Be alert but not alarmed was the message going out last week as four universities reported students and staff who had been quarantined after possible exposure to the swine flu virus.

First $5 billion, then $11 billion, then $8.7 billion and now $2.4 billion – these are the fluctuating fortunes of Australia’s capital investment fund for universities and VET.m the HEEF, $2.5 billion from the 2007-08 budget and a handy couple ...

Macquarie University is doing its bit to help the Rudd government achieve its mission of more people from more diverse backgrounds coming to university under its social inclusion agenda. The university has developed a way to help students with disabilities ...

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last week confirmed the importance of compacts to the higher education sector, saying they would help the government implement its reform agenda while making individual institutions transparent and accountable for the additional $2.2 billion funding they ...

In his very first job as a fashion designer, Professor Stephen Billett discovered pretty quickly there was a big disconnect between what he had learned at college and the reality of the workplace. In fact, it took years before he ...

While articulation and connectivity between the VET and university sectors are crucial to meet the government’s social inclusion agenda and workforce needs, convoluted and perplexing regulatory requirements and “horse-trading” between the Commonwealth and the states are significant barriers to these ...

Rankings can trigger innovation; the report says. On the other hand, there is “potential for rankings-influenced decision-making to undermine access for disadvantaged student populations”. Other concerns include over-emphasis on research, widening the ratio between full-time and adjunct academics, “substituting improvement ...

Another step towards a unified tertiary education sector was taken last month with the release of a consultation paper on reforming the Australian Qualifications Framework. The paper follows a commitment from education minister Julia Gillard in March to build a ...

Concern over unacceptably high PhD and masters non-completion rates and long completion times has led Innovative Research Universities Australia (IRUA) to embark on a program to help remedy the situation.ion rates in Australia are hard to pin down, but have ...

India pushes for commonality among Commonwealth countriestation for the awarding of degrees. But student opposition is widespread and heated, with one campus occupation lasting several months. Hard times at British libraries Research libraries in the US are being pummelled by ...