I remember how it was -- JR
No jab, no placement: Australian University mandates COVID vaccinations for health students
Australia's largest regional university, Charles Sturt University (CSU), has announced from next year it will be mandatory for all health students to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
CSU said students who had not received both doses of a COVID vaccine would not be allocated a placement in 2022.
The university's executive dean of health and science, Professor Megan Smith, said there were about 4,000 students studying health, and at any one time about two-thirds were doing placements in hospitals and other health services.
"We already have that requirement for vaccines like hepatitis B and the flu vax.
"Ultimately for some students if they don't really want to be vaccinated, we'll have a conversation about whether or not there will be availability of placements and positions for them. If they're not vaccinated it may become difficult," she said.
Professor Smith said health students are part of phase 1A of the federal government's COVID vaccination rollout.
"They are going into environments where they're working with people that are in hospitals where people are unwell and vulnerable, so it's really important they are vaccinated," she said.
Professor Smith said despite the pandemic, most students had been keen to continue doing their placements.
"I think they know they're part of the future health workforce and it's really important the contribution they're making.
"Not surprisingly though they have the same anxieties that others do about the risks that are associated with COVID in their environment, but generally they're positive and are wanting to contribute as much as possible."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-24/csu-mandates-covid-jabs-for-health-students/100401500
************************************91-Year-Old Teaches Cursive to Arizona Students to Keep Art of Handwriting Alive
The rise of the keyboard, and smart technology, has seen the tradition of handwriting fall by the wayside in most modern classrooms.
A woman in Scottsdale, Arizona, continues to keep the art of cursive writing alive, however, more than 20 years after officially retiring from teaching.
Marilyn Harrer, 91, began teaching cursive writing in 1951; after teaching for some years, she officially retired in 1997.
“When I retired from full time teaching, my teacher friends said they always liked the way the children in my class wrote and so they wanted to know if I wouldn’t come back and work in their classrooms,” said Harrer, azfamily.com reported.
After her retirement, she began volunteering her cursive writing instruction services at Anasazi Elementary in north Scottsdale.
Like using a computer, handwriting is a whole-body exercise.
“We talk about how to sit, how to hold your paper, how to write at a slant, how you hold your pencil,” explained Harrer.
After so many years honing her handwriting craft and passing it on to her students, she’s garnered from them the title “Cursive Queen.”
Harrer has racked up a number of accomplishments from her cursive teaching, sending forth 35 students to carry home the state handwriting title in Arizona, with two others becoming national cursive champions.
“Well I just expect the best from all children, and they respond,” she said.
Meanwhile, when volunteers were barred from institutions to curb the spread of the CCP virus, it did not stop Harrer from carrying out her usual instruction.
“We didn’t let COVID stop us,” she said. “I would go over to my daughter’s house and eat a nice dinner, and my grandson Grant would film me teaching the lessons.”
While cursive teaching has long been excluded from the curriculum in many schools, Harrer has a passion to keep the tradition alive.
To support her mission, she began a pen pal project that matches seniors with students, with some success.
“This is our third year, and we now have a surplus of people who want to be pen pals,” she said. “And they really look forward to doing it.”
Harrer has a plan to continue teaching cursive for as long as she can manage it, adding that research has proven a link between cursive handwriting and brain activity.
**********************************************
Australia: Young face ‘prolonged disruption’ as degrees no longer guarantee careers
The value of higher education in launching young Australians into the career of their choice is being eroded as universities churn out record numbers of graduates who are increasingly forced to take on low-paid, insecure work.
A report by Monash University’s new Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice argues young people face “the breakdown of a long-held assumption that higher education qualifications will lead to desirable and secure work”.
Instead, the report points to data that shows jobs for young people are increasingly concentrated in fields that are “seasonal, part-time, casual, low-wage and insecure”.
“The link between attainment of higher education qualifications and the movement into certain professions is not happening in a linear way any more,” centre director and report author Lucas Walsh said.
The link between post-school study and a higher income is also eroding, the report shows.
Higher education participation rates have risen by 41 per cent in the past decade, as more and more high school graduates defer full-time work. At the same time, the “earning premium” of a bachelor’s degree has shrunk, from 39 per cent in 2005 to 27 per cent by 2018.
Higher education has long involved an “opportunity bargain” in which high school graduates put off full-time work to gain qualifications that will lead to “a fulfilling career of one’s choice”, Professor Walsh said.
But that bargain has started breaking down in the past 20 years, putting young Australians in a position of “prolonged disruption” that has only got worse during the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Walsh argues in a new report titled Life, disrupted: Young people, education and employment before and after COVID-19.
The pandemic has “exacerbated existing” precariousness, Professor Walsh says.
“If you look at previous downturns, young people are the first to go and the last to come back in. We saw that profoundly during the pandemic.”
In the first six months of 2020, 157,000 teenagers lost work, and 13 per cent of women under 25 left the Australian labour force, the report states.
Even though the world of work is changing, for university students such as Meena Hana, study and qualifications are still the path to the job of their dreams.
A survey of more than 40,000 people has revealed which courses and universities landed graduates in jobs.
Ms Hana has wanted to work in healthcare ever since she did a stint of work experience inside a hospital while in high school, and says pharmacy appeals to her because it offers a stable and satisfying career, even if the pay is modest.
“Studying pharmacy is not just for the income, I’d rather do it and enjoy it than do something else and not have the same feeling about my career,” she said.
She said she was prepared to do further study beyond her bachelor’s degree to advance her career.
The Monash University report argues that schools that focus too heavily on academic performance and students’ tertiary destinations and not enough on careers counselling were doing their students a disservice.
“Schools have long been criticised as demoting careers education, of viewing it as extra-curricular activities taking time away from the curriculum that really matters and is assessable,” the authors say.
Leon Furze, the director of teaching and learning at Monivae College in Hamilton, said some schools were moving away from a focus on the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) for this reason.
He said today’s students faced a jobs market where employers want a broader skill set, not just a graduate with a degree in a particular field.
“We tell students to be open to the idea that you’re going to change courses, change qualifications part-way through and even that when you come out the other end you’re not guaranteed that you are going to cruise into the industry that you had your heart sent on when you were leaving year 12,” Mr Furze said.
***********************************
My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
*******************************
No comments:
Post a Comment