What Education?

A long article in the Sunday Mail,(4.12.05) lauds Steve Marshall the retiring CEO of the state’s Department of Education and Children’s Services.  Marshall claims that “Education in South Australia is in very good shape and been acknowledged by international people as well”.

Let’s look at the facts.  Employers in South Australia now have to go overseas to find candidates with sufficient scholastic ability to fill their apprenticeship places.  Major employers now say that our IT graduates are not up to the standard of India’s graduates.  J.P. Morgan Chase,a major American Company,will move 30% of its back office and support staff to India by the end of 2007 and hire 9,000 workers there.  J.P. Morgan says “The quality of the people we hire is extraordinary and their level of loyalty to the company unbeatable.

We do not or cannot train enough doctors and nurses and our manufacturing industry is on the point of collapse.

I prefer to believe the report commissioned by the Department of Education,Science and Training which say’s that “New Age” curriculums have resulted in Australia’s primary school curriculums competing poorly with those of Japan,Singapore,California and England.  They do not mention India.

Our education system is good enough for a Third World state and country and if Dr. Nelson wants to improve it let him take over and get rid of all the present incumbents.