Dear Mum and Dad, This is just to let you know that I took the torch, the hammer, the gardening trowel, the plastic strainer, the chocolate biscuits and the stuff that's missing from the bathroom. So it's OK, you haven't been ...
More »What Australia can learn from Japan, South Korea
What do Japan and Korea have that Australia doesn't? Well, obviously a multitude of things – not limited to an obsession with skincare and higher quality convenience store sushi. More importantly, however, these countries mandate that teachers change schools regularly. This ensures ...
More »What drives teaching quality? A PISA co-creator’s take
Last week's hand-wringing over the comparability of online NAPLAN tests with paper versions is moot. That is, according to one of the architects of PISA, Professor Doctor Eckhard Klieme. Klieme, a professor of education research (with a background in maths and psychology) ...
More »School’s out for ever? PISA shows decline in uni expectations
School's out for summer School's out forever For an increasing number of Australian high schoolers, Alice Cooper's lyrics resonate. They especially do so with 15-year-olds from lower SES backgrounds, according to a new ACER report. Based on PISA data, the report collated ...
More »Racism, classism, misinformation behind declining public school enrolments
What does it take to increase public school enrolments? A Chaser turned anti-waste advocate? The Public Education Foundation (PEF) is betting on Craig Reucassel and other high-profile, high-achieving Australians to inspire the return of students to government secondary schools, via their #ProudlyPublic campaign. ...
More »Australian students don’t feel they belong as much as others
The teenage angst anthem Creep, by Radiohead, contains the following lyrics: I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here. The British rock band could have been alluding to the latest batch of ...
More »What $20 billion worth of educational inequality actually means
$20 billion could relieve almost all world hunger for a year. It's also the amount Australia lost due to educational inequality in schools between 2009 and 2015 – so avers the Public Education Foundation in its latest issues paper, What Price the Gap? Education ...
More »Opinion: the pressure-cooker lives of Singapore’s teachers
Twelve-hour days and big classes are realities that Singapore's teachers face daily. Such conditions create stressful work environments which impede their capacity to live up to their global reputation for teaching excellence. They are usually too exhausted to be the classroom innovators they ...
More »Addressing ‘wicked problems’ in special education
A wicked problem, in academia, means a thorny one - one without an obvious solution. In the lead up to the International Day of People with a Disability, Dr David Armstrong has identified four of these in Western special education. ...
More »PISA releases latest education comparison of countries
Australian students are some of the world’s best collaborative problem-solvers, according to a report released yesterday. The PISA report included an assessment collaborative problem solving for the first time, and ranked Australia 10th out of 52 countries, behind Canada and New Zealand ...
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