At Crikey, we are big fans of Brendan Nelson’s latest crusade to re-introduce basic skills like plain speakin’ and clear language into our schools.

Yesterday in Question Time, the Education Minister was banging on about “language-neutered jargonistic report cards that have left many parents themselves, who might be educationally disadvantaged, in the dark as to how their kids are actually going.”

Hear, hear! State governments, he railed, used jargon to confuse parents, citing a “Concept Plan” as an example: “What on earth does that mean to the average parent? There wouldn’t be a member of this House who would understand.”

But it turns out that Nelson’s department has been insisting that indigenous parents, students and communities prepare just such a “Concept Plan” as part of a new bureaucratic application process for an indigenous education program.

The Guidelines for Funding for the Parent School Partnerships Initiative, passed our way thoughtfully by Labor’s education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin, states: “Applicants must first complete and lodge a ‘Whole of School Intervention Strategy Concept Plan’ [although] … the concept plan is not an application for funding.”

The guidelines also feature gems of jargon like: “The project aligns with the strategic directions outlined in the school’s Indigenous Education Plan or School Operation Plan.”

What indigenous parents and students make of this is problematic. But we suspect Nelson, a notorious micro-manager, will quickly sool his “plain-talk” police onto the relevant bureaucrats.