Post by lauraqld on May 11, 2006 2:59:19 GMT -5
My first ever talkback! Be kind please!!
Welcome to Talkback topics, I’m Laura Morrison from Currumbin on the Gold Coast on 1900 93 6397 .
There has been talk from the federal government recently about bringing in a standardized Australian year 12 examination replacing current exams such as the HSC of New South Wales and the Core Skills test of Queensland.
The exam, which could receive its first graduates as early as 2009, aims to test the basic subject areas such as the sciences, history, maths, English, economics, geography and computer literacy skills.
The new system aims to give its graduates higher employability skills by focusing on areas such as teamwork, problem solving and initiative says ninemsn news.
I took the core skills exam myself last year. Sitting in the room doing the exam there was more than one instance in which I thought “I will never need to use this skill again in my life. Why did I learn this?”
And it seems that the government agrees.
The reform of the education assessment standards could be part of a push towards education focusing on practicality. Which could be beneficial in terms of getting a job and making money…
It is a known fact that our society has a responsibility to our subsequent generations to ensure that they are provided with the educational means to not only fulfill their individual capabilities but also to contribute to our society overall.
Yet it brings me to speculate… Are we still learning for our own benefit? Or has it changed and are our skills only used for the benefit of society and its economic gain? Some things we learn in high school will not benefit us in our careers but perhaps we feel some enjoyment in knowing them.
This of course comes back to the traditional argument of liberal education versus vocational education.
Liberal education is defined as education providing thorough general knowledge and intellectual skills acquired from birth to adulthood. These skills cover a broad range of topics, including art, history, humanities, science and languages.
On the contrary, vocational education is designed to prepare students for the workforce and it is centered around occupations that require skills not traditionally academic-based. Vocational education schemes include apprenticeships in particular areas where a student would learn typically ‘hands on’ skills.
Sometimes underprivileged students are pushed into apprenticeships just to fill shortages within a community… So what has happened to a student’s own choice?
To remove the choice that liberal education provides, is to limit a student’s individuality, creativity and expression, and to steer them into an occupation without their full understanding of all available job options.
Arguments that vocation education is necessary for Australia to compete in the global economy are challenged by the emergence of knowledge based economies. While it is not the educator’s responsibility to choose an individual’s career path, their role is to provide informed choices to their students. The lack of informed choices can lead to the misallocation of valuable human resources.
In these instances, vocational education systems aimed at hastening the training and productivity of workers, can significantly impair it.
So the current education systems should stay as they are for now, by assessing a student in how well they do in each subject THEY choose to study, not their employability statistics.
My final thought… is that the democracy of education depends on liberal education as against vocational education. Because we are humans not cogs in a global money-making machine.
I’m Laura Morrison.
Welcome to Talkback topics, I’m Laura Morrison from Currumbin on the Gold Coast on 1900 93 6397 .
There has been talk from the federal government recently about bringing in a standardized Australian year 12 examination replacing current exams such as the HSC of New South Wales and the Core Skills test of Queensland.
The exam, which could receive its first graduates as early as 2009, aims to test the basic subject areas such as the sciences, history, maths, English, economics, geography and computer literacy skills.
The new system aims to give its graduates higher employability skills by focusing on areas such as teamwork, problem solving and initiative says ninemsn news.
I took the core skills exam myself last year. Sitting in the room doing the exam there was more than one instance in which I thought “I will never need to use this skill again in my life. Why did I learn this?”
And it seems that the government agrees.
The reform of the education assessment standards could be part of a push towards education focusing on practicality. Which could be beneficial in terms of getting a job and making money…
It is a known fact that our society has a responsibility to our subsequent generations to ensure that they are provided with the educational means to not only fulfill their individual capabilities but also to contribute to our society overall.
Yet it brings me to speculate… Are we still learning for our own benefit? Or has it changed and are our skills only used for the benefit of society and its economic gain? Some things we learn in high school will not benefit us in our careers but perhaps we feel some enjoyment in knowing them.
This of course comes back to the traditional argument of liberal education versus vocational education.
Liberal education is defined as education providing thorough general knowledge and intellectual skills acquired from birth to adulthood. These skills cover a broad range of topics, including art, history, humanities, science and languages.
On the contrary, vocational education is designed to prepare students for the workforce and it is centered around occupations that require skills not traditionally academic-based. Vocational education schemes include apprenticeships in particular areas where a student would learn typically ‘hands on’ skills.
Sometimes underprivileged students are pushed into apprenticeships just to fill shortages within a community… So what has happened to a student’s own choice?
To remove the choice that liberal education provides, is to limit a student’s individuality, creativity and expression, and to steer them into an occupation without their full understanding of all available job options.
Arguments that vocation education is necessary for Australia to compete in the global economy are challenged by the emergence of knowledge based economies. While it is not the educator’s responsibility to choose an individual’s career path, their role is to provide informed choices to their students. The lack of informed choices can lead to the misallocation of valuable human resources.
In these instances, vocational education systems aimed at hastening the training and productivity of workers, can significantly impair it.
So the current education systems should stay as they are for now, by assessing a student in how well they do in each subject THEY choose to study, not their employability statistics.
My final thought… is that the democracy of education depends on liberal education as against vocational education. Because we are humans not cogs in a global money-making machine.
I’m Laura Morrison.
