For just a little while last week, VET had the whip hand. It was fun. But it was brief. “What’s in a name?” asked TAFE Directors Australia (TDA) CEO Martin Riordan. Lots, apparently. Prime Minister Julia Gillard had left the ...
More »Unions may relent on TAFE nursing degrees: Kearney
Union opposition to TAFE-delivered nursing degrees appears likely to soften. But TAFE higher education degrees still face a major hurdle in 2012. The union movement could soon change its opposition to TAFE provision of nursing degrees, according to the new ...
More »VET’s rocky road
Higher ed got a thorough health check in Labor’s first term. Now it’s VET’s turn, experts argue. VET faces a rocky road in the shifting political landscape, because – unlike higher education – it lacks a systematic policy with broad ...
More »Vic cross-benchers force skills reform rethink
Victoria’s latest skills reforms have hit an upper house hurdle. Victoria’s upper house has demanded that the state government tone down the contentious VET eligibility criterion which denies government-supported places to adult students unless they pursue progressively higher qualifications. The ...
More »School-trade equivalence concerns premature: Dawkins
Certs and levels aren’t the same thing, John Dawkins stresses. The chair of the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) Council and the National Quality Council, John Dawkins, has addressed concerns that revisions to the AQF will lead to trade certificates being ...
More »The gap year data gap
The gap year needs mapping, according to research suggesting we don’t really know how many students defer – let alone how many come back. When then education minister Julia Gillard sought to change student income support arrangements last year, she ...
More »Lives aren’t linear, so VET shouldn’t be either: Keating
Victoria’s VET sector is “one of the state’s great assets”, according to former PM Paul Keating, but state policies are holding it back. Modern careers have moved on from the “set and forget” culture of the early baby boomers, and ...
More »Brown the new black
The wide brown parts of our land are about to see a bit more of the green stuff, with the regions getting first pick of new education spending. Half a billion dollars in dedicated infrastructure funding is just the start ...
More »Rankings add to international woes
Most Australian unis lost ground in last week’s QS rankings – and there’s worse to come this week. Sliding global rankings could be the latest wave of the ‘perfect storm’ threatening to engulf international education in Australia, experts warn. All ...
More »International education -a measure of our sophistication: Keating
A failure in international education would be an “an abject failure of policy”, according to former PM Paul Keating. The downturn in international education is largely the result of Australians’ attitude to immigration and the ‘boat people’ debate, former Prime ...
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