Mixing it up

For those with an interest in education there's some really good conversations going on at Public Address, from Russell's post on National Standards and Jolisa's accounting of their experience with the American system.

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This quote in the Herald from Paula Bennett about National's approach to tightening up social welfare riles me.

"This may include practical training, attending a basic skills course or attending drug and alcohol rehabilitation," the policy said.

"After that, they will be required to actively look for a job, to go to any job interview they are referred to, and to accept any offer of suitable employment, whether fulltime, part-time, temporary or seasonal.

"If they do not comply with these obligations, they will have their benefit reduced in the first instance, then suspended and then cancelled."

( rant1 )

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Similarly, this whole shake-up to weed out 'lazy' students

In his statement yesterday Prime Minister John Key said there were "increasingly urgent problems" in tertiary education, pointing to low-quality courses and students who were lazy or studied year after year without going into the workforce.
...
"We will also take a careful look at the policy settings around student support to ensure that taxpayers' generosity is not being exploited by those who refuse to take their tertiary studies seriously or who show little inclination to transition from tertiary training into work."

( rant2 )

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Finally and completely different, I wouldn't normally talk about internet dating sites but this Christchurch startup (Stuff article) falls into both the 'that's a new take' and 'why didn't someone think of that sooner' categories, and that amuses me. The idea is that since people are pretty crap at writing about themselves, you have to get a friend to write your profile. The url given in the article is actually buggered, try checkoutmyfriend.co.nz, not .com.

The Robin Hood (Tobin) tax

Via No Right Turn - the proposal of a 0.05% tax on speculative transactions which could raise billions of UK pounds.

http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/

Sounds like a really good idea. Someone tell John Key ... oh wait, he's a banker, isn't he. No chance National will be implementing something like this as part of their step change then is there.