Category: Education

It is often claimed as fact that private schools outperform public schools. New analysis of MySchool data and 2017 Victorian Certificate of Education year 12 results shows that public schools with similar Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) rankings or Socio-Economic Status have very similar or even better VCE results than private schools. However, these public schools achieve these results with far less funding per student.   (more…)

New school funding figures show that public schools were the main beneficiaries of the Gonski 1.0 funding plan in NSW. Public schools received a funding increase nearly double that for private schools and it reversed the previous trend of large funding cuts to public schools. However, public schools in NSW remain significantly under-funded while private schools are over-funded. (more…)

Yes, it was Sunday and the news is usually more sensational than during the week. But the extravagant building plans of some ‘elite’ schools, revealed in the Sun Herald, were certainly eye-opening. According to the report, two of these schools are already funded by governments well above their Schooling Resource Standard. The combined cost ($365m) of the planned capital projects at the seven named schools is close to the amount allocated to address the maintenance backlog across all public schools in NSW. (more…)

Roger Scott’s trilogy on the state of higher education raised a number of important issues, several of which might have led me to the keyboard, but his observations about the former colleges of advanced education (CAEs) seem particularly worthy of further comment. (more…)

Roger Scott’s extended rebuttal of Ross Gittins’s excoriation of ‘money-grubbing’ universities, and the publication of three books about the recent past and possible future of higher education, suggest that all is not well in academe. While all has never, at least since the end of the second world war, been well in academe (the AVCC first used the word ‘crisis’ in 1947), may be true that the level of tension within higher education is notably high. The three books are Glyn Davis’s The Australian Idea of a University, Stuart Macintyre’s No End of a Lesson, and my own Critical Mass. How the Commonwealth got into funding research in universities. All were published at the end of 2017.   (more…)

The Turnbull Government promised to eliminate all special deals for private schools under its Gonski 2.0 funding plan. However, new data released through Senate Estimates reveal that the $58 million adjustment fund for ACT private schools announced last year is the mother of all special deals.  (more…)

In March 2017, under a headline ‘Digital disruption lowers costs of pricy masters degrees’ the Australian Financial Review reported:

A round of price-cutting has broken out in the market for high-priced masters degrees with four Australian universities offering students a pathway to complete part of their degree online at a steep discount. [Tim Dodd, AFR 18 March 2017]

Are we near the ‘Kodak moment’ for Australian universities?   (more…)

‘Ross Gittins says We’ve turned our unis into aimless, money-grubbing exploiters of students (Canberra Times, 17 September 2017]

What is there to say about Gittins’ comments, I was asked by John Menadue.  How valid are his general contentions and how valid are his criticisms?   Like the curate’s egg (and the university system as a whole) it is good in parts but Gittins is unfair in some of his generalisations.  (more…)

Enrolments in the TAFE sector have dropped in many qualifications. Tracing the reasons for this change at a time when Australia needs more skilled technicians and paraprofessionals is complex.  They appear to be tied to the overall changes in funding of tertiary education, the increase in student fees as well as the status of the VET sector.  (more…)

Almost alone in Australia, New South Wales has been expanding its number of selective schools, accompanied each time by arguments about the need to increase choice and cater for the gifted and talented. And each time we are left with one less school for local students, together with an ongoing trail of collateral damage to other schools and overall student achievement.  The Department of Education, successive governments and even peak education groups have long ignored the downsides of selective schools – until now. The NSW Education Minister now wants to open the doors of these schools to solve a student accommodation problem.  (more…)

This is part 2 of my response to an invitation to share my memories linked to the release of Cabinet papers from 1987. Here I will focus on the tertiary education reforms instituted by federal Education Minister John Dawkins. (more…)

A recent report by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has slammed the Commonwealth Government for failing to ensure its funding of private school systems is distributed according to need and for not knowing how private school systems distribute their funding. The report is a scathing indictment of a massive failure of ministerial responsibility and government administration. Yet, this failure is likely to continue under Gonski 2.0, as it has for the past decade or more. (more…)

I have this little website, Edmediawatch, which monitors media reports about schools. It is a long-running repository of policies, decisions, research and commentary. I even have an ‘Edu-fact check’ section which uses a variety of f-words to pass judgment on claims about school education. It’s worth doing, but the site is quite a depressing catalogue of shallow reporting, recurring failure, ignored research, predictable panics, copying others’ mistakes, the triumph of vested interests, rebadged quick-fix solutions and the short termism that pervades our public life. (more…)

A new Gonski review is examining how to achieve educational excellence for Australia’s 3.8 million school students. The success of the review will ultimately depend on whether its recommendations lead to better practice in the classroom. And the best way for policy makers to improve classroom practice is to develop a more adaptive education system. (more…)

The results of the 2016 census are continuing to roll out. This time it is the turn of school education to grab the headlines, most recently with Fairfax telling us that wealthy families are turning away from elite private schools. (more…)

Remember the newly elected Rudd Government’s 2020 Summit back in 2008? It was a high-profile gathering of a sympathetic audience to address pre-selected policy issues and options. Far from coming up with answers, the education sessions at the Summit managed to avoid the urgent questions – to such an extent that a group of unusual suspects held their own education summit a couple of months later. (more…)

The Productivity Commission has undertaken a five year review of Australia’s productivity performance, identifying skills and the VET sectors as an area of concern.  But have they got the answers? (more…)

Tinkering at the edges of university financing and student loan repayments ignores the tsunami of social change that is the real challenge for Australia’s future higher education system. Nick Xenophon is right to call for a full-scale inquiry into higher education; it is a mess, not catering to Australia’s future needs.  (more…)

The axing of TAFE NSW Outreach programs as part of a current restructure process, highlights the importance of these programs to individuals and the community.  It also raises the issue as to VET’s role in delivering access and equity programs and why governments should make them a priority. (more…)

Why does Australia encourage international — including Chinese — students to study within its borders? Australian universities are about teaching and learning, but they need to be properly resourced to do so, so one reason for encouraging foreign students is the funding they bring to Australian universities. Another more important aspect is the potential to enrich their appreciation for Australia’s way of life, its values and its ethics — which can ultimately enhance Australia’s soft power. (more…)

The introduction of contestability into training markets is often cited as a prime example of the failures of privatisation. However, the totality of the evidence is rarely examined in support of this allegation. This article aims to fill this gap. It finds that a contestable training market can fail if not properly regulated, but now that Australia’s training market is being properly regulated, the quality of training is being preserved, while competition is reducing costs and increasing choice and responsiveness to customer needs. (more…)