Today's headline in the news, "The majority of Australia's Year 9 students use punctuation at a Year 3 level", according to new analysis that shows a dramatic slide in students' writing ability over the past seven years.
"You need to be able to write persuasively throughout your life, you need to be able to write a persuasive job application … you might need to write a letter to get yourself out of a parking fine. They can't convey a complexity of ideas, and we need to be worried."
Do we need to be worried? Perhaps not, because with those low writing skills, today's students may not even be able to get a job anyway, let alone be able to afford a car with which to incur a parking fine.
"Australians all let us rejoice, For we are young and illiterate."
