NSW Primary Principals Association president Phil Seymour is on the whole impressed with David Gonski’s latest blueprint to fix Australia’s lagging school system.
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The Hayes Park Public School principal welcomes the fact the Gonski 2.0 plan will transform the school system to assess and reward personal progress, not just standard academic benchmarks.
Mr Seymour is particularly pleased many PPA recommendations are included in the new report, which urges Australia to modernise its industrial-era model of school education and move towards individualised learning for all students.
‘The potential is there for it to be really good but what it is going to come down to is resourcing,” he told the Mercury.
“It’s good the recognition that for kids to get great growth, teachers have to be on the ball and the professional learning that teachers will need is recognised.
“But if we want additional time for teachers to individualise teaching, we have to have the resources to do it.
“We will need the resources to provide additional learning for teachers. That’s going to be the crunch of this. It will only work if the resourcing is there for us.”
But Mr Seymour said he was mostly impressed with the report, which stated too many Australian children were failing to reach their potential at school because of the restrictive nature of year-level progression.
The report calls for the implementation across states of a new online assessment tool that teachers would use to diagnose the exact level of literacy and numeracy a child has achieved.
Mr Gonski also called for an “urgent” review of what students are taught in years 11 and 12, greater autonomy for school principals and measures to boost the social status of teachers.
“These changes are welcomed and [PPA] we’re happy that they have come through,” Mr Seymour.
“I like the fact also that they talk about the Singapore model for us which is great. The one worry I have is the talk of rewarding high achievers, I don’t think that will work in Australia.”
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who commissioned the report a year ago, threw his support behind Mr Gonski's vision - although it will require extensive co-operation from the states and territories.
Mr Gonski and Education Minister Simon Birmingham stressed the changes would not amount to dumbing down the national curriculum, which was endorsed by the states only three years ago.
The Australian Education Union said it was concerned the report was coming at a time when the Federal Government was cutting funds to public schools.
Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
