Maralyn Parker

Maralyn Parker is the award winning education columnist for The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, Australia.

Parker was born in Griffith, New South Wales. Her father Henry Arthur Rush (Harry) was the owner of the Griffith Plaster Works. Her mother Doreen Kitty Rush (nee Pfitzner) was an artist, designer and dressmaker. Doreen was the Griffith District Commissioner for NSW Girl Guides in the early 1960’s. Maralyn has a brother, Douglas and a sister Roslyn.

Parker attended Griffith North primary school and Griffith high school. Maralyn won a teacher’s college scholarship and trained as a teacher at Wagga Wagga Teachers College in 1964 and 1965. She did further study at the University of Sydney and the University of Wollongong. She has a Master of Arts (Journalism) from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Parker taught in primary and high schools in NSW, South Africa and England. She was the NSW Department of Education’s first Information Officer in 1983. She had several books on education published during the late 1980’s. She worked as a freelance education journalist for several years before being employed as the Education Columnist for The Daily Telegraph in 1993.

Parker is well known for her support for public education in Australia and has left leaning political views. Maralyn believes that school education is particularly underfunded in Australia and that the federal and state governments must seriously reinvest in Australia's public systems. Maralyn’s columns appear weekly in The Daily Telegraph. She also runs a popular blog on education. [ [http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/maralynparker Maralyn Parker blog] ]

Parker’s awards include the inaugural NSW Professional Teachers Associations Award for Journalism and the Australian College of Educators Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Parker is listed in the Who’s Who of Australian Women.

She has three daughters, Rachel and twins Jessica and Alexandra.

References