The Australian government wants to obliterate failure from education. Universities could even be fined if students fail. Will this lead to a more successful nation, or ensure just the opposite?
We could see the educational equivalent of Gresham’s Law in which debased degrees (where everyone who enrolls gets one, regardless of achievement) lower the value of even the “good ones”. Employers will need to do a lot more testing of potential employees if the “signal” of having a degree gets watered down.
As a new(ish) grandparent I was astounded to learn that the good old Aussie child's game of pass the parcel (for 3 year olds) nowadays has every child winning a prize - no child misses out, all get some sort of little back-up gift to prevent hysterics.
With this sort of conditioning how are these ones going to react when of university or working age?
John Dawkins elevation of non-unis to university status, along with his view that many more would benefit from a uni education, was one of the biggest errors of the (generally good) Hawke government. For a great many people, university is not the best option. A friend of mine teaching at QUT when entry for low achievers was promoted in the '90s had a number of students who couldn't cope, and suffered from being where they should never have been. The dreadful Albanese government wants to make things worse.
We could see the educational equivalent of Gresham’s Law in which debased degrees (where everyone who enrolls gets one, regardless of achievement) lower the value of even the “good ones”. Employers will need to do a lot more testing of potential employees if the “signal” of having a degree gets watered down.
That sort of conditioning begins very early now.
As a new(ish) grandparent I was astounded to learn that the good old Aussie child's game of pass the parcel (for 3 year olds) nowadays has every child winning a prize - no child misses out, all get some sort of little back-up gift to prevent hysterics.
With this sort of conditioning how are these ones going to react when of university or working age?
John Dawkins elevation of non-unis to university status, along with his view that many more would benefit from a uni education, was one of the biggest errors of the (generally good) Hawke government. For a great many people, university is not the best option. A friend of mine teaching at QUT when entry for low achievers was promoted in the '90s had a number of students who couldn't cope, and suffered from being where they should never have been. The dreadful Albanese government wants to make things worse.