Former Prime Minister David Lange has criticised the Government for commercialising schools and viewing schools as businesses.

Tomorrow’s Schools, the major education reform of the last Labour Government and brainchild of Mr Lange, aimed at providing equality of opportunity for every child, he says.

But today, Mr Lange says, education is heading down a commercially structured path which cannot guarantee every child an equal opportunity in schooling.

The market model, he says, conflicts with the public sector and bureaucrats are either too protective of schools or treat them like businesses.

He is calling for the Education Review Office to remain separate from the Government Education Ministry and says the ERO is performing well as an independent body.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>