South Australia Government pays to train Vietnamese nurses to fix local shortfall 2

Posted to Adelaide Now (5/6/2011) on 5/6/2011 at 11:08 AM
Commenting on "State Government pays to train Vietnamese nurses to fix local shortfall"
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-funding-nurse-training-in-vietnam/story-e6frea83-1226069318627

Unfortunately too much emphasis is placed on paper qualification and paper shuffling. It's nice to sit in front of a computer, fill in forms, prepare reports or talk about strategies; the crux of the matter is patients lie in beds and need attention; they do not hang around the office areas.

It is true that many agency staff are not familiar with particular hospital environment, including certain crucial equipment, and lack spoken language skill.

Facts and figures, and who has done what are of no interest to the patients. Real throughput can only be achieved by real patient care, not the bright red colour at the bottom line.

South Australia State Government pays to train Vietnamese nurses to fix local shortfall

Posted to Adelaide Now (5/6/2011) on 5/6/2011 at 3:01 AM
Commenting on "State Government pays to train Vietnamese nurses to fix local shortfall"
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-funding-nurse-training-in-vietnam/story-e6frea83-1226069318627

Many refugees in detention centres are educated and can be trained in various qualifications. What a waste to "imprison" these people and let them rot in those hell holes!

Federal Budget 2011 - Swan's blueprint for surplus

Posted to Adelaide Now (11/5/2011) on 11/5/2011 at 1:07 AM
Commenting on “Federal Budget 2011 - Swan's blueprint for surplus”
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/in-depth/swans-blueprint-for-surplus/story-fn8o0uyv-1226053507909

Does it mean that people like me mature-age person need to be retrained to work in mining towns in Western Australia or Queensland, go under the house to fix plumbing or up the roof top to install solar panels? I am well-trained, with post-graduate degree and other qualifications, more than qualified to train the untrained, and yet I find myself unemployed.

I had been a sessional TAFE and VET trainer for 15 years, until the international education bubble burst when the government changed policy. More than half of the international students choose not to come to Australia anymore, and therefore, many trainers like me are unemployed.

Life as a sessional teacher is very tough. We are hard working people, and no dole-bludgers. Each term, we queue up, not at Centrelink, but at the course coordinator office asking whether there is any work for us.

Budget 2011 Let's turn mining boom into job boom

Posted to Herald Sun (11/5/2011) on 11/5/2011 at 12:47 AM
Commenting on “Budget 2011: Let's turn mining boom into job boom, says Wayne Swan”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-reports/federal-budget-2011/story-fn8melax-1226053631468

Does it mean that people like me mature-age person need to be retrained to work in mining towns in Western Australia or Queensland, go under the house to fix plumbing or up the roof top to install solar panels? I am well-trained, with post-graduate degree and other qualifications, more than qualified to train the untrained, and yet I find myself unemployed.

I had been a sessional TAFE and VET trainer for 15 years, until the international education bubble burst when the government changed policy. More than half of the international students choose not to come to Australia anymore, and therefore, many trainers like me are unemployed.

Life as a sessional teacher is very tough. We are hard working people, and no dole-bludgers. Each term, we queue up, not at Centrelink, but at the course coordinator office asking whether there is any work for us. I cannot speak on behalf of other trainers; yes, I do indirectly and crudely beg for work and therefore, money.

End 1 of 2


Posted to Herald Sun (11/5/2011) on 11/5/2011 at 1:02 AM

Creating 500000 jobs is pine in the sky; along the way probably more jobs are lost. Realistically the net number is probably negative or negligibly small. Do the politicians understand what training really entails? If this is Asia, where people have the right attitude to learn and want to be trained to excel rather than just be competent, training will be a breeze. Unfortunately, I find that the real success rate of people being trained and achieved proper outcome is far from satisfactory. After so many years in the training / education industry, I can only conclude that we are producing half-bake Rolls Royces instead of top quality T-Fords - it is still a long way to have "mass-produced" skilled workforce.

The mythical unemployment rate of around 5% is just pure nonsense. A person receiving payment for one hour during the survey period is considered as employed. In short, the real hidden unemployment rate should be at least 15% or more.

Many mature-age workers who have lost their jobs turn to running small businesses. Not that they are good at doing so, but they are not untitled to go on the dole queue, like the boat-people or welfare bludgers.

End of 2 of 2

VET needs funding upgrade

Posted to The Australian (4/5/2011) on 8/5/2011 at 12:12 PM
Commenting on “VET needs funding upgrade”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion-analysis/vet-needs-funding-upgrade/story-e6frgcko-1226049332247>

Skills funding is going to be another humongous news on how service providers ripping-off the system. According to a source, this is already happening, with at least one provider signing off and issuing two to three thousand certificates in a year with hardly any students require attending a class, online or otherwise.

The funding model is a joke, too. Some programs are receiving both state and federal funding at the same time, which was once a cardinal sin known as double dipping.

The demise of international students coming to “study” makes some surviving service providers to become smarter by offering degree courses, in order to accommodate the so called “competent learners” to hang around longer. Hopefully the degrees, some of which are not worth the paper that is written on, will help to these desperate ones achieve their goal in getting permanent residency PR.

Computer technology creates bigger crooks in the education sector, and plagiarism is so widespread and getting more and more difficult to detect. One wonders how many “trained learners” who are deemed competent and become professional, are developing computer programs full of bugs which cost millions of dollars due to downtime or customers going to competitors; providing financial advices causing huge financial write-down of large institutions and livelihood ruin of ordinary mums and dads; building houses that crack or collapse with small earth movement, etc.

In the name of perceived cost saving and following the Jones’ trend, many service providers offer online courses. In reality online learning system is a false economy - it wastes more precious resource known as time, encourages slap-dash assessment and worst of all no one can tell who is really at the other end attending the course or doing the work!

No longer only the VCE examination solutions can be purchased from Victorian market, so the story goes, post graduate thesis are written by professional for a fee. Honest system only works well with honest people.

Millions behind on basic skills, threatens Australia's international competitiveness

Posted to The Australian (4/4/2011) on 4/4/2011 at 3:36 AM (Not published)

Commenting on “Millions behind on basic skills, threatens Australia's international competitiveness”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/millions-behind-on-basic-skills-threatens-australias-international-competitiveness/story-fn59niix-1226032957469

The education system fails Australia! Too much emphasis is placed on training instead of teaching, and competency instead of quality.

In the name of being a developed, affluent English speaking country, we have a misconception that we are more superior than our neighbouring Asian countries - poor, underdeveloped or developing.

Whatever we do in Australia, we do it the most expensive way, because we are bound by many legislative requirements such as equal opportunity, anti-discrimination acts. Our system produces half-baked Rolls Royce instead of quality T-Ford learners.

From early childhood days, children are brainwashed to take things easy, not to be overloaded with knowledge - the key to future success. Instead of building solid foundation based on language, literacy and numeracy LLN skills, children are forced to learn things that even adults have problem in grasping such as social responsibility, global warming, bullying, etc. Children are encouraged to think and debate without the underpinning knowledge, and hence grow up to be unreasonable and arrogant - Jack of all trades, and master of none.

My motto is "being good is not good enough, my minimum standard is excellence!"