IN his bold drive to seek excellence across the spectrum of public institutions, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has launched an education revolution that encompasses much more than the quality of schools in Australia.
The launch last Wednesday, to build a “stronger, fairer and more secure Australia”, is another practical step of handling the great new sweeping challenges of the 21st century.
Its ultimate aim is to ensure that the next generation of Australians are the best educated, the best skilled and the best trained in the world to create better opportunities for the nation’s future.
“We don’t apologise for this ambition,” Rudd declares as he outlines his government’s agenda on what he calls “Quality Education: The Case for an Education Revolution for Our Schools”.
The glossy brochure also details the needs for productivity reform in schools, high quality of teaching and measures to improve transparency and accountability.
Under this programme, individual schools will have to provide a report to parents on how their child’s school is performing compared with similar schools in their cities or suburbs. This is in addition to the child’s performance in the classroom.
In effect, the reporting is to provide information on the schools’ primary achievements. This disclosure will be a condition of government funding in a new agreement beginning from January next year.
In other words, the greater transparency will reveal which schools are seriously underperforming and have been struggling for some time. In such cases, the government will provide additional fund to lift the schools’ performance.
But if they still fail to improve, tough actions will be taken against them, such as replacing the school principal or senior teachers, reorganising or merging with a more efficient school in the neighbourhood.
The school management will also be given greater autonomy to hire and fire teachers. At the same time, the government will set up new national standards to reward both principal and the best performing teacher. Additional funding will also be provided for teacher recruitment, school development and excellence.
It will also include measures to recruit the nation’s most talented graduates into teaching and place them where they can make the greatest difference.
This plan is similar to those of the United States and Britain where highly talented graduates are given an accelerated pathway into teaching and placed in the most challenging school environment with a higher rate of pay.
The idea is to build a culture of high expectation in Australian schools for students and teachers to meet the needs of parents, policy makers and the broader community.
The government has also committed A$19.3bil for education initiatives over the next four years to provide national curriculum in English and mathematics, science and history, digital education and trade training centres. This will help stop many children leaving school early in their teens.
A report from the 30-member nation Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has shown that Australia’s average performance in reading literacy worsened between 2003 and 2006 primarily because of a decline in percentage of high-performing students.
Forty percent of Australia’s indigenous students, 27% of students in remote schools and 23% of students from the lowest socio-economic quartile performed below the OECD baseline.
The Rudd government reform is aimed at achieving the ambitious goals of lifting Year 12 or equivalent attainment to 90% by 2020.
The Prime Minister called on all public and private schools to do more to demonstrate the outcomes they achieved with the resources they received from the broader community.
“This will ensure that all schools, teachers and students are focused on achieving the results that we need as a nation and realising the potential of each child,” he told the National Press Club in Canberra.
“We should not tolerate underperformance. It damages the student irreversibly. It fails their families. And, therefore, it must change.”
Questioned about his determination to pursue the hardline on his education revolution, which has become a subject of controversy with the teachers unions the day after the announcement, Rudd said: “? the core of this debate, if we are serious about this nation having a robust economic future in the economies of the 21st century, and if you look at what our competitor economies are doing around this region and the world, and the radical investment programmes they have in human capital and within the school systems, there is a grave danger of us being left behind.
“I use this point to go back to the cardinal principle. And that is, for us, this is serious business. We intend to prosecute this with full vigour, knowing full well that there’s going to be blowback on the way through.”
THE unsolved serial killings in Perth 12 years ago have emerged to haunt the police, who are under attack for refusing to reveal that they have security camera footage showing one of the victims talking to a mystery man minutes before she vanished.
The footage, which was shown only to about 700 people, including families, friends and patrons of a Claremont nightclub where the victims were believed to have been abducted, is regarded as vital evidence in the murder investigations.
Yet the police have refused to release the footage to seek public assistance to identify the mystery man after none of the 700 people could provide any clue.
Last week, amid growing controversy and criticisms of the police tactics, they admitted that the footage had been kept under wrap since June 1996, but refused to justify the reasons for the secrecy.
The police also refused to give details of recommendations and findings of what is supposed to be the most sophisticated and most expensive review by the Macro Taskforce and of other reviews on the murders conducted from time to time.
Ironically, the promotion blurb for a TV programme titled Hunt for the Killer: The Claremont Murders, to be shown on pay-TV Foxtel this Thursday with a phrase saying “new information never before released to the public”, is believed to refer to the footage as well as other details also withheld by the police.
The blurb adds that “the time has come to release” some of the most sensitive information that might “spark” someone to come forward and provide a new lead.
But can this really happen after all these years? If the police hoped that the show would lead to a breakthrough in their investigations and the identity of the mystery man – as indeed they think it would – then they could be sadly mistaken.
This is because the revelation, as it were, is not being shown on the wider-audience TV stations or published in the print media.
And also since the event occurred more than a decade ago, its showing now, even on the free-to-air TV stations, is unlikely to get anyone positively recognising the mystery man, whether or not he is the killer.
No wonder renowned forensic expert Robin Napper asked, somewhat cynically: “Who’s running this investigation – the commercial TV company or the West Australian police?
“If this is crucial information, it should have been in the public domain years ago. They should be looking to identify this man immediately when this poor girl went missing.
“Not doing that is a huge mistake because subsequently Ciara Glennon (the third victim) went missing.”
The other two victims were Jane Rimmer and Sarah Spiers. All three women disappeared separately within 13 months after they had left the nightclub at the Continental Hotel (now known as Claremont Hotel).
The bodies of Glennon, 27, and Rimmer, 23, were found in the bushes months later – one in south of Perth and the other north of Perth. The body of Spiers, 18, has never been found despite extensive searches.
Mystery man
The mystery man was seen in the footage talking to Rimmer, the second victim, outside the nightclub on June 9, 1996, minutes before she was believed to have been abducted.
While Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan defended the decision of his senior investigators for withholding the footage, he has, nevertheless, asked them to justify their reasons.
His special crime squad officer Det-Sgt Jim Stanbury said the information would be released at a time that best suited the inquiry and the public of Western Australia. “When that footage is (digitally) enhanced and we are operationally ready, it will be released.”
This statement was supported by Deputy Commissioner Chris Dawson, who explained that releasing the footage publicly would have led to “a narrow focus on the mystery man”.
But State Attorney-General Jim McGinty doesn’t believe that withholding the footage makes sense in this case.
“More than a decade after the event doesn’t seem the best time to come back to deal with that issue to try and get people to identify someone,” he said. “It would be a very difficult thing to do so long after the event.”
And what staggers Opposition spokesman Rob Johnson is the fact that police had largely focused on one man, a public servant, who was under intense surveillance for 10 years.
The 51-year-old man who lives with his parents had hidden phone taps and listening devices in his house and his car had tracking devices until three years ago. The electronic surveillance was stopped when the police could not justify to a Supreme Court judge why the constant monitoring should continue.
It was a nightmare, said his mother last week. Her son’s mental state had deteriorated, resulting in breakdowns and visits to hospitals. And it was a shock to her that all this time the police had kept secret a footage showing a mystery man talking to one of the victims of the serial killings.
The mother, who wants an apology for her son, has called for a parliamentary inquiry into the police handling of the case.
THE controversial “wonder” vaccine Gardasil, described as the biggest breakthrough in health care, may also be administered to young boys to protect them against the human papillomavirus (HPV), a group of viruses that cause skin warts, genital warts and some cancers, including cervical cancer.
Researchers at Sydney University are now conducting a series of trials on young men between 18 and 26 to see whether the vaccine is effective against viruses that could lead to genital warts.
Eminent immunologist and Australian of the Year 2006 Prof Ian Fraser, who is one of the co-inventors of the vaccine, gives three reasons for wanting to vaccinate school-going boys.
Firstly, the boys will grow up to be men and are almost certainly susceptible to viruses that cause cervical cancer, the world’s second most common killer.
Secondly, boys are vectors that pass the viruses on to girls in their sexual encounters.
Thirdly, if society can immunise enough boys and girls, it might reduce dramatically the “circulating virus pool” in the community.
But Dr Gerry Wain, gynaecological oncologist at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, told a television interviewer recently that it was not just the cervix that the researchers were interested in, but also a whole range of anogenital cancers, head and neck cancers, and skin cancers as well.
“So we are looking at a whole range of HPV diseases across the community, both males and females,” he added.
Cancer of the cervix kills about 250,000 women throughout the world every year. Most of the victims are in under-developed or developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region where, it is claimed, a woman dies of the disease every four minutes.
In the Philippines alone, for example, 32% of about 6,000 new cases of cervical cancer die each year. This is a conservative figure because most of the women there are afraid to be tested until it is too late, or cannot afford to do so.
Sadly, most of the women were in their most productive years of between 30 and 50 and in the prime of their life.
But statistics show that between 50% and 80% of all women are at risk of cervical cancer. It affects women of different ages and background, though sexually active women are more prone to it.
It usually starts from the cervix, the part of the uterus that opens to the vagina, and spreads through the body if not treated immediately.
The main problem in most of the region is that women are not aware that cervical cancer can be treated if diagnosed early.
Cervical cancer is not as prevalent in Western societies like Australia because women here receive a letter to remind them of the need to have a Pap smear test every three years.
Risk factors
Only about 700 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in Australia each year.
Nonetheless, promiscuity, changing partners and taking birth control pills over a long period of time are likely to increase the risk for developing cervical cancer.
Women using contraceptive pills from five to 10 years would have a 60% increase in the risk for cervical cancer than those who use the pills less than five years, according to researchers.
But women who used the pills for more than 10 years are more likely to get the disease than those who didn’t use the pills.
However, researchers have not answered the question of how long a woman has to be off the pill before her risk of cervical cancer is reduced.
Medical scientists are now studying more about cervical cancer, including how it develops and better ways to detect and treat it.
Unfortunately, the excitement of discovering Gardasil as a protection against the cancer viruses has been marred by the controversy in Australia and the United States on its supposed adverse side effects.
Complaints included temporary paralysis after the vaccine injections, mouth seizure, temporary speechlessness, allergic reactions, headache and soreness.
Year 12 students from the Sacred Heart School in Melbourne were among the first to report adverse reactions after they had been injected with the vaccine.
However, none of the cases has clear-cut evidence of the drug’s side effects or are directly linked to Gardasil.
In fact, Dr Wain described the vaccine as the “most important scientific advance” he has ever seen in his medical career.
Since April last year, more than 3.7 million doses of Gardasil have been distributed to schools across Australia for girls as young as 11 years.
Reeling under the sharp increases in fuel and food prices, Australians are now turning to cheaper sources of food while the Government is encouraging more competition in the grocery industry.
MANY ordinary Australians of Caucasian origin are now turning to Asian food. At least three times a week, they eat steamed rice with mild curries, stir-fried vegetables, soup or the Asian curry laksa.
The reason is obvious. It is cheaper to have than their Western staple of meat, lamb chop or the whole chicken for the family.
Thus, it is not surprising these days to see more Caucasians at Asian stalls in the shopping complex food halls having a bowl of noodles or a meal of rice dishes.
The change has been brought about by the steep rise in food prices, which is hurting most middle-income families and pensioners.
Some call it “the psychological bite” from the food and fuel price hikes. Others call it “agflation”, reflecting the inflationary rise on prices of agricultural commodities such as vegetables, fruit, grains and meat.
Food prices in general have gone up between 45% and 60% in the past five years with more increases likely in the next few years.
Not surprisingly, the price of rice, which is now in short supply in the Asian region due to export bans in some producing countries, has jumped an unprecedented level of 76% in March this year.
Wheat prices, in fact, are even higher by nearly 200% since 2002. Corn has gone up by 60% and soybeans by 40%.
This is a global phenomenon. The continuing rise in food prices is the result of several factors, including poor harvest caused by severe drought – as in Australia during the summer months – and global warming.
Other factors are reduced production due to climate change, historically low levels of food stocks, higher consumption of meat and diary produce in emerging economies like China and India, increased demand for biofuel production and the higher cost of energy and transport.
The biggest increases are in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America where the inflation rate is double digit or higher, according to a recent report of the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation.
The report says the problem is “very serious” and there is a risk that unrest - such as food riots in Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti - will spread in countries where 50% to 60% of income goes to food.
“Food policy needs to gain the attention of the highest political levels because no one country or group can meet these interconnected challenges,” it adds.
What can be done to put a brake on what most Australians regard as a “running cost of living”?
Price information
Concerned by an ever-rising price in food, the Rudd government last week set up Grocery Choice to increase competition in the A$70bil (RM206bil) grocery industry by forcing supermarket giants to give shoppers more price information.
Under the proposal of mandatory unit pricing in supermarkets, shoppers will be told what they are paying per kilogram or litre of a product as well as the total price, allowing them to compare the value of different package sizes.
In addition, the Government has set up a new website to provide monthly comparisons of a basket of selected groceries from supermarkets in 61 regions across the country.
The new move will also make it difficult for the supermarket giants to use restrictive lease deals that specifically block the opening of rival stores in shopping complexes.
Local councils will be urged to overhaul their planning laws to remove impediments to new supermarkets opening.
These changes are recommended in a new report of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which held a six-month inquiry and found that there has been a lack of vigorous price rivalry among the big supermarket stores
Two major supermarket chains account for more than half of the nation’s grocery sales.
Similar blame has also been made by the Retail Traders’ Association (RTA), which points out that the high interest rate on home mortgage has driven consumers to buy food from supermarkets because they cannot afford to eat at restaurants and cafes.
“We’ve actually experienced higher food price increases than the entire Western world,” says RTA spokesman Scott Driscoll.
“We’re the only country in the OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development) where food inflation is actually outstripping general inflation. We’ve got to get some sort of genuine competition back into the supermarket trade.”
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd believes that the competition to be introduced will be good for consumers, but he will not guarantee it will bring down food prices.
So, despite the Rudd government’s initiative, the situation of increasing food prices is unlikely to ease soon.
Can the humble bitter melon provide the cure for Type 2 diabetes? Scientists from Australia and China are now doing collaborative research to find out.
WITHIN the next three decades China will face what it describes as the world’s biggest “ticking time bomb” – a doubling in the number of its population suffering from Type 2 Diabetes.
Alarmingly, the number of people in China with the disease has reached a mind-boggling total of 62.5 million – a number that rivals that of the United States, Europe and Japan combined.
Traditional cure: The experiment on the bitter melon may result in producing the world’s first Western drug to meet the challenges of the Type 2 Diabetes pandemic in China. It’s no wonder that China is concerned that by 2025 the prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes is expected to double.
The Chinese government has sent its scientists to seek Australia’s help in defusing the so-called time bomb.
Chinese experts from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica recently visited Australia to explore new research opportunities in diabetic medication.
For the first time they are working closely with their Australian counterparts to unlock the secrets of the non-toxic bitter melon, a traditional vegetable found mostly in Asia.
Chinese plants such as herbs have been used in Western vitamin tablets for many years – and indeed in many well-known dietary supplement products in Australia. But it is only now that Australian medical scientists are seriously examining the possibility of using Asian vegetables and fruits for Western drugs.
This is because many people now believe that Chinese traditional medicines have helped cure them of their ailments. Nevertheless, there are some concerns that such medications have not gone through rigorous scientific analyses to test for their risk factors or side-effects.
The first stage of the therapeutic effects of bitter melon is being examined by Australian medical scientists with the aid of Chinese scientists at one of Australia’s biggest medical research centres – the Garvan Institute in Sydney.
The institute’s expert in cell biology Prof David James is leading a team of specially selected scientists and researchers, including China’s expert Dr Ji-Ming Ye.
They are cutting fresh bitter melons into small parts and putting them under a high-powered microscope, and Dr Ye’s wife Sharman Wong also cooks a Chinese dish of bitter melon at least once a week for the team to examine their properties.
The objective is to produce a chemical compound that could be used as the basis of a new drug for Type 2 Diabetes.
So far, four bioactive compounds have been extracted from the pulp of the bitter melon and fed to mice in an experiment.
The team discovered that the compounds increase the uptake of glucose from the blood into tissues of the body of the mice and thereby lower their blood sugar level. In comparison, mice that were not fed the compounds did not experience the same reaction.
In other words, the compounds regulate the metabolism and glucose utilisation as the main fuel of the body’s cells.
Some of the compounds in the bitter melon have not been known to exist before.
And, most significantly, there have been no side-effects in the mice.
At present, modern drugs for Type 2 Diabetes such as insulin injections are known to cause some unwanted side-effects and severe complications when combined with other medications.
Prof James, who had earlier told a television interview of the experiment, believes that the molecules is the world’s first and the institute has taken a patent on it.
But the process is still in the early stages, and it is yet to be determined which of the four chemicals could make the difference or how much of the chemicals are needed.
Human trials are expected to begin before the end of next year.
Despite its terrible taste, bitter melon has traditionally been regarded by the Chinese as having health benefits such as cooling the body, promoting digestion and brightening the eyes.
They believe that it also helps people to lose weight, keep themselves slim and reduce their cholesterol levels.
Its juice is said to be good for preventing or alleviating cough, fever, roundworms and to treat sterility in women and liver problem.
According to some Chinese medicinal practitioners, bitter melon is also used to solve menstrual problems in girls.
It is also used to treat sores, eczema and is said to be effective in curing hypertension, malaria, fever and a number of viral illnesses.
Yet none of these medicinal uses has been scientifically proven nor have any of them been disproved.
But Australian researchers and scientists are now seriously considering the advantages of Chinese traditional medicines.
The experiment on the bitter melon may result in producing the world’s first Western drug to meet the challenges of the Type 2 Diabetes pandemic that China regards as a big threat to its society.