A folksy saying favoured in my ‘other Sydney’ out West is that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. This fits the mood as this Bulletin goes to press. The going always seems tough to those working in adult learning and education (ALE): poor cousin, Cinderella, little money, no recognition, left out of the global planning of MDGs and all but out of the SDGs, and so on.

Now it is tough and bewilderingly fast-moving for everyone. Contributions written short days ago - Jenny Macaffer’s on climate change and what the Australian fires were like, Colin McGregor on the first impact of Coronavirus COVID-19 in New Zealand - already seem way back.

Today (on 19 March 2020) we may ask:  which is the crisis: the new pandemic encompassing all regions and by now most nations?  Or the reaction which electorally sensitive politics-focused government leaders and sensation-hungry media bosses have fertilised and confused in an extravaganza of unmakeable commitments and ungrounded speculations? Together these have inflated passions, panic, and distrust of authority: especially where 'western democracy' is held to be a gift of good governance to other less fortunate and 'developing' peoples.

Read the full PIMA Bulletin below...