Distance education is enjoying a boom as OUA adds two more partners. The prospect of a demand-driven system, flagged just two years ago, is leading to a flurry of interest in Open Universities Australia from institutions as they endeavour to ...
More »Monthly Archives: January 2010
Circumventing controversy over teachers
What are the benefits of mandatory standards and compulsory professional development for teachers, asks John Mitchell. There is always controversy when governments propose compulsory basic standards for teachers, no matter whether it is the higher education or VET sector. This ...
More »La Trobe’s renewal captured in report: AUQA
AUQA’s most recent audit report captures an institution in a state of change. An AUQA report is snapshot of a university at a particular point in time. More often than not, that snapshot reveals a larger, overall picture of an ...
More »What price equity?
The federal government has unveiled the carrot it hopes will encourage universities to take disadvantaged students – $540 per student. The federal government is channelling less than 1 per cent of university learning and teaching expenditure this year towards its ...
More »Enrolments from Nepal, Saudi set to plummet
Enrolments from Australia’s two fastest-growing international education markets are set to collapse. Enrolments from two of Australia’s top 10 markets for international students are expected to plunge dramatically, after offshore student visa applications from Nepal nosedived 85 per cent and ...
More »Measure for measure: indicators to assess equity performance
The government says its indicators for measuring equity performance will provide transparency and accountability. But, as usual, the devil is in the detail. The federal government’s proposed indicators for assessing university performance in attracting and retaining low-SES students have been ...
More »National regulator to override states for international students
Two states will go it alone and regulate their own VET providers – but not those with international students. VET colleges in Victoria and Western Australia will be overseen by the new national regulator if they take international students or ...
More »International student security
We need to denationalise, globalise and humanise the concept of international security, writes Simon Marginson. Death comes to all of us. But in a few special cases, a person’s death takes on a great significance because of its timing within ...
More »Pensions as well as postcodes: new SES measure
Centrelink information, as well as postcodes, will determine student SES for the purposes of the new equity loading – but only as an interim measure. The federal government will partly move away from postcodes – which have been used exclusively ...
More »More skilled migration shake-ups on the way
International enrolments could be dampened by changes to migration arrangements which have been proposed in two current reviews. The federal government may stop using priority occupation lists in a further shake-up of the skilled migration program. The decision could have ...
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