A few ideas on how to arrest our freefalling education system

Reform funding so that it follows the child, and if a child has special needs because of disability, ensure the funding reflects that.

Ban phones at school, and limit use at home. Roll back the encroachment of childcare, kindy, and pre-school on childhood.

And courage? That's for the politicians who would need to step up against teachers' unions and all those invested in maintaining the inertia of the current malformed system, including parents who delegate parenting to teachers.

We can learn from our neighbours

There is no need to stagnate. We can continuously improve. Singapore certainly has.

Joining the PISA system in 2009 it started out as the world leader and over the last decade has improved by roughly 20 points in each category-the equivalent of a year in schooling.

It's as though they set one Olympic record, and then repeated the feat at each Olympics thereafter.

(Courtesy of PISA)

We could do worse than take a trip up there, and ask them how it is done.

It wouldn't hurt us as another small country in a potentially hostile part of the world that values its quality of life, state of mind, and security as one of those rare democracies.

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Education isn't everything, but it's behind just about everything.