The ACT education system is not meeting our expectations

She had no choice but to enrol him in private lessons, where she discovered that his level of maths was equivalent to kindergarten internationally. He was in grade three.

This is not good enough. It's not normal. The ACT public education system is not performing.

In 2022 year seven and eight students at Calwell High School were barred from attending when it was deemed too dangerous due to violent incidents and teacher shortages. If that's not a crisis worthy of a thorough investigation and systemic overhaul then what is?

Short of an extensive intervention, the ACT government could start by doing something to attract more people to the profession. Who would choose a profession where you'll never earn enough to buy a house?

When the profession becomes a financially viable option, more people will choose it and our children will benefit.

Of course, while public education remains chronically underfunded, funding to private schools keeps going up. And schools such as Brindabella College feel so entitled, it seized public land to make it into a car park for its teachers and staff. This Labor-Greens government needs to act smarter to show it is serious about improving the education system.

It seems to me that the situation facing farmers in Australia is identical to that facing other workers who, without unionised representation, are forced into grossly unequal bargaining processes to sell the fruits of their labours.

Odd how the Coalition, having destroyed trade unions in its determination to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, hasn't noticed that if farmers "unionised" they could possibly reverse the imbalance by setting prices across their products.

The government could then assist by setting restrictions on the extent to which the supermarkets could import below the Australian prices. Other (smarter?) countries do.

I thought I was the last "fingers" person on the planet until a friend mentioned that when there is something important to be written he starts with a handwritten draft where his fingers become part of his thinking process. I write on the backs of envelopes.

There must have been a study of this about the time our middle child went to college. He was asked to keep a hand-written journal for five subject areas. For the next child it was just English: sometimes free writing; sometimes 20 questions on the novel just read. Writing the essay was not in the least threatening. She and her fingers had already done the thinking.

My grandchildren tell me that teachers at schools and university have huge problems getting work submitted on time.

Classes may be cancelled and work missed so homework can be done and marked.

We moved to screen teaching rather quickly because of COVID years. We need to evaluate what has been gained and what might have been lost by changing the way our kids learn.

I'm normally a fan of Steve Evans's journalism but I was disappointed by his report ("Money worries and work at Maccas as student debt looms", April 19) on the entitled whinging of the "it's all about me" generation who seem to believe that taxpayers should lend them the money for a tertiary education, permanently boosting their earning capacity, without them having to repay the debt.

Steve's piece left me with the impression that, unlike their predecessors, these students were being forced to take jobs for long hours just to pay off their HECS debts. But the truth is that you don't have to pay off your debt at all unless you're earning more than the threshold amount (last year $48,361).

This would apply to very few students. That point should have been made clear. Luckily for your readers the accompanying article on page 13 sets out the position more clearly.

I think the university students interviewed in The Canberra Times on Thursday have unrealistic expectations of the world as well as a disturbing sense of self-entitlement.

One of them whinged about her debt going up because it is indexed to prices. Welcome to the real world. She wants to take expensive courses. That is her choice. It's cause and effect.

She's not willing to "sell her soul" for economic reasons. Most people call that making a compromise.

The other girl interviewed thought the cost of education was "outrageous" and that having a university degree is important to keep the economy going.

Wrong. We actually need more tradies than arts graduates.

If only John Howard would realise that he is a political has-been with an appalling record.

Think of the Tampa affair, also that he dragged us into the pointless Iraq war.

Thanks to Bush, Blair and Howard the world is far more unstable place today. He could learn a lesson or two from Julia Gillard who showed great dignity and discretion when she retired from the political scene.

Graham Downie (Letters, April 19) suggests that your editorial writer ("Are there any lessons to be learned from the Lehrmann verdict?", April 16) might have been better to have begun with the statement "If the original allegation of rape had been reported to police in 2019 justice would have been much better served" rather than ending with it.

Perhaps. By ending with it there's an implication of a positive outcome with far less of the omnishambles described by Justice Lee. But this was never an ordinary run-of-the-mill rape case (if such a thing even exists) so I'm not so sure.

However, at least by beginning as Graham Downie suggests, the editorial might then have focussed on the at least equally important questions of why aren't rapes being reported, how many reported rapes get prosecuted and how many are successfully prosecuted. In all the intrigue of who said and did what to whom these key issues seem like they're being overlooked.

We now hear of record long and growing public surgical waiting lists and times, already and always a national scandal, with the AMA calling for a $4 billion funding boost to address them. This was the day after monsieurs Albanese and Dutton proudly outbid each other on a $50 billion funding boost for our military, now safely in place. That's on top of the $368 billion, plus guaranteed open-ended overruns, for our nuclear submarines.

Could somebody please investigate whether there could be any relationship between these funding realities? Likewise with the kilometric and growing queues for affordable public housing?

Prime Minister Albanese (apparently taking over as immigration minister) appears to have opened up another can of worms by providing a permanent visa to "Bollard Man".

Will this tempt other temporary visa holders to put themselves in harms way so as to get similar visas?

What about those migrants and refugees that have shown extreme courage in trying to save, or actually saving, people, including children, from drowning?

I am sure there are lots of other such examples which would have justified similar treatment by the PM, especially if they actually saved people, rather than possibly saved them as in this case.

While equal access to our political representatives is important to the democratic process, it is a right hindered greatly by the existence of "political insider lobbyists".

Constitutional expert Anne Twomey highlighted the disparity existing in the "Lobbying Code of Conduct" which at clause 4(4), enables 1791 lobbyists with orange sponsored passes access to the non-public areas of Parliament House. This is access not afforded to other lobbyists or to "ordinary" Australians.

Political lobbying is not unconstitutional but the existence of a special class of lobbyists is at least questionable given many of those orange pass holders were "head-hunted" while still on the taxpayer teat as MPs or public servants.

The influence of these "inside-the-loop" lobbyists is evident with the years of climate change denial and wage stagnation.

The situation is only resolvable with bipartisan support. Sadly, the constant negativity of the LNP makes this highly unlikely.