The Premier claims that the policy will cut red tape, allow parents more say, raise educational standards and transform education. The claims are ridiculous.
The Government plans to choose 30 schools for a demonstration program in 2010 and then allow schools to nominate to be involve next year. Details of the program are, as usual, sketchy but seem to include the following:
The Barnett's government announcement is consistent with a trend towards hidden privatization in public education, a trend documented in a recent report by Stephen Ball and Deborah Yodell at the University of London
- allowing schools to shun the officual curriculum
- offering programs normally offered by private schools
- giving principals budgetary power and power to hire teachers
- expelling students more easily
http://www.ei-ie.org/annualreport2007/upload/content_trsl_images/630/Hidden_privatisation-EN.pdf
Ball and Yodell report that:
- More and more the trend towards privatisation of public education is hidden from public view or couched in the rhetoric of educational reform and choice
- The trend towards privatization of education reflects an increasingly market based, competitive and consumerist orientation in society
- these various forms of privatisation radically change the way education is organized, delivered and managed
- Hidden privatization of education carries many ethical and policy dangers
No comments:
Post a Comment