Bligh holds online education forum

(AAP) - After three days of parliamentary sittings you'd think Anna Bligh would be sick of Question Time.

But the Queensland premier put herself in the firing line for a fourth day on
Friday, with the first online People's Question Time.
More than 2000 people logged on to watch Ms Bligh, Education Minister Geoff Wilson
and a small panel of experts field 150 questions submitted in emails by
Queenslanders, and from an audience of 40 at the Queensland University of Technology
in Brisbane.
The panel took questions on the theme of the future of education in an hour-long
question and answer session streamed live to an internet audience.
Questions ranged from the need for air-conditioners in southeast schools to plans to
move Year 7 to high schools in 2014.
Dawn, of the Brisbane suburb of Boondall, asked if the government could really
expect to train new teachers in six weeks - a plan floated by Ms Bligh on February
20.
The premier said it would involve university graduates with work experience taking
six weeks' intensive training before going into the classroom under strict
supervision, as part of a two-year diploma of education.
Steve, of Buderim on the Sunshine Coast, asked about air-conditioning in southeast
Queensland schools, to be told that time and other spending priorities would govern
when over-heated classrooms could be cooled.
Asked about a national wage scheme for teachers, Ms Bligh welcomed the idea, saying
it would end the "wages war" between the states as they tried to attract staff.
"I'd love the wage bargaining in the education system to be the prime minister's
problem, and not mine, but that's not the real world," she said.
Ms Bligh, who will chair a community cabinet meeting in Innisfail on Sunday, said
after the event that people valued having greater access to the government.
"This is a big step into the new world of e-democracy and it takes community
consultation to a new level," she said.