For years, we’ve heard Australia’s spending on tertiary education is some of the lowest in the OECD. This is only true if you ignore GDP growth. Real spending was actually going up, until 2016.
Australia’s university sector is one of the most attractive for international students. So why not try to keep them when they graduate rather than lose the talent we’ve helped train and educate?
High levels of inequality damage our health, harm social cohesion and act as a brake on economic performance.
Focusing on narrow PISA measures may increase skill levels but cause students to miss out on the kinds of learning that generates higher-order thinking.
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There are many reasons to be skeptical about PISA rankings, and their use to compare student achievement or to identify best practices or solutions for educational problems.
The big spending provinces in Canada did not necessarily get the best Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) standardized test results.
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Research shows that the provinces vary widely in their ability to produce academic results for money they spend, and PEI shows the most efficient results.
Policies that cut school expenditures under the premise of “doing more with less” can also contribute to a decrease in high school graduation rates that could easily cancel out those savings.
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While the purpose of education can’t be reduced to promoting economic growth, every child out of school represents both lost opportunities — and huge economic costs — for countries.
Policy-makers must remember that the social consequences of a test are just as important as the test’s content.
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The stakes could be highest for students around the world as education systems decide how to respond to the changing shape of global standardized testing.
Former SNC-Lavalin vice-president Stephane Roy leaves a Quebec courtroom after fraud and bribery charges against him were thrown out due to trial delays. Roy had been charged with bribing a foreign public official in connection with the company’s dealings with Libya.
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Until recently, paying a bribe or kickback to secure a contract abroad was seen as the cost of doing business in a foreign land. The SNC-Lavalin case has underscored the need to rethink the approach.
Australia’s government insists it is on track to surpass its emissions reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement. But while that may be true, it will only happen with some clever accounting.
In increasingly diverse societies, teaching must recognize the importance of affirming students’ cultural backgrounds in all aspects of learning.
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Reports that Australian classrooms are some of the most disruptive in the world are based on the experiences of 15-year-old students alone, and focus on science classes.
The latest figures put Australia near the top when it comes to company tax collections, even though our total tax take isn’t particularly high.
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On one measure our company tax rate is the third-highest, but we like it that way because it allows us to give big tax refunds to local shareholders, many of them retirees.
The headquarters of Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering company, in central Munich.
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Girls are encouraged more often to read, despite performing better in reading assessments nationally and internationally. Here’s how parents and educators can help connect boys with books.