Non-completion in a recession can be disastrous for the apprentice, but the main issue for governments should be falling commencements. Australia may have dodged the recession bullet that has felled most other advanced economies. Apprentice and trainee numbers too seem ...
More »Three steps forward, one step back
The latest medical labour force report shows doctor numbers rising nearly 20 per cent between 2003 and 2007. But regional disparities appear to be worsening despite a range of initiatives to encourage doctors and other health professionals to take up ...
More »Dollars, discernment – and diplomacy
We’re repeatedly told international education is vitally important to Australia’s economy and balance of payments. We know too that the two-way student exchanges enhance intercultural understanding, here and overseas. Now a new Universities Australia report suggests international education is deeply ...
More »Legitimate concerns behind media distortions: Indian journalist
Janaki Bahadur thinks Australia ought to have seen the warning signs earlier. India’s media hysteria over attacks on Indian students in Australia was just waiting to happen, she says. Bahadur, a journalist who divides her time between New Delhi and ...
More »A lofty ambition, and some generous plaudits
When the Think: education group was founded, it set itself a lofty ambition: “to create a new category in Australian education – a credible alternative to universities and TAFE colleges”. That has earned praise for Think:’s “distinctive vision, mission and ...
More »Recession a fizzer? Not if you’re a teenager
The proportion of disengaged teenagers has risen sharply, reversing four years of steady improvement, with the global financial crisis wreaking havoc among some of Australia’s most vulnerable. The 2009 ‘How young people are faring’ report, from the Foundation for Young ...
More »It’s not just skills – it’s how you use them
Skills Australia has called for a new approach to workforce development that restricts planning to occupations at high risk of market failure, and ensures that acquired skills end up getting used. In a discussion paper and supporting reports released last ...
More »Levelling the AQF in the post-Bradley era
The overhaul of Australia’s pathbreaking but ageing qualifications framework has moved into its second phase with the release of a refined consultation paper on a new architecture for the framework. But there’s a back to the future feel about the ...
More »Insearch negotiated change process well: AUQA
As the preferred pathway provider to the University of Technology, Sydney, Insearch is the first of the eight university-affiliated higher education pathway providers to be independently audited by AUQA. And after three years of change, “most notably an institutional renewal ...
More »Pure gold: journey to the Olympics
Getting high achievers to the Olympics is never easy and increasingly science is the key to getting athletes onto the podium. Now Australian science faculties are helping young thinkers perform in their own Olympics – the International Science Olympiads. This ...
More »