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Bill: Educational Reform Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Pansexual Peace Party -- FNORD
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: June 2048
Description[?]:
| The schools of this great nation are struggling. Recent studies showed that 37% of nstudents could not find Kalistan on a map. Furthermore, 49% of students could not find the Hutori Federation on any map or globe. This represents the dire need for educational reform. Our children are falling further an further behind the international standard of education. We must act to prevent the erosion of knowlege from our society. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Education for children under adult age.
Old value:: Education is compulsory and has to happen at school.
Current: Education is compulsory and has to happen at school.
Proposed: Education is entirely voluntary.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 17:06:12, May 05, 2005 CET | From | Pansexual Peace Party -- FNORD | To | Debating the Educational Reform Act |
| Message | To explain this proposal, we believe the best way to handle the erosion of knowlege is to make school completely voulentary from a government stand point. Many children, simply put, do not want to learn. They cna be disruptive to the classroom learning environment. This restricts the ability of other students, the ones that want to gain knowlege, to learn. Factory workers do not need 4-5 years of high school. Janitors do not need high school. The point is, students that have no disire to learn should not drag down the classroom experience of those who do want to learn. Education will still be free on the secondary level, just not compulsitory. |
| Date | 21:26:23, May 05, 2005 CET | From | To | Debating the Educational Reform Act |
| Message | The TDPK agrees strongly with this proposal, and commends the PPP for it's fine ideals regarding educational policy. You have our full support. |
| Date | 23:02:33, May 05, 2005 CET | From | To | Debating the Educational Reform Act |
| Message | The SoG, while not often in disagreement with the PPP, finds there is a first for everything. We honestly fail to follow this logic. Has it perhaps occured to our esteemed colleagues that the reason why our students have fallen behind the international standard is the fact that our education is only compulsory until age 16, where in most countries students go to school until age 18? True, many children do not want to learn. But that is exactly why education should be compulsory. Do we really want to give 10-12-14 year olds that choice? Do we really want to put the responsibility to mess up their own lives into their own hands? How many kids do you think would choose for an education when they can choose to stay home? 5%? 10%? That's probably being optimistic. And what will those who chose against an education do all day? We do not allow child labor in this country - do we really want hordes of uneducated 10-14 year olds wandering our streets? Well, perhaps if we're aiming for the highest crime rate in the world. Not to mention the award for "nation with most abysmal economy". What are those millions of uneducated factory workers and janitors going to do when there are hardly any educated people to provide jobs for them? Again, this is not a decision we can leave to the children. Of course they don't like school, who did at that age? But most of them aren't trouble makers, and most of them eventually start to understand the importance exactly *because* of that education, and end up going on to college anyway. Most people generally consider their school days the best times of their lives - after the school days are long gone. Give them a choice at a young age, and naturally they'll gladly throw away their future in favor of more play-time. Yes, there may be a tiny percentage of children who are a disruptive influence in the classroom. Let's deal with them on a case-to-case basis, provide alternatives for them, guidance, counseling. Yes, why not home-schooling for some? Which brings me to the point: the SoG would be willing to compromise and allow home-schooling as an alternative (even though we do not have a great amount of trust in that system). But we simply can't be responsible for the inevitable downfall of our nation by removing compulsory education. If we want to live in a Third World country, we can move to one. |
| Date | 00:49:30, May 06, 2005 CET | From | To | Debating the Educational Reform Act |
| Message | This sounds good. |
| Date | 01:26:04, May 06, 2005 CET | From | Pansexual Peace Party -- FNORD | To | Debating the Educational Reform Act |
| Message | I specifically stated that education would be voulentary from a governmental standpoint. The police will not drag them into classrooms. The new responsibility is with the parents. Parents now have the responisbility to get their kids into school. If someone does not want to do something, we cannot make them. The same goes for schooling. |
| Date | 04:24:14, May 06, 2005 CET | From | To | Debating the Educational Reform Act |
| Message | *re-reads* Hmm, yes, those few words do make a bit of a difference. This, too, will cause a few problems, but nothing nearly as drastic as our earlier scenario. We will need to give this some consideration, but we might well be able to agree with this proposal. |
| Date | 04:24:52, May 06, 2005 CET | From | Imperial Kalistan Party | To | Debating the Educational Reform Act |
| Message | I believe Albert Einstein was one of those people that were disruptive and he was even a drop-out. Because a child is disruptive and not interested in learning does not mean they are fit for nothing more than a factory worker. Perhaps we are not challenging our students enough. WE are FAILING to properly educate our students and to stimulate them. What? Are we going be a nation of factory workers and farmers? Progress, folks... PROGRESS. |
| Date | 13:02:31, May 06, 2005 CET | From | To | Debating the Educational Reform Act |
| Message | The TDPK would like to further congratulate the PPP on standing it's ground, and rebuke the statements of the SoG regarding this matter. There is no way to force someone to learn something. At best you can get them to the point of being able to repeat it back to you, with out thinking about what it means. In addition, we believe that weather someone goes to school or not has little or no influence on what they actually decide to learn, and how they decide to learn it. At best it provides a resource to introduce new topics, and, provided that our staff is competent, show those who actually want to know about said topic. At worst, it is what it is now. A tax-draining public daycare service, where we must have a multitude of teachers to staff a building. In reality, this should not be. Studies I have seen, and all things I have experienced show, (and not just for education but in general) that when you make a person, regardless of age, solely responsible for their own well being, that person will ensure that the matter is handled far better then any other person would. It's a simple and logical truth, and I have personally seen it applied, in matters of education, in multiple cases, to children as young as 5 and 6 years of age. If you let people learn what they want, when they want, how they want, then what you get is not the "well rounded" person of today’s schools, but the "Focused Person" of tomorrow. A person who know exactly what they want to do, long before the time they go to collage, not vice versa, as it is in many cases today. The Technocratic Party believes that every citizen has a right to any education they desire, for free, in exactly the same way everyone in Kalistan has the right to marry a person of the same gender. Would anyone suggest that the state enforce that right, so as to make everyone partake in it? I think not. And as to famous home-scholars, A few off the top of my head would include Thomas A. Edison (Taught by his mother), Albert Einstein (who taught himself, at home), and even Sir Isaac Newton (who discovered and taught himself Calculus during the one year the school he was going to was closed). |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||
| yes | Total Seats: 31 | ||
| no | Total Seats: 0 | ||
| abstain | Total Seats: 0 |
| Random fact: Jelbic = "Group of cultures with an overall Central Asian/Eurasian steppe theme, using a fictional language developed specifically for Particracy". |
| Random quote: "The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority." - Ralph W. Sockman |