Ok, this could be a very long post, but I suspect that I’m just going to make it short because if I wrote down all my thoughts it could become longer than “War and Peace”… the very long novel by Tolstoy, as opposed to the situation in Iraq.
Mm, actually the novel by Tolstoy isn’t really long by comparison…
My first point is that the Liberals believe in the great invisible hand of the free market. People should be given choice and Good will follow. Of course, this is within legal limits. People shouldn’t be given choice about illegal things. And gay marriage isn’t legal, so we don’t need to talk about that, and we certainly shouldn’t allow a conscience vote.
However, when it comes to Education, it seems that it’s a good idea to make Maths and Science compulsory at Year 12, according to the Education Minister, Mr Pyne.
F*ck choice. We’ll make the little bludgers do it. Forget the fact that Science wasn’t even important enough to have a Ministry, when Abbott was first elected. Apparently, we’ve slipped in the international rankings according to PISA, which tests kids in their middle years of secondary school.
The solution to this isn’t – as some of you might think – to improve science education in the early years. The solution is to eliminate all this free choice at Year 12. No such thing as the invisible hand now.
Yep, make it compulsory for students who’ve never been good at Maths or Science. Make them – as well as kids who simply would prefer to do other subjects – to do it for another couple of years and that’ll lift those rankings. Put a whole lot of uninterested students in our senior classes and watch how much better that’ll be for everyone.
But just let Labor or The Greens try and make anything compulsory, and we’ll be hearing all about the nanny state and the great virtues of people being allowed to do whatever they like.
Yep, that’s the short version. Unlike Christopher Pyne, I know when to stop.
