The demand for higher education in Australia is examined, and several hypotheses concerning the estimated effect of youth unemployment and the traditional human capital variables of the opportunity cost of education and expected future returns are evaluated using a previously developed demand model. (Author/MSE)

The article presents a comparative analysis of educational policy and provision in Sweden and Australia, with particular emphasis on the relative investment in continuing and further education in both countries. The authors investigate the extent to which further education opportunities provide a "second chance" at learning for adults…

Despite rapid growth of educational enrollments in response to labor market demands for educated workers, there remains a shortage of full-time jobs and a gap between real wage growth and changing educational quality of the workforce. It is possible that a better educated workforce can make only limited contributions to economic growth or that…

Reviews research on the current status of skill requirements in Australian industries, industry demand for vocational education and training, ways in which enterprises perceive training (cost or investment), and vocational education in secondary schools. Derives implications for career development, including increased demand for flexibility and…

In an evolving business environment characterised by globalisation and a challenging competitive paradigm, it is imperative for strategic management processes to focus on the financial perspectives of value and risk in intellectual capital to create sustainability in long-term value. This paper presents the key issues pertaining to the strategic…

This study investigated whether adult literacy and numeracy courses produced social capital outcomes, which are changes in students' connections with networks of people. Interviews seeking information about participation in adult literacy and numeracy courses were conducted with 57 students and 18 teachers in four courses, one each in the Northern…

Australian public policy adopted the concept of lifelong learning in the 1980s and harnessed it to human capital theory to articulate a new policy emphasis on "up-skilling" the Australian labour force. This paper addresses the question of how this conception of lifelong learning has fared in practice as Australian Commonwealth government…

Discussion of the need for an Australian national information policy focuses on the need to teach students information skills. Arguments for a policy are presented, including the higher life quality of an informed population and improved national productivity and competitiveness, and lobbying efforts to date are reviewed. (21 notes with…

This document reports the findings of seven case studies undertaken as part of a larger research project on the measuring and reporting of intellectual capital, being conducted by an Australian research team. The case studies aimed to investigate in more detail the approach of seven Australian organizations and enterprises to the recording and…

Using case studies from seven rural and regional areas, this report looks at the impact of schools and vocational education and training (VET) on community capacity. It finds that communities have developed different models to organise school-VET partnerships and that rural areas are more likely to adopt a whole-of-community model, while regional…

Innovation, from high profile scientific discoveries to lower profile changes in processes or practices, is crucial to Australia's economic development. However, its impact on the wider community is usually relatively small. Promotion of innovation across all sectors is required to produce the biggest changes. This report focuses on the roles of…

An analysis of the economic returns of education in Australia finds a rising need for education at a time of diminishing apparent returns. It is proposed that the notions of credentialism and education as a positional good provide a better explanation for this phenomenon than does the human capital approach. (MSE)

Skill is a social construct that assumes different meanings in particular historical circumstances. This paper explains how the dominant concept of skill has shifted in twentieth-century Australia from being job- and content-specific to a more generic view (embracing cognitive, technical, and operational, social, and affective skills) that…

The "new" economics of education replaces the "old" economics expressed in human capital theory, which viewed education as contributing to individual enhancement and ultimately to economic betterment. The "old" economics foundered on the rising levels of youth unemployment, a result of declining productivity and…

Implicit in the human capital approach of 20th-century educational rhetoric in Australia was the belief that schools imparted vocationally useful cognitive skills beyond basic literacy and numeracy. These skills were believed to be transferable to the workplace and to increase the productivity of the individual to the benefit of society. For…