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 ...
More »Lack of education in poor nations will spread unrest: report
A United Nations-backed coalition of world leaders, Nobel laureates and international business figures has called for a massive expansion of formal education in poor nations, so as to prevent unrest. The Learning Generation: Investing in education for a changing world, ...
More »OECD can’t decide if class sizes matter
It seems the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development can’t decide whether or not class sizes matter in schooling. In its Education At A Glance 2016 report, the OECD stated “at the level of students within a classroom, the relationship ...
More »Opinion: Formal schooling can wait
Over recent decades, in many countries across the world, there has been increasing concern about the disparity in life expectations between children born into relative affluence and those born into more disadvantaged circumstances. This is true between nations, of course, ...
More »Birmingham renews calls for clarity on uni admissions
The effectiveness of the ATAR system for qualifying for university places is again in the spotlight after the release of the 82 submissions to the Higher Education Standards Panel, many of which called for an overhaul of the system. Federal education ...
More »Foreign peers tell principal Australia’s schools are world-class
Australia’s schooling system is world-class. That’s what one principal has relayed from a gathering of teachers and principals at Harvard University. Clayton Reedie, principal of Dalmeny Public School – in Sydney’s south-west – has recently returned from a trip to ...
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