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Are VET learning specialists an endangered species, asks John Mitchell. There are nearly 10 times more commercial specialists in the VET sector than specialists in learning and assessment. More pointedly, the number of learning specialists is very low, at 2.4 ...

The trend towards peer review of teaching is simply a reaction to the current debate on how to assess quality of teaching. It should have been on the agenda years ago, writes David Woodhouse. When I was a dean in ...

For the first time, a majority of young women inEngland are going to university. 2009 saw a watershed in university participation in the UK. For the first time ever, university entrance figures show that 51 per cent of young women ...

The number of women in senior positions is back on the agenda. Why? Just have a look around. Julie Hare reports. For one fleeting moment back in 2004, 11 of the country’s 39 vice-chancellors were female. That nearly one third ...

The “university” name may be sacrosanct, but “TAFE” isn’t. Two private colleges call themselves TAFEs, and many more use the name promotional material. The Victorian government may move to protect the TAFE brand amidst signs that increasing numbers of private ...

TAFEs were sidelined in two key federal programs introduced in response to the Bradley report. But Victoria’s new higher education report puts them in the front row. TAFEs – mostly ignored in a key federal government equity program – would ...

The feminisation of universities might be real, but there is no such thing as equality in the research arena, writes Sharon Bell. The concurrent visits to Australia of two female Nobel Laureates, Professors Elizabeth Blackburn and Ada Yonath, is cause ...

A new survey tracks the vital first year experience and finds some encouraging and also some worrying trends, writes Sally Kift. As the sector embarks on the implementation of the Bradley review and seeks to attract (and retain and graduate) ...

Two new books explore the intractable divisions that engulfed the economics faculty at Sydney University for much of the past 40 years. Jeremy Gilling reports. A proper understanding of mainstream economic theory is necessary before any effective critique can be ...