Independent views By Brendan Horan

My sympathies rest firmly with the school administrators and the teaching profession, which for so long now has had their attention distracted from their primary roles as educators. How many other professions would stand for what this Government has subjected them to, in respect to payment for a job well done?

By nature, teachers are attracted to the profession by their love for children and their nurturing nature. My fear is that this Government is exploiting the profession's tendency toward natural goodwill, with a hidden agenda. I fear they are testing the tolerance of teachers, with an ultimate drive toward performance-driven salaries for the profession. And the profession, thus far, is obliging. Where others would by now have withdrawn their labour – teachers remain at the chalk face.

This Government is genuinely failing in respect to education, it is sticking with an extremely unpopular minister, and it continues to roll out unpopular policies that have little credibility within the profession. And we have a system churning out National Party-prescribed education outcomes at the expense of well-rounded, well-informed holistic students, who have an abundance of common sense and problem solving initiatives.

With National Standards, Unit Standards and National Certificates of education achievements, the system is forcing educationalists to teach to finely-prescribed standards, and the focus becomes the qualification and how that will earn credibility beyond school. And where a school may be failing to attain the expected national standards, it has to become focused on the core standard outcomes of reading, writing and mathematics. So much more that schools can offer our children, are getting lost in the quest for reaching national standards at a determined and prescribed age and/or stage of childhood development.

Facebook.com/Brendan.horan.336 twitter.com/brendanhoran or Phone Brendan on 574 0253.