Adam Smith, Australian Council for Educational Research
Today, as part of an Australian Education Union (AEU) campaign, academics, business and political leaders have signed a letter urging state and federal governments to move on the Gonski reforms to school…
Higher education, 2060: academics are out of a job. All the brand name universities have made all their courses free online, easily doing away with one side of the teaching and learning equation. Pretty…
As students head back to school this year, it’s worth sparing a thought for the many students who won’t return. In fact, each year thousands of young people leave school without a Year 12 qualification…
Australia is not doing well in the international literacy and numeracy attainment rankings and many rightly point out the funding issues, clearly identified in the Gonski Review, as central contributing…
Despite all the talk about improving the quality of teachers and teaching in Australia, the general downward slide of entry standards to undergraduate teacher training courses continues. While the top…
Results released from a major Victorian study on student learning show high achieving children’s performance in tests is “flat-lining”. The study, by Professor Patrick Griffin, followed 36,000 students…
By now, most of you have probably heard of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – courses by universities like MIT and Stanford that are available for free online. But what about Massive Open Online Kindergartens…
Annette Rome, The University of Melbourne y Adam Smith, Australian Council for Educational Research
For-profit education is something that really doesn’t exist in Australia… yet. But in many other countries around the world it has become a normal part of education and there are now many companies providing…
The past year has seen two major reports on the economics of higher education, each seeking to reform the way undergraduate study is financed. The Grattan Institute’s Graduate Winners appeared in August…
Last week the Western Australian Indigenous Labor MP, Ben Wyatt, told a conference in Perth that Aboriginal children in remote communities need a “full Western education”. Wyatt went on to say that the…
The results of international literacy, numeracy and science tests released this week should be cause for alarm. In what the minister for education Peter Garrett called “disappointing” results, the Progress…
The recent release of Australia’s performance in the TIMMS (2011) and PIRLS (2011) test results has sparked much media comment about what this means for the quality of Australian education. The focus so…
Two new education performance reports released by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) have painted a bleak picture of Australia’s student literacy and science and mathematics achievement…
Sue Thomson, Australian Council for Educational Research
Prime Minister Julia Gillard in September set an ambitious goal for Australian education: to be ranked as a top-five country in reading, mathematics and science by 2025. Clearly she is hoping to lift Australia…
Neuroscience: the word oozes sophistication and intelligence – the very qualities we might want to nurture in our students, our children, our general populace. Maybe that’s why many people involved in…
As public health researchers who’ve worked with government, non-governmental organisations, schools, childcare organisations, families and children to understand the complexity of obesity and effective…
During Queensland’s recent election campaign, the then state opposition leader, Campbell Newman, promised to spend $2 million trialling the use of correctional boot camps to address the problem of young…
The pub argument is dead. Google killed it with a little help from your smartphone. Instead of long fought debates about who’s right and who’s wrong, an answer is nearly always within easy reach. With…