This book provides a history of three decades of Australian education systems, programs and policies. Drawing on economic and sociological data, key texts and political events, it traces the shift from universal public provision to market systems and examines the implications of this change for the labour market and the economy. An important focus of the book is the discussion of the extension of citizenship through education.

Where is Australian schooling heading? What forces will shape its future direction? How ready are students, teachers, policy makers and education institutions for the challenges being thrust on them? With chapters ranging across the landscape of school-age education, this book proposes new, evidence-based directions for change in teaching, assessment, curriculum, funding and system-wide collaboration. It provides a grounded, forward-looking guide to questions that will be central to Australia's educational debates, and our performance, in the years ahead. Drawing directly on research, innovation and policy analysis at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, this book creates an engaging and rigorous overview of the issues confronting school-age education in Australia, and provides insights and actions to help shape our responses into the future. Contents Part 1 Evolving the purposes of schooling 1 Time for a reboot: Shifting away from distractions to improve Australia’s schools – John Hattie 2 The changing role of the teacher in a knowledge economy – Patrick Griffin, Lorraine Graham, Susan Marie Harding, Nives Nibali, Narelle English and Monjurul Alam 3 The state of public schooling – Jessica Gerrard 4 Asia Literacy and the Australian curriculum – Fazal Rizvi 5 Curriculum: The challenges and the devil in the details – Lyn Yates 6 Monitoring learning – Geoff N. Masters Part 2 New pathways to student achievement 7 What is ‘school readiness’, and how are smooth transitions to school supported? – Frank Niklas, Collette Tayler and Caroline Cohrssen 8 Chinese: More equal than others – Jane Orton 9 Lying on the floor: Why Australia can lead the world in music education – Pip Robinson and Ros McMillan 10 Young people at the margins: Where to with education? – Helen Stokes and Malcolm Turnbull 11 What if you’re not going to university? Improving senior secondary education for young Australians – John Polesel, Mary Leahy, Suzanne Rice, Shelley Gillis, Kira Clarke 12 From inequality to quality: Challenging the debate on Indigenous education – Elizabeth McKinley Part 3 The role and impact of teachers 13 Supporting the development of the profession: The impact of a clinical approach to teacher education – Larissa McLean Davies, Teresa Angelico, Barbara Hadlow, Jeana Kriewaldt, Field Rickards, Jane Thornton, and Peter Wright 14 Creating a third space for learning in teacher education – Helen Cahill 15 Building knowledge about oral language skills into teacher practice and initial teacher education – Patricia Eadie, Hannah Stark and Pamela Snow 16 Aligning curriculum, instruction and assessment – Natasha Ziebell, Aloysius Ong and David Clarke Part 4 Challenges of system reform 17 Hard-to-staff Australian schools: How can we ensure that all students have access to quality teachers? – Suzanne Rice, Paul W. Richardson, Helen M.G. Watt 18 Collaboration in pursuit of learning – Tom Bentley and Sean Butler 19 Aligning student ability with learning opportunity: How can measures of senior school achievement support better selection for higher education? – Emmaline Bexley 20 Other people’s children: School funding reform in Australia – Tom Bentley 21 Improving national policy processes in Australian schooling – Glenn C. Savage

This is a book by educators, for educators. It grapples with the complexities, the humanity and the possibilities in education. In a climate of competing accountabilities and measurement mechanisms; corporate solutions to education ‘problems’; and narratives of ‘failing’ schools, ‘underperforming’ teachers and ‘disengaged’ students; this book asks ‘What matters?’ or ‘What should matter?’ in education. Based in the unique Australian context, this book situates Australian education policy, research and practice within the international education narrative. It argues that professionals within schools should be supported, empowered and welcomed into policy discourse, not dictated to by top-down bureaucracy. It advocates for a flipping, flattening and democratising of the education system, in Australia and around the world. Flip the System Australia: What matters in education brings together the voices of teachers, school leaders and scholars in order to offer diverse perspectives, important challenges and hopeful alternatives to the current education system.

The Future of Australian Legal Education Conference was held in August 2017 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Australian Academy of Law (AAL), the 90th anniversary of the Australian Law Journal (ALJ) and the 30th anniversary of the Pearce Report on Australian Law Schools. The conference provided a forum for an informed, national discussion on the future of legal study and practice in Australia, covering practitioners, academics, judges and students.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. It discusses how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of national higher education systems in these countries, and explores the similarities and differences between the ways in which they are organized and structured. It is the first book to make such comparisons and draw conclusions about the nature of open and distance education in the context of various national higher education systems. In a digital era with growing use of online education as well as open and distance education, this book is particularly useful for policy-makers and senior administrators who want to learn about organizing and expanding open and distance education provision. It is also a valuable reference for researchers, academics and students interested in understanding the different approaches to open and distance education.

This book presents insights into the current state of higher education, emerging pedagogies and innovative technology-driven learning techniques in research and teaching. Focussing specifically on the higher education models in India and Australia, the volume explores concerns and policy interventions that will help promote research capability and culture. Globalisation, rise of information technology and the massification of education has shifted the foundations of higher education and universities in the world. This volume examines the best support structures that will allow educators to face the challenge of the increasingly diverse community of learners and teachers entering higher education; their varied levels of aspirations and expectations; the influence of technology in pedagogical practices; and the shrinking funds for teaching and research. By using case studies from India and Australia the book also looks at the benefits of cross-cultural collaborations in research and education. Comprehensive and resourceful, this volume will be useful for academics and scholars of education, higher education and research, sociology, public policy, development studies and for NGOs and think tanks working in these areas.

This is an essential, practical resource for pre- and in-service educators on creating contexts for success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Based on the latest research and practice, this book provides an in-depth understanding of the colonised context within which education in Australia is located, with an emphasis on effective strategies for the classroom. Throughout the text, the authors share their personal and professional experiences providing rich examples for readers to learn from. Taking a strengths-based approach, this book will support new and experienced teachers to drive positive educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Education is threatened on a global scale by forces of neoliberalism, through high stakes accountability, privatization and a destructive language of learning. In all respects, a GERM (Global Education Reform Movement) has erupted from international benchmark rankings such as PISA, TIMMS and PIRL, causing inequity, narrowing of the curriculum and teacher deprofessionalization on a truly global scale. In this book, teachers from around the world and other educational experts such as Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Stephen Ball, Gert Biesta, Tom Bennett and many more, make the case to move away from this uneducational economic approach, to instead embrace a more humane, more democratic approach to education. This approach is called ‘flipping the system’, a move that places teachers exactly where they need to be - at the steering wheel of educational systems worldwide. This book will appeal to teachers and other education professionals around the world.

This book explores the advantages of and challenges concerning Special Religious Education (SRE) in multicultural Australia and argues for the need for General Religious Education (GRE) as well. Through the lens of the most recent scholarship, and drawing on an in-depth qualitative study and specific case studies, the book examines the current debate on the role of religious education within government schools. It addresses key concepts of values education, spirituality, health and wellbeing, and cultural and religious identity. It analyses why it is important to retain SRE, together with GRE, as government policy. It explores highly relevant, controversial and contested issues regarding SRE, including the 30% of Australia’s population who declare themselves as having “no religion”, and brings fresh insights to the table. While secularization has increased in both the national and international spheres, there has also been an increase in fundamentalism within religious beliefs. Events such as the September 11 terror attacks and the more recent mass shootings by white supremacists and eco-fascists in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Pittsburgh and San Diego in the USA are reminders that religion is still a major actor in the twenty-first century. This poses new challenges for the relationship between church and state, and demonstrates the need to revisit the role of religious education within government schools. While the importance of GRE is generally acknowledged, SRE has increasingly come under attack by some researchers and teacher and parent bodies as being inappropriate and contradictory to the values of the postmodern world. On the other hand, the key stakeholders from all the faith traditions in Australia wish to retain the SRE classes in government schools. The book addresses this burning issue, and shows that it is relevant not only for Australia but also globally.

This book offers a history of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in the Australian context. It presents an approach that links the development of CPD to a series of 'missed opportunities' and the identification of three key themes (mandatory CPD, competencies and regulation/registration) as well as with national regulation for select health professions. It not only relates the evolution of CPD in Australia but also serves as a guide to examining the situation in other countries and the emergence of CPD in individual professions. CPD has been provided for many decades, but it has not been rated as a 'high priority' or a key area of provision and has not been the focus of discussions or disputes in the higher education sector or in vocational education circles. Nevertheless in describing CPD's development, evidence is presented that CPD has made a significant contribution to the broad field of vocational education.