Unlike banks such as Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), failing UK universities won't have it easy if they're near collapse. Announcing this at Wonkfest – a higher education festival in London – Sir Michael Barber, the head of the ...
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Informed consent not as effective as you think: ethics prof
'Put down the paperwork'. It's an unlikely message from an ethics professor, but Mike Burgess, Chair in Biomedical Ethics at the University of British Columbia in Canada, says that what's good on paper isn't always in practice. In Perth to ...
More »Brazilian democracy dies as professors interrogated, students urged to snitch on teachers
Just over ten years ago, Brazil was a global beacon for development. Now, with the election of populist, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, which some have likened to a mix of Donald Trump and Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte, it signals the opposite. ...
More »‘Self-care first’: Scientist prioritises wellbeing in lab policy
"Your mental and physical health are by far the most important consideration in all that you do while in our lab. Moreover, success should not come at the cost of maintaining your interests/hobbies or healthy relationships in your life." This ...
More »Attitudes towards plagiarism culturally relative: study
Though all cultures perceive contract cheating as wrong, nearly half of ESL students see plagiarism – a subtler form of cheating – as less problematic. They think universities make ‘too much of a fuss of people cheating’ in this manner. A fifth of ...
More »Mechanisms or muddle? What to make of AQF 5-6
This article examines Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) levels 5-6 and the overlap between vocational education and training (VET) Diploma and above and higher education (HE) Sub-bachelor courses. It follows an earlier paper on the boundaries and connections between the VET ...
More »Opinion: Reducing atrocious student attrition in STEM programs
Undergraduate student attrition levels are relatively high in STEM programs. This recalls the famous unwritten quote: “The real challenge for a learning centre is making a gem out of a pebble, not necessarily making a jewel out of a gem.” ...
More »Cash cows or human capital? Perspectives on international students in Australia seminar: Part 1
There was controversy before Campus Review's latest conference, 'Cash cows or human capital? Perspectives on international students in Australia', began. "The title of this conference is offensive to international students and to the staff who teach and look after them," ...
More »Introducing Simon Birmingham’s successor
The son of a former state Liberal MP (his mother) and a past party vice-president (his father), Dan Tehan has politics in his veins. His rapid ascent – from local federal MP in 2010 to government front bencher in 2016 – ...
More »Opinion: Why students should be treated as paying customers
Declaring that higher education is a commodity and students are customers is no way to win friends in the education sector. But it is a debate worth having – and one that is regularly fuelled by none other than the ...
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