Western Australia's Minister for Education Tony Buti has made it clear to universities he does not appreciate their lack of transparency in handing out unconditional early entry offers to secondary students. The minister expressed his skepticism in parliament on August ...
More »US university mistakenly sends out 500,000 acceptance letters
Thousands of high schoolers in the US have received a letter of acceptance to attend an institution they never applied to. The University of Kentucky’s (UK) College of Health Science typically admits around 35 to 40 students a year but ...
More »Avatars equip uni students with a taste of real classroom challenges
Preparing teachers for dealing with challenging students is one of the most important aspects of a teaching degree, but until now many courses took a more theoretical approach to the issue or relied on the exposure preservice teachers would receive ...
More »New thinking needed to help students navigate the future
I was delighted recently when, through Education Minister Dan Tehan, I was asked by COAG’s Education Council to chair a review of how to improve senior secondary pathways into training, future education and work. So, I know, were the other ...
More »Podcast: Moving beyond ATAR and rethinking the senior secondary and post-school years
A new report is proposing a rethink on how educators approach senior schooling and tertiary education, and calls for the ATAR to be supplemented with a more comprehensive “learning profile”. The Australian Learning Lecture (ALL) position paper, titled Beyond ATAR: ...
More »Scrap ATAR and rethink career pathways: Experts call for overhaul
A new report is proposing a rethink on how educators approach senior schooling and tertiary education, and calls for the ATAR to be replaced with a more comprehensive “learning profile”. The Australian Learning Lecture (ALL) position paper, titled Beyond ATAR: ...
More »Uni to add 10 bonus points to some women’s ATAR scores
Should a woman wish to study an undergraduate degree in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Technology Sydney, she would see her ATAR score suddenly jump 10 points. The same adjustment would be made to the ...
More »Grattan Institute post-secondary report – troubling times ahead
The latest Grattan Institute report found that men who scored lower ATARs at school but gained vocational qualifications in engineering, construction and commerce could have higher average earnings than if they had instead pursued a degree qualification. Uni at all cost? The ...
More »ACER breaks down Australia’s education spending
A new report from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is the first to capture data on education spending at all levels of education and from all funding sources. It found that in 2015 – the most recent year ...
More »Degree no guarantee of higher income when it comes to STEM: study
While there is a generally accurate perception that tertiary qualifications will earn you a higher income in the long run when compared with higher-level vocational training, the reverse is true when it comes to careers in STEM, according to new research. ...
More »