Truancy and parents
Post Primary Teachers Association President Chris Abercrombie recently asserted that governments needed to be brave and address the underlying causes of chronic non-attendance at school citing poverty, housing insecurity and mental health issues.
Doubtless all three issues, which are far from new, are contributing factors but they represent the proverbial ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. The basic problem is inadequate parenting skills resulting in some parents placing little value on their children acquiring an education.
Abercrombie added there was a need for government sponsored integrated and funded solutions, involving gateway alternative education and activity centres, pastoral care and leaning support.
Truancy is not for governments to solve. The responsibility for inculcating the importance of education in our children squarely rests with parents, as their first teachers.
Teaching them the value of reading, instilling in them a thirst for knowledge, talking with them and interacting with other children to develop their social skills will provide the necessary foundation, that hunger to learn and with it, personal growth and fulfilment. Truancy problems solved.
Malcolm Johnson, Cambridge.
Idiotic politicians
Coalition Government ministers have been quick to characterise some among us as “idiots”. The term was used in two different contexts this week by Mark Mitchell and David Seymour. A Trumpian style does nothing to address the issues that lie at the heart of social problems. Such childish attempts to humiliate groups that may already feel hard done by are likely to entrench divisions and intensify grievances. We need politicians to be thoughtful and mature in their responses, rather than react with insults that can only be described as idiotic.
Andrew Dawe, Sandringham.
Car v bus
Harmful incidents on public transport must be compared with harmful incidents that occur when you get in a car. Hundreds of people die every year when they get behind the wheel of their car and hundreds more are injured, often seriously. Every form of transport involves the possibility of harm, with public transport surely being at the very bottom of the list. As a pensioner without a car, I have used buses and trains exclusively for years and never, ever seen any aggression. It takes courage to get off the bus and walk, however, with scooters and other wheeled vehicles zooming past me at 30km/h on the footpath.
Susan Grimsdell. Auckland Central.
Civil war
In the next few weeks the United States is likely to experience considerable civil unrest, possibly to the level of insurrection. If chaos does occur (which I hope it will not) it may create an opportunity for them to update their constitution, making it more relevant for 21st century social, economic and political conditions. Getting rid of the Electoral College, federalising the voting process and putting age and time limits on length of service of Supreme Court judges would be a good place to start. This comment on internal American politics may seem presumptive but unfortunately what happens in the USA and therefore its foreign and economic policies, directly impacts all of us in the Western world.
I am reminded of the famous quote of Henry II when England was going through turbulent times which, of course, I cannot possibly paraphrase.
Allan Spence, Waiuku.
Heart to heart
Perhaps now is the best time to wake all of us up, pick us up by the shoulders and shake us up, facing the brutal reality, that whilst hospital waiting lists are third-world class, we also face burnt-out cardiology specialists, who are leaving their very niche speciality. The recent example of the departure of one of the very few Tauranga cardiologists - who decided a burnout was not going to be his preference - is a sad, but sobering wake-up call. As a nation, now would be the ideal time to address our utterly shocking statistics regarding our embarrassingly high obesity ranking in the world. One would have thought that being one of the most obese nations in the world would give us the best incentive to do something about it. But, while the very people who fix any heart failures are departing, this simply means that our cardiology wards will have less capacity and therefore our death rates, resulting from obesity, will be on the rise. Let’s face it, fewer cardiology operations, means more people are dying. If we are worried about not being able to see a cardiologist within a reasonable time, maybe now is the best time to cut out our silly carb-loading habits and stop supporting the largely overseas-owned fast food multinationals.
Rene Blezer, Taupō.
