In addition to physical or psychological abuse, bullies use power in relationships to pressure others to adopt their world views. The bullying may appear in letters, lobbying, radio and television interviews, secret meetings with politicians and business leaders and even in legal action against those who criticise the bullies’ points of view. (more…)
Category: Education
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Better and fairer schools – in a sea of inequity?
The title of the new plan for school education, the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, might come back to haunt us well before it expires in 2034. As an agreement it doesn’t look any better, and it certainly won’t be fairer. It will lock Australia into a schooling framework which is worsening with each passing year – and long ago stopped being fair. (more…)
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Unis take foreign interference risks seriously
The security risks that Australian universities face through their many and varied international connections need to be taken seriously. (more…)
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Writings from the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment: The series
On 29 April 2024, students established a Gaza Solidarity Encampment in the centre of the Australian National University (ANU) campus. The students made the following demands: (more…)
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Productivity commission exposes private school funding defects
New analysis by the Productivity Commission of donations to school building and other funds highlights how antithetical private school funding is to the concept of needs-based funding. (more…)
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Art and popular resistance: truth telling from ANU to Gaza to Sudan
Palestinian liberation movements on this continent are intertwined with Blak liberation and resistance movements for restorative land justice around the world. To organise for Palestinian liberation, to organise for First Nations liberation on this continent and globally, is to call for a drastic restructuring of settler identity and cultural awareness of the role of settler colonialism and genocide in the current world order. (more…)
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Space and domination: The ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment
As of the 14th of July 2024, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at the Australian National University (ANU) is 76 days old. For Palestinians, 14,000 kilometres away, past the iridescent waters of the Riau Islands, through the rice paddies of India and the vastness of the Saudi sands; for Palestinians trying to survive in their home, an agonising struggle for liberation has raged for 76 years.
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Hollow liars: the day ANU called ACT police on its students
The ANU used so many resources that day, so much money, manpower and time dedicated to shutting us up. Whilst they were forcefully defending their own complicity with all the resources available to them, Israel was dropping bombs on a refugee camp. The VC was more concerned with our tents than those that were being obliterated in Gaza. (more…)
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When will we treat Indonesia seriously?
Guarantee: This report is free of US political toxins. The contents are purely local. (more…)
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Writings from the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment
This is Part One of a six-part series of articles from the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Apart from the Introduction by Emeritus Professor Tamara Jacka, all articles are written by student members of the encampment. To protect the authors against identification, we have kept them anonymous. (more…)
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Health leaders call for University of Melbourne to drop disciplinary action against students
In an open letter, health leaders have urged the University of Melbourne to drop disciplinary action against 21 students involved in activism for Gaza. (more…)
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UNRWA must not be criminalised by the Israeli Parliament
The conflict in Gaza has created both a humanitarian crisis and a public health emergency. Both are still worsening. Yet despite this, Israel is moving to declare UNRWA (United Nations Relief Work Agency) a terrorist organisation. This would massively reduce the ability of UNRWA to deliver (already totally inadequate) food, health care and shelter to the starving people of Gaza. (more…)
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Israel legislatively and militarily seeks to destroy UNRWA
As the Israeli military obliterates Gaza, massacres refugees living in tents in so called “safe zones” and slaughters 39,000 people including at least 16,000 children, its government works to “finish off” UNRWA.
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Vice-Chancellors’ remuneration, university financial performance, and global rankings
The Sunday Age (The Age) reported on 30 June 2024 on the 2023 salary packages of the Vice-Chancellors of Victoria’s eight public universities in a story entitled “Rich List: University heads on million-dollar salaries” by Daniella White and Sherryn Groch. Such headlines can be attention seeking, especially if not set in a wider context. This commentary concerns the paying of these packages in the context of the published financial performance of these eight public universities for the year earning 31 December 2023. (more…)
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ACIL modelling used by Sydney University fundamentally flawed
This Sydney Morning Herald article reports on ACIL Allen modelling undertaken for Sydney University which concludes that in 2025, there will be around 60,000 fewer international students enrolling compared to 2023 and will lead to job losses of around 22,000. The rationale for this is based on a flawed understanding of how Net Overseas Migration works. (more…)
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The Right’s war to control education
The corporate world is afraid of youth demanding change, particularly as rapacious business practices look set to drive us over the climate cliff into a frightening future. One solution the Right has implemented is the Christian Classical Education movement. (more…)
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Private schools serving richest NSW families over-funded by millions
New figures reveal scandalous over-funding of NSW Independent schools serving the richest families in the state. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds are being squandered on just 52 highly privileged schools while public schools go begging. (more…)
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Exemptions in discrimination law: ‘safe spaces’ to act out prejudice towards LGBTIQ people
The denigration of the humanity and self-worth of a group of people is enabled by social and legal licensing of the expression of prejudice and hatred towards that group. Australian discrimination laws have been plated up like an episode of Masterchef, with optional extras for religious groups to act out their chosen prejudice. These are 21st Century witch-hunts against LGBTIQ people, sanctioned by governments. (more…)
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The elephant in the Zionist classroom
What is it about the Australian Jewish community, Australian Jewish ‘faith’ schools and Israel? (more…)
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In the face of disinformation and democratic decay, humanities graduates are more important than ever
As university history lecturers, we like to imagine that we are instilling in our students a deep interest in the subjects we teach. We want to foster a lifelong curiosity about the world, as well as the ability to pursue knowledge and refine understanding. Happily, these capacities also happen to be those needed in modern workplaces, such as being able to evaluate information, think independently and communicate effectively. (more…)
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University leaders could learn from their students’ ethical clarity
University encampments invite us into a different way of doing education that defies institutional control.
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As China-Australia ties fray, should Canberra keep its friends close, its enemies closer?
If China is indeed a power to be worried about, wouldn’t Australia want to know as much about it as possible, perhaps even know what it is up to? Blocking or reducing interaction with China or other countries only reduces Australia to a petty, hollow state that is susceptible to misunderstandings. (more…)
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The bleak picture of Australian politics: this is how we change
We are confronting a deep structural crisis in our society. We have confused the idea of democracy with the institutions of political parties and representative democracies. The major parties have become structures representing economic and security elites to which only second rate personalities flock, incapable of navigating the huge challenges we face globally. Meanwhile, the under resourced education system has become an iron cage, captured by industry, that we have been imprisoning young minds into, and from which they are now breaking free. (more…)
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Dangerous ‘outside agitators’ have infiltrated Western universities
Students have established solidarity encampments at 11 universities in Australia since April 23rd when the first camp was established at the University of Sydney. Many of these students have for the last 7 months been watching a continuous stream of war crimes and their aftermaths on Tiktok and Instagram, uploaded by Gazans enduring horrific conditions. (more…)
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Exposed: Private Schools caught in commonwealth funding rort
The increasing number of Grandparents paying private school fees has enabled elite schools to evade Commonwealth parent income tests determining the rate of taxpayer funding that goes to society’s most wealthy and least in need students. (more…)
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Vietnam, brutalist architecture, fees and Gaza: how student protests shaped Australian universities
Australian university students are beginning to set up encampments on campus, in solidarity with college protesters in the United States. Protesters are calling for the divestment of funding from weapons manufactures and Israeli universities. But these protests are just the latest in a decades-long history of political action on Australian campuses. (more…)
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Banned books, manifestos and a better way of reading
At last weekend’s Victorian Writers Festival three authors – two of them also bookshop owners and one of them an author and enthusiastic supporter of bookshops – talked about books and the threat to reading. (more…)
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Jewish Council calls for universities to immediately halt actions against anti-war students
The Jewish Council of Australia said today the actions some universities are taking in response to anti-war students are a violation of students’ rights and freedoms. Deakin University and the Australian National University (ANU) have indicated they intend to dismantle the student camps. Students across the country are protesting in support of Palestinian people and against their institutions’ ties with Israel. (more…)
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Australia’s crucial knowledge gaps in China expertise: Strategies for the future
Australia’s most severe China knowledge gap is the virtual collapse of University-level advanced Chinese language study, together with the study of Chinese society, politics and culture. This is the major finding of a report, Australia’s China Knowledge Capability, published in 2023 by the Australian Academy of the Humanities. (more…)
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Students are the nation’s conscience
The courageous stance of students across the country in defiance of genocide is accompanied by a near total blackout of their voices. Their words are the ones we most need to hear. (more…)