Education savings schemes appear sensible and responsible. But their quiet rise reflects a deeper failure – a loss of confidence in Australia’s commitment to properly fund public education as a shared civic good. (more…)
Category: Education
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Australia’s China student pipeline is facing a credibility problem
Australian universities remain popular with Chinese students, but online chat reveals growing scepticism about academic rigour, employability and value for money. These perceptions raise hard questions about the long-term sustainability of Australia’s education export model.
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Best of 2025 – The inflation myth propping up private school privilege
Private schools regularly blame inflation for rising fees, yet funding arrangements mean they are largely compensated for cost increases. Their fee-setting power widens the resource gap while feeding back into inflation itself. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – How did Australian universities go from free education to $50,000 arts degrees in 50 years?
Australians think students are being asked to pay far too much for their degrees. Just under half (47%) of Australians surveyed by YouGov in June 2025 believe a worker on an average income should be able to pay off the debt for a standard three-year degree within five years. When it comes to the cost of a degree, 58% believe a student should pay $5000 or less per year – less than a third of what arts students now pay. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Lack of China capability can only do harm to society: Our current situation is a disgrace
In March 2023, the Australian Academy of the Humanities sounded the alarm on the decline in our understanding and knowledge of China through a report on “Australia’s China Knowledge Capability”. (more…)
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Australia’s school attendance crisis needs urgent national action
School attendance has been sliding for more than a decade, with more than a million Australian students now missing significant classroom time. Governments have set ambitious targets to reverse the trend, but meeting them will require a fundamental shift in approach. (more…)
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The market lie at the heart of public education policy
Treating public schools as competitors in an education marketplace shifts blame downward, obscures chronic underfunding and corrodes the very purpose of public education. (more…)
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After the ATAR: keeping perspective and finding your next step
As ATAR results are released, there are practical ways for students and families to keep perspective, protect wellbeing and explore future options.
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Australia’s school bureaucracy is growing faster than classrooms
Administrative staffing in Australia’s public education system has grown far faster than student enrolments or teacher numbers. Unless governments act, promised school funding risks being absorbed by bureaucracy rather than improving learning and wellbeing.
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You can’t regulate your way to quality early childhood education
Recent safety failures have triggered tighter regulation in early childhood education and care. But compliance alone cannot deliver quality. Real reform begins with professionalising the workforce. (more…)
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Overworked, overburdened, and burning out: Australian teachers’ workloads among the worst in OECD
Australian teachers have unsustainable workloads, and government responses have done little to ease their burden.
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A search for purpose, vision and identity in Australian universities
The Australian university sector has become disconnected from the national imagination and needs a compelling new vision for the future.
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How did Australian universities go from free education to $50,000 arts degrees in 50 years?
Australians think students are being asked to pay far too much for their degrees. Just under half (47%) of Australians surveyed by YouGov in June 2025 believe a worker on an average income should be able to pay off the debt for a standard three-year degree within five years. When it comes to the cost of a degree, 58% believe a student should pay $5000 or less per year – less than a third of what arts students now pay. (more…)
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It’s official! Accounting tricks denied public schools more than $2b in funding in 2023
A new report by the National School Resourcing Board reveals that public schools lost more than $2 billion in funding in 2023 because of accounting tricks used by state governments under the Commonwealth-State funding agreements operating at the time. (more…)
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Boosting equity and safety for Australia’s children
In Australia, 37% of students aged between about 5 or 6 and 18 years go to private schools which charge fees – but while those schools are private, they are not run for profit. (more…)
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Indonesia’s security depends on educating the minds behind its machines
Indonesia is investing in its regional influence — purchasing new fighters, drones, frigates and billions in defence contracts — while allowing its classrooms to deteriorate. (more…)
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Australia has amongst the highest teacher shortages in the OECD
A new OECD report reveals that Australia’s education system is facing a diabolical staffing crisis. Since 2018, teacher shortages have soared leaving Australia among the worst-performing nations in the OECD. (more…)
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Managing bullying or manufacturing shame? How neoliberal bureaucracy gets it wrong – again
When Education Minister Jason Clare announced the Anti-Bullying Rapid Review in early 2025, he spoke with the gravity such tragedies demand. (more…)
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Islamophobia in Australian schools: What the Special Envoy’s report means for education
Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, recently released his landmark report: A National Response to Islamophobia: A Strategic Framework for Inclusion, Safety and Prosperity. (more…)
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Counting what doesn’t count: How consultants are hollowing out the university
When Western Sydney University announced it would shed hundreds of staff, its vice-chancellor described the decision as part of a “necessary transformation”. (more…)
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Lack of China capability can only do harm to society: Our current situation is a disgrace
In March 2023, the Australian Academy of the Humanities sounded the alarm on the decline in our understanding and knowledge of China through a report on “Australia’s China Knowledge Capability”. (more…)
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Fifty years of political economics at Sydney University – what has it meant for us?
Earlier this year The Journal of Australian Political Economy published a special issue devoted to recollections and implications of 50 years of Political Economy courses at Sydney University. (more…)
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Almost no Australians study Chinese any more. That’s a problem
Fewer than five Australians per year are graduating from honours programs in Chinese studies with language, raising fears the nation is losing the expertise needed to navigate its most complex foreign relationship. (more…)
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Campus leaders mobilise to battle Trump’s anti-education ‘Compact’ tooth and nail
“Workers, students, campus community members across this great country are coming together to fight for a higher education system that actually works for all – one that is affordable, strengthens freedom and democracy, and stands up to its public mission.” (more…)
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Shadow of McCarthyism looms over controversial firing of Texas professor who taught about gender identity
Texas A&M University announced the resignation of its president, Mark A. Welsh III, on 18 September 2025, following a controversial decision earlier in the month to fire a professor over a classroom exchange with a student about gender identity. (more…)
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New school funding agreements deny full funding for public schools
The claim by the prime minister, premiers and their education ministers that public schools will be fully funded by 2034 is a blatant falsehood. (more…)
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How the ALP outsourced the soul of higher education
For most of its history, the Australian Labor Party spoke of education as a public good, the “light on the hill”, a vision of collective progress through strong institutions, universal access, and the elevation of ordinary citizens. (more…)
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China’s youth: Between collectivism and the new individualism
On a recent trip through China, I was struck by the contrast between its classrooms and its city streets. (more…)
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Productivity and innovation needs business’ own investment in skills
Despite a modest increase in business R&D expenditure in Australia in the latest reported year (2023/24), Australia’s performance on a GDP basis is still woefully worse than its international economic competitors. (more…)
