If the formula for allocating HEPPP funding does not adequately assess the true SES status of universities' student bodies, are the funds getting to the right institutions? Julia Gillard, in her present role as prime minister and previously as minister ...

Erica Smith writes how one hidden proposal from the apprenticeship expert panel could destroy Australia’s traineeship system. On January 31 the Commonwealth Government released a report called A shared responsibility: Apprenticeships for the 21st Century. The report was produced by ...

The revival of distance education contains a glimpse of the future, says John Mitchell. Over the last 15 or so years, distance education was widely viewed as boring correspondence study and a relic of the pre-internet era. So it is ...

It should be easy in the future to ensure that the Minister’s (Kim Carr) oft repeated mantra of funding only excellent research occurs in practise no matter where that research is located write Frances Shannon and Stephen Parker The results ...

A guaranteed VET/ higher education pathway backed by a transition program shows signs of working for Swinburne, writes Shirley Leitch. Meeting ambitious Commonwealth targets for low SES participation presents significant challenges for metropolitan universities. I’ll be the first to admit ...

John Mitchell says SSA findings misrepresented In Campus Review last week NCVER’s Dr Tom Karmel wrote an opinion piece No country for straw men, criticising a recent report of Service Skills Australia (SSA), Benefits of Accurately Measuring Non-Completions, for which ...

A report challenging claims of low VET completion rates has sparked a spat between the service industries skills council and the national VET research centre. A report commissioned by the service industries’ skills council has revealed retail training completion rates ...

Choosing wisely does not come easily to students so perhaps a little judicious guidance would not go astray. There is some irony that the word “choice” has won a firm place in the lexicon of youth as a word of ...

Service Skills Australia’s report on the measurement of non-completions impugns the integrity of the NCVER's statistics, says managing director Tom Karmel. Here is his rejoinder. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research takes its role as the national statistical agency ...

The NVR experience provides lessons for the federal government’s next shot at grabbing state powers – over health, for example. The federal government might have secured the peak TAFE bodies’ support for its legislative program to establish a national VET ...