Education in Australia: a race to the Finnish

How refreshing to read William Doyle's article ("Why Finland has the best schools" March 26) where "Educators are the ultimate authorities on education, not bureaucrats, and not technology vendors". Doyle, a Fulbright scholar and university lecturer, says: "Finland has a history of producing the highest global test scores in the Western world … including the most literate nation".

It's about time that our politicians stopped blaming young teachers who are "not up to scratch" for our falling standards. Like Finland we do have highly trained teachers with Master's degrees but they are not valued, financially or professionally.

<i>Illustration: Cathy Wilcox.</i>
Illustration: Cathy Wilcox. 

Where is the funding for improved teacher qualifications, ongoing professional development, classroom support for special education needs and playground monitors? The rest of the world knows that you don't need a Masters to supervise the playground but it's helpful to be an effective teacher. The classrooms of the top performers according to your story "Marked Down: the education system that's failing us" (March 26) – Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong – differ greatly from our multicultural classes where we cater for individual differences without adequate support. Where is the research to explain what is needed to bring us up to the Finnish model?

Anne Morrison Paddington


Twelve paragraphs into the latest mawkish paean to Finland's education system, we finally reach the nub of the matter. In an aside, we are informed that class sizes in Finland are "manageable". In fact, class sizes in Finland are capped at far lower levels than that of most other developed countries, a crucial factor which is routinely ignored or downplayed in depictions of Finland as an educational paradise. Perhaps the legions of education academics who airily dismiss the importance of class sizes, while making a fetish of the rest of the Finland "recipe", might take note.

Michael Salter Baulkham Hills


Thanks to the Herald for its treatment of educational issues. (March26-27). Interesting to compare the rorting of VET and a succession of complicit governments ("The bipartisan catastrophe that's wasting billions in taxpayer dollars"), with the approach to education in Finland. In Finland apparently, education is a service provided by a government that respects students and teachers. Here, where the ideology of privatisation verges on the pathological, governments have abandoned this old-fashioned approach and viewed education as a marketable commodity, a kind of bureaucratic raffle in which taxpayers, strangely, still buy all the tickets. Sort of takes the excitement out of innovation.

John Mester South Golden Beach

. Only two countries in the world, Chile and Belgium, spend as much government money on private schools as we do. Finnish professor Pasi Sahlberg of Harvard University and former Director-General of CIMO (Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation) at Finland's Ministry of Education and Culture has repeatedly explained Finland's success at going from one of the world's poorer performing countries to the Western world's best. He says they focused on the neediest schools and didn't worry about the best. And, they have no private funding of schools. This is almost exactly the opposite of what Australia does.

Brenton White Mosman

If teacher quality is really the main factor in raising educational standards, there is no mystery about what has happened to education in Australia. Starting in the 1980s, I noticed that I was increasingly teaching next to graduate teachers whose blackboard grammar, spelling and punctuation was downright embarrassing. Sometimes I used to pop next door and correct the worst errors during recess. The policy, beloved of both sides of politics, of recruiting teachers with low HSC results has come home to roost; many will be in the system for another 20 years. Until we value teaching and reward it commensurately we will continue to see standards stagnate or fall.

Chris McGregor Cabarita

Quentin Dempster's excellent summary of just how bad our vocational education system has become made for chilling reading. His mention of the difficulties (and disinclination) among private providers to "fail" students who have just paid many thousands of dollars for their certification was particularly alarming, but VET assessment methods have even deeper flaws that were there before the rise of the private provider sector.

By the mid '90s all vocational courses, TAFE and private, had abolished marks, percentages and grades (eg, pass, credit, distinction) in favour of an ideologically based and government imposed "competence" assessment system. Students were classified as "competent" or "not yet competent" (attitudes ceased to be assessed). If "not yet competent" they could resit the tests repeatedly until they satisfied the criteria for competence. The method allowed teachers who were reluctant to fail students ample opportunity to "coach to competence". It also turned employers' selection of apprentices into a raffle due to the lack of any qualitative information on a trainee's level of performance. It's more than funding that needs fixing.

Peter Russell Coogee

Urban Growth driven by dollars not easing inequality

The failure of Urban Growth to include any affordable housing in the first stage of the North Eveleigh project is sadly very familiar ("No affordable housing in new towers", March 26-27.) The same appalling results are true of proposed urban renewal projects in North Parramatta (the former Cumberland Hospital) and the Bays Precinct.Only 10 years ago, Landcom, the predecessor of Urban Growth, operated in the housing supply market to give modest income potential home owners a chance.Similar government development agencies in the UK and the US are today lauded about their achievements in generating affordable and social housing close to jobs, transport and services in their cities.Urban Growth's real mission appears to simply be to maximise development benefits to the NSW Treasury coffers and accelerate the removal of low income households from many parts of Greater Sydney.Gary Moore Leichhardt

The discovery that (shock, horror!) there will be no "affordable" housing in the North Eveleigh project should be greeted with relief. The construction of "affordable " housing by the Government is a futile exercise that will always fall short of demand and that carries with it so many undesirable side-effects. What is needed is to focus on families in need, by providing social supports (subsidies) that will allow them to compete effectively in the housing market. We have made a national policy decision to rely on private enterprise to provide shelter. We subsidise many other life elements for the poor, so why not housing - one of the most essential.Bruce Hyland Woy Woy

Hard to bank on Sinodinos' lack of knowledge about Libs donation

In two separate articles, the admirable Kate McClymont re-examines Senator Sinodinos' time as Liberal Party treasurer while a board member of Australian Water Holdings. ("Donors tapped for house" and "Failing the pub test", March 26-27.)It's on the record that AWH donated $74,000 to the Liberal Party. The good senator was questioned as to why he had no recollection of any donations."Does that suggest to you that you did not know that the company of which you were deputy chairman was making donations to the political party of which you were treasurer?"

The reply was, "It was not a process I involved myself in."

Now I cannot speak for what happens in the boardrooms of the nation. I am, however, the former treasurer of the Saint Georges Basin Country Club's snooker sub-section, to give it its full title, so I do have some experience and authority in financial affairs. If a treasurer doesn't involve himself in the banking of cheques, the balancing of books and the reporting of financial transactions to inquisitive committee members, I'd like to know what processes he does get involved in. I know for a fact that a deposit of $74,000 to our coffers would not have passed unremarked. James McArdle Sanctuary Point

Oh, my stars! The housing affordability crisis is worse than I thought. Sinodinos is an economics graduate who appears to have been in continuous, well-paid employment all his life. If he can't afford a house, at his age (59), what chance do young people have? Or is there more to this? And is he still giving economic advice to government?

Janet Simpson Glebe

I'd be more than happy to throw in a few grand towards a house for Arthur Sinodinos. That's on the proviso, of course, that the Liberal Party will provide me with a tax-deductible receipt.

Peter Mahoney Oatley

The obvious explanation to large, unexplained sums of money in your bank account is "Well, I answered this e-mail from Nigeria...."Robert Clayton Mallanganee

To answer Paul Sutcliffe's question (Letters, March 26-27) as to whether or not charges will be laid in relation to NSW Liberal Party funding: it depends upon the whim of the police. The AFP were happy to investigate and lay charges against Peter Slipper (of which he was eventually acquitted). However, when Bronwyn Bishop's vastly greater travel excesses were referred to the AFP, they referred them back to the Finance Department so that the matter could be investigated in-house.

We don't even know whether the money has been repaid, let alone whether any charges would have been appropriate.

Lewis Winders Sheffield (Tas)

Terrorists' ability to communicate from prison astonishes

AFP Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan is quoted as saying of incarcerated terrorists, "Some continue to have influence from prison." ("Appleby terror cell a tough nut to crack", March 26-27).

Excuse me? They're allowed mobile phones? They have access to the internet? They're allowed to consort with each other in prison? They have physical contact with visitors? Their conversations with visitors are not overheard by bilingual correction officers? Their mail is not scrutinised?

They are murderous terrorists who want to kill us and have thus given up certain "inalienable" rights.

I am astonished.

Richard Fry Marrickville

Labor and Coalition are in same Senate reform boat

The claim that "Labor will never ever control the Upper House" because of Senate voting reform is based on flawed logic, ("Druery's 2016 predictions", March 26-27).

It is 65 years since Labor last held an outright majority in the Senate, in 1951. It has relied on independents, Democrats, the Greens, and other small parties to pass legislation when in government, and to defeat Coalition government bills when in opposition.

That will continue, not because Senate voting reform has made it harder for Labor to get senators elected. The quota to elect a senator is unchanged. The simple fact is that Labor no longer gets anywhere near a majority of the vote to win control of the Senate alone. The Coalition is in the same boat.

It is not a bold prediction, but a minor party or parties are assured of winning the Senate balance of power. The question is where on the political spectrum will those minor parties be located.

Geoff Ash Bondi Junction

Horin's representation of the invisible greatly missed

Thank you, Greg Hywood, for your reassurance that quality investigative journalism will continue despite the proposed culling of 120 editorial jobs across Fairfax Media ("Let's have the quality discussion", March 26-27).

However, there was another proud Herald tradition exemplified by the writings of the late, and deeply missed, journalist Adele Horin. Adele spoke for the "invisible" and "voiceless" people of our society: the working poor, the homeless, people with disabilities in substandard boarding houses. Based on wide reading, impeccably researched and fact-checked, her columns brought about change in government policy and a deeper understanding of the situations of those who struggle. When high-rise developments proliferate without a concurrent increase in social and affordable housing, when essential workers commute to the CBD from the Central Coast, people with jobs sleep in cars, and the number of rough sleepers is higher than ever, we need voices like hers in the Herald.

Myree Harris Petersham

Protagonists in lawn bowls biffo probably young

Garth Clarke (Letters March 26-27) you confidently believe your old-fartdom sees you age-qualified for lawn bowls. The average age of today's representative lawn bowls teams is less than that of Australia's cricket teams, so it may shock you to your slippers, Garth, to know you'd likely be thought of as "too old". As for the reported biffo on the bowling green, I'll suck my bowls rag if the alleged pugilists weren't aged under 35.

June Benson Merrylands.

Just use a cartoon

I note with horror that we taxpayers are to fork out $30,000+ for a portrait to immortalise Bronwyn Bishop, arguably the worst Speaker in our parliamentary history (Bronnie the $32k portrait, March 27). Surely Moir could donate one of his brilliant cartoons: instantly recognisable. Don Smith Ashfield

I think Bronwyn Bishop should be standing beside a helicopter in her official portrait.

John de Bres Rose Bay

Whale of a rescue

Good to see some ice breaking between Australia and Japan in the Southern Ocean ("Shirase returns to Sydney a hero after rescuing 66 Australians", March 26-27). Just don't mention the whales.Meredith Williams Dee Why

Thunder on watch

Fear not (Letters March 26-27) it is not the ghost of Tim Bristow's Alsatian that roams at Newport.Thunder, the beautiful and faithful Alsatian pet of Justin Hemmes, is now looking over it.Neil Duncan Balmain