Page 4623 - Week 12 - Thursday, 15 October 2009
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MR DOSZPOT: Original, isn’t it, Andrew? That is very original. I cannot quite imagine from where that inspirational statement came to me, but there must be a cause for it.
As recently as yesterday, the ALP and the ACT Greens have shown that they have not learned from the policy mistakes of the past. The communities who suffered as a result of the flawed Towards 2020 policy to close schools in 2006 are still angered by the appalling treatment they received at the hands of Andrew Barr and the ACT Labor government. The Canberra Liberals campaigned on this issue. The Greens campaigned on this issue. A report has been handed down stating that there is evidence to reverse some of the damage done by the government’s policy. However, they still refuse to admit that mistakes were made and the policy was flawed.
The ACT Greens have let down the community that they promised to support prior to the election and have shied away from their own policy commitment, which was a good policy. It was a good policy commitment. They have allowed themselves to be led by their powerful coalition allies, the ALP.
The Canberra Liberals’ position remains clear, committed and consistent. We support the reopening of these schools and will do everything in our power to make it happen. This is our stated commitment to the communities of Tharwa, Hall, Flynn and Cook.
There are a number of parallels that can be drawn between the philosophy on education policy adopted by Mr Barr and that of his ALP hero, Mark Latham. This may be purely coincidental. However, recently I came across an article online that critiques the ideas of the then ALP leader, Mr Latham, on education policy. There are some eerily similar statements to ones used by Mr Barr. I quote from this article written by Chris Saliba on a blog entitled “webdiary.com.au”:
What Did You Learn Today? (2001), Latham’s book on education, is mostly a rave about the so-called Information Age and all that it will bring us. In some parts it reads like an Oprah-esque hot gospel, with plenty of state of the art buzzwords. We are told enthusiastically about networks, collaborative learning, learning communities, education action zones and radical knowledge creation. The first page declares, ‘Society has always relied on education to teach people the virtues of reason and tolerance, but today, in the new economy, learning is much more than a pathway to social enrichment’.
Here he means education is about upward mobility, or his ladder of opportunity. Education for self-improvement, or to merely learn more about the world around you, has been superseded by the demands of globalisation. Its function is primarily for wealth generation, and not much else.
He even goes so far as to suggest that traditional universities and schools have passed their use-by date. ‘We have reached the limit of what schools, colleges and universities can achieve, even at best-practice performance. The public sector needs to lever additional networks and synergies of educational effort.’ He also declares ‘universities have lost their 900-year-old monopoly on learning’.
Latham sees education in purely vocational terms and as an engine room for the national economy, hence his impatience with traditional education and ‘social
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