Dear editor,
The continued decline in educational outcomes for boys across most curriculum areas (‘Gap widening – and behaviour the key’, The Advertiser, August 19) requires urgent and focused attention from parents, schools and education departments across Australia.
In recent decades, outstanding and successful efforts have been made to close the gender gaps in Australia, but recent trends now show that boys are lagging in academic achievement, literacy rates, graduation levels and university enrolment.
Closer examination by the education authorities of the factors that have contributed to this situation needs to be made and strategies and programs to address and remedy this situation have to be identified and implemented urgently.
Early education focuses heavily on verbal and reading tasks, ignoring the fact that boys often develop language skills later than girls, and can become disengaged from this style of learning.
Boys, due to developmental differences, experience higher levels of achievement by being exposed to teaching styles that encourage hands-on learning activities, which fully engage them.
Male teachers are underrepresented in schools, particularly in the primary years, which leaves them without relatable role models who understand their social and emotional challenges and who inspire them to achieve academically.
Citing student behaviour as contributing to this decline wrongly apportions the blame to our schools and ignores more important and highly influential factors such as inadequate parenting, delayed social development and the growing harm caused by foetal drug and alcohol syndromes.
With many boys already exhibiting highly inappropriate and dangerous behaviours before even attending an educational institution, it is clear that a greater focus is required on their early growth and development.
To reverse this trend, schools and departments must adapt to the needs of boys without compromising the significant and much-needed gains already made in girls’ education.
Teacher training must address gender-based learning differences, promote balanced curricula that cater to diverse learning styles and that offer positive male influences.
Education has to be equitable, where all students – regardless of gender – are able to succeed.
Ian Macgowan, Ceduna
Bloom meeting disappointment
Dear editor,
The meeting recently held in Port Lincoln was only government propaganda and ‘ticking the box of consultation’.
The presenters offered no new information, and it was clear they had no real understanding regarding the bloom’s source, its effects on future fish stocks, or the future of the wider marine environment.
If they did, they were not saying.
They all dismiss any suggestion of links to desalination discharge into the shallow gulfs of SA and the risks involved.
SA Water and the state government plough on regardless in their quest to impose a desal plant in shallow Boston Bay.
Any other industrial facility seeking to similarly pollute such a fragile marine environment, particularly one close to aquaculture and fishing, would surely not receive approval from the EPA or PIRSA.
As the years progress and those in government and the public service are gone or retired, we, the residents of Port Lincoln, will be left with the legacy of poor governance in their choice of desal at Billy Lights Point.
Glen Ingham, Port Lincoln
More information needed
Dear editor,
Congratulations to Aunty Sue Coleman-Haseldine, West Mallee Protection, journalist Charlotte Martin and the Eyre Peninsula Advocate for highlighting the fact that Southern Launch does not have full consent for their activities at Koonibba (‘Call to stop rockets’, Eyre Peninsula Advocate, August 14).
I was dumbfounded when I learned that Southern Launch had issued warnings in May to advise the public that they were expecting space junk capsules to fall out of the sky, but that they had no idea where this was going to land.
They didn’t even know if it would crash on land or at sea.
They issued warnings for an area from 100km north of Ceduna to south of Streaky Bay – as we all know that is an area of over 200km and includes National Highway One.
What if this rubbish had fallen on to traffic on the highway and caused a major accident, or on the Ceduna Hospital or the Streaky Bay school, or in a residential area on to people’s homes and caused injuries and death?
Am I the only person who thinks this blind acceptance is absurd?
Research has uncovered promises made by Southern Launch over six years ago to the Koonibba community.
What progress has been made on the educational opportunities, the astronomical centre and space observatory, the significant investments and the variety of employment opportunities promised in maintenance, management and operations?
There seems to be a lot of ambiguity around this whole situation.
Therese Pedler, Port Lincoln
