Sextant May 2013
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Outdoor Recreation Club One of Campion’s latest student-led initiatives has been the formation of an Outdoor Recreation Club. Its purpose is to offer bushwalking, camping, four-wheel driving, fishing, and sightseeing opportunities to wanderlustful students. Several 4WD owners have volunteered their vehicles (conditions apply), with a dozen students having made bookings for the first trip to Sofala (via the upper Turon River) and Sunny Corner State Forest on May 3. Trips will be held monthly, according to demand, with overnight options available. Equipment will be BYO or shared, with fuel costs, camping fees etc to be divided amongst the group. Please contact our adventurous chef, Neil Simpson, for more information. Education reforms questioned By Dylan Littler would then be allocated to schools with solution, but also because it requires a greater needs. higher number of teachers, increasing In the last ten years Australian literacy The aim of this increased financial strain on the teaching body, which is has gone from second place support is to bring Australia within the already significantly compromising the internationally to seventh. This has been OECD's (Organisation for Economic Co- acceptance level of teachers, in some accompanied by similar drops in operation) top five countries for literacy. cases lowering the ATAR below 50. mathematics and science. In November Disadvantaged areas have been targeted The threat to teaching standards in 2011, David Gonski submitted a report to in proposals as needing most attention. university graduates is the result of the government on the education system For this reason the Report has suggested another education goal the government known as the Gonski Report. This report neighbourhood based planning for has been driving: to give at least two made a number of findings concerning funding, in which locations where parents fifths of Australians degrees. To achieve the current funding for education, are deemed more capable of supporting this, enrolment at public universities has followed by certain recommendations, their children's education will receive been uncapped. Now the enrolment level which the Labor Government is now less assistance than more disadvantaged is unlimited, meaning that, while funding attempting to implement. areas. was increasing for universities, the The strongest indictments made This has raised concerns regarding enrolment growth was so rapid that the against the current state of educational the fees at private schools, which have funding per student was decreasing. That funding in Australia centre around the been maintained at a lower level until is, until this year, when government lack of coordination between state and now to enable disadvantaged students to assistance for universities was cut by Commonwealth bureaucracies, and the receive a higher standard of education. $2.3 billion. growing divide between rich and poor. Official statements on this topic have These cuts place Australia as the 25th The Gonski system proposes an increase vaguely insisted that no fees will change ranking country for university funding of funding in the order of A$5-6 billion as a result of new policies. out of the OECD's 29. Outrage has for elementary education, bringing the The Report has also recommended immediately resulted throughout the standard funding per student to about reducing class sizes. This alone has educational world as institutions insist $8,000 per primary student and $10,500 sparked significant debate, not just that the improvement of elementary per secondary student. Specific loadings because smaller class size is not education should not come at the expense completely accepted as an effective of tertiary institutes. cont’d pg. 2 1 Disclaimer: The views expressed within are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sextant Editorial Board, the CCSA, or Campion College Australia. Education reforms questioned One of the most common objections (cont’d from pg. 1) The government has made to Gonski's proposal is that its responded that raising the standard of financial demands, apart from being quite education for a child's early years is unrealistic, are by no means sure to be currently a priority that will bring dividends effective. Is pumping more money into the system necessarily going to improve the later. David Gonski, the writer of the Report standard of education? Aren't there ways to and Chancellor of UNSW, has expressed achieve the same result simply by increasing disapproval, claiming that he was never efficiency? asked about where the funding would come Two further considerations on this topic from to implement his proposals. seem pertinent for Campion students. The response to the Labor Firstly, should Australia pursue egalitarian Heavenly Father, Government's actions has not been positive policies in its education? Clearly You inflamed your priest and martyr, from other sectors of government, primarily disadvantaged students deserve an Saint Maximilian Kolbe, the states. In order to achieve proposed opportunity, and their situation should be with love for the Immaculate Virgin financial targets a significant burden has addressed, but can this be done at the cost of and filled him with zeal for souls and more talented students? It is not evident that been imposed on the state governments. The love of neighbour. Federal Government has offered to match taking funding from private schools is the state contributions quite generously, but best way to improve elementary education Through his prayers grant that we may certain states have not seen this as being in for the disadvantaged. Secondly, is it work unreservedly their interest. Since the state of education in acceptable to use university funding for this for your glory NSW and Victoria, where the population is end? What are the implications when in the service of men greater, is in a much poorer condition than Australia becomes complacent as the 5th and thereby become like Christ your Son that of WA, which has funded its own lowest OECD country for university education quite actively, these states will be funding? What aspects of higher education until death. receiving billions of dollars of assistance, will need to be cut as a result, and what Amen. where WA will only be eligible for $300 attitude will this foster towards the Western million. The Coalition have declared that values already so straitly threatened in this Correction: In our March issue, The Sextant they will only retain changes made by the country? These can become questions for mistakenly stated that Eileen Reyes held a Bachelor Labor Government if all states accept the continuing debate. of Science degree. In actual fact Mrs Reyes holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management. We changes. apologise for the confusion. AT HIS DESK I've been reading in the London Review of Books A review of Martin Rees's Before the Beginning And Lee Smolin's The Life of the Cosmos. Full of dark matter, it is heavy going. Dark matter makes up ninety-percent of the galaxy And dark matter holds our universe together. Although made of stuff we cannot see, Like reading between the lines, we know it's there. By comparison: protons, neutrons and electrons That form trees, rabbits and stones, are quite rare. To that modest list one could add these lines, The look when he's angry, a strand of her hair. One could add just about anything in fact, Except dark matter itself, which, of course, Keeps these seemingly random things intact. Like this wedding snap, years after the divorce. Stephen McInerney Dr Amitavo Islam relaxing in one of the common room’s recent acquisitions. Published by the Campion College Student Association 2 8-14 Austin Woodbury Place, Old Toongabbie 2146 NSW Australia Keys to the New Evangelization By Fr John Corrigan and conferences and columns. (Columns Literal fasting is conspicuous. It’s better to like this one!) take a leaf out of St Thérèse’s Little Way, The Catholic Church is presently afflicted The Holy Father’s task is to save us from and be invisible. by a great crisis of faith. Pope John Paul II this. To get out there and evangelise. conceived of the New Evangelization, a One of the great legacies of Pope John ~ Act ~ targeted missionary effort, as its remedy: Paul and Pope Benedict is that your “Entire groups of the baptised have lost a generation and mine (I’m a bit older than Only in the third place should we act. sense of the faith — or even no longer most readers) are primed for this task. Our Sometimes, when you are diligent in prayer consider themselves members of the Church peers, after all, are the very people whom and fasting for a particular person, the Holy — and live a life far removed from Christ the New Evangelization targets. Spirit will act for you! A conversation takes and His gospel. In this case what is needed an unexpected turn, and you can speak of is a ‘new evangelization.’” So, what do we do? deeper things. Since then, volumes have been written Other times — more often it seems — the about the New Evangelisation. Libraries ~ Pray ~ ‘act’ of evangelising is much harder, and even. Dioceses all over the world have awkward. Evangelization demands courage. erected Commissions and Offices of the In the first place, we must pray. In the It’s not easy to declare, for example, “I’m New Evangelization. Pope Benedict words of the Holy Father, the first step is going to confession on Friday. Would you established a Pontifical Council for “the contemplation of Jesus Christ and the like to come too?” Promoting the New Evangelization. The adoration of Jesus Christ.” You will almost certainly be refused, theme of last year’s Synod of Bishops was, This is very important.