education
Gods and Goddesses
An extremely interesting article in Online Opinion today, on some of the less-investigated social effects of the one-child policy. The author is a university educator working in China, who observes that many of her (presumably upper middle class) adult students - among the first adult generation under the policy - are sexually repressed, depressed, creatively illiterate and living outside of the cultural continuity:
I was at first horrified when, in attempts to put them at ease, I would ask various young people in the prime of their youth to list their hobbies and would get the answer “Sleeping. Eating”. The only variations were that some would not mention eating or others would include shopping. Checking with colleagues I discovered that sleeping was listed as the number one hobby throughout their classes as well, with eating a close second and shopping a variant.
Merit pay for teachers has no merit
Crazy-eyed Julie Bishop, Federal Minister for Education, has recently been beating the “merit pay for teachers” drum; indeed, it was pushed in the Federal Budget.
Merit-based pay for teachers sounds like a great idea until you think about it for more than a second.
Over the fold is an essay on what merit pay is, how it has worked in the past and in other countries (and Australia when we had it), why it doesn’t work, and some alternative solutions.
Enjoy more Public Policy madness!!