Apparently Education and Women Minister Heinisch-Hosek wants to cancel all of the school tests – and she blamed it on the flaw in security that made it impossible to go ahead.?
That of course was not true right from the beginning. And now we see that these (so-called Pisa) tests will indeed be carried out at least for 15-year-olds. But those for the primary school kids will not be. The reason? According to the Minister (and one would hope that at least on this occasion she is selling the truth) it is no longer a shortage of money that is to blame. It is being carried out because she wants to make sure that the most important are tested.??
But actually that's even more incredible than saying it is a shortage of money. Because with all of this talking around the subject what Heinisch-Hosek is effectively saying is that the primary schools are not important.??Yet primary schools are the only real "total school" systems in Austria. But of course she doesn't like that and it sticks in her throat that the results for the primary schools in international comparisons are much worse than they are for the 15-year-olds. In fact it could bring the entire red green school propaganda machinery crashing down.??
So much easier to declare the primary schools unimportant and not to test them any more. And so Heinisch-Hosek remains a Minister while the majority allow themselves to be outraged about the fact that a regional MP from Burgenland has said something against his party boss – but fails to get upset about the fact we have an education minister who declares the entire primary school system is unimportant.??
And even with regards to the tests for the 15-year-olds, I am wondering if the clueless minister has noted that in the meantime the tests need to be carried out electronically? Does she know that many classes haven't even seen a computer? Perhaps she only wants to test certain schools and the others are also not important???Testing times ahead that's for sure.
This English version of comment from the Tagebuch was translated by the British journalist Michael Leidig and his team at the Central European News agency. He can be contacted for corrections and improvements to the English here: editor@cen.at
