This paper explores a proposal for an off-line e-learning platform that will provide a bridge for digitally unconnected students and educators to join the contemporary information and communications technology (ICT) intensive world. Individual remote and unconnected learners face a chicken and egg problem for engagement with contemporary…

The importance of pre-service teacher training regarding environmental education (EE) has been vastly demonstrated. This systematic review examined the existing evidence from studies evaluating and analysing the relationship between EE, including environmental competences and pre-service primary school teacher training. The literature review…

The concept of research-led education is gaining increasing attention in higher education. However, the concept may be interpreted in different ways, some more feasible within an undergraduate curriculum than others. The approach described in this paper aims to introduce students to ways of thinking and acting like a researcher through engaging in…

The development of entrepreneurial skills and knowledge is a priority for governments that want to encourage an innovative and enterprising society. Furthermore, education institutions are becoming increasingly required by employers to produce graduates that have practical, real-world skills. Business plan competitions, although primarily aimed at…

Western Australia Department of Training is supporting a Literacy and Numeracy Pilot in which providers identify the literacy and numeracy skills their projects address, how skill needs are assessed, and what strategies are used to deliver instruction. Three industries are targeted for the pilot, which attempts to make literacy and numeracy…

Through successive rounds of negotiations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) encourages countries to commit their higher education system to the mandates of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The WTO is an organization committed to the aggressive trade liberalization of services like higher education. This ideology, known as…

The Australian education system should consider introducing vouchers according to one recommendation in a schools commission discussion document which looks at commonwealth-state arrangements for funding government and non-government schools. (Author)

During 2002, the Australian Education Minister conducted a year-long review of tertiary education under the title "Higher Education at the Crossroads." The policy statement arising from that review was released on 13 May 2003. It incorporates a combination of new financial incentives on students and universities, potential expansion of…

In New South Wales as for other Australian colonies, the achievement of mainly free, compulsory and secular public education systems in the 1870s was a cause of self- satisfaction and a belief that late nineteenth-century Australian public schools were among the best in the world. In this paper, the process by which this self-satisfaction was…