AFTER YEARS OF B.S. EDUCATION, LOTS OF AUSTRALIAN KIDS WANT NO MORE OF IT

And a down-to-earth government is encouraging kids to consider high-paying trades rather than university

A shrinking proportion Year 12 students is heading to the nation's universities and TAFE colleges, despite warnings of a looming skills crisis. New figures provided by the Department of Education and Training reveal that the percentage of young Australians who complete Year 12 and go straight to university has fallen 20 per cent since the Howard Government was elected.

And while more university and TAFE places are available to students, the proportion of Year 12 leavers going to TAFE has also dropped by 11 per cent since 1996. Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin seized on the figures yesterday as new evidence that the Howard Government was "driving Australia down the low-skill, low-growth road". "If we want higher living standards and increased productivity, the proportion of young Australians finishing school and going on to university or TAFE should be increasing - not dropping," Ms Macklin said.

John Howard has urged students to consider leaving school before Year 12 if they can get a job or apprenticeship. Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson has warned that the high drop-out rate among university students suggests many should think twice before choosing higher education over vocational training. A spokesman for Dr Nelson said the number of university places had gone up, despite a reduction in the number of Year 12 students going straight from school to university. "Labor's selective quoting of statistics leaves them blind to the simple fact that a surging employment market has provided young Australians with opportunities they couldn't get when Labor was last in government," he said.

"Youth unemployment is at a 15-year low, there's been a 166 per cent increase in the number of people in training, and university participation among 20-year-olds continues to climb, now almost 30 per cent compared to 23 per cent in 1996."

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NO TEACHERS FOR MANY BRITISH SCHOOLS

If this were a business, they would be sued out of existence. Though I wouldn't mind betting that lots of "Moms 'n Dads" would be better teachers than the products of today's "postmodernist" teacher-training colleges

They were once described as the "Mums' Army", helping out in schools, having few qualifications beyond GCSEs, and paid less than check-out girls. From this week, however, thousands of classroom assistants will be standing in for qualified teachers in a move that has caused a furious row in the profession. Under legislation that came in to force this month, teachers in the 22,000 primary and secondary schools in England and Wales are guaranteed 10 per cent of their time away from pupils to plan lessons.

But head teachers say that they have not been given enough money to employ more teachers to fill the gaps in the timetable left by this "non-contact" time. Instead, an ever-expanding workforce of classroom assistants, which has grown by 80,000 since 1997 to 153,000, will provide cover and give pre-prepared lessons. Those with relevant experience and GCSE mathematics and English can apply to be "high-level teaching assistants", increasing their salary from between £8,000 and £12,000 a year to £19,000. The qualification can be earned in only three days and equips assistants to take whole classes, rather than help only individual pupils or small groups.

Chris Keates, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters, Union of Women Teachers, said: "The legal entitlement to non-contact time is a very important development. Even in secondary schools where teachers have had some time away from pupils, it was never guaranteed and was often eroded."

But the National Union of Teachers says that assistants are not adequate substitutes for teachers. And the National Association of Head Teachers, which initially signed up to the deal, now says that it will erode academic and behavioural standards. Neil Foden, the headmaster of Friars School in Bangor, has spent £40,000 employing two supply teachers to provide cover rather than use unqualified assistants. "Under the new entitlement, pupils could be spending a marked percentage of their timetable not being properly taught and effectively being baby-sat," he said. "A supply teacher might not be as effective as a subject specialist but they are a hell of a lot better than a classroom assistant. The consequences of not having qualified teachers in front of classrooms is the drip, drip of pupils missing lessons here and there. It all adds up and has an effect on behaviour."

Even some classroom assistants fear that standards will suffer. Theresa McGuinness, 41, a high-level teaching assistant, said some schools were trying to provide cover "on the cheap". She said: "Some teaching assistants will be asked to do things that they don't want to do and are not qualified to do. Rather than having high-level teaching assistants, local authorities are splitting contracts and employing classroom assistants for 25 hours' normal work and 10 hours' whole-class work." Mrs McGuinness, who works in a school in North Yorkshire, said that parents had been kept in the dark about the changes. She said: "The Government has been neglectful in explaining to parents what will happen in case you have them asking 'How can she take a whole class, she only usually sticks things on walls?' There are lots of areas where people who have not got the qualifications will be thrown in at the deep end. "I have heard that in one local authority in the South, dinner ladies are being told they will have to look after kids for an extra half an hour. If this is done on the cheap it will not be me, or the dinner lady, who suffers the most, it will be the children."

Rather than attempt to stick to the normal timetable, some schools have opted to run "enrichment" activities, drafting in sports coaches, artists and even members of the Women's Institute to supervise children. In other schools, classes will be amalgamated or pupils will be looked after by "cover supervisors". At Holy Trinity Church of England Primary, in Halifax, West Yorkshire, 400 pupils will have an hourly music session in the hall every Friday with just one teacher.

Maureen Skevington, a deputy head at Harton Junior School, in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, said: "In many schools the budget restraints are such that there will be doubling up of classes and people brought in for activities like PE who are not properly qualified to assess what level the children are at. It is not a development that parents have asked for or would wish for."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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