Major changes in government policy and institutional management have impacted adversely on Australian university academics who tend to be highly critical of the new directions and their effects on the academic profession. Academics strongly oppose reduced government funding per student unit, higher workloads and new styles of corporatist…

Australian university administration is compared with that in India, and emphasis is placed on the relationship between higher education and government. (LBH)

Describes Australia's retirement income arrangements, including age pension, private pensions, changes in provisions by the federal government, and factors that shaped changes. Notes that difficulties experienced by the government in introducing changes underscore political sensitivity of retirement income policy in Australia. (Author/NB)

Discusses the changing perception of information from a public good to a private commodity and the implications of this change for information providers and users. The situation in Australia is described, including the government's emerging policy on information as a commodity and its effects on libraries and users. (25 notes with references) (CLB)

The author sums up the findings of research on the psychological effects of unemployment and of a variety of work experience schemes in which unemployed people participate. The article focuses on school leavers in Australia. (CT)

In October 1995, the Australian Parliament received the report of the Senate's Environment, Recreation, Communications and the Arts Reference Committee, entitled "Arts Education." This report was released just prior to an election and, as a result, its recommendations were subsequently ignored. These recommendations, some responsibility…

Although research findings endorse abandonment of traditional skills-based views of literacy, governments are instituting models of literacy learning with psychometric measures and benchmarking. Literacy, learning, and teaching are being taken out of the hands of teachers. (SK)

The debate about work-family relationships must focus on the nature of family life, the place of women in the new economy, the needs of children, and the future of an aging population. Because the workplace has limited capacity to meet work-family needs, partnerships with government services are needed. (JOW)

"Fiscal" and other so-called "crises" in Australian universities are more fundamentally, it is argued in this article, crises of government decision and "governmentality". Using an illustrative "morality tale" drawn from their working knowledge of the Australian university sector, the authors take a…

This paper provides an example of micro-planning which involves community, government and non-government organisations both in the context of immigrants' source and host countries. The community in question is the Hungarian diaspora in Australia. The language planning activities are aimed at maintaining an immigrant heritage language and identity.…

Society is becoming increasingly aware of the need for education to play a key role in integrating knowledge and understanding about sustainability into practical, vocational skills which can be used in the workplace. Education for sustainability is now a widely accepted concept which seeks to promote and develop sustainability skills and…

This paper on quality and distance education argues that if the goal of education is to produce an independent learner, distance education is ideally suited to encourage effective independent learning when the instruction and programming is of a high quality. The paper first notes the Australian government's interest in promoting distance…

The author attempts to reflect accurately the present dichotomy in adult education many Australians feel between established institutions, especially universities, and the processes of change emanating from both government and ground-swell activity and need. A perpetual tug-of-war between "Federal" and "State" elements is…

The organization and funding of educational research in Australia since 1970 has been significantly affected by shifts in the control of the federal government from one political party to another and back. No central policy or focus for educational research existed in Australia until 1970, when the conservative government founded the Australian…

These three papers outline the technological issues confronting the Department of Technical and Further Education (TAFE). The first paper describes the technological dimensions of the Department of TAFE. It establishes the role of technology within the department and the four avenues through which the department influences the technological future…