Parents want education system to prep kids for jobs, not political activism

Uni Students for Climate Justice group protest outside AGL’s Sydney office on George Street in January. Picture: Damian Shaw

What does society expect from its media, its universities and schools?

If voters had a direct say, I think not what they are getting now. Journalism, teaching and higher education are all way to the left of public opinion.

That’s why in the era of Black Lives Matter, the global defacing of statues and activist media misreporting of US President Donald Trump and Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison, voters stubbornly keep electing people largely disapproved of by journalists, teachers and academics.

It was there for Australians to see at last year’s May 18 federal election when journalists on the ABC’s election night coverage were shattered by Morrison’s unexpected win.

Given parties of the left seldom win law-and-order elections it may happen again in November if Americans refuse to vote for a Democratic Party whose state governors have openly sided with anarchist protesters.

Even middle-class African-Americans may surprise The New York Times and The Washington Post by voting for economic stability, rather than violent protest.

This column twice in 2016 — including the day before the election — predicted Trump could beat Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. Part of the media’s problem understanding ordinary people’s political mood is the tendency of journalists to rely on social media, especially Twitter, for assessments. Yet most journalists know the academic research shows Twitter skews left.

And for Twitter to have an effect, journalists need to be intellectually susceptible. This comes back to school curriculums and university academic agendas. Look at pieces in The Sydney Morning Herald last Saturday by Julia Baird and Friday by Waleed Aly to see support for the toppling of statues by people with extensive academic backgrounds. It’s an ancient tradition seen recently with Islamic State in the Syrian ruins of Palmyra and the Taliban destruction of Buddhas in Afghanistan.

What should society expect from the education system? Schools need to teach children how to think, impart some knowledge of history and science, and above all provide a sound footing in the three Rs. Constantly condemning racism in every course — rather than, say, murder, rape or theft — seems too political. But ­social activists who have had their claws in curriculum for decades have their own priorities.

Joan Kirner in 1992.

Former 1990s Victorian premier and minister for education Joan Kirner explained: “Education has to be reshaped so it is part of the socialist struggle for equality … rather than an instrument of the capitalist system.” Pat Byrne, former head of the Australian Education Union, in 2005 said: “We have succeeded in influencing curriculum development … conservatives have a lot of work to do to undo the progressive curriculum.” It’s not what most parents want for their children from school.

And it’s why today’s local BLM protesters have no idea Captain Cook did not establish the first white settlement in Port Jackson. Not to mention their view our first governor, Arthur Phillip, and later governor Lachlan Macquarie were evil racists rather than Enlightenment men of their time.

Protesters are even more out of kilter with public understanding in the UK and US where The Guardian openly criticises Winston Churchill, the UK prime minister who helped galvanise the world against Adolf Hitler, author of the Holocaust. Or in the US where the movement seeks to brand Abraham Lincoln as the scourge of Native American Indians even though he fought the Civil War to end slavery.

Every great historical figure can be reassessed, but this is more properly the role of PhD papers in history faculties. Even The Guardian has failed such revisionist scrutiny, its role in supporting slavery in the US cotton industry now widely condemned.

Such nonsense should be enough to tell Western governments to “defund curriculum” rewriting rather than defund police. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan was on the right track on Friday announcing lower university fees for nursing and other jobs-related courses but steep increases for arts degrees.

Protesters stand on the statue of Marianne on Place de la Republique in Paris during a Black Lives Matter protest.

A piece in the free-thinking Unherd.com by Mary Harrington on June 4 traces the links between the failed aspirations of overeducated, privileged younger graduates and rising support for Antifa in the UK. Think here about the thousands of graduates in media and communications who will never find a media job.

Society should expect the ­humanities to provide a broad understanding of the liberal arts. Utilitarian courses should offer rigorous training in the sciences, medicine and engineering with as little politically motivated scientific campaigning as possible.

Young people wanting to become journalists probably should not study media at university. Economics, the law or science, yes. But not some course driven by a former journalist who thinks understanding the power dynamics of language and media ownership can help change the world.

Governments need to think of education as a hand-up for the less privileged and the glue that binds our society. Both roles are only damaged by the latest focus on ever smaller identities and their ­inclusion in unrelated study areas. As part of the national schools curriculum Australian teachers now have to overlay all their work with three cross-curriculum priorities: Aboriginal and Torres Strait cultures; Asia and Australian engagement with it; and sustainability.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the break it forced in international students studying here and concern about China’s use of university Confucius Institutes to push a pro-China agenda on campus should give editors pause for thought about how they report higher education.

Prime Minister Morrison has already spoken of reinvigorating trades training. Australia went the wrong way when under Labor PM Bob Hawke it ended the binary system of higher education in 1987. Then education minister John Dawkins scrapped colleges of advanced education to rebrand them as universities.

It happened at a time of high youth unemployment and along with increasing Year 12 school retention rates was seen as an answer to Australia’s economic challenges. But it was a failure, as this paper predicted it would be.

The employment challenges of COVID-19 and border closures provide an opportunity to reinvigorate trades and technology education.

Teachers should learn to teach at colleges of advanced education rather than learn theories of knowledge at universities. Universities should not be allowed to continue with a foreign student funding model that compromises their own intellectual standards. Vice-chancellors on $1.5m annual salaries should be seen again as guardians of education rather than corporate managers.

In schools, we need to follow the German example of grammar and trades schools. We need to forget “equality of outcomes” and support our best and brightest while providing opportunity to those who need help. We need to go back to academic class streaming and valuing winners. We need to support teachers insisting on class discipline.

Education journalists need to advocate for such reforms in the interests of students rather than constantly advocating for teacher and academic unions. The clients are the kids.