Of course no public policy maker or politician will ever discuss the length of school holidays. To do so would raise the wrath of teacher unions. They will not acknowledge the reason why school holidays were introduced but will raise a long list of reasons why school students need such equally long breaks. They will never mention one of the main attraction to become a school teacher is to have long holidays.

At least with university holidays one can reasonably argue many uni students find paid employment during their breaks so they can fund their studies. However most school aged children are legally prohibited from obtaining paid employment.

Longer school term would mean significant increase in State education budget. Childhood is already overburdened with academic study/homework/pressure to perform/etc.

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Mobydisc said..
Of course no public policy maker or politician will ever discuss the length of school holidays. To do so would raise the wrath of teacher unions. They will not acknowledge the reason why school holidays were introduced but will raise a long list of reasons why school students need such equally long breaks. They will never mention one of the main attraction to become a school teacher is to have long holidays.

I can see both sides of the coin. Good teachers no doubt spend a lot of their time doing work marking and setting assignments, probably for a lot of time outside 'work hours'. I am sure there are really bad teachers that do almost none of this.

So, if it were the dream profession and paid highly, there would be a queue of people trying to get in. From what I understand, sometimes there is, and sometimes there isn't.

Moby, you seem to be fanatical about letting the market decide, so if there was ever a move to reduce the number of school holidays, I suspect there would be a corresponding move to increase wages. If there were not, there would be less people interested in being teachers, or the quality of those would decline.

Perhaps it would be better in some ways to have longer school days, but any of these changes will no doubt inconvenience someone. From what I remember, longer school days, or longer school terms, are not going to positively influence the education levels of students.

There seems to be a preference for school kids to spend more time in school, and I think this is just because modern life requires both parents to work and therefore annual leave becomes a precious commodity. Perhaps this means that the cost of living needs to be evaluated rather than the number of hours a kid goes to school.

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FormulaNova said..

Mobydisc said..
Of course no public policy maker or politician will ever discuss the length of school holidays. To do so would raise the wrath of teacher unions. They will not acknowledge the reason why school holidays were introduced but will raise a long list of reasons why school students need such equally long breaks. They will never mention one of the main attraction to become a school teacher is to have long holidays.

I can see both sides of the coin. Good teachers no doubt spend a lot of their time doing work marking and setting assignments, probably for a lot of time outside 'work hours'. I am sure there are really bad teachers that do almost none of this.

So, if it were the dream profession and paid highly, there would be a queue of people trying to get in. From what I understand, sometimes there is, and sometimes there isn't.

Moby, you seem to be fanatical about letting the market decide, so if there was ever a move to reduce the number of school holidays, I suspect there would be a corresponding move to increase wages. If there were not, there would be less people interested in being teachers, or the quality of those would decline.

Perhaps it would be better in some ways to have longer school days, but any of these changes will no doubt inconvenience someone. From what I remember, longer school days, or longer school terms, are not going to positively influence the education levels of students.

There seems to be a preference for school kids to spend more time in school, and I think this is just because modern life requires both parents to work and therefore annual leave becomes a precious commodity. Perhaps this means that the cost of living needs to be evaluated rather than the number of hours a kid goes to school.

It would be best to leave it up to individuals if they wish to spend more or less time in school. Of course many children and teenagers may not be mature enough to defer gratification of the present for long term benefits. The reality is school is a complete waste of time for many kids. For many and varied reasons they think "school sucks", "teachers are idiots", its a prison and the happiest day of their life will be when they leave it. Unfortunately these kids are ignored in every single debate on education. Also unfortunately these individuals make life difficult for teachers and their classmates in class.

When the information revolution was building up a head of steam a couple of decades ago, when people were surveyed on what areas of society it would affect, school education was identified being greatly affected by it. That's fair enough as the mode of service in 1990s was basically the same as it was in the 1890s. A teacher up the front of the classroom teaching 20 or 30 kids on what is what.

Fast forward to today and what is the basic mode of service in the average classroom? Basically the same with the addition of utube to help out if struggling with a topic.

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Mobydisc said..
Do you know why we have such long school holidays? Do a bit of research and you will find the reason they were brought in doesn't really exist anymore. It may be time to question why we have school holidays in the 21st century.

Obviously not a teacher Mobydisc
but if you are a parent you may have a small/tiny/miniscule insight into why we need school holidays