section: Education

  • EDUCATION

    Stairway to international student security

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 30 September 2009
    7 Comments

    After midnight, a group of international students, on a break from their night jobs as waiters, gather in a concrete stairwell and share their stories. Victorian premier John Brumby could learn a thing or two in that shabby stairwell.

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  • EDUCATION

    Antique religious education policy needs reform

    • Teresa Russell
    • 29 September 2009
    20 Comments

    According to NSW education policy, if a parent wants their child to opt out of religious education, that child is not entitled to any instruction during this period. An alliance of parents and educators is pushing for an ethics-based alternative to religious education.

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  • EDUCATION

    Parable of the long-suffering teacher

    • Fatima Measham
    • 26 August 2009
    5 Comments

    Students are more proficient in technology than their teachers and are accessing information their elders would not have known. They wonder, if they can already function as if they have finished school, then what's the point of school? It's a fair question. 

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  • EDUCATION

    How Catholic schools are failing the poor

    • Ross Fitzgerald
    • 24 August 2009
    25 Comments

    A neoliberal funding policy has undermined the ability of Catholic schools to meet poor children's needs. Instead, Catholic schools have allowed millions of tax dollars to be siphoned off public schools and given to the private sector.

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  • EDUCATION

    How to teach 'vampire' students

    • Eleanor Massey
    • 03 March 2009
    10 Comments

    The student teacher is doing his best, trying to teach abstract ideas in a difficult play about a postmodern world. A girl in the front row is discussing her new 'vampire' boyfriend. 'He's in 12B,' she says. 'I can't take my eyes off him.'

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  • EDUCATION

    Higher education's dirty little secret

    • Andrew McGowan
    • 17 February 2009
    5 Comments

    A recent report into higher education is caught between discontent and fatalism about what prevents universities from doing better for students from the margins. The system's biggest failure may lie in what the report didn't ask.

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  • EDUCATION

    Who cares about students

    • Fatima Measham
    • 10 February 2009
    8 Comments

    Many of the things that impact upon a teacher's efficacy are beyond their control - the quality of a child's homelife, the politicisation of the curriculum. One thing they can control is much they care, though this may bring new teachers little comfort in the months ahead.

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  • EDUCATION

    Taking maths out of the equation

    • Frank O'Shea
    • 02 February 2009
    11 Comments

    These are earnest kids, wanting to succeed. Society has told them that to succeed they must be able to draw a parabola, find the vertex, state the axis of symmetry. This city has two million adults — how many ever heard of an axis of symmetry?

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  • EDUCATION

    Why the Melbourne Model is failing students

    • Ben Coleridge
    • 12 December 2008
    5 Comments

    Widespread subject cuts and reductions in staff numbers have eaten away at students' plans and rendered the new breadth component impotent. Horizons seem to be shrinking, which makes it increasingly difficult to 'dream large'.

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  • EDUCATION

    Theological colleges on shaky ground

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 26 November 2008
    6 Comments

    Theological colleges increasingly need to turn to churches for underwriting, yet church congregations are dwindling, which affects them financially as well. Something has to give ... and in Brisbane, it already has.

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  • EDUCATION

    Judging the quality of education

    • Fatima Measham
    • 19 November 2008
    9 Comments

    Forcing schools to produce information on students' exam performance will never be a reliable strategy for lifting numeracy and literacy. Learning is as much about taking risks and failing as it is about getting the answers right the first time.

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  • EDUCATION

    Humanity lost in digital classrooms

    • Frank O'Shea
    • 01 August 2008
    9 Comments

    Today's teacher has to survive in a world of gimmickry. Students pay better attention to ringtones than to the human voice. In the brave new world of Rudd's Digital Education Revolution, teachers risk being replaced by technicians.

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