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TAFEs and private higher education providers will be excluded from the government’s new demand-driven higher education funding system, budget documents suggest. The papers indicate that the “new system for the 21st century”, which is supposed to let students choose where ...

The government has delivered strongly on its social inclusion benefit. Now it’s up to individual institutions to make sure the real work happens, says Trevor Gale. At one level, there were few surprises in last week’s federal budget commitment to ...

The government isn’t investing in research and innovation despite the downturn; it is investing in them because of it and beyond, writes Kim Carr. Labor came to office already knowing that Australia’s innovation system was in trouble. We lagged behind ...

Postdoctoral researchers are the quiet winners from the $3.1 billion innovation budget splurge. While media attention has been claimed by the $907 million Super Science Initiative – 22 major research infrastructure projects in areas like astronomy, nuclear science, marine research ...

Jack Turner is an average 17-year-old Year 12 student with a particular bent for maths. He’s going to uni, there’s no doubt about that, but now he might go straight to uni instead of taking a year off. Jack, like ...

Victoria is well placed to be the only state to offer universal entitlement to postsecondary education, Jacinta Allan, state Minister for Skills and Workforce Participation, told a seminar last week. But partnerships between governments, universities and training providers will be ...

Australia moving up the innovation league Australia has improved one place to 20 in the second Economist Intelligence Unit innovation index. The survey weights countries according to direct innovation inputs such as R&D and broadband penetration, as well as other ...

South Australia comes away empty handed South Australia’s universities and TAFEs came away from the second round of the EIF with not one cent to rub together. Victoria, on the other hand, appears to have got the biggest percentage of ...

Universities continue to battle it out for a market share, writes Joseph Gora. In an interview with The Age, famed biographer and scourge of bloated rhetoric Don Watson noted that an ugly “business model” had percolated into almost every aspect of ...

Does the basic qualification for a VET trainer provide the foundation for development as a professional teacher, asks John Mitchell. There is continuing debate in the VET sector about the value of the minimum qualification required for a trainer and ...