The current policy climate in teacher education in Australia has a focus on accountability for outcomes as judged by a decreasing trend of primary and secondary student performance on a range of national (NAPLAN) and international rankings (Program for Internal ...
More »Billion dollar babies: the cost of not finishing school
The following does not contain typos: disengaged 24-year-olds cost taxpayers $69 billion over a lifetime. This is one of the major findings of the Mitchell Institute’s new report, Counting the costs of lost opportunity in Australian education. The Institute, based ...
More »Melbourne school helps Indigenous students transition to private education
You’ve probably heard of private school scholarships for Indigenous students, but what about helping them adapt to their new environment before they reach the wrought iron gates? Liz and Rick Tudor have addressed this in Victoria by opening the Melbourne ...
More »Strong demand for soft skills: Deloitte
We’re not soft enough. That is, when it comes to our skills. That’s the conclusion of a report by Deloitte Access Economics, commissioned by DeakinCo, a workforce professional development provider. The report, Soft Skills for Business Success, found that demand ...
More »NAPLAN: a force for good or evil?
“I always say in jest to people, if you type NAPLAN in a Word document or on the computer, it autocorrects to NAPALM, which I think says it all.” Associate professor Michael Nagel, an educational psychologist at the University of ...
More »NAPLAN content might be discriminatory
Australia’s schools and their students are on trial once more: annual NAPLAN testing will be held next week. This year, however, an education lecturer wishes something would change. Dr Kathy Bates of Western Sydney University scrutinised how NAPLAN writing papers may ...
More »Gonski: rebooted – or is it?
The government gives a Gonski. Or, according to Labor, at least that’s what they want you to think. This week, Malcolm Turnbull unveiled his Quality Schools reforms, which includes $242.3 billion in recurrent funding over the next 10 years. Different to ...
More »Birmingham hints at policy to ensure evidence-based teaching
Federal education minister Simon Birmingham has indicated he will push for school teaching methods to become more evidence-based. Birmingham said at the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Summit that “I would like, as education minister, to see us, over time, ...
More »Trump’s rise highlights need to close school wealth divide: IEAA
Closing the economic gap via education is key to prevent a Trump-like political movement occurring in Australia, the International Education Association of Australia said. At the same time, professor Chris Ziguras, president of the IEAA, said an America with Trump at the ...
More »Trump says ‘school choice’ is his policy
For the US, a Trump presidency is all about choice – in schooling policy anyway. US president-elect Donald Trump has said he will invest US$20 billion ($26 billion) towards school choice. "As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest ...
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