Page 55 - Tropic Magazine Issue 17

TROPIC • OPINION

Tropic views

Delve into some diverse and different views
with our line-up of local columnists.

Paul Sjogren
Principal
Trinity Anglican School

Education evolution

2019 is a fascinating year for education. Queensland schools are
transitioning from a senior student outcome of Overall Positions
(OPs) to come into line with other states, while nationally there
are a number of developments occurring.
Warren Entsch We were very pleased that the Hon. Dan Tehan, Federal Minister
Federal Member for Leichhardt for Education, recently visited Cairns to chat with school leaders
and parent representatives from all three school sectors to hear
our concerns regarding education issues. We hosted the minister
Export success and our local federal representative Warren Entsch at TAS
where Mr Tehan outlined changes and developments in national
During February, over 4000 coral trout fingerlings made education initiatives. Cairns schools continue to achieve strong
their way to Taiwan from Cairns in my electorate of student outcomes and are developing quite a reputation further
Leichhardt in a pilot shipment - a first in our region. south for quality education.
It is fantastic to see firsthand how Company One Pty Recently, Federal, State and Territory education ministers (a
Ltd has diversified and set up a world-class facility to group known as the Education Council) met in Melbourne
accommodate a billion-dollar industry. and held a forum to start the discussion on reviewing the
National Goals of Schooling. Search online for the “Melbourne
This almost didn’t happen. Declaration” to find out more. With the fast pace of educational
policy changes, we need to ensure that developments are backed
At the end of 2016, I received a phone call from the then by data and evidence, not simply the latest fad. Many schools,
Finfish Enterprise Pty Ltd advising the Labor state with the right intent, implement new approaches that are
government were literally going to turn off their power ideologically or financially based rather than proven structures
that afternoon and, as a result, millions of fish would be that will improve student educational outcomes. We need to
euthanised. ensure our prime goal in education is to prepare our young
It was only through my intervention that they were able people to be successful and active engagers in the 21st century.
to keep the lights on and their employees in a job. Then As part of these changes, there is also a national review of senior
Company One was formed and, with it, an exciting secondary education taking place this year. This process may be a
development for the Cairns fish-breeding facility. game changer, with calls for an overhaul of the use of ATARs for
The fingerlings are shipped in styrofoam boxes inside university entrance, a process described as “a strait jacket around
plastic bags filled with oxygen-rich water to last the our kids”.
18-hour trip. Company One have invested a lot of time, Further issues that will appear on the radar this year is the
money and energy into a special boxing technique for the efficacy of NAPLAN (do we as a society benefit from formal
species, to minimise as much stress as possible for the testing of all students across Years 3, 5, 7 and 9?) and the process
fish. They are capable of breeding over 10 million giant of sourcing, training and preparing enough young, new teachers
groper and coral trout fingerlings every year. Company for the growing challenges of teaching in the 21st century.
One will continue to invest heavily and are now looking at After a recent discussion with a number of principals from the
breeding other select species. south-east corner of Queensland, I walked away confident that
Congratulations to Richard, Ryan, Angelique and the both TAS and other schools in Cairns provide quality education
team on your commitment to keeping this industry alive pathways for our young people. Having said that, there are
and growing in our region. always areas schools can improve and we will continue to work as
hard as we can to do so.

MORE: warrenentsch.com.au MORE: tas.qld.edu.au

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