EDUCATION FORUM

It was all very sunny at the Sun Shine Forum on Education held at the Queensland State Library last night.

As an interested observer the staged managed feeling of the event was overwhelming. From the presenter going over the questions that would be asked and rules of engagement, and even an audience member who was introduced to the panel who gave her own long commentary after the discussion ,which effectively minimised question time. Gee that was unfortunate.

The Panel

Yes, they looked as bored and stifled as me. No controversy here that was for sure, although public comments on the article have taken exception to the tag "Smart State".

The highlight for the evening was an anonymous principal who was espousing a fraud theory with the NAPLAN testing and had managed to persuade parents of 120 out of 140 students at his school to withdraw from the testing or should I have said over 80%, so much more impressive.

And of course the night would not have been complete without a little cross-selling of the Courier Mails' 'Opinionator' as the presenter referred to a survey conducted on the public/private school debate. Hugely surprised that this is not in the article.

Some scope to delve into the issues further here, but that's investigative journalism and this is on-line fluff.

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