Whenever assessing something or someone the only thing you really have to go on is past history. The resume. The track record.
A lot has been written and said in recent days about education and Gonski 2.0. The bottom line question is will it amount to much? The bottom line answer is an emphatic no.
We’ve seen this movie before a dozen times and still have nothing to show for it. Reports, reviews, overhauls and blueprints are what ministers call for when they either don’t know what else to do or simply haven’t the guts to take the fight up to the bureaucracy or the teachers union.
Mind you. ministers in just about any portfolio are only ever there until the next reshuffle or until the government falls. Probably 2,3, or 4 years or sometimes as little as 3 months as we’ve seen recently in Veterans Affairs which had three ministers in 18 months the last one for 3 months and so the bureaucracy simply waits them out.
The inter-generational March Through the Institutions and ideological guerrilla war undermining education has been raging for 40 or 5O years and is all but over with perhaps a few pockets of resistance. In a case of the blind leading the blind, the kids have been dumbed down over that time and they go on to be the teachers of tomorrow and so the cycle continues.
Education has been well and truly Gramcied and marched through and you’re not going to get the toothpaste back in the tube any time soon
The left has taken education hostage and have it exactly where they want it. They have absolutely no intention of coming out with their hands up.
This is not peculiar to Australia it’s the same right across the West.
Check this list below of overhauls, reviews and blueprints over the last 20 years and think about all the money thrown at the problem, think about the jargon, cliches and ministerial and talking head blather and tell me what’s changed other than that Australia has gone backwards even further.
Bob Carr ordered curriculum overhaul in 1997 — There was a Federal/State joint overhaul in 2000 — There was a maths and science overhaul in 2002 — There was a history/English overhaul in 2003 — There was a national curriculum overhaul in 2007– NAPLAN was intoduced 2008 — There was the Gillard curriculum overhaul in 2009 — Gillard as Minister for education commissioned Gonski in 2010 — There was an education overhaul responding to NAPLAN in 2010 — The Gonski findings were released 2011 — There was the Abbott government overhaul in 2015 — And now we have Gonski 2.0 in 2018.
Like I said, we’ve seen this movie before, we know the script backwards and we know how it ends.