Poor teachers to blame for kids' bad marks says Education Minister

He's partly right. But how come teaching is no longer an attractive profession? Would largely non-existent discipline be something to do with it? And what does it say about the 4-year courses aspiring teachers have to do before getting a teaching job? Does the word "useless" spring to mind?

Education minister Rod Welford says Queensland's ailing school system is linked to the incapacity of our universities to attract quality teachers. Mr Welford has signalled trainee teacher standards need urgent attention. Mr Welford yesterday compared Queensland teaching qualifications with those of the world leader Finland, which demands teachers have a Masters of Education. "In Finland it's very high competition to get into teaching and here we don't attract, for some reason, our best and brightest," Mr Welford said.

His comments come a day after Premier Anna Bligh announced an independent review of the school system, triggered by Queensland's latest poor showing in international exams. The Courier-Mail can confirm the Minister this week wrote to Melbourne education consultant Professor Brian Caldwell, inviting him to present his 10-point plan to turn around the dimming prospects of the state's languishing students.

Professor Caldwell and Brisbane's Dr Jessica Harris, who co-wrote Why Not The Best Schools, after five years' research into what makes the world's top schools tick, will present their conclusions to the heads of the department. The book and its 10-year plan draws heavily from Finland.

Professor Caldwell and Dr Harris yesterday said the Finnish move to raise standards and prestige of teaching through a compulsory Masters of Education, was critical to their success. Dr Harris said only the top 10 per cent of applicants were accepted to teaching; the most sought-after course. Such a cut-off in Queensland would equate to an Overall Position (OP) score of 3 or 4, and is in sharp contrast to the generous standards of Queensland universities. Scores needed to enter a Bachelor of Education in this state over the past two years ranged from Overall Position 12 to 19.

Queensland Teachers Union president Steve Ryan said such standards were far too low. He said OPs were generally nothing more than a measure of supply and demand in a particular year, and a method to fund university courses. "It doesn't solve the problem by changing them (entrance marks)," he said. "We've got to create a scenario that teachers with top OP scores compete for positions."

The union chief said he interpreted Mr Welford's comments about Queensland not attracting high-calibre teaching candidates as a discussion about raising the status of the profession.

The academic performances of Finland's schools are never published, with the state trusting school leaders to implement the curriculum effectively and provide equity of access to every child. Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said Mr Welford's move to blame teachers for the poor school results was typical of the Labor Government, which never accepted any responsibility for its actions or lack of action.

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This idolization of Finland has some merit but comparability between Finland and Australia is low. As just one example, the foreign-born population in Finland is just 2.5 percent, and most of those are people who fit into Finnish society with relative ease: Russians, Estonians and Swedes. Australia, by contrast, is one of the most multi-cultural and multi-racial countries on earth. So picking out the fact that Finnish teachers have Master's degrees as the crucial difference shows that we are listening to propaganda, not any serious attempt at analysis





Seaweed to the rescue

There are many reasons for wanting to reduce our dependence on oil: the increasing cost, reliability of supply, finite resources, the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming. Yet when people talk about alternative sources of fuel they mostly discuss the conversion of food, such as corn, into ethanol, which puts enormous pressure on food supplies. During the past year, demands for food and fuel have combined to drive up food prices sharply, which has particularly important ramifications in developing countries.

When one adds to the mix growing populations and global environmental change, with the pressures these impose on our ability to maintain high crop yields, the prospects for providing sufficient food for all are not good. So, the idea of converting a significant proportion of our food into fuel for vehicles or diverting agricultural land to grow biomass seems misguided.

Although the growth of biomass on marginal lands has some prospect, the impact on nature conservation must be considered. Furthermore, the contribution that such areas can make to global liquid fuel needs will always be modest. Marginal lands provide only low-density cropping potential and biomass from plants or crop residues generally has a low energy density, while a significant proportion of the energy gained from the biomass will be consumed in the process of moving the biomass to the processing centres.

Yet one group of plants could make a sustainable, significant contribution to world energy supply. They do not require agricultural land and need only minimal processing. Single-celled algae can grow very rapidly in low quality water, producing biomass at 10 to 30 times the rate of terrestrial plants. They can do this mainly because the cells are immersed in a medium providing all their needs, including physical support, and so the cells have no need to build infrastructure to move materials and to support themselves. A pond 60km by 60km (less than 500,000ha) well stocked with a vigorous microalga would go close to producing sufficient biomass to meet most of Australia's liquid fuel needs.

Furthermore, algae have remarkable biochemical abilities: some strains produce oils that could be used unmodified in diesel engines. Indeed, there is good evidence that many of the world's vast reserves of fossil liquid fuels are the products of ancient algal activity. The demands of algae are simple: sunlight, warmth, water, nutrients and, most significantly, carbon dioxide, the much maligned gas that is a major contributor to global warming.

Australia has more sunshine and warmth than any other developed country, and seawater is common, thanks to our extended coastline. Augmentation of seawater with waste water from sewage treatment plants could completely satisfy algal nutrient demands and would have the side benefit of treating the wastewater. Significantly, carbon dioxide can be delivered to the algal cells either direct from the atmosphere or in a concentrated form from cement factories and electricity stations. The algae can also be engineered to convert waste carbon dioxide to produce valuable products, such as liquid fuels.

Consequently, this process has much greater economic potential to be an economic option than, for example, carbon capture and storage, which, other than the carbon credits, produces no useful product. In addition to the production of liquid fuels, the algae can be used in other ways: there is potential for the cells to be pyrolysed to char for burial, which effectively removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or they could be used as animal food.

Across the world, including in Australia, pilot programs are pioneering this new biotechnology. The main engineering challenge is efficiently harvesting the algae. The biological challenges would not surprise anyone who has attempted to keep an aquarium clean. The algae must be resistant to pests and pathogens and must be able to outcompete other algae that are likely to contaminate the ponds. Reliable containment methods, such as those used for bacteria and fungi in research laboratories for decades, are also necessary to prevent the escape of the microalgae into our waterways. The use of algae that have evolved in natural ecosystems will not be adequate. To optimise productivity, alteration of the algae will be necessary, including their genetic modification.

Globally, most of the research on algal biofuels is in private hands. Recently, Bill Gates invested in a US company developing algae as a fuel. But if industry is to bridge the gap between theory and reality, large companies will need to dig deep in order to develop long-term research programs. Perhaps some government-sponsored research is also necessary. Support for the integration of algal production systems with existing infrastructure - power stations and waste treatment works - will also require government intervention. But, on the whole, this new and exciting area of research and development is likely to be driven by the private sector.

Meanwhile, the Government is grappling with solutions to climate change without factoring in new technology. The international community is meeting this week in Poznan, Poland, to try to negotiate a global agreement on reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. These negotiations are bound to be diabolically difficult, to use Ross Garnaut's phrase. There will be heated discussions about what the level of greenhouse gas emissions should be in 25 years and in 50 years. It is as if a conference were being held in 1908 on global transport for the 20th century without taking into account the work of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Nobody imagined that their rickety plane would transform the world. But it did.

In the 21st century we need to build on this understanding of the power of technology to transform the way we live. As Rupert Murdoch observed when he delivered his first Boyer Lecture last month, there will be great rewards for Australians who discover new ways of reducing emissions or cleaning the environment.

With some hard economic analyses, some cutting-edge plant biotechnology and engineering that balances economic and biological demands, algal liquid fuel production could provide us with the most sustainable and economically viable biofuels option and a contribution to greenhouse gas reductions.

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Social Control -Why Clive Hamilton Wants To Shut Down The Net

Meet the man behind the Labor Governments push to introduce mandatory Internet Filtering in Australia. Clive Hamilton is the face of the ‘intellectual left’ in Australia and has been advocating since 2003 for a mandatory filtering (read censorship) of the internet.

Hamilton claims the moral high ground of protecting our children against po***ography, even though he knows that it will not work. An article written by Hamilton on the 19th of November on the issue is very revealing:

“The internet has spawned a community of devotees who operate in a cow-boy culture that thinks itself beyond the normal reach of social control, as if they inhabit an independent cyber-nation that applies it own laws in the form of voluntary protocols for those who choose to accept them.”

Note the term ’social control’. Even though the majority of Australians don’t realize it over the past 2 decades Clive Hamilton through his leftist intellectual think tanks The Australia Institute & The Climate Institute have had a not inconsequential impact on Australian society.

Hamilton and the intellectual left have focused on 2 modes of operation: ‘social engineering’ brought about by ’social control’.

Social Engineering:

Clive Hamilton through his left wing Think Tanks, The Australia Institute and The Climate Institute has spent an enormous amount of time developing ‘leftist social engineering’ manifestos. As a left winged intellectual Hamilton and his think tanks have had (still do) unfettered and open access to ministers in State & Federal Labor governments to influence and indeed initiate policy decisions. That’s the purpose of the think tanks after all.

Social Control: (this is where the internet is a real thorn in Hamiltons side)

Before the widespread uptake of the internet in Australia, when those policies were released by the respective minister, the Australian Mainstream Media, particularly the ABC would turn to and quote Clive Hamilton as an independent commentator on the issue. The Australian public was unaware that Hamilton in many cases was the back room left wing intellectual who had inspired the policy in the first place. There are many examples of this, but there is none better than the current Labor policy of mandatory filtering the internet to rid it of ‘unwanted material’. To explain Hamilton’s role in the policy read Syd Walkers excellent article: Clive Hamilton & I: Getting Personal about S*x, Lies, Hate & Censorship (Cache here)

The internet has empowered ordinary Australians to find their own information from 1,000’s of different sources inside and outside of Australia. For example, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s recent attempts to imply in the mainstream media that countries such as New Zealand, the UK, Scandinavia have mandatory internet filtering is debunked by a simple google search.

Australians no longer can be controlled by manipulation of a handful of Multi-National Media outlets. This really bothers Hamilton. He see’s that he is losing his ’social control’ which is essential to bring about ’social engineering’.

As further evidence of this another recent article by Hamilton on Crikey (sorry no link, subscribers only) railing against criticism of IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pauchauri and my comment is instructive.

14th November 2008: “In the days before independent online media like Agmates, Left wing academics like Hamilton were quoted virtually unchallenged by the mainstream media. He's clearly upset that those times have changed.

"Duffy's article recycled uncritically the latest piece of denialist clap-trap circulating on the internet and occasionally breaking in to the serious press. Although the real scientists soon point out the error the clap-trap continues to circulate, confusing the public and giving the impression that scientists cannot makes up their minds."

What's the world coming to Clive? Oh for the good old days when only Clive's side of the story made it into the 'serious press'. We can't tolerate independent media questioning the global warming hysteria can we Clive? We can't allow proper debate of the issues can we Clive? Worst of all we can't allow voices of dissent, can we Clive? Clive has been the darling of the left wing mainstream media for many years with his anti-capitalism and anti-religious views.

Make no bones about it - Clive Hamilton and Labor's mandatory internet filtering is designed to win back ’social control’ from the internet. Everything else he has quoted as his reason for promoting the concept is a smoke screen.

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University experience is all the better if you leave home

I generally agree with James Allan but I fail to see that he makes his case below. In my observation kids in residential colleges seem mainly characterized by very juvenile behaviour and heavy drinking. Developing a feeling of fellowship with others of a similar age is however an advantage -- though more of an emotional one than anything else

A little under four years ago, I arrived to take up a professorship at the University of Queensland. Before that, I worked in or visited universities in New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, the United States and Britain. The first thing that hit me - and it still staggers me - is the pervasive managerialism of Australian universities. I have never encountered anything like it, anywhere (though a few people with experience of the ex-Soviet bloc may have).

A close second was the wasteful and ridiculous obsession with applying for grants in the humanities and law. No one would judge a car company by how many government grants it got, but by the quality and sales of the cars it produced. (Maybe that's not the best example at the moment with this government.) In the university sector here though, success at getting grants (an input) is treated as a sign of excellence (an output) in its own right. That's moronic.

But from the point of view of students, perhaps the most striking difference I've noticed between Australian universities and those in the other countries in which I've worked, is the relative dearth of residence or college places in the older, and best, universities. My personal experience and professional observations make me think students are better off leaving home and going into residence when they start university. This is a highly chosen option, if not the norm, in my native Canada, as well as in the US and Britain. New Zealand's oldest university, and one of its two best, is situated in a small university town, and relies on the bulk of its students coming from all over the country, including almost a third who come down from Auckland.

Australian universities, and especially the older, elite ones, are overwhelmingly big-city commuter universities. They take a small percentage of students into residence, mainly from the country. On top of that, there is next to no tradition of large numbers of students travelling out of state to another university. If you are from Sydney you go to a Sydney university; if from Melbourne to one in Melbourne. University students stay at home. They commute to, and home from, the campus. The overall learning experience - in both a narrow academic sense and in a wider life-changing (including having fun) sense - is far inferior to going to a residence university. Given any two universities even remotely comparable in their academic excellence, if one is residence and the other commuter, students should do whatever they possibly can to attend the residence one.

What about the cost? Well, the differential costs argument really isn't all that powerful once you factor in the cost of running a car to go back and forth at the commuter university and then recall that adding, say, $20,000-odd to your final loan is not much at all in the greater scheme of getting a first-class all-round university experience you will always remember, and a big leg up in likely lifetime earnings. What's the difference, really, between a $300,000 mortgage on your first home and a $320,000 one?

I have two children, one 15 and one 13. The sad truth is should either ask my opinion, I would not advise attending an Australian university. I think both would be better off attending a Canadian or (one in particular) NZ university. You just cannot beat the life-changing experience of living away from home at a residence university. Whether anything can now be done about the lack of top residence universities in Australia is dubious. No doubt it is a failing that in large part is a function of historical contingency. But it's still a shame.

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