"At least half of Tasmania's population can't read or write properly"
What a gross exageration and fabricated article that is and entirely unsubstantiated. It's laughable and so clearly a biased and bigotted attitude towards the Tasmanian/Australian people who live here.
The same problems of literacy/numeracy are to be found everywhere within the whole country and it doesn't matter where it is, the problems are identical, even within the larger populations.
It's a statement that should be targeting the institutions where SOME students are being graduated as teachers without the proper qualifications and fired like loose canons into the schools to perpetuate their own short comings.
That situation has been going on for years, and what we see now is the results of that in many areas of Australia, including the State of Tasmania.
The rubbish that is printed such as "only two colleges" is just that, rubbish and fabrication, for what purpose I'm not sure.
It's such a shame that the media, as well as the uninformed and biased self interested perpetrators of garbage reporting are given such pathways to spread ludicrous misinformation the way they do and an even greater shame that there are those who are so gullible as to believe it as fact.
Exageration = exaggeration (I must remember I live in the Southern Hemisphere now) .... 
It is possible that older teachers have become "stale", whatever that may mean in reality.
By the same token, it's difficult to answer such a question without the proper research conducted, and even then, it would be hard to get the correct data; it would result in subjective rather than objective conclusions I suspect.
I can't concur that teachers teach on the 'familial' platform these days no matter what their age group is now. It might happen in the mind of the 'old' methods, but doubtful they would succeed in this century, try as they might, the young people are too savvy for that, as are their parents.
I'm on the side of the college system. I'm a firm believer of teaching a child to think for themselves and teaching them a critical thinking process but based on what I read, hear and see I'm sure many prefer the indoctrination principle.
Indoctrination can only work if it's not bound by the tiresome back-traditional thinking where teaching is concerned. It also depends on what kind of school is included in the discussion, but I won't go there, it's too sensitive and aggressive an issue for some people.
I agree with you entirely the children must learn a critical thinking process as long as it is tempered with rational and logical thought with good values all around.
