Australia should scrap the current census approach of NAPLAN and replace it with sample testing of students, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has been told. In its submission to COAG’s review of NAPLAN, the Gonski Institute for Education at ...

A bus full of schoolchildren has been hijacked and set on fire by its own driver in an apparent protest against migrant drownings in the Mediterranean. All 51 children managed to escape unhurt before the bus was engulfed in flames ...

Playtime can be dismissed as a frivolous activity; something kids do in between the arduous slog of ‘legitimate’ learning. In an Australian-first, researchers at Monash University are launching a comprehensive project to see whether we should be taking fun more ...

Is a robot coming for your job? That’s the question a new tool asks. It calculates a person’s exposure to automation and other sources of change in a job and predicts future developments. “Experts predict 50 per cent of all ...

Do students who live near factory pollution have more trouble learning than those in cleaner neighbourhoods? Will they be less likely to attend class if they have to pass through a rough area on their way there? These are some of ...

The definition of intelligence is complicated. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason”, although in psychology, when measured by IQ tests, it refers to the ...

Lunchboxes have recently been unpacked. Last month, the ABC published an investigation of their contents in wealthier and poorer Melbourne suburbs. While, by comparing Oreos packed in Broadmeadows to carrot sticks lovingly placed in Brighton, it invited food-shaming, a new Monash ...

In Swedish, orkidebarn means ‘orchid child’. It refers to those who are more sensitive. Maskrosbarn, ‘dandelion child’, on the other hand, means the opposite. Like their namesake bloom, these children are hardy. Dr Thomas Boyce, an emeritus professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at ...

Few education students expect to have a job immediately after graduating and they’re less likely than those from other disciplines to feel that their course provided them with the skills they need. That’s according to a student survey conducted by ...

Principals are working long hours, increasingly at risk of violence and being buried under excessive admin. That’s according to the latest Australian Principal Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing survey, which highlighted the stressors taking a toll on principals’ wellbeing. The ...