 2007) noted:

“… alarm bells are ringing on numeracy performance.

Premier Morris Iemma said yesterday more than 148, 000 students in year 7 and Year 8 had achieved record scores in writing, reading and language.

But the Opposition claimed the success had come at the expense of numberacy standards which were plummeting.

As education spokeman Andrew Stoner called for an inquiry into numeracy test results, Mr Iemma said literacy standards for Year 7 and Year 8 students were among the world’s best.”

This is an interesting contrast from the amazing praise of the literacy levels, although it does not take away from the success of these students.  Following this sort of story would also create conflict which is an interesting news value.

This story has:

timeliness mostly as the results have just surfaced

prominence as MPs are having their say on the matter

proximity because it is a regional test

currency because the issue of education comes in waves

conflict if the declining numeracy levels are included

the story would also have human interest if it was made into a feature piece which highlighted the stories of certain people.

An article found in the Sydney Morning Herald April 28-29, presents the idea of introducing meditation into Catholic schools.  This is not as controversial as the idea of introducing it into public schools, but is still noteworthy.

Meditation Brings Spirit of Calm to School Life

CHILDREN as young as five should be taught the ancient spiritiual practice of meditation alongside religious doctrine, the leader of its modern Christian revivial says.

…

[The World Movement for Christian Meditation's] growth has been particularly strong among Christians in Australia, where there are now more than 335 meditation groups, said to be the largest number per capita in the world.

Now this visiting British Benedictine monk wants to introduce it to children, who, he says, are particularly receptive to meditative practices.

…

“If relationships are only based on Sunday churchgoing and don’t have a deeper experiential level, then the children as young adults wil lose the connection.”

…

“It’s a skilled disciplin, and the earlier we get them the more they see it is a natural part of their being. Anecdotally, the feedback has been nothing but postive. The kids are calmer, more open to doing school work, and in secondary school they are asking to do meditation sessions preior to exam time.

“The teachers are saying kids are not as aggressive after meditation, There has not been one negative comment from any of our parents across all our 31 schools, and that’s remarkable.”

…

Christian meditation has been taughts at SCEGGS Redlands and is being taught at St James School, Glebe.

The full article is over here.

This is an interesting possibility. It’s not directly education related, but this is something that is taught in some schools and will possibly be taught in more as time progresses, it should be interesting to follow the progression of Christian Meditation in schools. Also, if any studies are done to determine a direct link between meditation and success at school and positive test results. The education of Christian meditation may result in changes in other areas of education.

Parents will receive booklets in a revamped education program that will highlight the dangers of ice. Government insiders said an analysis of the first campaign urging parents and their children to discuss drugs showed it had been successful, with nine out of 10 teenagers saying they were willing to talk to their parents about drugs.

The popularity of the multimedia program had encouraged the Government to repeat and update the exercise. The extra funding for the education program, which will include resources for schools, will be $9million over two years.

[...]

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Kerry-Anne Walsh
April 22, 2007

By Nkrumah Lucien
May 2nd 2007

I was sitting on a mini-bus thinking about Prime Minister Sir John Compton’s budget presentation and his promise of a ‘relevant’ education system. His definition was that a relevant education system was one that satisfied the needs of the job market. It was in keeping with the notion, which has been recently revived, that what has been lacking in our education system is the willingness to cater adequately to the provision of more vocational and skills training. This, in the mind of some, is why we have so many of our youth on the streets and such a growing problem with drugs, violence and crime. I wondered how different this definition of education might be from that implemented in the immediate aftermath of Emancipation. However, education is the crux of the progress of any society and must be understood in a wider context than only formal schooling.

This overly simplistic idea of education is the root of much of the problems which “Third World” societies face. Education is understood largely as a quantitative function; the wider qualitative aspect of it seems to have been lost to successive regimes in St. Lucia. In this budget, there is little indication that this will change. Such an apolitical and unempowering notion of education has consistently failed everyone involved, including those “educated” and their “Third World” nations. As a result, it has persisted as a tool to continue the dominance of our psyches, societies, economies, media and politics by the First World interests and agendas. The beneficiaries of these education systems have always been their initiators, the imperialist countries of the “First World”. These are among the last vestiges of the old colonialism; the new ones of course are found in economic hitmen (1), International Financial Organizations, “Free” Trade and pseudo-objectivity all in a skewed world. A relevant education system is a complex function and cannot be reduced entirely to economic terms.

A number of challenges present themselves for anyone who dares approach the task of transforming a 160-year-old, irrelevant system marred with all sorts of agendas and flawed perspectives, into one which can take a nation such as ours forward. What is the nature of the nation that this system is to serve? This is a nation of a predominantly non-White population composed primarily of Africans, in which women have consistently been deprived of their due from the days when the “democracies” of the White Imperialist System refused them any role in the politics of their nations, as a reflection of the backward misogyny of their societies. We have deeply entrenched in our societies, what Dr. Marimba Ani, in her essay, Hypocrisy as a Culture, (2) called the ‘Rhetoric ethic’, which is opportunistic, hypocritical and glorifies deceit and a general lack of integrity.

[...]

This is actually a very interesting article which highlights certain aspects of the education system in countries such as this.  This demonstrates the immense difference between our system and other systems across the world.  I suggest that people ra

Source: Trinicentre

If the Sandridge District 172 School Board has its way, former principal Leroy Coleman, who was secretly videotaped having sex with one of his teachers will be barred from working at any Illinois school.

The lame duck board adopted a resolution at its meeting Friday night to file a complaint with the regional superintendent of schools for Cook County, demanding that Coleman’s teaching and administrative certificate be suspended. After that, school officials will go to the state to seek permanent revocation of his teaching and administrative certificate. …

The board said it might also seek the same penalties against the teacher who appeared in the videotape, Janet Lofton.

This is an interesting article which brings up the line that should not be crossed in education.  This story has an element of currency as sex scandals in schools often tend to come in waves. This is noted by the mention of Janet Lofton in the above paragraph.  When an incident occurs, the media likes to associate it with previous issues.

Educators in Fairfax, Arlington and Loudoun counties backed away last week from threats to defy a federal order to use grade-level reading tests for thousands of English learners in elementary and middle schools. Only immigrant students in U.S. schools for less than a year are exempt from the mandate.

Federal officials say the grade-level exams are needed to show how well students are learning and to rate school performance. Local educators say the reading tests, which could include questions about poetry, metaphors or hyperboles, are unfair to students who are only beginning to grasp the nuances of a language.

[...]

“The children are being set up to fail by the U.S. Department of Education,” Gibson said. “My dad used to talk about the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. They have the gold.”

[...]

In Fairfax and across Virginia, educators will follow the federal rules. But they said they will tell students they can stop taking a test if the material appears to be too difficult. A memo from the Virginia Department of Education on Thursday said students can “indicate to the test examiner either verbally, or non-verbally by shaking his/her head ‘no’ . . . that he or she is not able to complete any more items.”

Source: Washington Post

The teachers’ unrest began in early February when government promises to raise teachers’ salaries and benefits, which are low compared to those of other civil servants, failed to materialise. Ahmadinejad came to power in June 2005 on a promise to plough Iran’s vast oil revenues into ”putting food on the tables” of Iranians.

“What hurts teachers most is the inequality. We only want to be paid like other government employees, to get better housing allowance and insurance. There was a secret deal between the parliament and the government to postpone the passing of the bill till after the budget for the current fiscal year (Mar. 21, 2007-Mar. 20, 2008) is passed by the house. This way, they wouldn’t have to deal with the problem for another year,” one of the protesting teachers told IPS on Mar. 15, asking to remain anonymous.
“What they do not consider is that now that all hopes are gone, at least for the next one year, many more (protests) are sure to follow suit. There are hundreds of thousands of us and our families and we are everywhere, even in the smallest villages. We have the power to bring the whole educational system to a standstill. This scares them badly and I hope they won’t resort to irrational measures to silence us,” she added.

 Source: Inter Press Service News Agency

This article demonstrates the sad truth about the Iranian government and the difficulty that the education system faces in this country.   There are a lot of problems, fights and broken promises in regards to the education system (and undoubtedly this continues into other sectors).  Reading this article makes one appreciate the Australian Government’s position on the educational system much more.

One quote that sums up this article and the problems is as follows:

“The government’s banning of the Hamadan teachers’ association and the arrest of its members demonstrate Iran’s flagrant disregard for its own laws and its obligations under international human rights law,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of the Washington-based Human Rights Watch said, in a statement released Mar. 13.