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Plan to hold back strugglers under attack
Liberal plan to hold back school strugglers under attack
Education & Training Section - The Age - 25/1/2006
By Farrah Tomazin - State Political Reporter
Students who fail to meet basic reading and writing standards will not be promoted to the next year level unless they attend summer school or have extra coaching, under a Liberal plan designed to boost Victorian literacy rates.
The culture of automatically allowing students to graduate from one year to the next - even when they are not meeting learning requirements - ought to be "a thing of the past" under a Liberal state government, according to Opposition education spokesman Victor Perton.
Instead, he said, students unable to read or write properly should be forced to get extra tuition, attend summer school, or receive federal government reading "vouchers" to bring them up to scratch, before being reassessed to see if they are ready to graduate.
Those who were not ready should be held back for another year, Mr Perton said.
"Promoting students to the next year level without making sure that they've got the basic skills makes them bored, troublesome and they fall behind," he said.
"If the message that we give kids is that there is no consequence for failure, it sets them up for even more failure for the rest of their lives. Our response as an incoming Liberal government has to be to say that enough is enough."
Education will be a major issue at the November 25 state election, with both the Labor and Liberal parties keen to bolster literacy rates in schools.
But the Government, teachers and principals have hit out at Mr Perton's proposal, describing it as simplistic. Campbell Giles, spokeswoman for acting Education Minister Jacinta Allan, said: "This proposal is a clear indication the Opposition does not understand the challenges faced by students, parents and teachers. Literacy and numeracy standards should not be used to punish children but as a tool to identify their specific needs."
Australian Education Union stat president Mary Bluett agreed, saying early intervention and more support in the classroom was a better option.
"The issue of literacy is far more complex than a few weeks of summer school," Ms Bluett said. "Some kids have ongoing literacy issues but it doesn't mean they're incapable of learning in other key areas."
The Opposition's stance comes as principals push for improvements in literacy. The Victorian Principals Association is urging the Government to use May's state budget to finance a new reading program to target hundreds of students in years 3 to 5 who do not meet basic literacy standards.
But Primary Principals Association president Fred Ackerman refused to endorse Mr Perton's ideas, despite agreeing that more help was needed.
"What happens, for instance, if a girl is very good at literacy but struggling with her maths. Do you hold them back in those circumstances?" he asked.
The Government has a policy to increase the proportion of students achieving benchmark levels for year 3, 5 and 7 levels of reading, numeracy and writing. OECD figures suggest Victorian students have lower rates of literacy, numeracy and scientific literacy than their counterparts in Queensland, NSW, WA and South Australia.
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