The governance crisis in Australia’s universities
Recent media reports that Julie Bishop might have bullied an academic staff representative on the ANU council are alarming.
Recent articles in Education
21 August 2025
'Full of tears', 1000 Palestinian children graduate from Gaza school for orphans
The children wept, as no parents were there to share the moment – their parents had been killed by the Israeli army, said one observer.
21 August 2025
The quest for 21st century Australian productivity is being held back by our archaic TAFE system
It is dynamism in the workplace that leads to productivity improvement.
20 August 2025
Universities, free speech and the High Court
Greg Barns looks at the legal implications for universities, who last year adopted an IHRA-aligned definition of antisemitism, in wake of a large scale boycott of the Bendigo Writers Festival.
16 August 2025
A better and fairer school system? Just look to Canada
Ontario implemented needs-based funding a quarter of a century ago, and the benefits go beyond student achievement.
11 August 2025
Reflections: public education past, present and future
Readers of Pearls and Irritations may be aware of the Public Education Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation which turns donations into life-changing scholarships for students and others in around 200 NSW schools.
8 August 2025
The Segal report and the universities
The Segal report presented to Prime Minister Albanese on Thursday, 10 July, represents an unprecedented challenge to Australia’s 39 public universities – to their autonomy, their independence and to their reputation both here and internationally.
4 August 2025
Deepfake abuse caused a crisis in South Korean schools. How can Australia avoid it?
Australian schools are seeing a growing number of incidents in which students have created deepfake sexualised imagery of their classmates. The eSafety Commissioner has urged schools to monitor the situation.
30 July 2025
Top Australian writers urge Albanese to abolish Job-Ready Graduates, calling their humanities degrees life-changing
“Earning a humanities degree was not only life-changing, in terms of opening up a world of knowledge otherwise beyond my reach, it also turns out to have been enormously productive – for me and many, many people around me,” said Tim Winton this week. “My little arts degree has created jobs and cultural value for over 40 years.”
24 July 2025
Evans gobsmacked by ANU change plan
Former ANU Chancellor and Federal Minister Gareth Evans has expressed 'acute concern' at proposed changes in humanities and social sciences at ANU. In a letter delivered to the Vice-Chancellor and Chancellor this week, he says the university's distinctive national mission is being 'ignored or gravely under-valued'.
24 July 2025
Change proposals risk relegating ANU to middle-ranking regional uni
Well known historian and long-time ANU staff member, Frank Bongiorno, says he has never seen, such a lack of vision, such a vacuum of ideas, such general disorganisation, nor such cavalier decision-making about institutions and programs built up through hard work over decades in all his years at ANU. He outlined his concerns in this submission to ANU management.
24 July 2025
Cutting HECS debt is the least Albanese could do for young Australians. He should do more
It may seem an age since the federal election, but the new parliament has just convened for the first time. Anthony Albanese will be giving top priority to enacting his election commitments – “an honest politician? Really?” – and starting with his promise to cut uni graduates’ HECS debt by 20 per cent.
22 July 2025
The war on US science
The US was already having problems with the performance of US academic institutions in scientific areas when Donald Trump arrived with the mission to nobble universities.
