Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan’s $80-million pledge for “performance-based” university funding will have many “unforeseeable”, “perverse” and “unintended” consequences for Australia’s higher education sector, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has warned. NTEU president Alison Barnes said: “The creation of ...
More »Contract cheating draft legislation too heavy-handed: unis, students
A student helping out a struggling classmate might be worried they’re incriminating themselves should draft legislation to prohibit academic cheating services move ahead unchanged. That’s one of the potential problems with the scope of the bill's details spelled out by ...
More »Proposed contract cheating legislation a good first step but more action needed
Contract cheating refers to students outsourcing their assessments to professional cheating services or through arrangements with friends or peers. A typical example would be a student paying for an essay which is then submitted as their own work. As classroom ...
More »Peak science body endorses student-research supervisor relationship ban
In August last year, in the wake of the Australian Human Rights Commission's (AHRC) watershed report into sexual assault and harassment at universities, a coalition of organisations called for zero tolerance on student-research supervisor relationships, due to their innate power imbalance. Last ...
More »‘Contrived, pointless, and a total waste of taxpayer money’: groups respond to freedom of speech review
On Thursday, university personnel, fittingly, exercised their freedom of speech. Responding to the government's announcement of a review into freedom of speech on campus on Wednesday, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) came out on blast. "There is no ...
More »‘Many…cannot afford to eat’: Poverty-stricken postgrads plea for concessions
Eniola David Ibraheem, the second of four children, hails from Nigeria. He initially studied international law and diplomacy, and worked as a mediator in his home country. Now, as a Masters in Social Work student at Monash University, he could ...
More »‘Pride chats’ and affordable student housing among new postgrad initiatives
What exactly is a 'pride chat'? With the launch of its new campaign, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) hopes all interested university parties will be able to answer that question. Raise Our Voice aims to spread awareness of the ...
More »Australia’s first survey of PhD graduate outcomes
In an Australian-first, Group of Eight universities will investigate and publish the extent to which PhD students contribute to the nation. The three year project, dubbed Understanding PhD Career Pathways, will survey more than 200,000 PhD graduates and provide information ...
More »HECS legislation passes through Lower House
The federal government has scrapped plans to place a "lifetime cap" on student loans, but has been granted support from the lower house to reduce the repayment threshold. Legislation to lower the repayment threshold from $55,000 to $45,000 has been ...
More »Students collaborate to fight changes to HELP scheme
The National Union of Students (NUS) and the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) have launched a campaign to fight proposals to changed student loan legislation. The Bury the Bill campaign has seen the two organisations collaborate to instigate change ...
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