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Learning is not a spectator sport. Students need to make what they learn a part of their everyday lives. Tutorials are an excellent way to achieve this at university level. When they’re properly designed, tutorials can be spaces where students are grouped in smaller numbers and can be guided to make sense of the work, practice their skills, cultivate critical thinking and learn from and with each other. More...

In 1974, a review of the VET sector set out an agenda for the future of the vocational education and training sector. It emphasised education and social inclusion in work as key functions of the sector, rather than mainly its “manpower role”.
In the ensuing decades, this emphasis has been overturned. The vocational education and training system of today is industry-led. It is funded primarily to achieve employment outcomes.
VET’s role in skill development and educating those who engage in the range of occupations that contribute to Australia’s economy is critical. But we also need to strongly support the role VET plays in getting disadvantaged groups into education and work. More...

The low status of vocational education and training (VET) is a growing problem. Many young Australians and their parents don’t consider VET as a potential post-school pathway, even if it might be more suitable for them than university. More...

Attending a Vocational Education and Training (VET) graduation can be an uplifting experience. There’s the 45-year-old manufacturing worker who left school at 14 getting his first-ever qualification and a new job in construction, the Indigenous single parent who started a business based on what she learnt with her Certificate III in Hospitality, the female refrigeration apprentice who won a medal representing Australia at WorldSkills, and the Sudanese refugee who is now a university law student following his English Language and Tertiary Preparation Course. More...

Fairfax Media on Wednesday reported that religious schools would be guaranteed the right – under specified conditions - to decline to enrol gay students, in changes to anti-discrimination legislation recommended by the inquiry. More...

Block subjects is a model of teaching students one subject at a time over two to four weeks, rather than several subjects at a time over ten to 13 weeks in a semester. More...

Australia’s vocational education system has been bedevilled by competing jurisdiction control, political ideology, chronic under-funding, piecemeal reforms, rampant rorting by a small number of corporate private providers, and a disappointing and surprisingly high level of policy confusion. More...

Vocational Education and Training (VET) is an important part of the education sector and trains people of all ages for occupations vital across all sectors of the economy. It also makes a major contribution to social inclusion. More...

It goes without saying – or at least it ought to – that freedom of speech should be a core value of universities. As a scholar of freedom of speech and a university academic, it has been gratifying to see so many Vice Chancellors (and a former Chief Justice of the High Court) take it so seriously. More...

Part of the Ruddock report on the review of religious freedoms was leaked last week in the media. The review was commissioned on the eve of the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The review addresses schools’ right to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. More...