“People are making complicated – and sometimes deeply personal – decisions to withdraw from study when life gets in the way. We shouldn’t pressure students to stay enrolled if they need to care for a dying parent, for instance, and ...
More »Community languages institute gets green light
The University of Sydney is set to embark on its newest project - a research institute for community languages education - after it was granted $7.6 million in funding from the NSW Government. Dignitaries including NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Minister for ...
More »Reforming teachers: how will the government’s Initial Teacher Education reform agenda affect the sector?
There have been more than 100 reviews of teacher education in Australia since the 1970s.1 Reforming teaching and teacher education appears to have been seen as a ‘policy problem’ by successive Australian governments for a long time. The Commonwealth government’s ...
More »Higher education reforms fail in the senate
The federal government's proposed higher education reforms have hit a wall and failed in the senate, after the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) rejected the key elements of the controversial package yesterday. The three-senator and one MP team has effectively ruled out ...
More »Universities “not rolling in gold”: IRU
Conor King, executive director of the Innovative Research Universities (IRU), wants the government to know that universities aren't as cashed up as many assume. Also, he contends, the government's other presumptions on which university funding plans are based are false. For example, although ...
More »Two Australian universities bestowed cybersecurity cash
Just glance at the news headlines and you will know that cyber warfare is here, and it's huge. It potentially cost Hillary Clinton the US election, and almost foiled Emmanuel Macron’s French presidential plans. Now, the Australian government is investing ...
More »Student fee changes up for debate
They were a suitably contrarian trio. Professor Glyn Davis, vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Sophie Johnston, president of the National Union of Students, and Andrew Norton, higher education program director at the Grattan Institute, graced the stage at the ...
More »Government’s science roadmap ‘needs fuel’: Universities Australia
The Australian Animal Health Laboratory, which hosts research into exotic livestock diseases, is just one facility flagged for upgrade under the government’s new National Research Infrastructure Roadmap. In it, chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel, the Roadmap’s chairman, identified nine research ...
More »University reforms: what they mean for you
The Higher Education Reform Package report, released on 1 May 2017 by education minister Simon Birmingham, has already generated a lot of heated commentary from both sides of the debate. With the Coalition's previous higher education reforms – spearheaded by then ...
More »UA says ‘enough is enough’ to federal Budget cuts
Universities Australia has told the federal government that “enough is enough” when it comes to the shrinking public pool of funds for the sector. Releasing a UA analysis that showed universities and students have already contributed $3.9 billion to rein ...
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