It’s turned out to be a bad investment: “record” government school funding hasn’t yielded concordantly higher numeracy and literacy results, as NAPLAN 2016 revealed last week. This year, reading and numeracy increased by minuscule increments in NAPLAN testing, whilst writing ...
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Millions for Victorian kids’ mental health
For troubled kids in Victoria, the state’s minister for mental health has offered some monetary respite. Martin Foley has announced a $14 million upgrade to children’s health services in the state, including an integration of the Early in Life Mental ...
More »Single-sex schools may pay off better than priciest education
An analysis of Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority data shows that the priciest private schools don't necessarily produce students with better academic results than ones that cost less, and that putting kids in single-sex schools makes more of a difference. The Good Education Group (GEG), a private ...
More »Poll shows students lack hope, engagement, wellbeing
A national poll of school students in years 5–12 showed that less than half are hopeful about their future, their enthusiasm for school declines as they get older, and more than one-third of students are struggling in terms of wellbeing. The ...
More »After Don Dale, a determined push for children’s minister
We’ve all heard about the horrific abuse of children at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre exposed by ABC’s Four Corners program, and the subsequent government announcement of a royal commission to investigate all juvenile jails in the Northern Territory. ...
More »Teacher pay change could hurt women most
Taking time off could become a reluctant mea culpa for many experienced public school teachers, under new salary conditions the NSW Department of Education has outlined. In a move that the NSW Teachers Federation has decried as an attack on women’s pay ...
More »Opinion: Schools need more autonomy, not more funding
As a result of the recent election, one certainty is that we live in uncertain times. The final Senate results will not be known for some weeks and if, as looks likely, there is a hung Parliament, then whoever governs ...
More »Labor pledges $6m commitment to Safe Schools
A Labor government would commit to financing the Safe Schools Coalition by allocating an additional $6 million to the program, in contrast to the government’s decision to cut off the scheme’s funding when its current budget allocation expires next year. A ...
More »How Australia’s schools produce ‘Beautiful Failures’
It’s her manifesto on everything wrong with Australia’s education system. In Lucy Clark’s nonfiction book Beautiful Failures, she examines “how the quest for success is harming our kids”. Clark says the intense pressures and stresses of high school led to ...
More »Refugee advocates lobbying for student loan changes
One of the leaders behind a program mentoring high school students from refugee backgrounds is marking this year’s World Refugee Week by calling for those on temporary protection visas and asylum seekers to be eligible for federal government assistance to meet ...
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