To : Senate Committee of Inquiry. The effectiveness of the National Assessment Program – Literacy & Numeracy.
This submission recommends that NAPLAN testing be banished forthwith; that any ruinous substitute never ever be inflicted on the school children of this country again; and that the focus of public discussion be directed to LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM and the impact that outside influences have on classroom activities.
It has not paid its way. It is impairing educational progress.
Schools in Australia are no longer child-friendly places. The removal of play and creativity and love of learning and of the exciting personalised challenge of learning has led to disenchantment with the teaching profession, mistrust of school programs, a fixation with cold testing and a startling increase in bullying. The ideals of compulsory schooling through commitment to the pupilling processes and its healthy teaching/learning contract have been removed, replaced by politically coercive tactics. Worst of all, it removes a child’s natural love of learning and the fun that can provide them with fair-dinkum, intrinsic motivation to achieve as much as possible.
LEARNING in context is difficult to comprehend in its entirety, especially when applied to classroom activities. Productive learning as a classroom activity can be mystifying. Observers know that productive learning is going on, but the processes often defy description. A magic classroom is almost impossible to describe. There are so many different learning- focussed exchanges. Since 2008, the prevailing political control of measurement in Australian schools has dominated classroom outcomes to the detriment of useful learning progress. A halt to Standardised Blanket Testing needs to be called as soon as possible. Parents and an interested pubic need to talk about ‘Learning’ in a positive, healthy, politically-free manner.
Immediately below is a table of differences between a Joel Klein/NAPLAN testing system, now controlling Australian education, and that of a future system that emphasises learning. This submission suggests that a blue-ribbon, superior education system is possible once the public is given the opportunity to talk about the way we treat our children when they go to school; especially to talk openly about the impact that politically controlled Standardised Blanket Testing can have on classroom routines.
Q & A
Here is a short Q & A concerning critical issues of present-day schooling. [Questions, on the ABC Monday’s show ‘Q&A’, about NAPLAN are barred, by the way, without explanation. See below.]
Q. WHY is it that countries, like Finland, represented on the right-hand side of this table, lead the PISA test results of 70 countries, even though its tested cohort has up to four years less at school by 15 years of age than do those countries, like Australia....and Finnish educators do not approve of Standardised Blanket Testing regimes? Finland concentrates on how to learn about learning; Australia about testing.
A. SEE the table above. The answer is SO obvious. When pupils are treated with respect - as ‘pupils’ [rather than as over-testucated frightened ‘students’] with total recognition of their individual differences, their personal attitudes to learning, their natural desire to take their developed learnings to the dizziest of heights - there are no limits to their learnacy [learning HOW to learn] outcomes. NAPLAN and other forms of national testing ruthlessly applied by political appointees, ‘whose knowledge of learning in the classroom can be written on a used postage stamp in large font ‘ according to a former principal [JH], merely standardise learning and teaching; and curb development of each child, each system, each country. Our elected servants have become our masters and there are too many of them who seem to take delight in disrespecting the efforts of our beautiful children and devaluing the tasks of our teaching profession, who love our kids and just want to be able to do the best that they can by them.They have a lot to answer for if NAPLAN persists. Democratic principles have been suppressed by corporate saboteurs in the quest for the mighty dollar. NAPLAN has to be totally destroyed , without modification or substitution. It is a national threat.
The interlocked connection between the administrative operations of NAPLAN testing and mega-business should be enough to call a halt and examine the connection.
Q. WHY is Australia regarded as the most GERM ridden country, so crazed about testing?
A. Excessive federal political control of each state’s education systems, linked to unseemly threats and totalitarian tactics as well as a curious attachment to the mega-rich testing tycoons’ greed for more money have a lot to do with it. Who is to know how the extensive lobby-groups employed by Klein’s ‘Amplify’ and by the UK’s Pearson group of companies perform their duties?
[“Why would someone with any conscience think it is okay to degrade the art of teaching in exchange for profit, while denying the love of learning for an entire generation. Sounds like science fiction, doesn’t it? “ BHM]
Q. Isn’t NAPLAN useful as a diagnostic tool?
A. About as useful as ‘lips on a chicken’. How in the world can results, provided five months after the tests, when the learners are in circumstances far different from the circumstances at the time of testing, be of any help? Fair go! Can it be better that DIY tests on the spot? Can it be better than face-to-face evaluation of effort? Try the other leg.
If testucators need assistance to see how well they are going and have to rely on external assistance, there are plenty of sources. A.C.E.R. is a one-stop shop. There’s ‘Google’ to find other providers. There’s books. [As a test-fixated principal, my copy of Sir Fred Schonell’s “Diagnostic and Attainment Testing” became dog-eared and tattered and fell apart from over-use. If only I’d thought about what I was doing. I could have sold it to another foolish testucator in pristine condition.]
NAPLAN is a useless, dangerous, frighteningly dark weapon that seriously threatens our country’s future in intellectual, creative, health and fiscal terms. Financially, it represents an enormous waste of tax-payers’ money that can be better used.
The danger MUST be totally removed from the schooling landscape before May, 2014. Let’s rescue the unfortunate children presently in Years 2, 4, 6, 8 from assaults on their learning capacity.
Let our kids LEARN, for heaven’s sake.
More questions are asked on the following clip demonstrating the concern of NY parents enduring the same conditions as Aussie parents. I realise that the clip may not be reproduced on the senate report, but it is essential viewing for anyone who is concerned about their children and able to view it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCfXYwaZBYw&feature=player_embedded o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o00o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Paradigms of social behaviour, such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs [1954] and French & Ravens’ Bases of Social Power [1959] are worthy additions to empirical knowledge, that summarise what has been obvious to man for thousands of years:
1. ‘Man’ hates to be pushed around. He/she likes to feel appreciated for each and every ‘public’ effort. ‘Man’ much prefers to be valued for his/her own worth and prefers to be self-actualised. [Maslow]
2. The use of coercion and reward power by super-ordinates on subordinates brings resistance. Their use stifles enthusiasm and initiatives. [French & Raven]
Why is the Australian system of schooling in the hands of measurement-crazed dinosaurs who believe that fear motivates children to learn? Why are our legislative representatives too timid to stand up for kids? Why do they need this complicated, costly, time-wasting senate inquiry indeed, [sorry Penny] in the knowledge that mostly testucating sycophantic compliers have the time to respond adequately; and our real educating experts are too busy in the classroom and too frightened? It will require a few million anti-NAPLAN voters to convince the present hard-nosed, measurement-biased regime to cease its NAPLAN antics. Our teachers are too scared or too busy.
While the intentions of Senator Penny Wright are most honourable, praiseworthy and laudable [I just love the lady for her honest good intentions], the call for such a ‘snap’ inquiry could have a ‘diminishing effect’ [P. Darwin 21-05-13]. The warm, well-intentioned belief - that those who are most concerned about the effects of SBTs [Standardised Blanket Tests] on teaching and learning in classrooms will have enough to say to persuade those in power to change their minds - is admirable. It’s a long bow to draw to believe that some of the 1,030,00 parents of kids whose private learning behaviour was assaulted on 14,15,16 May and the parents of other victims might comment. If the responses are not up to expectations, the testucators will claim that their notions of schooling have been supported.
LEARNING REFORM should become an all-encompassing public discussion by talking about what actually happens INSIDE the classroom. The classroom is where our future is. Let’s talk it.
There is plethora of reliable information that clearly demonstrates that GERM-based Standardised Blanket Testing is a major threat to productive learning. Thank God for ‘google’ that can provide a guide to productive thinking at the click of a button. Try : Sir Ken Robinson, Prof. Robin Alexander, Diane Ravitch, Yong Zhau, Kelvin Smythe, Marion Brady, Bruce Hammonds, Allan Alach...an endless list. The evidence is so overwhelming and the literature so profuse. Why isn’t any notice taken? There is certainly no reliable or valid evidence that current measurement techniques create intellectual products of worth. None! Try ‘google’ to find any. Plenty to the contrary. NAPLAN is just an untested test-focussed measurer’s crazed and barren idea. The worst outcome of this snap senate inquiry would be a recommendation for a substitute. That would be a cop-out, based on the belief that the evil resides in NAPLAN only, overlooking the fact that NAPLAN is just the Australian version of Standardised Blanket Testing. Please don’t take this easy way out, based on the assumption that the public does not like NAPLAN specifically. The effect of any Standardised Blanket Test would have exactly the same consequences. Nor does a lack of the response to the call for submissions indicate that parents aren’t concerned. Silence can mean many things. Millions of Germans remained quiet when undemocratic, inhumane practices were casually noticed and completely ignored. Remember the final mess? And they had a fall-guy. We can blame Julia or Peter or Chris....or any of their sycophantic eichmanns...but we shouldn’t. Not necessary - if the the craziness goes and we can all work together. We can heal the shameful, unhappy divisiveness that has been imported with NAPLAN when we all come to realise that our duty as parents and as teachers is to care for kids and their learning environment.
NAPLAN
NAPLAN is a questionably introduced fear-based schooling system whose philosophy was imported, for political purposes only, en bloc from a large New York School District in 2008, following a meeting of the then Federal Minister for Education, Hon. J. Gillard, with fellow former lawyer at a cocktail party. His name is Joel Klein, then Chancellor of a large urban school district in New York, who has since moved to a senior executive position with the Rupert Murdoch’s publishing company, Amplify, [Salary: $4m p.a.] that concentrates on the production of print and online tests, androids and support material. Mr. Klein has claimed publically that he helped to establish his system in Australia and that it is a replica of his. He can claim that he owns us.
This is the genesis of existing schooling operations in Australia. It is now fully test-based.
How did this happen? Supported by Australian banking corporations, Mr. Klein, a testucating supremo with dubious connections to the hard-testing industry, was brought to Australia for a quick trip to talk to various corporate bodies and to address the Press Club. Known to possess a powerfully persuasive personality, his efforts worked. Both the Hon. J. Gillard and her superior, Mr. K. Rudd, felt sufficiently empowered, to copy the N.Y. system – with Klein’s permission - and proclaim its establishment in Australia without further discussion. Corporate Australia applauded. Measurement experts, very short on school-based experience, were appointed to the most senior positions to run the show. The system that was in place only needed some genuine attention to learning processes and to pupilling practices to become a gold-plated system. We went the wrong way. The new-look Klein-fear-based Australian schooling was cognitively shifted in 2008 with no reference to learning outcomes except the word: ‘scores’. Professional organisations, including those of primary and secondary principals, were corralled. The press was already under control.
It was all systems go by 2008. The plot was set.
Testucators took the place of educators at decision-making assemblies, suspending any discussion of professional ethics in relation to the use of children’s fear as a teaching device; and ignoring the known effects of the imported threats and gimmickry. The scato- meme, now described as ‘Testucation’, a system of control based on standardised blanket testing, was established in all GERM countries. We tend to ‘go with the flow’ with innovations from up-over, and can now claim to be the very best GERM-oriented testucators in the world.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
While Kleinism was moving down-under, Rupert Murdoch was rubbing his hands together with fiendish glee. He proclaimed that this approach to schooling is worth $500billion to him per year, in the US alone. If he corners the market for the supply of on-line machines [androids] for quick responses to testing and other uses for every child at school at a cost of $US700 per machine, the market is probably worth more than he estimates. Standardised Blanket Testing is big bikkies. Australians will be shelling out, big time. The cost of each paper test in Australia at the present time is about $50. Since 1,030,000 victims performed in 2013, the cost to the tax-payers for the publishing papers was about $51,500,000 and the cost of suspension of learning activities for 3 days, inestimable.
There is an unholy scramble for the control of the on-line education market, certainly between the super-publishers. Murdoch’s opposition businesses have tried to match his eagerness for money. His company Amplify, under the control of Joel Klein, and the British-based Pearson Education are major opponents in cornering the market for the supply of androids to every school child in the world. These hand-held information warehouses are challenging learning theories involving the role of the person in various pupilling processes within the classroom. Any fruitful discussion has yet to be held. The testers have the front running and now dominate any useful dialogue as education’s prime-time is given to scores. Schools are now judged by numbers only. On-line NAPLAN testing and scoring is coming to a school near you very soon, as a vanguard for major alterations to classroom activities.
There has also been a considerable growth industry in side-line businesses like coaching and the publishing of special tests and practice booklets. In the past year the growth in the numbers of these businesses occurred for the same reason that Ned Kelly robbed the bank: that’s where the money is. Nothing else matters. The growth is absolutely amazing. Try Google and you will be amazed. NAPLAN can easily be seen as a major money-making stunt for greedy billionaires and emerging industries. Who will be the first food-chain to start a business supplying stimulating breakfasts for nervous contestants on each test day?
The marking of the May tests is under way as this is written. An army of pencil wielders is currently being paid $38 per hour for five hours per day for three weeks. An estimated cost for just marking the useless [in learning terms] test is about $85m.
With the cost of administration of NAPLAN tests added to the above simple items, the money costs to Australian tax-payers are gigantic. No one will tell the public exactly what NAPLAN costs. The costs are successfully hidden in state and commonwealth account books and no one is willing to check it all out...not even the Commonwealth Treasury. Where can the full costs be found? Who dares look? Even investigative journalists dare not.
The Auditor-General has stated that NAPLAN has cost taxpayers $54m and there has been no ‘statistical improvement in literacy or numeracy scores.’ Murdoch magic. We pay. Kids lose. He profits.
Sadly our present generation of school kids is paying heavily in learning terms while we pay enormously in dollar terms; and few people care. That’s Testucation, Treehorn!
CHEATING
NAPLAN has led to wide-scale cheating of all kinds. The worst kind is the encouragement by authorities for schools and scholars to practice as much as possible. Practice tests have been provided by state governments on-line so that schools can cheat better by using reliable sources. Political and departmental superordinates are not called to account for cheating even though they perpetuate it, while principals and teachers are crucified for lesser crimes like allowing kids a five-minute extension; some are sacked. Harassment of the child-caring teachers is quick and intense.
It’s clear. If one school practises and another doesn’t, the validity of the tests is ruined. To run a system that approves a plethora of types of practice surely makes blanket testing procedures a mockery; and testucating reputations shameful. This sort of cheating is an integral essential of testing’s zombic functionalism. Its presence cannot be cleansed, despite any pleading.
This alone ruins the pretended raison d’etre for NAPLAN. It’s part of Testucation, not Education! NAPLAN operations are pure waste. Q.E.D.
SUPPLEMENTS ENHANCEMENT
But there’s more. During the weeks before the NAPLAN contest, the pharmaceutical industry, openly acknowledging the stress and concern that this sort of testing causes to young children, undertook an expensive advertising campaign, featuring Nicole Kidman’s sister, proclaiming the benefits of Fish Oil to allay the stress and concern. Other pharmaceuticals are certainly being used on a large scale to enhance performance. This company advertised it and was caught out. Pharmaceutical products are becoming part of the essential diet for victims of Testucation.
NAPLAN Test Stress has created a new industry, bigger that originally imagined. What stimulants are used during NAPLAN-time and will continue to used?
Special breakfasts are now held, even sleep-overs, to steady the nerves prior to tests! The condemned kids eat a hearty meal.
I ask each senator: Did you ever believe that you would see the day? EDUCATORS GAGGED
During NAPLAN week, 2013 the principal of a school in Canberra explained to its parents that they needed to consider the impact of NAPLAN testing on their children’s learning; that they had the democratic right to say “No”. He dared to face the wrath of his superiors, who, in accordance with the blatant procedural ACARA deception, discourages schools from telling people that they have such a right. Principals are ‘spoken to’. He dared to share his opinion with his stakeholders. It is difficult to believe, but this made headlines around the country.
NAPLAN’s official information documents provide an underhand masterpiece of chicanery. ‘Students are expected to participate in the testing. Please discuss your concerns with your child’s teacher or your school principal.’ No democratic right of choice. ACARA knows, full well, that parents do not have to discuss such items with anybody. ACARA perpetuates this fraud by claiming, “Signed parent/carer consent forms are required for students withdrawn from the tests.” Bunkum. They do not. As a matter of courtesy, all that a parent needs to do is drop a simple note to their child’s teacher. Nothing more.
ACARA adds a buck-passing coda to these jack-boot requirements with : “ ACARA does not manage the consideration of requests for withdrawals or exemptions.” Consideration of requests? Pardon!?
There has been, it might be noted, a growth in the number of school children in the USA who write on the papers, “I do not wish to do this test” and politely hand it to their teacher without comment. It’s called The Bartleby Project. Conscientious objectors in Years 8 and 9 are spreading the word through Facebook. There is nothing that can be done about it.
I ask each senator again: Did you ever believe that you would see the day?
PRESS CONTROL
On the day after this earth-shattering front-page news of this open-minded, child-centred Canberra principal, 14 May, the first day of NAPLAN testing, the report of the Senate Inquiry into ‘....maximising our investment in education’, was tabled after eight months. It did not rate a mention in any local media outlet of any kind. If the public wants to know what it said, it has to chase the report on its own. When this particular senate inquiry was announced in September 2012, there was nary a mention in any part of the Australian media. One can be pretty certain that only a few dozen people have even heard of its existence, certainly not of its efforts nor suggestions.
The same was true of the previous senate inquiry into education. You remember it, don’t you?
The Darwin Effect has operated well. Not a word so far about any education senate inquiry in recent times. Can we suppose that editors of the Murdoch chain of newspapers and controllers of TV/radio news items do not want to displease him, and journalistic codes of conduct prevent colleagues from rocking the boat with items that mates cannot use. One classic example:- In November, 2012, over a thousand public primary school principals from Australia and New Zealand gathered in Melbourne. Their speakers were from the world’s finest down-to-earth educators: Pasi Sahlberg, Director of Finland’s education system; Yong Zhau, researcher, China, Michigan and Oregon; Andy Hargraves of primary school pursuits from Boston. It was the biggest such conference ever held down under. As with all renowned world educators, none supports the various forms of Standardised Blanket Testing now in vogue. Not a word from the entire conference was published or referred to, in any Australian or New Zealand news item, even though press releases were forwarded to major outlets every day. Strange, don’t you think, Senators?
The ABC-TV conducts a Q&A program each Monday that invites open questions from viewers before and during the program. When the host was to interview both Peter Garrett and Christopher Pyne, a few educators tried to make sure that questions about NAPLAN would be asked. Gonski consumes so much air-play they wanted to encourage dialogue about NAPLAN. The word ‘NAPLAN’ was not even used during the hour. It was so obvious that the producer or the host or Aunty herself prevented any questions about NAPLAN issues from being used. Why?
Some educators tried again when Julia Gillard was interviewed with groups of high school pupils. Same result. Not a mention.
Some classical academic research and anecdotal reports into the impact of SBTs have been printed in documents easily accessible on-line. There are hundreds each month. None makes our airways. As Carson Robson said, “There’s sumthin cock-eyed somewhere.”
However, Channel 7’s Today Tonight program presented a seminal documentary on the Monday of NAPLAN week, that featured Kimberley College, known world-wide for its successful multi-aged [to Year 10] de Bono- style program that emphasises the unrestricted development of learning styles for its scholars. 140 parents of the 150 victims ‘expected’ to sit NAPLAN have refused to comply. They are sensitive to its impact on learning. The program was a gem, extending its references to our system’s founders and controllers : Joel Klein and Rupert Murdoch.
GIMMICKRY
The system also relies on sycophantic fear-driven adherence to testing by school personnel. Joel Klein revealed that he told Julia Gillard that opposition by real educators, like teachers and academics, should be resisted by tightening the thumb-screws on all participants and by creating diversions to artful forms of gimmickry that make specious claims as to effectiveness. Prime amongst these has been the creation of Charter Schools [using deceptive other names, some oxy-moronic, but serving the same moronic purpose]. They provide a smoother and quicker conduit for test-takers than the usual red-tape route through pretend autonomy. Autonomy is a concept that infers complete control of circumstances. It’s a non-entity. Another furphy, borrowed from the USA style of management, has been the twisted belief that people work harder when close colleagues are paid more than they are. There is ample sociological evidence to illustrate the disastrous outcomes from this kind of hair- brained managerial farce. Ask Maslow, French or Raven. Try Google.
PISA
Comparisons are made by test-crazed number crunchers with other countries by using a set of international tests called PISA [Programme for International School Assessment] that are conducted in a number of countries by measurement experts from Paris-based OECD. The PISA device is applied only to 15 year-olds every 5 years. As odious as such comparisons are, there is a strange reliance by politicians, in particular, on the results. Since their knowledge of and interest in classroom outcomes is limited, they have nothing else to use. Ill-informed observers have been known to state that their systems were ‘better’ or ‘worse’ in an educative sense because of results in tests of some simple aspects of mathematics and grammar. Unbelievable.
Australia was usually in the top ten of testing results in international tests, as useless as they may be, until the year 2008, but we never made a great song-and-dance about it. ‘So what ?’ we asked. Recently, Australia’s present Prime Minister has stated that SHE will have Australian schools’ PISA test results ‘in the top 5 by 25’. That’s the lady leading the so-called ‘reform’ agenda exhibiting her knowledge of what happens in schools. Schooling by numbers. Such statements will surely rank in the top 10 of the craziest announcements of the first quarter of the 21st century. Judging by the way we are going, our general cognitive development outcomes will surely place us amongst the cellar-dwellers. Tests do that to their victims. Just watch and cry.
See Tom Waterhouse now before the odds shorten.
Clearly, Australian citizens need to discuss, openly, what ‘goes on’ in classrooms in terms of LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM. SERIOUSLY. We certainly need to contemplate what classrooms will look like in 2025. To have allowed a testing regime to be inflicted on our children and impair their cognitive outcomes, before examining its effects on classroom learning, is not to our credit. It was a dumb thing to start doing.
Senators, did you ever believe that you would see the day that Australian schooling would be such a mess?
POLITICAL OUTCOMES This Senate controlled inquiry has to make a clear statement. Senate asked for it as a matter of urgency, so the Committee of Inquiry needs to be brave enough to face the facts. No more molly-coddling fence-sitting gloss. CEASE NAPLAN TESTING.
This inquiry needs to make this statement asap and not pussy-foot around the issues. As things now stand, the major political parties , Liberal/Nationals and Labor, are in favour of the continuance of this rigorous political control of teaching and learning; and of one- size-fits-all curriculum and of its assessment by testing methods - the most invalid, depressing, unreliable and useless ever used in this normally progressive country of ours. Professional educators, especially classroom teachers need to reclaim their profession, now degraded and devalued to an extreme degree by our confused politicians, most of whom are party-bound and not concerned enough to state and publish their own points of view. Clearly, in terms of PISA test scores, we are not making any progress in test results, thanks to NAPLAN methods of operating. Leading public protagonists of rigorous testing and a one- size-fits-all curriculum, Gillard, Garrett and Pyne are, unwittingly perhaps, dangerous people. Teachers, parents and children, blind to the consequences, are suffering.They should talk up.
MORE EVEN-MINDED POLITICIANS NEED TO TALK ABOUT EVALUATION AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE LEARNING ENDEAVOUR. This Inquiry could be our last hope for our kids.
The issues are clear, surely. NAPLAN is a gigantic flop. As an issue of accountability it is totally useless. As a part of the learning process, it is dangerous. And... there seems to be an entrenched political fear of the power of Rupert Murdoch, [‘the man who shapes the world’, according to potential Prime Minister Abbott] and his publishing colleagues, who control enormous test publishing and online businesses. Australian political parties’ dedication to the welfare of the mega-rich is a serious threat to their own children and to ours.
The Greens Party usually sits on the fence in matters of importance and tends to call for an inquiry when the heat is turned up. Party members then bang on the drums, abrogate responsibilities for child health and schooling, and say to constituents, “We tried, but nothing happened.”
While the popularity of the major parties and their leaders goes up and down like a fiddler’s elbow, it surely means that the Greens can capitalise on this political uncertainly by having a NO NAPLAN election platform. There are 300,000 teachers who would support the banning of NAPLAN if they were allowed to speak their mind, as well as a growing number of disenchanted parents and friends. A political candidate of any persuasion would attract a substantial number of votes from the school-interested section of their electorate if they talked with genuine concern about the plight of our school children.
Senators. Please stand up for our kids. You can keep up your allegiance to the testucators or pussy-foot around or care about our kids. The choices are clear and distinct.
Would you rather see Australia as a NATION OF SCHOLARS, no matter what occupation each one pursues OR just a mediocre mob of over-tested school-leavers?
Phil Cullen A.M., FACE, FACEL, FQIEL, Gold Medal FACEL
Founder : Treehorn Express. http://treehornexpress.wordpress.com
Former State Director of Primary Education.