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| Down Under |
| Aussie PM lashes 'sludge, waffle, fads' taught in schools |
| 2007-02-08 |
| AUSTRALIA'S public school curriculum contained "incomprehensible sludge" and new-age fads that were robbing children of their cultural heritage, Prime Minister John Howard said today. In comments sure to anger teachers' unions and state governments, Mr Howard today stepped up his campaign to reform school education, deriding parts of the curriculum as politically correct, jargon-ridden waffle. The Prime Minister made the remarks while launching a book by Kevin Donnelly, a former chief of staff to Howard government minister Kevin Andrews, accusing state-based education hierarchies of dumbing down learning. “Few debates are as vital as those over education, whether it be in upholding basic standards on literacy or numeracy, promoting diversity and choice or challenging the incomprehensible sludge that can find its way into some curriculum material,” Mr Howard said. “There is something both deadening and saccharine in curriculum documents where history is replaced by 'time continuity and change' and geography now becomes 'place, space and environment'. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 Three cheers. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-02-08 13:08 |