With disease-free sandpits now on the national agenda, all parents might have to support child vaccination. But this doesn’t mean many aren’t worried about it. The latest Australian Child Health Poll, Vaccination: Perspectives of Australian parents, bears this out. Conducted by researchers ...
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One in five Year 4 students bullied at least once a week
A fifth of Australian Year 4 students report being bullied at least once a week, and this contributes substantially to Australia’s declining performance in international school league tables. The Australia-specific results for the OECD Trends in International Mathematics and Science ...
More »Tutors coach students through NAPLAN: Dinham
A private tutoring industry exists for the purpose of helping individual students to ace NAPLAN, despite the test results being used to monitor schools' overall academic performance, the University of Melbourne’s professor Stephen Dinham has revealed. Dinham, an education expert ...
More »Joyce, Birmingham announce regional education review
The federal government is undertaking a review to form a policy blueprint for helping country students have the same educational opportunities as their city counterparts. Federal education minister Simon Birmingham said that around one-third of country students don’t complete year ...
More »Billionaire teams up with research centre to help vulnerable kids
When billionaire businessman and philanthropist Andrew Forrest comes knocking, you open the door. That’s what Perth’s Telethon Kids Institute did, and together with Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation, they’ve launched CoLab, an initiative aimed at helping vulnerable children by coordinating stakeholders and ...
More »English changes mean students could game ATAR in NSW
It’s a common move for year 12 students to take easier mathematics courses in order to maximise their ATAR. Now, an expert from the University of Sydney warns this practice could become commonplace in English, thanks to the reforms of ...
More »Academics and government spar over sugar tax
It sure is a sticky issue: in the wake of two recent reports advocating for the imposition of a sugar tax, Liberal frontbenchers have reaffirmed their opposition to the proposed levy. At a doorstop interview in Tasmania on Tuesday 21 ...
More »No Jab, No Pay unproductive: paper
“We’re extremely strong advocates for vaccination … and we both recognise that vaccine rejection is an ongoing problem in Australia … and there’s actually very limited evidence on the best way to address vaccine rejection.” Dr Margie Danchin of the ...
More »Education ministers must ‘come to their senses’: Cobbold
Australia’s education ministers “must come to their senses” and work out reforms to close the growing divide between rich and poor schools, a former Productivity Commission economist turned public school advocate has said. Trevor Cobbold, national convenor of Save Our ...
More »Expert sounds off over phonics test
Whether kids, parents or teachers like it or not, phonics tests will be introduced for year one students. Nationwide. Education minster Simon Birmingham considers them essential to detect reading difficulties early on. In an interview with Sky News in late ...
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