Education
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John Menadue. Our innovation-averse business culture
Malcolm Turnbull’s Innovation statement sounded new, but was it? So much of what he said used to be called industry policy-technology parks, offsets, defense technology, support for inventors, and quality assurance. But Malcolm Turnbull dwelt particularly on the need for cultural change in business. I think that was new. He said that Australian businesses should Continue reading »
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Paul Collins. Three wise people.
In the last eighteen months Australian Catholicism has lost three of its great leaders, people who genuinely contributed not only to the church, but also to our social and cultural life. They were Professor Max Charlesworth who died on 2 June 2014, Sister Veronica Brady who died on 20 August 2015, and Father Frank Martin Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Australia’s Comparative Advantage and Policy Reform
In May and June of this year, Michael Keating and I edited a policy series ‘Fairness, Opportunity and Security’. This policy series has now been published in book form. We were and remain concerned about the policy vacuum in Australia. We are anxious that the debate on policy reform continue. An important contribution to this Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Good schools, good teachers, good students and Gonski.
On November 15, 2015, The Sun Herald carried a very encouraging story about St John’s Park High School in Sydney, is principal Sue French and staff, and most importantly – its students. Quoting Ms French, the report said At .. St Johns Park High School, more than 90% of students come from a non English Continue reading »
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Thanks to Jake Bailey and Christchurch Boys High School.
Just one week before his final school assembly, Christchurch Boys High School’s Head Boy, Jake Bailey, was told that he may not have long to live. The 18 year old NZ student was bed-ridden and absent from school for three weeks while undergoing treatment for aggressive cancer. But during his final school prize-giving ceremony he Continue reading »
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Ian Marsh. Will privatised schools and hospital drive public sector efficiency?
One of the first substantive announcements of Treasurer Scott Morrison concerned the privatisation of schools, hospitals and community services that are provided by State governments. He enthusiastically endorsed this 2012 Commission of Audit recommendation: ‘Given the size of the human services sector (which is set to increase further as Australia’s population ages), even small improvements Continue reading »
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Chris Bonnor. Educational opportunity in Australia.
Educational opportunity in Australia – who succeeds and who misses out? This critical question about our schools is the title of a new report commissioned by the Mitchell Institute. It is a thorough, timely and outstanding contribution to our understanding of disadvantage in schooling. The report, produced by Victoria University’s Centre for International Research Continue reading »
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Dean Ashenden. What is to be done about Australian schooling?
Dealing with high and rising social and cultural segregation is the real challenge of school reform. Over the past two or three months alone, no fewer than five prominent individuals and organisations have tried to answer an increasingly vexing question: what is to be done about Australian schooling? Australia, these various commentators agree, is among Continue reading »
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Nicholas Reece. Falling behind in the innovation stakes
Malcolm Turnbull has promised a new innovation policy for Australia by Christmas. Bill Shorten has pledged to be a “jobs prime minister for the new economy”. For the first time in a long while, the political rhetoric matches a genuinely huge national policy challenge. In the past 15 years, there have been more than 60 Continue reading »
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Bob Kinnaird. 750,000 temporary residents with work rights.
The recent Fairfax/ABC Four Corners reports exposing widespread exploitation and wage abuse of overseas students and other visa workers in 7-11 stores, horticulture and other sectors have been justly applauded as outstanding examples of investigative journalism. Their impact has been immediate, forcing 7-11 to set up an independent investigation panel chaired by Alan Fels and Continue reading »
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Why the Rich are so much Richer in the US
Nobel Prizewinner Joseph E. Stiglitz has been at the forefront of the debate in the US and elsewhere about growing inequality. In a recent review in the New York Review of Books, James Surowiecki comments on three recent books by Stiglitz. He says: “The numbers are, at this point, woefully familiar: the top 1% of Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The smoko continues.
I have posted many blogs on this subject – how we have failed to equip Australia for our future in Asia. We just do not have the Asian literacy and skills we need for our future in the region. See blogs. The smoko continues (3 December 2014) and Will the new Colombo Plan work? (12 Continue reading »
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Dean Ashenden. Could Turnbull give a Gonski?
Until last week, Gonski’s last hope – and an increasingly promising one – was a Labor victory in 2016. Now, that hope has dimmed, but another has appeared. It would make political, ideological and policy sense for the Turnbull government and its new education minister, Simon Birmingham, to go back to Gonski. The story so Continue reading »
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Tom and Rosie support the Syrian Refugees.
Two young students from “Prouille” Dominican School at Wahroonga have raised nearly $4,500 for Syrian refugees. It started as a street stall in front of their house. It led to community support. It is a lovely story – worth reading. See link below. John Menadue https://unhcrpersonalchallenge.everydayhero.com/au/help-the-syrian-refugees-with-tom-and-rosie Continue reading »
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Sydney’s Holroyd High School and asylum seeker children.
Refugees and their children face many difficulties in settling in Australia. But the evidence shows that after this settling in period, refugees and their children outperform Australian-born people in many areas. We see the results for refugee children in university-entrance exams and in university performance. One remarkable example is the experience of refugee and asylum Continue reading »
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John Menadue. A night with the Vice Chancellors – the export of education services.
Current Affairs Education services earn an export income for Australia of over $16 b. p.a. Those export services are expected to increase to $31 b. p.a. by 2020 from about 600,000overseas students. Education is now our fourth largest export behind iron ore, coal and natural gas. It is our major services export, ahead of tourism. Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. Improving Employment Participation
Fairness, Opportunity and Security Policy series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue. The rate of employment participation and the productivity of those employees together determine the average per capita incomes of Australians, and therefore our living standards. In addition, being employed creates many of the social contacts and sense of self-esteem that are vital Continue reading »
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John Dwyer. Politics trumps health policy yet again.
Current Affairs. Health. A new medical school in Perth will create more problems than it will solve. As must also be true for many colleagues who have been focussed on evidence based solutions to the serious shortage of Australian trained doctors working in rural communities, I am frustrated and annoyed by the Prime Minister’s capricious Continue reading »
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Joel Windle. School choice: parents follow the money.
If private schools offer little academic value over public schools, why do 35% of Australian parents continue to choose to pay the hefty fees rather than sending their child to the local state school? Parents have a high regard for public schools School choice is a dilemma for a minority of parents. My research with Continue reading »
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Harold Levien. The Coalition Government’s Bankrupt Economic Policies:
The Coalition Government seems to have been fighting the next elections since the day it won Office and using the same misleading tactics. Throughout the last election campaign, and for months before, the Coalition bitterly attacked both Labor’s budget deficit and government debt. Yet when the Labor Government left Office Parliamentary Library statistics show government Continue reading »
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David Zyngier. Australia should follow Chile’s lead and stop funding private schools.
Australia is one of the very few countries in the OECD that publicly funds private schools. More than 40% of Australian secondary children now attend private schools – either so-called independent or religious schools. Australia has one of the most privatised school systems in the OECD. Prior to 1972 no private schools received any government Continue reading »
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Rodney Tiffin. The university rankings no government wants to talk about.
At a conference of university leaders in early 2013, Tony Abbott promised “relative policy stability” in higher education if he became prime minister. A year later, Universities Australia began its first Abbott-era budget submission by welcoming “the undertaking of the government to preserve funding arrangements for higher education, including the commitment not to make further cuts to Continue reading »
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Rachel Wilson, Bronwen Dalton and Chris Baumann. Six ways Australia’s education system is failing our kids.
Amid debates about budget cuts and the rising costs of schools and degrees, there is one debate receiving alarmingly little attention in Australia. We’re facing a slow decline in most educational standards, and few are aware just how bad the situation is getting. These are just six of the ways that Australia’s education system is Continue reading »
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Amanda Tattersall. Community organising aims to win back civil society’s rightful place.
In the wake of the Second World War, Karl Polanyi wrote that the public arena is made up of three interconnected sectors: the market, government and civil society. He argued that democracy thrives when these three are in balance. If only that were the case today. Since the late 1980s, the global influence of the Continue reading »
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Julia Davison. It takes a nation to raise a child.
The week after Australia Day each year, around 260,000 five-year old Australians start school. Of those, almost 60,000 children – 23 per cent – will start school developmentally vulnerable in some way. Children who start school behind often stay behind, and are likely to finish school with skills and competencies that have not equipped them Continue reading »
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Michael Keating. The 2015 Intergenerational Report
Purpose of the Intergenerational Report The Intergenerational Report (IGR) should be an important document. It purports to tell us what the Australian population, economy and Budget could look like in forty years time. Of course no-one really knows what the economy will look like in forty years time. Instead the IGR tells us how fast Continue reading »
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John Falzon ‘Welfare reform’ but where are the jobs?
If by “welfare” we mean giving assistance to those who don’t really need it and who are living off the public purse, then it is indeed time we had a comprehensive review of welfare. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the McClure Welfare Review was given the task of cutting social expenditure to those who actually do Continue reading »
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Andrew Leigh. The remarkable persistence of power and privilege.
If you want to know who made up Australia’s elite in the nineteenth century, a useful place to look is the Australian Dictionary of Biography. In its many volumes, you’ll find business leaders, scientists, media barons and politicians who have featured among the upper echelons of Australian society. Now, suppose we take the first cohort Continue reading »
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Tessa Morris-Suzuki. Tony Abbott, What have you done for peace?
On 23 February, Prime Minister Tony Abbott in a major national security speech, chided Muslim leaders for showing insufficiently sincere commitment to peace. “I’ve often heard western leaders describe Islam as a ‘religion of peace’. I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often, and mean it”, he said. Abbott also called on immigrants Continue reading »
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Climate, Defence and Security, Economy, Education, Health, Human Rights, Immigration, refugees, NBN, Politics, World Affairs
John Menadue. Fairness, Opportunity and Security – Filling the policy vacuum
I sense that there is great public concern that both the government and opposition keep playing the political and personal game at the expense of informed public discussion of important policy issues. We have become concerned about the trustworthiness of our political, business and media elite. Insiders and vested interests are undermining the public interest. Continue reading »