Education
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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. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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”, slaughters 38,000 people including at least 16,000 of these children, its government works to “finish off” UNRWA. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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 master chef, with optional extras for religious groups. Continue reading »
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The elephant in the Zionist classroom
What is it about the Australian Jewish community, Australian Jewish ‘faith’ schools and Israel? Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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 Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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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. Continue reading »
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Israel’s war machine, Australian Universities, and why students are protesting
Australian university students are setting up encampments in universities across Australia. They are not only calling for an end to the war on Gaza and freedom for Palestinians, they are calling for key changes needed in Australian universities’ relationships with Israel, including divestments in weapons research and development and sales and the cessation of links Continue reading »
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Right-wing pro-Israel agitators threaten free speech on campus
The Jewish Council of Australia condemns attacks on students exercising their democratic right to protest. Continue reading »
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China studies in crisis: Time for change
At a time when China is becoming increasingly more important to the Australian economy as well as to our stability and security in the Asia-Pacific, the overall decline in Australia’s China knowledge capability runs counter to our national sovereign interests. Continue reading »
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Our entire view of the world remains insular. How can Australia change?
Unlike virtually every non-Anglophone country on the planet, Australia still has no mandatory teaching of foreign languages in its schools. Why do we assume, as a matter of colonial entitlement, that people from non-Anglophone countries will understand us, but it is not even a matter of decency to make the same effort to understand them? Continue reading »
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Knowledge and understanding deficit: The dire state of China Studies
Disgraceful gaps have emerged in our knowledge and understanding of Asian countries. This capability is essential to successful navigation of the future, as Peter Varghese and Joseph Lo Bianco have noted. Continue reading »
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TAFE shutting the door on the battlers
Recent figures show that around 30% of Australian school children do not have adequate reading skills. This 30% of Australian school children need vocational knowledge and skills to find a productive place in Australian life, but some will have their reading tested by TAFE then told, without a hint of irony, “You need to go Continue reading »
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The Commonwealth should get out of schooling
There is no government or agency or combination of them capable of conceiving and driving the kind and scale of change Australian schooling now requires. The ‘national approach’ installed by the Rudd and Gillard governments fifteen years ago has not worked and cannot. Its sponsor, the Commonwealth, should move or be moved to the margins or Continue reading »
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Government funding increases continue to favour private schools
New figures again demonstrate the bias against public schools in Australia’s school funding system. Continue reading »
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We now need, it seems, a Voice for bigots
The best argument against having an explicit legislated or constitutional right of freedom of religion in Australia comes right out of the playbook of the No campaign during the referendum on a constitutional Voice for Indigenous Australians. There’s no particular problem of giving expression to one’s beliefs in this country, and almost any attempt to Continue reading »
