But decisions made by elected governments – especially in areas such as education, health and energy – impact young people too. Legal and political voices have long called for Australia to lower the voting age to 16. After all, people under 18 can leave school, get a job, drive a car and pay taxes. More...

Early career teachers are more likely to stay on if they practise what they teach in their own time. We found that practitioner-teachers – such as art teachers practising art and biology teachers observing nature – see themselves as better quality teachers when measured against key principles of learning and teaching. More...

It has been reported the Attorney-General’s Department has written to universities that host Confucius Institutes, asking them to register the institutes under the scheme. Confucius Institutes are Chinese language and culture centres set up through partnerships between an Australian university, a Chinese university and Hanban – an organisation directly under China’s Ministry of Education. More...

Local libraries are often thought of as places to check out books or engage in some silent reading. But libraries offer so much more than just what can be found on their shelves or done in hushed tones. More...

International Women’s Day is a good time ask two critical questions about economics: do we have enough women in it, and does it matter?
Women are less likely to take it up than they used to be. More...

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, addressing gender inequality in New Zealand remains a challenge. As the first country to grant women the vote, we have a long way to go to until there’s genuine equality across all genders. More...

The economics profession requires nothing other than a university degree, and this month in its regular poll of 54 leading economists, the Economic Society of Australia asked whether it should set the bar higher. More...

School funding debates in Australia are complex and messy. Stakeholders routinely complain about being hard done by. But the real unfairness is that state schools get less government funding than governments themselves say the schools need, and will continue to do so. More...

Professors and graduate students are at opposite ends of the university hierarchy in terms of experience, qualifications and pay. But at many universities, both do the same job: they teach tutorials offered in parallel with lectures. More...

There is starkly unequal access to quality education. Most children attend dysfunctional no-fee paying public schools. Statistics show that fewer than one in ten black learners from no-fee paying schools leave with a good quality matric (the final year of high school) pass – the kind that would provide access to university. More...