NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli's dictum that year 9 students who want to get their HSC will need Band 8 or above in NAPLAN heaps so much extra pressure on those who don't deserve or need it: 14- or 15-year-old school kids ("Half of year 9 would fail key HSC test", December 13). Whoever you think is responsible for the falling educational standards in Australia, it's not them.
Teachers, of course, who have a hard enough job with the curriculum as it is, will now devote inordinate amounts of time teaching for NAPLAN.
If a kid doesn't eventually get their HSC, what then? TAFE has been deliberately decimated, the vocational training sector is being rorted and is rife with corruption, and in the steadily growing internship system kids are taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers left, right and centre.
Tim Egan Mosman
The NSW Department of Education must now realise that scrapping the School Certificate was an action with far-reaching and negative consequences.
Secondary students were comprehensively tested on the first four years of English and maths in their secondary education and the results were positive.
Students respected it, teachers respected it and employers respected it because it was an assessment with integrity.
That half of year 9 would fail Minister Piccoli's new HSC requirements should initiate further debate on the wisdom of that move. Bring back the School Certificate.
Elizabeth Blackmore Kalaru
I can't understand it: with all the money we spend on private school sporting facilities, why aren't the NAPLAN results in maths and English improving?
Richard White Leura
It is true that a significant proportion of students will not be eligible for a Higher School Certificate based on their year 9 NAPLAN results. This is a reasonable strategy in the long term. It restores value to the certification of the completion of secondary schooling.
Year 12 should never have been set as the goal for all. Year 10 was always a decent exit point for most students. Other pathways to vocational education and training through TAFE should have been expanded.
The underlying problem is that we created unrealistic expectations. We equated more years of schooling with education. This is the case for some but not all.
We have set up year 12 and even university as an entitlement in the minds of many with quite mediocre achievement.
To those who decry that many will be branded as failures, the fault lies as much in their perception. Over time we will adjust our standards and judgments. Anyway, sooner or later everyone comes up against some insurmountable barrier.
James Athanasou Maroubra
Is there no end to the disturbing implications of ill-conceived changes to education in NSW?
Generational change has seen the elimination of the demarcation between workforce and university education and the reduction of entry levels to higher education. These seemingly egalitarian changes have been embraced by the business community so that the HSC, and even tertiary qualifications, are now seen as minimum requirements for even menial jobs. Probably an unintended outcome.
Now, faced with almost universal enrolment of students in tertiary education, with indifferent results and declining standards, the NSW government is apparently using a sledgehammer approach to restrict entry.
It is surely astonishing that Minister Adrian Piccoli is to introduce a NAPLAN-based entry to qualify for the HSC when research indicates that half the state's year 9 students will fail this entry standard.
How can he, in good faith, deny so many young adults the opportunity to leave secondary school with a qualification that the business world recognises as a minimum standard?
Expect widespread outrage when parents finally awake to this madness.
Vicki Sanderson Cremorne
The most important part of your story on NAPLAN is that 5000 parents have signed a petition saying that linking year 9 NAPLAN test results with the HSC will place unnecessary pressure on 14-year-olds.
That more than half of students in 2016 failed at this hurdle just proves that it will be a fiasco to put future students through the ordeal.
Anne Susskind Bronte
Early intervention gives children like Dylan Voller a chance
As a parent of an ADHD child who was suspended from a north shore public school for his ADHD symptoms at age eight, I cried for Dylan Voller when I read he has ADHD too ("Taunted, tied up, abused: commission told of life in Don Dale," December 13).
At the recent ADDults with ADHD conference it was revealed 40 per cent of inmates have ADHD. This is a shocking statistic and should be a wake-up call for government.
ADHD is a learning disability. Early intervention will save kids from a life of crime, and save more public money than it costs.
Teachers need special training in working with these kids to keep them in school. Shockingly, ADHD is not covered in teacher training, nor in psychiatry education.
To date, the stigma of the condition, misinformation and myths have prevented proper discourse.
Let's turn the spotlight on this problem and fix it, for the many kids like Dylan.
Anne Matheson president, Macquarie ADHD Parent Support Group
The lawyers dressed Dylan Voller up in a suit and tie for his testimony to the inquiry into the Northern Territory's juvenile detention system.
Shouldn't honesty in packaging laws have required he appear in prison garb and handcuffs? Just so it was clear to everyone who watched his allegations being streamed live what sort of person was making them: someone in an adult prison after committing serious violent crimes.
Gordon Drennan Burton (SA)
I admire Dylan Voller's courage, I fear for his safety.
Mark Porter New Lambton
Cut the caricatures, give us the real Cory
Sally Irwin (Letters, December 13) thinks Cory Bernardi is getting "free kicks" from journalists every time he opens his mouth. If the truth be known, the media largely portray Bernardi and his supporters as simple-minded religious zealots and neurotic nutters.
Whatever the Senator says is almost always filtered through the personal animus and bias of those writing about him. By the time it gets to the general public, we are left with a caricature.
Given the increasing popularity of views such as Bernardi's among many in the West, it would be helpful, instead, if there could be some cerebral analysis rather than a regurgitation of progressive conventional wisdom.
Alan Wakeley Dural
I disagree with Sally Irwin. We should be glad the media expose the thoughts of Cory Bernardi to a wide audience so that the electorate can hone its skills to view sceptically everything we are told. Especially by all politicians as they seek our support.
Richard Ure Epping
Oh please! Stop talking about Bernardi! You only end up giving this irrelevance oxygen. (Damn! Now I've done it!)
Bill Young Greenwich
No classroom ping pong
I despaired for our students after reading Nick Riemer's article ("Don't gag teachers on refugees", December 13). Offshore refugee camps are Australian government policy. If a teacher approves of the policy, does that mean it's OK for them to wear a T-shirt at school promoting it to counter a colleague's opposition? Do we really want political ping pong in our schools? Discuss it impartially in class by all means, otherwise stick to teaching the curriculum and improving NAPLAN and PISA scores.
Brian Manning Rozelle
Step forward
Good on Greg Penman (Letters, December 13) for being more than willing to pay above-award wages to the right person joining his manufacturing company. Last Saturday's Fairfax expose of exploitation of young workers focused on rorts by hospitality employers. Penman has thrown down a challenge – let's now hear from those hospitality employers observing award conditions, and not cutting corners with unpaid trials, unpaid internships and under-award wages. The rogue bosses, by undercutting decent employers, are dragging the whole hospitality industry down.
Nick Franklin Katoomba
I note the comment by James Pearson of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry that not all cases of non-compliance with regulation are deliberate ("Employer groups warn against outcomes of underpayment", December 13). If that is the case why is it there have been no reports of overpayment of employees? He should try pulling the other one. It has bells on it.
Peter Wilson Quorrobolong
Inversion perversion
Joanna Marshall motivated me to ponder: why is it the closer someone works in direct care and contact with other humans there appears a corresponding decline in financial remuneration ("We're overworked, overlooked and grossly, grossly underpaid", December 13)? Childcare workers, nursing home carers, social workers, for example.
Conversely, the further away someone works from face-to-face human contact and direct care, pay scales appear to incline to stratospheric heights (e.g. chief executives of BHP Billiton, Westpac, Goldman Sachs). Are we missing something here?
James Laukka Epping
That's incorrect
As 2016 heads out the door I hope it takes with it the much used misunderstood term "political correctness", also known as PC, which Donald Trump used to great effectiveness during his campaign. According to Trump and many of his ilk, even here in Australia, this term does not allow them to speak openly especially about other minority groups without fear they will be judged as racists and bigots. Of course, what they really mean is that they can no longer make publicly racist and bigoted remarks and get away with it. Ending that kind of conduct is something that should be encouraged if we are to live in a harmonious community.
Con Vaitsas Ashbury
Railing for rail
Baird's holding back on a rail line to the new airport would have nothing to do with pandering to the future owner and the attractive revenue from car parking charges, would it (Letters, December 13)? The rail line should be there from the commencement of operations before people invest in other options and develop transport habits, especially with the motor car.
Vincent Lagana Penshurst
Little less more more
My main reason for subscribing to the Herald is to read the letters, of which an extraordinary proportion are concerned with the problems of just getting around my old home town, Sydney. But do the maths; there are too many people and too many cars for too little space. More roads, more rail, more more won't solve the problem. If the government won't decentralise, people should. I did 30 years ago and conservatively calculate I have saved myself 2½ years of being stuck in traffic.
Peter Lane Margaret River (WA)
Operational opaqueness
I see that US Republicans are getting upset because negotiations about our refugee resettlement program are being kept secret and they are being "left in the dark" ("Secret talks on refugee deal with Trump team", December 13). Welcome to the real world, fellas, where secrecy in the Australian immigration department is paramount and you will soon learn that what you don't know won't hurt you.
Jim Banks Pottsville Beach
Sydney drivers a long way from courteous
I did a double take when I read Trevor Reeves (Letters, December 13) praising Sydney drivers' courtesy.
I have also ridden a bicycle internationally, having crossed Australia, America, UK, a bit of Canada and Indonesia. I have found more aggression towards cyclists in Sydney than elsewhere. Give it more time Trevor.
Paul Doyle Glenbrook
Modesty in sport
As reported by Adam Pengilly ("Brazel joins the big fish after breakthrough Tour triumph", December 13) how delightful to read about a golfing battler win an important tournament and be so modest and grateful about his success. Pity some other overpaid sporting stars couldn't be more like Sam Brazel.
Denis Suttling Newport Beach
Electricity costs a red herring
Why is the Turnbull government so concerned about increases in electricity charges? Everything else is going up including doctors' fees, food and petrol, but with limited outcry and no government action. Yet the devastation caused by climate change is ignored because the cost of electricity may go up.
Sue Martin Avalon Beach
Notable characters
The list of notable Australian characters such as Emma Chissett, Costa Livven and Ella Trisitti-Pryces mentioned by your letter writers would be incomplete without the omnipresent Gloria Soames, who recently married and is now Gloria Smanchens.
James Prior Sylvania Waters