In this edition of the HEDx podcast co-CEO and co-founder of global data and research company HolonIQ, Maria Spies, shares an update to their report outlining five scenarios for the future of higher education by 2030. She discusses the priorities for the ...
More »Universities set low bar to take subpar students
Struggling students who left school at the bottom of the class are being accepted into prestigious university degrees including engineering, architecture and psychology. Universities made offers to students with Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) scores below 50 – the bottom ...
More »(Non)reforms of the apex courts of Australia and the United States: comments and laments
In the aftermath of the overruling of the landmark Roe v Wade abortion ruling by the United States Supreme Court there has been anger, dismay, frustration and protests in the United States and many other countries, including Australia. ‘The shape ...
More »HEDx podcast – Serving the world through learning, episode 53
Betty Vandenbosch, chief content officer at Coursera, joins the HEDx podcast to outline her vision of how the landscape of global higher education will have changed by 2030, and what Coursera and global universities can best do to prepare for ...
More »Thoughts on the anniversary of the publication of Copernicus’ heliocentric theory
May 24 2022 was the 479th anniversary of the death of astronomer and scientist Nicolas Copernicus (19 February 1473-24 May 1543) the modern espouser and pioneer of the heliocentric theory. An apocryphal or probably true story is that as the ...
More »‘Tests of viability’ of foetus in US constitutional cases and ‘Wednesbury unreasonableness’
On 24 June 2022 a majority of the members of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Dobbs v Jackson Women Health Organization overruled a 49-year-old ruling Roe v Wade, also decided by a different bench of the ...
More »QS World Uni Rankings 2023: another look – opinion
The recently released QS World Rankings 2023 leaves much to consider. At the global level, there is increased competition and engagement in the rankings. It includes 1422 universities in 2023 compared to 1300 in the 2022 QS rankings. By broad ...
More »The ‘Economic Accelerator’ risks being more talk than torque: Why ‘Blue Sky’ research matters – opinion
The just announced Australia’s Economic Accelerator (AEA) funding package has been widely welcomed as an extra injection of $2.2b Australian Government funding into support for enhanced ‘translation and commercialisation’ of university research. The initiative is explained in a co-released “University Research ...
More »The skills we need for the future we want: Part 2 – opinion
This paper represents the second of a 2 part series designed to interpose a manufacturing workers’ union view into the debate about the future of Australia’s vocational education & training (VET) system. The debate comes at a time when crucial ...
More »Can I be fired for not getting the COVID jab? Well, it’s not ‘clear cut’
It’s a question that’s likely to be on many people’s minds: can my employer make a COVID-19 vaccination a condition of my employment? For many, particularly anti-vaxxers, this question has become more urgent now, as the first Pfizer vaccinations were ...
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