We welcome your feedback and comments, via email, Twitter or the comments box below. 4:32pm Professor Eeva Leinonen, Murdoch University's vice-chancellor, said her university will continue to help disadvantaged students despite the 20 per cent cut to HEPP. Despite #budget2016 ...
More »Price caps for VET courses tabled in report
The federal government is discussing capping the prices of vocational courses offered through VET FEE-HELP. This is one of the options tabled in a discussion paper the federal skills minister, Scott Ryan, released today. It read: “Recognising course costs are often unreflective of ...
More »Student bodies stand up for fossil-fuel divestment
A group of students got naked and took to the rooftops to call for their university to drop fossil fuel "ass-ets". Others got a meeting with their vice-chancellor, and some were questioning institutional thought leadership. It was all in a week's work ...
More »Unis get deadline to drop fossil fuel investments or face protests
Activists have organised student protests across seven university campuses that will go ahead if these institutions fail to commit to full fossil fuel divestment by the end of this week. Friday, April 15, is the deadline climate activists 350.org have set ...
More »Lower HELP repayment threshold to $42,000: Norton
Grattan Institute modelling advocates lowering the HELP loan repayment threshold to $42,000 – calling it an “efficient and fair” solution to curb ballooning debt from unpaid loans. The current threshold stands at $54,126, though the federal Education Department estimates one-fifth ...
More »#LetThemStay petition invokes cornerstone of ethics
Leading medical academics and community figures have invoked the ethical principles of health research to condemn asylum seeker treatment on Manus Island and Nauru, in an open letter to the prime minister. The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, a ...
More »Parker says unis help entrench inequality, offers solutions
Australian higher education perpetuates inequality, and ATAR should be scrapped and university places recapped to help fix the situation. That's the argument University of Canberra vice-chancellor professor Stephen Parker made in remarks to the TJ Ryan Foundation this week. Parker's comments came after a ...
More »‘People without jobs, jobs without people’
Rhetoric around youth unemployment must change, an expert has argued. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures rest youth unemployment at 12.44 per cent, although it declined in the last quarter. Debate on the issue has centred on the notion of a skills gap – education ...
More »Panel to look into uni entrance standards
The federal government is directing the Higher Education Standards Panel to examine university entrance requirements to improve transparency. This follows long-running commentary about ATAR and recent comments from professor Ian Jacobs, University of New South Wales vice-chancellor, calling for the system ...
More »USYD’s Nadim tears into federal deradicalisation plan
A University of Sydney expert has launched a scathing attack on a federal government schools deradicalisation program that seeks to follow New South Wales' example. In a joint announcement, federal education minister Simon Birmingham and federal justice minister Michael Keenan, explained this ...
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