NCVER News | 28 November 2013 Last chance to register for the webinar 'A half-open door: pathways for VET award holders into Australian universities' Get in quick for NCVER's last webinar for 2013 as spaces are filling fast. To be held on Wednesday 4 December, the webinar will present the findings from recent research by Louise Watson and Pauline Hagel on the substantial differences between universities in the proportion of undergraduate commencing students admitted on the basis of a vocational education and training (VET) award. Berwyn Clayton, Director of the Work-based Education Research Centre at Victoria University and Janelle Davis, Relationships Manager, UWS/VET from … [Read more...]
Vic TAFEs probing merger
28/11/2013 by
Latrobe Valley Express | 25 November 2013 A potential merger between GippsTAFE and Chisholm Institute of TAFE will be workshopped over the coming months, through a Memorandum of Understanding signed between parties exploring joint course delivery models. GippsTAFE chair John Mitchell has confirmed a "very robust and extensive review of options" is underway, designed to form a business model of operations and course delivery to improve the financial viability of the institutions. Mitchell said: We are asking how we can share our product delivery and capabilities while reducing our costs - we are being very methodical about gathering factual information to actually guide us … [Read more...]
“Wrong time to break a promise” : Bolt
28/11/2013 by
Herald Sun | 28 November 2013 Not even Andrew Bolt will sign up to Christopher Pyne's casuistry over walking away from the "unity ticket" on schools funding. I believe Christopher Pyne when he says Labor left its education reforms in an "incomprehensible mess". Trouble is, I also believed the Education Minister before the election. I believed Pyne when he said: ''You can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school." Now, after several days of Pyne spin, I don't know if the Government will break its first reckless promise or not. But it had better not. Here is the issue. Before the election, Labor signed up some states for a … [Read more...]
UA urges reduction in regulatory burden
28/11/2013 by
Universities Australia | 28 November 2013 In its submission to the Commission of Audit, Universities Australia (UA) has urged commissioners to place their higher education focus on achieving efficiency through reducing the reporting and regulatory burden on universities. UA says that, with $3.3 billion worth of cuts to higher education made or announced over the past 12 months, universities have already done much of the heavy lifting in assisting the Government to realise its objective of bringing the budget back to surplus. UA chief executive Belinda Robinson says: While fiscal prudence is to be encouraged and we acknowledge the scale of the budget repair task, policy makers … [Read more...]
Gonski is gone but can anything be salvaged?
27/11/2013 by
The Conversation | 27 November 2013 For many in the education community, saying goodbye to the Gonski school funding reforms is disappointing, to say the least. After years of effort, the model looks set to be ditched as the new government sets its sights on developing a new policy. In this piece from The Conversation, the University of Canberra's Louise Watson looks at what might be salvaged as the government moves on. Federal education minister Christopher Pyne has managed to upset the states and the education community with his declaration to “go back to the drawing board” on the Gonski funding scheme. Although Pyne’s announcement will feel like a … [Read more...]
Catch Up
27/11/2013 by
TAFEs claim funding cuts will cost jobs and millions The Age | 23 November 2013 Victorian TAFEs expect to lose millions of dollars and the education union is forecasting hundreds of redundancies in response to further Victorian state government changes to course subsidies. But the government insists it has not cut overall funding and is moving to stop rorting in the training sector. Kangan Institute chief executive Grant Sutherland told staff in an email the changes would result in an estimated $9.2 million reduction in revenue for next year. This is clearly a substantial reduction and budgets across the institute are currently being reworked to take into account this … [Read more...]
Indefinite strike at CAE
26/11/2013 by
NTEU News | 26 November 2013 Staff at Melbourne’s Centre for Adult Education (CAE) have been on an indefinite strike since Monday 18 November 2013. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) says it has been bargaining with management representatives for a new enterprise agreement since February 2011 and staff have not had a pay increase since May 2010. An agreement was reached at the end of 2011, but, according to the NTEU, six months later the CAE reneged on the agreement, “after interference by the state government.” A new agreement was reached at the end of 2012 and again they reneged on it, and in June this year they put over 30 cuts to employment conditions on the … [Read more...]
