One of the exciting and challenging ways in which New Zealand and Australia has changed over the past 50 or so years has been the explosive flowering of linguistic diversity in our communities. This change has been an uneasy one ...
More »Surge of energy turns the lights on at last
Here in New Zealand it has been the between-semester break for education institutions, not that educators get a break with the conference season in full swing. I get a sense that a mood for change is developing. New Zealand ...
More »Wisdom makes good journalists
Ethics and its essential twin subject epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge, are at the heart of good journalism writes Edward Spence. Socrates was probably the first investigative journalist. He is also one of the greatest philosophers as relevant and inspiring ...
More »NZ and Australia need closer education ties
International Education might well have a much stronger brand were it an Australasian brand rather than two separate brands, both of them with their own issues. Since the early 1980s New Zealand and Australia have had a formal agreement to ...
More »Pre-apprenticeships in need of a renovation
When it comes to increasing apprentice completion rates, pre-apprenticeship programs are not the silver bullet many assume them to be. Part of the appeal of pre-apprenticeships lies in giving a potential apprentice a realistic preview of what life in ...
More »Seamless educational journey a must
In the world of DIY there are products which allow you to deal with gaps as they appear or even in new work to maintain those continuous lines and surfaces that lead to a quality finish. Continuity of progress is ...
More »Universities not giving peace studies a chance
Currently, there are something in the order of 17 war-like conflicts happening around the globe, with the latest bloodbaths occurring in Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen and Egypt. The actual number of ‘wars’ depends of course on what you mean by ...
More »University quick-fix “bridging units” fundamentally flawed
Whilst we might be encouraging more and more students to consider a university pathway, to bring them to university, and set them up to fail is a poor outcome for everyone involved. By Keith McNaught. Fifty Years ago in Australia ...
More »Wisdom – missing on campus
In their haste to prepare students for a career, universities have lost sight of the true meaning of education, argues Steven Schwartz. "I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while – ...
More »Access & equity still the biggest challenges we face
Equity is an outcome and a measure of how fair and effective each person’s education has been, writes Stuart Middleton.I have just returned from a conference in San Diego in California that looked at success and retention in higher education. ...
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