Higher education

The past five years have … seen significant increases in the number of people with Graduate Diplomas or Graduate Certificates as their highest level of qualification (27 per cent).

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/Media%20Release20

In 2017 ABS presented a media release with information about people studying throughout Australia, saying that they are the highest number of people who have upskilled in the history of Australia.

There was a 27% increase over 2011-2016 in those who studied their Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate. Political Science, Law and Economics, the Society and Culture field have increased by 29%; General Nursing, Care for the Aged and Children’s Services has increased by 133k between 2011 and 2016. 56% of people over 15 held a post-school qualification, up from 46% in 2006.

Except that the Sydney Morning Herald in 2016 said that Aus tertiary fees were the fifth highest in the world, after Canada, Japan, Korea and US, and in June2017 that the UN put Aus as 39 out of 41 countries. The Educator in 2018 said that Aus’ education system is among the world’s most unequal. ABC, in December2019, said that a PISA study showed our school reading, maths and science skills as ‘declining’ since 2003. There are many other media articles which looks at the same things.

Others look at how this is happening and it seems, to me, to be profiteering byregistered organisations, rather than actual qualifications.  Or the trainer providers have simplyclosed down. The government APH report said that 45.4% of training providers “could be demonstrated to have breached the national RTO standards and/or consumer and fair trading legislation.” This report was written in 2015. If the government knows about this, then why is it still happening?

The ABS report dated 13 November 2019 looks at this. It says that education has ‘improved’ since 2004, but its graph shows non-school qualifications (eg., VETS). In 2010 the percentage of people in employment and/or study was in city 82% and rural 77%, but by 2019 that changed to 83% and 73%, drifting down for rural residents. It also included men and women – 42% of women aged 15-74 and 34% of men same age, showing a continuous increase for women.

ABC said that universities are becoming more ‘vocational’ than they used to be, and they are comparing with polytechs at higher costs – and training on apprenticeships are plummeting.

So what are these qualifications doing for people today? In Google there are many websites which look at ‘How to become a bar attendant’, or ‘How to become a paralegal’, or ‘…receptionist’ or ‘…youth worker’ or ‘…counsellor’ or ‘…traffic controller’ or anything else – except those that actually require good qualifications. And many people – too many – who have good, higher qualifications may stillnot have a job – especially a full time position.

These articles are very interesting – if you are. I recommend that you read as many of them as you can, including the OECD reports, and make a decision about your own future employment. Will your own decision lead you to ‘joy’? I hope it will.

Old home

Last week I downloaded maps on Google and added in the original territory for our first family home in Tawa Street, Hamilton, New Zealand, although possibly not at large as it had been. In the 1950s dad had built the house, and I think it was smaller than many which are built today, but it was four bedroomed, based on flat roofs, concrete and very large windows which are still used today. We had a garage, fruit trees and vines, a chicken area, a garden, a child’s house, a hammock under a lovely tree, a tennis lawn, and down the back was our grandparent’s cottage, with their own driveway on the left side – which would now be through the carpark next door.

Inside it had a lounge with a ranch door going out onto a patio, a wonderful coal fire in the lounge with access to the coal from the outside patio which could be opened inside, a lounge wall which was shelving and on the other side in the dining room became a pull-open desk. The kitchen had cupboard in three corners with circular areas inside them, and a washing area and a hot water cupboard. In the hallway was a phone sitting in a well-made hole in the wall, a cupboard which held a fold-out ironing board, the dirty washing container (which was accessed from the kitchen), the toilet with inside and outside doors, the bathroom and, on the hallway side of the bathroom, a shower. The first bedroom was double (I started in there with my older sister) with a sliding door built-in wardrobe. My brother’s room was next with same wardrobe. Mum and dad’s bedroom was obviously double and same wardrobe. The fourth bedroom was at the end beside a sewing room, but the wardrobes in that bedroom had ordinary doors. There was a back door leading outside.

 

In late 1960s dad had found out from a neighbour that the council was planning on building a road behind Tawa Street. He moved us out and into a property which is only 1.5 km away but down a driveway and can’t be built over. The Tawa Street house was only 20 years old when we sold it, but I think about it a lot now, and remember my childhood which was so good.

I had looked further into the council rates plans and found out that the existing tiny property was now worth $350k+ - dad had received around $70k for it in 1970! It is the only house standing in that area – the five properties between this house and Ohaupo Road were demolished, and the Van Staveren’s property on the other side with their strawberry garden was demolished but this house still stands! I am so pleased about that, even though it’s rather different than years ago. Our garage had also been demolished, and because there was no longer any access to the kitchen door the ramp was cut off and the door was filled in (indicated with the red arrow). Also the front ramp had been cut off and replaced with steps. Dad had built the ramps to both doors so mum could get my brother’s pram / pushchair up, and eventually when Wayne was walking he could access the house.

The windows across the whole front of the house are still there!

It looks on this Google mapping that Tawa Street had been lowered – our house had a bank from Tawa Street down to our front yard which is no longer there.

I am very pleased this property still stands. It’s years since I’ve been to Hamilton, but the next time I go over there I would love to go and knock on the door and have a look through and see if I recognise any of it. It’s now 70 years old, but at least it’s in my memory, and that’s something I haven’t lost.

What crisis?

The cricket teams have chosen to wear a black armband at their match on Friday, and a one-minute of applause to acknowledge the fire volunteers, according to Sydney Morning Herald on New Year’s Day.

As I had read this, I wondered why wasn’t a one-minute on the NYE events federally given to all the people who had burned to death in 2019? Why did the cities choose fireworks, when there are fires on banned lists in most states?

And why did someone paint over this excellent ‘crisis’ painting of Morrison on holiday before Christmas?

In his New Year message Morrison said that there was “no better place to raise kids anywhere on the planet” (Guardian, 1/01/20). He doesn’t seem to understand the ‘crisis’: fire, but he does understand ‘encouraging’ people to walk away from the fires and ignore them, just as he is.

2019, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, is the “deadliest day of the worst fire season”, with more than 100 bushfires in NSW, 50 in Qld, more in Vic and SA, more than 1,000 houses destroyed and 18 people died – including 3 firefighters - but Morrison doesn’t think it’s a ‘crisis’. There’s a smoke cloud making ACT’s air 23 times worse than anywhere else in the world, and a cloud of smoke over the south island of New Zealand! And it’s not a crisis.

ScuMo needs to get his brain in shape. He shouldn’t be at a cricket competition on Friday – in fact it shouldn’t even be on because there’s no safe air to breathe! I support the painter who painted the ‘crisis’. It should have stayed on the wall. At least it’s still viewable... like here.

Windmills keep turning

Six years ago I wrote a blog on here, dated 29 December 2013, and titled Tilting at Windmills. This morning I had planned on taking a train ride down to Helensvale at Gold Coast and have a wander through the shops, except when I logged into Whacksworks it distracted me. Now I don’t think I’ll go to Helensvale today because I’ve found stuff to write about. And that wasn’t the only reason I would have gone!

Tilting at Windmills, which I’d written four months before my stroke, says a lot of what I still feel. In my blog I only wrote 8 during 2013 – my worst year ever. Okay, so that applies now to 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and still thinking through 2019, because they all seem to be worse than last year. There were 61 blogs in 2016, but back down to 11 in 2019. I don’t know why they rose and dropped. Perhaps I need to have a goal – 104 this year! That would be two a week, which is the least I should be doing. Or should it be 52, just one a week? Hmmm…

 

When I started this blog I wrote of politics: they frustrated me so much, after LNP took over. I wrote a poem intended for Tony Abbott, but I can’t find out if I’d ever posted it. I used it, re-addressed to Malcolm Turnbull, at a Logan Library poetry competition. Now I’ve posted it here, this time addressed to Scott Morrison. They’re all LNP, no different…

Dear Prime Minister…

Don’t tell me not to protest,

I’m going to speak my mind.

I’m mad as hell at where we’re at,

the course that you’ve defined.

You know that what you’re doing’s wrong,

you can lie but you can’t hide

the devastation you leave behind –

what happened to your pride?

You do not have a mandate,

regardless of what you think…

are there no depths left

to which you will not sink?

We used to have a country

of which we could be proud

but your climate change denial

is leaving a big dust cloud.

You’re killing the Reef, the trees, the earth,

you’ve all but lost the plot.

Our heritage, our future,

to you don’t mean a jot.

You’ve taken from the poor,

the gap widens in every way

but it’s not the poor who’ve got us

to the state we’re in today.

You’ve no shred of humanity

to care for refugees,

could you survive in the appalling conditions

your minister decrees?

We’re moving backwards far too fast,

the Lucky Country no more -

we lost that title well and truly

when you got your foot in the door.

The NBN, NDIS,

environmental care,

Gonski, Holden, stop the boats –

you don’t want them here.

You spouted big before the vote –

you promised no surprise -

yet all you’ve done since taking office

is prove you’re full of lies.

We’re tired of you Prime Minister,

you don’t say what you mean.

We’re waiting for the day

when you will finally come clean.

Now it’s time to tell the truth –

what are your plans for us?

Not that we’d believe you

when all you say is suss.

You’ve had your fun, you’ve sowed the seeds,

Murdoch can now reap…

this country is Australia,

that you sold down the drain too cheap.

I still like that.

Some blogs included my statements which I feel pretty good about, like:

“Deny, continue to deny, and eventually people believe you rather than the factual evidence.” – Words can hurt, 13 April 2014

Other blogs spoke about my ‘friends’ before I lost them, like I’m out there, 2 August 2014. Had they walked away from me or did I leave them? Why? Any readers who were my friends, I invite you to contact me and we can start again.

I recently closed my two websites, It’s Okay to be Angry and Reibus. After 6 years I felt that I can’t really afford them now, but I would love to put Reibus back up – it has many of my poems, my short stories, my music memories and quotes I put on a painting or photo or design which I liked. I spent a lot of time doing this stuff – why don’t I still do it? I think that writing this will not give me the initiative to restart Reibus – I will forget it when I post this blog.

Still, as long as I can keep writing blogs then maybe I can start thinking about the new future for Reibus – and me.

Thank you for reading.

Fixing my brain

I read a book about recovery of a woman in USA who had a stroke with brain injury so very similar to mine. Her name is Christine Hyung-Oak Lee and the book is titled “Tell me everything you don’t remember”. She said she had aphasia too. Her stroke was at the end of December 2006. It took her more than eight years to recover as much as she has. So far I’ve had five and three quarter years to my stage of recovery, but that’s a little less than hers; I need more years – maybe three to have as much recovery as she has had. There are differences or similarities between her and me.

I haven’t ever had a person living with me as a carer.

I have lost friends.

I (still) have problems with my language.

I can no longer work.

I couldn’t read a book for two years after my stroke.

I write almost every day, but not always readable.

I stare at the wall.

Sometimes I stare at the TV.

I play card games on my laptop, even if I should be doing other stuff.

I attempted suicide two and a half years after my stroke.

My life has changed so much, from my ‘normality’ to stroke recovery / aphasia recovery. I have recovered a lot of my memory and I have started to write my life history, mostly so I can remember but also so others can eventually read about my whole very different family – different from ‘normal’.

Lee’s 83 year old father had his first stroke 8 years after his daughter did, and he’s survived from it. Just a bit different for my family: years ago, after retiring, my father had his first stroke. It was the fourth one – I think – which killed him in 2000. He was 70. My mother had a stroke too, in 2006, which put her into an aged care home. She died in 2007, still not recovered from that stroke. She was 75. Now I’ve had mine, and I was 58. I’m still alive.

Why does this book sound like me? It was only written two years ago, 2017. I used to write before my stroke, and I had started writing a book too, but mine was fiction. It wasn’t finished until after I had my stroke so I wrote more in it and got it published in 2015. I feel quite guilty about it; I know it read very differently from about half-way through it. If I had re-read it and edited it it over and over and over I may have made it good fiction. At the intro event a couple of the women who came along and had read it said they thought it was very good, for them. That would have been read by people who understood rape. I just wanted to get it published.

In 2017 I started an under-graduate course with Griffith University, majoring in journalism. I now think I would have preferred to have majored in creative writing: I used to write much better than I seem to be able to in my recovery. Will I ever get back to my ‘normality’?

Later that year I had started a short-hour job (part-time, ten hours a week because I would get so tired in the afternoon) which a support person at CPL had found for me. It was RRTWC (rehabilitation of people who had injured themselves at work), and after the first six months there I couldn’t really do that, even though it had been part of my WHS position: I have my old Graduate Diploma of OHS and I’d had seven years as an WHS person, but I can’t use that now. I was shuffled around into the HR group, but three months later I was made redundant.

In 2017 my son in NZ got married, and I flew over for the wedding. One year later in 2018 Alicia, his wife and my daughter-in-law, died. I flew over for the funeral. For me, that sounds so very similar to the grief that the author felt when she went to a funeral for her husband’s mother, her mother-in-law.

I’ve been in my unit where I am now for the last two years, and thankfully it’s the best place I’ve been in for years. I am alone here, just with a cat which adopted me. I still have my car (I’ve had it for eight years) and I can still drive – if I couldn’t have then I would be stuck in here alone every day and every night. Or maybe I’d already be dead.

But my life is very different than before my stroke. In fact I truly wish that I’d never seen 2013 or 2014 and I’d never been into hospital for my brain aneurysm surgery followed by the stroke. Lee’s book encourages me, though. Her recovery is longer than I’ve had, and because there is so much similarity between her and me, I think I can count on the full recovery that she has made. She said some things that I repeat for me, now.

“The language of my stroke is forever in my brain.”

“My life fell apart and then it rebuilt. Everything healed. And life started again.”

“There is space in my brain. There is space in my body. There is space in my mind. My body is no longer at war.”

I hope that will be me, too.

The Mask of Anarchy

Last year I was reminded of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, titled The Mask of Anarchy. It sounded a lot about what I think, and have thought for my six decades. In the 1950s this world was only a decade away from WW2, and the feeling in New Zealand was that we were so pleased that the war was over! Except that Korea happened in the 50s, Vietnam happened in 60s and 70s, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Columbia, Falklands, New Guinea, Indonesia, Ireland, Rwanda, China and many, many more wars have been fought for decades. Why? Why are people killed in whatever the fighting is for is called a ‘war’? Which countries can you name which haven’t had any civil or political ‘war’ or protest going on? Do they use weapons?

The USA has been involved in too many wars. Australia follows them. An article written in for PRI in 2014 said that the USA thought that “we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity... I don't think people need to get into war fever on this. I think they have to view it as a heightened level of counter terrorist activity…” (McGrath, 2014), but why was USA involved in 134 ‘counter terrorist activities’? Read that article. Another website, Our World of Data, is titled “War and Peace” (Max Roser, n.d.). Read it. And the website from EGO European History Online looks at wars which have affected Europe (Purdue, 2016). Read that too. IWM has a webpage titled “Timeline of 20^th and 21^st century wars” (IWM Staff, 2018). It’s a good read. And so many more which you can find by Googling something like “wars fought globally since world war two” or “list of wars after ww2”. (Just a point – any media that charges a subscription should be avoided. There are plenty available without paying what they want.)

In a 2014 Guardian, Steve Taylor’s article was titled “Why do human beings keep fighting wars?” His leader said “Warfare provides people with a semblance of psychological positivity in oppressed societies where other outlets are lacking”. Do you think the same thing? Are you thinking ‘psychologically positively’? That’s no negativity towards Taylor – I absolutely agree with what he said! You should read his last paragraph.

In an article for a website run by the Modern War Institute, writer Stoker quoted Carl von Clausewitz on why war happened: he said “the objective is to overthrow the enemy” and “merely to occupy some of his frontier-districts”. His quote ended with this: ““The political object—the original motive for the war—will thus determine both the military objective to be reached and the amount of effort it requires.” (Stoker, 2019)

So why are people killed in whatever the fighting is for is called a ‘war’? Why are the huge majority of soldiers men? Do women who rule ban wars?  According to Quartz women “must also battle against the assumption that they themselves are passive, weak, or peculiar.” Apparently less than 4% of the leaders of 188 countries were female. Why? The Guardian in July 2017 had an article with comments from women about where women are. These came up:

·         ‘Something’s not working at the moment’, Bridget Christie, comedian

·         ‘Men kill more people than women’, Shazia Mirza, comedian

·         ‘Historically, women in power out-men the men’, Louise Doughty, novelist

·         ‘Women are taking their rightful place as equals’, Caroline Lucas MP, co-leader of Green party

·         ‘Oppression will not cease to exist simply because a woman is in charge’, June Eric-Udorie, editor of intersectional feminism anthology

·         ‘In the peace movement, women are not interested in power over others’, Kate Hudson, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

·         ‘Women tend to make more holistic decisions’, Maria Balshaw, director of Tate

·         ‘I can think of some vicious, cruel women who have been in power’, Jane Goodall, primatologist

So, will the world be more peaceful with women leaders?

FP writer Stephen Walt came up with 5 primary reasons that USA goes into war:

1. because we can;
2. the US has no serious enemies;
3. it’s the ‘all-volunteer’ force;
4. it’s the Establishment, Stupid; and
5. Congress has checked out. 

Maybe that’s exactly why Australia simply follows USA.

So how can this globe end war? The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation gave five very good suggestions. David Krieger, the president of this foundation wrote them, and good on him! Very briefly:

1.    Require the leaders who promote and support war to personally participate in the hostilities.

2.    Tell the stories of the children of the “enemy” until we can feel the pain of their deaths as though they were the deaths of our own children.

3.    Give full support to the establishment of an International Criminal Court so that national leaders can be tried for all egregious war crimes at the end of any hostilities.

4.    Impeach any elected leaders who promote or support illegal, preventive war  - an “aggressive” war

5.    Rise up as a people and demand that one’s government follow its Constitution, cut off funding for war and find a way to peace. 

Which country are you living in? Is it a democracy? What do you know about the government? How was it set up? A democratic government works for the people. S/he manages the populations’ funds, properties, land, sea, transport, business, health, employed people, unemployed people… and children. S/he doesn’t endure war. S/he should never be involved in any crime – which is what ‘war’ is. Trade is good, but trade war is not. Encouraging rich people in 10% of the population is against 90% of the population, and s/he should not be in that stance. Economy is good, but economy war is not. No person is a slave. Every person has rights. Look them up!

Brainy Quote has a quote from George Washington, from USA. He said

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, 

banished from the earth.

It would have been so good if anyone took notice of that.

The Mask of Anarchy 
(part of the poem)

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819

Stand ye calm and resolute,

Like a forest close and mute,

With folded arms and looks which are

Weapons of unvanquished war.

And if then the tyrants dare,

Let them ride among you there;

Slash, and stab, and maim and hew;

What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,

And little fear, and less surprise,

Look upon them as they slay,

Till their rage has died away:

Then they will return with shame,

To the place from which they came,

And the blood thus shed will speak

In hot blushes on their cheek:

Rise, like lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number!

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you:

Ye are many—they are few!

Men of England, heirs of Glory,

Heroes of unwritten story,

Nurslings of one mighty Mother,

Hopes of her, and one another!

What is Freedom? Ye can tell

That which Slavery is too well,

For its very name has grown

To an echo of your own

Let a vast assembly be,

And with great solemnity

Declare with measured words, that ye

Are, as God has made ye, free.

The old laws of England—they

Whose reverend heads with age are grey,

Children of a wiser day;

And whose solemn voice must be

Thine own echo—Liberty!

Rise, like lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number!

Shake your chains to earth, like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you:

Ye are many—they are few!