The OECD briefing was great. It reminded us that within the nations represented in the OEDC Australia and indeed South Australia is doing exceptionally well in both literacy and numeracy, in the top 6-8 nations. Korea and Norway are the stand outs, one ‘duck stuff’s’ the students, the other is culturally supportive of its youth. This may be a generalisation, however I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to which is which.

 

I will attempt to get the presentations and post them so you can go through the Power-Points and see what Ben Jensen spoke on the achievements of Australia’s education and David Istance who is a Senior Analyst for “School for Tomorrow”.

 

 

At a glance the curriculum was very teacher directed, constructed and conservative with students using the internet within a controlled environment. The curriculum is controlled centrally with all forms of achievements assessed through tests and competitions. Teacher also won their jobs in schools through written competitions with the ‘best teachers’ going to the more desirable schools.

 

 

 

 

On a side note one of the most amazing things of the day was that the person sent by the Australian Embassy in Paris to translate for us was a young South Australian who went to school with Heather Tiivas’s, Principal of West Beach Primary, daughters.

 

The second school we visited had 1500 junior and senior secondary high school students. The teachers were very proud of the work they had achieved by placing much of their lesson plans and student resources to access via their intranet. These lessons replicated the ‘instructions’ the teacher would give if the student would be in class. The curriculum is centrally driven and the instructions are one way with minimal but some flexibility as to how the student can demonstrate their knowledge and skills. The system is centrally managed with strict child protection issues being addressed by central management. The hardware and software is all provided by the government and their are no school fees as education is free, so what they have is what is provided. The school can apply for some innovation grants for electronic white boards and projectors however these are limited. The teachers stated that much of the new work of placing lessons online was able to be achieve as a results of the recent student strikes across Paris in the past very months.

 

In the education system briefing held in the Australian Embassy the static's presented stated there are 64 million people live in France. The education systems has 15 million students enrolled in  universities, 2.3 in secondary and primary schools, 1.45 million teachers and professors, 465,000 admin staff, 60,000 primary schools, 7,000 lower secondary schools, 4,500 high schools and 160 universities and engineering schools. A huge system with a budget totaling 116b€. It’s managed in three levels, central government providing 20% of the budget and local authorities and enterprises providing the rest. An example in technical schools, Peugeot will provide cars of mechanic students to learn their trade.