Published in News

Parents horrified by robot report cards

by on28 June 2010


Must try harder Dave
Aussie parents are a little concerned that their education department is trialling a digital report card, which means the teacher does not have to write a word.

Report Robot, according to the company is a “revolutionary reporting tool” and marketed to teachers down under. The software enables teachers to produce “individualised comments at the click of a button”. The teacher selects a student's grades and areas for improvement and can then “customise the report” by selecting how many times a student's name is used and choosing whether or not to include words of encouragement.

But Teachers Federation research officer Mary Fogarty moaned to the Sydney Morning Herald that such software kills the personal touch required in a student report. After all writing “Nick must stop losing his pencils, talking to trees and running his lunch swapping racket” on a five year-old's report takes a great deal of thought.

NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations spokeswoman Helen Walton added that school reports should indicate that a teacher knew the student. They are going to look into the matter further, particularly if a parent does not like their kid's report card.
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