Herald Sun

In the six months to June this year, 41 children aged under 10 presented with gonorrhoea, 41 with chlamydia, five with syphilis and 40 with trichomoniasis.

A TEENAGE student who can barely read or write is suing the Education Department for $300,000 for failing to teach him properly. Beau Abela, 14, claims he won't get an apprenticeship because he lacks basic life skills such as using a bus timetable, reading a menu or counting money.

VICTORIAN teachers have endorsed a campaign of rolling regional four-hour stoppages and a 24-hour strike next year in support of a pay demand.

ALL members of the in-coming Labor government have been ordered to visit a government school and a private school in their electorate in the next two days.

ONE in four state schools identified as under-achieving a decade ago have failed to improve. A damning Auditor-General's report released yesterday found of the 128 schools performing below expected levels in 1998, 31 were still not meeting standards.

A WORD of advice to the many teachers who have been scaring our children with screenings of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Be aware that a judge this month instructed British teachers showing the film to tell their pupils that Gore makes at least 11 false or unsupported claims. I hate to think it is necessary to remind our own teachers to do likewise, but I fear the worst.