Echo Issue Outline: copyright Echo Education Services
First published in The Echo news digest and newspaper sources index.

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Issue outline by J M McInerney

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Should a cadet corps be established in Victorian State Schools?
At the start of 1997 20 state high schools will establish student cadet corps.
The cadet program will be phased in over at least a two year period.
It is anticipated that some 750 students will be involved in 1997, at a cost of some $500,000.
The cost in 1998 is expected to be $1 million.
The cadet scheme was first proposed by Mr Kennett prior to the March 1996 election and has generated enthusiasm in some quarters and criticism in others.

Background
The introduction of the cadet corps scheme in 1997 will be on a trial basis in 20 states secondary schools.
The scheme will be voluntary with schools interested in taking part needing to apply to be considered.
(The Victorian premier, Mr Kennett, has predicted overwhelming interest from schools and had warned that some schools would be disappointed as the program will be phased in slowly with preference to schools that had a demonstrated interest.)
Schools taking part in the cadet scheme have the opportunity to select from ten programs, including life saving, army, navy, police, national parks service, the scouts and guides, the air corps training and emergency services. Emergency services include the Country Fire Authority and St John's Ambulance.
Up to 50 cadets will serve in each unit. Those students who take part within each of the pilot schools will have volunteered to do so.
All cadets will wear uniforms and attend a seven-day training camp, with each unit expected to meet for two hours a week over a two-year period.
The program will include compulsory courses on first aid, cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, leadership and team-building.
(Weapons training has been banned for students attached to the armed forces.)
A similar scheme was introduced into Western australian schools in February of this year, where some 500 students aged between 14 and 16 were involved in 10 schools across the state.
Only one Victorian state school currently has a cadet program, Melbourne High. Melbourne High's program has run since the school opened in 1885.
Twenty years ago the federal Whitlam government scrapped funding for school cadets, though recently the Howard government indicated it would spend up to $3 million on cadets.

Arguments in favour of student cadet corps in Victorian schools
The primary argument offered in favour of the introduction of a cadet scheme into Victorian state schools is the advantages it is claimed such a schmem will offer students. The next major justification offered is that it would benefit the community as a whole.
The stated intention of the Victorian Goverment is that the scheme will help develop leadership, discipline and a respect for rank authority among the students involve. It is also intented to develop teamwork and a sense of community service.
The Victorian premier, Mr Kennett, has claimed, `It puts in place a program we hope will develop to provide leadership, to provide opportunities for young men and women to take a greater role in the world in which they live and take greater charge of their lives ... The program should instill in cadets the discipline of training and the experience of teamwork. I think it is going to leave young people with permanent skills.'
Mr kennett has stated his belief that the scheme should enhance self-esteem and leadership skills in teenagers and better prepare them for the workforce.
Similar claims have been made by some of those involved with the only cadet scheme still operating at a Victorian state school, that run at Melbourne High, and by students involved with cadet schemes operating at some private schools.
Richard Bates, a year 10 Melbourne Grammar cadet, has stated, `It's improved my confidence because I have to get up and teach lessons to the juniors.'
His father, Captain Nicholas Bates, who commands the youth group supports his son's view.
`If it builds their confidence, that alone can improve their job prospects,' Captain Bates has claimed.
This view has been echoed by the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Mr Don Larkin, the deputy executive of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has suggested that the program could improve the outlook for the young and give them job skills.
Numerous of the service organisations to be involved in the program have also claimed that it would have benefits for the wider community.
A spokesperson for Victoria Police has welcomed any move that brings young people into positive contact with members of the police force.
Police Association secretary, Sen-Sgt Danny Walsh, has claimed that any such scheme `can only be good for better understanding between the two.'
A similar view has been put by a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
Mr Neil Bibby, director of fire safety with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, has praised the scheme, claiming that junior firefighting corps around the world had been very successful and had helped raise community awareness of fire safety.
A spokesperson for St Johns Ambulance service also claimed that the scheme looked promising as a way of increase knowledge of first aid procedures within the community.
Supporters of the scheme have defended it against claims that it is narrow and militaristic.
It has been noted that the Victorian scheme no longer allows weapons training, even for those involved in military corps. (This move appears to have been in direct response to community concern over the danger of firearms after the Port Arthur massacre.)
It has also been claimed that there will be a strong community service element with students able to join units working with the National Parks Service, fire fighting agencies and St Johns Ambulance Service. The focus will not be exclusively on training with branches of the armed forces.
Roderick Fraser, the principal of Ivanhoe Grammar School, a Victorian private school where a cadet corps currently operates, has claimed, `Cadets today are far removed from the more militaristic units of the '60s. I believe they have a place in a school. Students often find it hard to grapple with the idea of service without some form of structure. The cadet corps provides a vehicle whereby individuals can develop a sense of service.'
Mr Kennett has made similar claims. A spokesperson for the Premier, Mr Steve Murphy, has claimed that the program would not be `as regimented as people's perception of cadets might be.'
With regard to claims that the program would not be suited to many young people, its defenders have noted that those who take part will do so voluntarily and will be able to leave the corps if they find it does not suit them.
Finally, to the extent that the cadets will join an hierarchical leadership structure, there are those who have defended this as quite appropriate.
Ray Willis, the principal of Melbourne High School, has claimed, `Cadets is one appropriate way of learning leadership because in the real world most business activities still operate in an hierarchical way.'

Arguments against student cadet corps in Victorian schools
There are two major grounds on which the cadet corps scheme has been criticised. There are those who maintain that the cadet corps is a bad idea in itself and there are those who maintain that there are better uses to which the funds involved could be put.
Those who maintain that the cadet corps is a bad idea in itself, stress that it was developed without any consultation with schools.
The schemel has been criticised as the brain-child of the premier, Mr Kennett, developed without reference to school communities.
Critics have claimed that the scheme is the direct outgrowth of the Premier's own school experience and as such has little or no bearing on the needs of most secondary school students today.
(Mr Kennett was a cadet at Scotch College in the 1960s.)
The State Opposition has claimed that it is the product of the premier's `obsession with the military'.
Ms Lynne Kosky, the Opposition spokesperson for youth affairs, has urged people to `Imagine a Victoria with 750 little Jeffs marching around ... It's not the solution for the '90's.'
Further critics of the scheme as an inherently bad idea have stressed that it provides nothing that is not already available to either schools or young people.
The Age, in its editorial of August 16, noted that schools already make use of camping excursions and Outward-Bound courses as well as community work and social service.
In addition, critics have noted, there are already cadet programs run by all branches of the armed services for interested young people.
Further critics of the cadet program have criticised the type of leeadership it develops as unnecessarily restricted.
Mr Peter Lord, the president of the Victorian division of the Australian education Union, has stated, `It represents an outdated and narrow view of how you develop leadership in young people. Cadets is all about having a hierarchy, and a leader, and people doing what they are told. It identifies leadership in two or three people, rather than encouraging it in everyone.'
Mr Lord argues there are other more appropriate alternatives. `The discipline we need these days is the self-discipline of taking responsibility for your own action. People inevitably rebel against an imposed discipline.'
It has also been argued that the cadet scheme will not advantage those students most in need of assistance.
Dr Richard Tesse, associate professor of education at the University of Melbourne, has argued that low achievers, with low self-esteem and few skills, were least likely to benefit from a cadet scheme.
`The ones who most need the skills are the ones who would benefit least from the scheme,' Professor Teese has claimed.
`They're not amenable to a highly organised discipline structure. Putting them in uniform is not going to work, so you've got to approach them in a different way ... Fix the achievement and moral will lift. If you don't do that, all the rest won't grow. No amount of driving an ambulance around the school is going to compensate for poor learning,' Professor Teese has argued.
Those who are opposed to the establishment of the student cadet corps as a misuse of funds have tended to concentrate on some of the current problems being experienced by Victorian youth and state schools.
Such critics have claimed that the corps does not address these and thus that the $1.5 million could be better spent.
This is the position adopted by the Opposition spokesperson for youth affairs, Ms Lyn Kosky, who has claimed that there are a number of pressing problems involving Victorian youth. She has cited falling school retention rates and increasing crime rates among children in state care. Other Opposition spokespeople have pointed to youth homelessness, uneployment and suicide.
Ms Kosky argues that such problems are not addressed by the establishment of a cadet corps and that while these problems exist there are better uses to which government funds could be put than spending large amounts on establishing such corps.
A similar argument has been put by the Victorian federation of State School Parents Clubs which has criticised the Victorian Government for spending money on this project rather than on other education needs.
Ms Margaret Bode, the secretary of the Victorian Federation of State Schools Parent Clubs has stated, `It's a lot of money that could be spent in curriculum areas.'
The same argument has been offered by The Australian Education Union (AEU), which has condemned the scheme as an `appalling' misuse of government funds.
Jude Cazaly, the Victorian branch dputy president of the AEU, has criticised the Victorian premier for having `squandered money on a frivolous and flippant budget item' at a time when schools were in dire need of additional funding.

Further implications
One of the more obvious further implications of the Victorian scheme is the suggestion put by the Premier that the scheme may be adopted by other states.
It has been generally acknowledged that the Victorian program is closely modelled on the one which has been operating in Western Australia since February 5 of this year.
Quite large claims have been made for the success of the Western Australian program considering it has only been running for some six months.
As early as March of this year, at a time when the Western Australian scheme had been running for only a month, a spokesperson for the Victorian premier, Mr Steve Murphy, defended the Victorian proposal claiming it was based on `an exceedingly popular' scheme in Western Australia.
It would appear that the Western Australian scheme is being accepted and approved well in advance of any benefits it might be shown to have.
Dr Richard Teese, associate professor of education at the University of Melbourne, has stated, `I'm mystified whether the introduction of cadetships is really addressing a problem or whether it's a symbolic return to order and discipline.'
Professor Teese suggests that the push toward cadetships is at least partially ideological.
If this is the case, it seems likely that the cadet scheme has a fairly secure future in Victoria and elsewhere, despite claims that the Victorian cadet scheme next year will be only a pilot or trial program.
It will also be interesting to note whether the cadet schemes operating in private schools continue to include weapons training, now that it has been decided that those running in state schools will not.

Sources

The Age
18/3/96 page 7 news item by sandra McKay, `School cadet policy draws critics' fire'
19/3/96 page 1 news item by Sandra McKay, `Jeff's kilt corps, coming soon to a school near you'
26/5/96 page 11 news item by Paul Robinson, `Attention time for cadet scheme'
15/8/96 page 3 news item by Alex Messina, `Gunless cadets at state schools'
15/8/96 page 3 news item by Alex Messina, `Boys line up to learn lessons of respect, tradition and teamwork'
16/8/96 page 10 editorial, `Our gunless cadets'

The Australian
28/3/96 page 13 analysis by Richard Yallop, `Young guns'
15/8/96 page 6 news item by Ewin Hannan, `Cadets to go weapon-free'

The Herald Sun
18/3/96 page 1 news item by Matthew Pinkney and Damon Johnston, `School cadet squads'
18/3/96 page 4 news item by Bruce Brammall, `Services greet cadet plan'
18/3/96 page 4 news item, `Corps focus on building confidence'
15/8/96 page 7 news item by Matthew Pinkney and Gabriella Coslovich, `Gun ban for cadets'

What they said ...
`Cadets today are far removed from the more militaristic units of the '60s. I believe they have a place in a school. Students often find it hard to grapple with the idea of service without some form of structure. The cadet corps provides a vehicle whereby individuals can develop a sense of service'
Roderick Fraser, principall of Ivanhoe Grammar School, a Victorian private school where a cadet corps currently operates

`It represents an outdated and narrow view of how you develop leadership in young people. Cadets is all about having a hierarchy, and a leader, and people doing what they are told. It identifies leadership in two or thre people, rather than encouraging it in everyone'
Peter Lord, president of the Victorian division of the Australian Teachers Union