We’re not soft enough. That is, when it comes to our skills. That’s the conclusion of a report by Deloitte Access Economics, commissioned by DeakinCo, a workforce professional development provider. The report, Soft Skills for Business Success, found that demand ...
More »Former lecturer offers grants to help academics with childcare
From research to teaching and associated admin work, academics have heavy workloads, and they’re not getting lighter. In a 2015 survey of 155 early- to mid-career Australian academics, titled Academic Work/Life Balance: Challenges for Theory and Practice, the average working ...
More »457 visa axing prompts uni warning of ‘unintended consequences’
The sandstone universities have warned that brilliant minds could be locked out of Australia because of the abolition of the 457 visa. In a letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the Group of Eight lobby group representing the Universities of Sydney, ...
More »Why you shouldn’t blow off STEAM
Humans can get back their competitive advantage by focusing on the arts. For some time now, the dominant voice across Australia has despaired at the country’s lack of standardised knowledge when it comes to science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). ...
More »The flagging fortunes of ‘flog’ in Australian parlance
Creators of new words have to be wary of entering an overcrowded market. The digital-age use of flog was originally as a shortening for food blog, and then achieved notoriety in the sense of fake blog. These flogs, dating back ...
More »NTEU accuses VU of manufacturing a deficit
Victoria University has been accused of having a “manufactured deficit” to justify sweeping workforce restructures, a claim that university management has firmly denied. Paul Adams, president of the National Tertiary Education Union’s VU branch, said the 115 job losses that ...
More »Strictly speaking: raise a glass to ‘booze words’
Most English-speaking communities have colloquial words for alcoholic beverages in general. So Australians and New Zealanders share booze, grog and plonk (as well as derivatives such as booze bus, grog shop and plonked) in which the alcoholic allusion is generic. ...
More »OECD touts mums’ economic potential
You don’t often see a positive spin on unemployment figures. In this case, however, mums have cause to smile. The OECD has tipped them as the single largest potential contributor to Australia’s workforce. In a report, Connecting People with Jobs, ...
More »How academics and corporates can learn from each other
Academia and the corporate sector are two worlds that can learn from one another. That’s the view of Dr Lesley Halliday, YourTutor’s general manager of academic services, who made the jump to a corporate career. Previously, she worked at Macquarie ...
More »Some unis still don’t have a female mathematics professor
In 2017, there are Australian universities that still haven’t appointed a single woman to the position of professor of mathematics, a renowned mathematician has said in her keynote speech. And what grinds the gears of professor Nalini Joshi, the University ...
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