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Keywords: Exams

  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2017: Postal survey ends don't justify means

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 10 January 2018
    3 Comments

    In the ensuing debate, we shouldn't let ourselves forget that this postal vote never should have happened in the first place, and nothing like this should happen again to any minority group. The public voting yes or no on human rights is not what democracy looks like.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Postal survey ends don't justify means

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 15 November 2017
    27 Comments

    In the ensuing debate, we shouldn't let ourselves forget that this postal vote never should have happened in the first place, and nothing like this should happen again to any minority group. The public voting yes or no on human rights is not what democracy looks like.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Among the gods of the Melbourne Cup

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 03 November 2017
    9 Comments

    More recently, Mammon has dominated the Melbourne Cup. It has been targeted by wealthy international owners and stables who buy up the most likely stayers in order to buy the result. It has also been used by corporations to fuel their engines of misery that suck money and life out of many Australian families.

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  • RELIGION

    Do we ban the nun's veil next?

    • Rachel Woodlock
    • 24 August 2017
    29 Comments

    For an item of clothing that virtually no Australian Muslims wear, the burqa sure gets plenty of airtime. I've never seen the (usually blue) all-enveloping cloak with the small material grill for sale in any of the bricks-and-mortar Islamic clothing stores I've visited. Short of travelling to Afghanistan, the only place I can think where an anti-Islam protester might get one is by searching Halloween costume listings on eBay or Etsy.

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  • EDUCATION

    Reading, writing, and stifling homeschool regulations

    • Kate Moriarty
    • 01 May 2017
    16 Comments

    I decided to homeschool for one year, to give my daughter a chance to recover and to build her confidence. I never expected to fall in love with the lifestyle. Twelve months later, I gave in to my younger son's entreaties and began homeschooling him as well - just for one more year. In Victoria, the registration process is simple and straightforward. It is not surprising, then, that Victoria has the highest number of registered homeschoolers. But this may soon change.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Citizenship changes make a new enemy of the migrant

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 24 April 2017
    16 Comments

    Australia has long had a successful migration program, and the country's economic success is proof of this. So when Turnbull calls a press conference to impart the news that 'membership of the Australian family is a privilege and should be afforded to those who support our values, respect our laws and want to work hard by integrating and contributing to an even better Australia', he is making a redundant point. The vast majority of migrants and new citizens already do this.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Bond notes bode ill for Zimbabwe's currency calamity

    • Tariro Ndoro
    • 07 December 2016
    2 Comments

    Last week, the much dreaded bond notes were released into the economy, in a move hoped to alleviate the cash crisis. Most citizens are negative about the move, with good reason - the last time Zimbabwe had its own currency was 2009, when inflation was so high the currency had to be dropped to salvage the economy. Most Zimbabweans remember that time well: every other month citizens had to drive to Botswana to put food on the table because the country's own shops were empty.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Education with higher expectations

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 May 2015
    7 Comments

    Tony Abbott's evocation of 'the tyranny of low expectations' invites more general reflection on education and public life. I believe that the Australian approach to education does indeed impose a tyranny of low expectations in the sense that the expectations are defined by economic achievement and its attendant wealth and status, and the goal for schools is success in enabling students to participate economically.

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  • EDUCATION

    School leavers' class wars

    • Ellena Savage
    • 13 June 2014
    11 Comments

    Year 12 tertiary entrance exams: turning 17-year-olds into nervous wrecks since the 1830s. They divide the smart from the dumb, the hopefuls from the no-hopers, and, what it boils down to more often than not, the privately educated from the state educated. But what if there was another way, a way that properly acknowledged the impact high schools have on their students' access to university admission?

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Teachers' uprising

    • Brian Matthews
    • 09 December 2011
    8 Comments

    'Matthews!' the headmaster called. I kept walking. 'Matthews!' I walked on. 'Mister Matthews!' I turned and said, 'Yes?' 'Did you not hear me?' 'I answer to Brian or Mister Matthews, nothing in between.' We were enacting our miniscule part in a process that would grow through the decade.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Schooling in the classroom without walls

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 31 January 2011
    13 Comments

    The furore that erupted when Chinese-American mother Amy Chua accused Westerners of being too soft on their children masks a subtle sharpening of middle class parental expectations in Australia.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Losing Ben

    • Chris Mulherin
    • 12 May 2010
    31 Comments

    The oldest of our five, Ben studied science, medicine in his sights, healthy, not wealthy and wise beyond his years. Ben died quietly. He had no choice really, we turned off the machine.

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