THE LINK IS SEVERED

Yesterday I received an email confirming the severance of a communications umbilical cord that has been part of my weekly program for the past six years – and it will be six years exactly when my final Suns column is published on Tuesday 25 June.

In my first column published on July 3 2013 I wrote under the heading of “Children always key to education”, that our first Director of Education Dr Jim Eedle had advised us that children should always be the focus of schools. His pronouncement made in March 1979 I revisited in what has transpired to be my second last column for the Suns. I wrote that ‘Education’s focus seems skewed’, with Eedle’s exhortation still pending and seemingly further away than ever because of system preoccupation with organisational focus. Structure rather than function seems to hold the dominant place on education’s agenda plate.

My final column, number 291 will applaud the reinstatement and regrowth of the School Based Policing program. Government and its related departments did the wrong thing in dismissing this program. The reinstatement demonstrates that wrong decisions can be acknowledged and made right.

I have enjoyed writing in a voluntary capacity and have done so to support our community knowing about what is happening.