- A delegation of scientists is making a last-ditch attempt
to stop West Australian schools adopting an "airy fairy" education
system they claim protects students' self esteem at the expense of competition
and the pursuit of excellence.
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- The Australian Institute of Physics yesterday voiced
its opposition to a planned radical overhaul of the curriculum in the state's
upper-school classrooms.
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- The AIP has backed the recently formed education lobby
group PLATO - People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes - in its claims
that the new system will stifle students' competitive urges by rewarding
them for achieving at any level.
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- Institute state chairman Igor Bray will be among a three-person
delegation of physicists from Curtin, Murdoch and the University of Western
Australia to meet state Curriculum Council representatives on Thursday.
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- Professor Bray said they would discuss teachers' concerns
that "outcomes-based education" would let down poor students
by giving them a false sense of their own competence.
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- Under OBE, no student can fail and every student achieves
at one of eight "levels". Only students who achieve at levels
six to eight are considered to be in the running for university.
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- "The Curriculum Council does not see competition
among students as an important factor but we do - we see it as vital,"
Professor Bray said.
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- Outcomes-based education will strip the hard sciences
of their exclusivity from next year, placing teenagers destined for work
as laboratory assistants and tradesmen in physics classrooms alongside
future doctors and scientists.
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- Theoretically, a student could pass Year 12 physics after
achieving simple "outcomes", such as demonstrating the knowledge
that energy can be transferred, that it appears in different forms and
that it interacts with matter to produce different effects.
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- A student who did not understand physics formula could
also pass or "achieve".
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