One aspect of the role and responsibilities of education councils in Australia is addressed in this paper: that of the council and its accountability to the community. Three major sections are presented. Part One discusses the two difficult concepts of accountability and community. The second part presents some data on how council members appear…

Legal and historical issues in the establishment and maintenance of the office of University Visitor in Australian universities are examined, and pertinent British and Australian legislation is cited. The traditional and disputed role of the Visitor as a liaison between corporation and government is discussed, and recent court litigation is…

Globalization has brought market and business practices into universities, but with serious negative ramifications. Interviews with 253 U.S. and Australian faculty, plus additional data drawn from New Zealand and Canadian studies, focused on the rise of performance-based accountability and corporate managerialism and their effects on faculty…

The Australian government's reform policy treats education as a mechanism for economic development. To achieve national goals, the government is stressing skills education, private-sector involvement in skills education, increased participation in education, increased school retention rates, improvement in overall education quality, and…

The complexity of principals' work may be characterized according to three dilemmas: accountability, autonomy, and efficiency. Narrative vignettes of 74 Australian principals revealed that principals were fair and inclusive. When faced with restructuring dilemmas, however, they favored strong over shared leadership, efficiency over collaboration,…

Discusses the nature of school restructuring in Australia and provides a justification for restructuring predicated on improving teaching and learning. Provides various restructuring frameworks, recognizes the need to clarify qualifying conditions, and addresses ways to overcome implementation problems. Ambiguity and ambivalence over…

In this article, the author provides some examples to illustrate broader points about accountability and reporting. The examples are based on a study of teachers in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, undertaken for the NSW government ("Time to Teach, Time to Learn," 2003). The study reviewed teaching practices surrounding…

When state governments in Australia decentralized many administrative responsibilities to schools in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was assumed that they would develop fresh management, development, and governance capacities. In general, such decentralization attempted to replace bureaucracies with corporate management, limit school evaluation…

This paper describes the experience of a large, complex school system (the Catholic Education System of the Sydney, Australia, Archdiocese) in implementing processes designed to ensure and enhance quality educational outcomes for 62,000 students. The case study details the practice and experience of working at system and school levels over a…

Accountability in education in Australia is considered, including some of the causes for the present concern for accountability of tertiary institutions and strategies that might improve the situation. Different views on the role of educational institutions, ambiguities associated with the notion of public accountability, and current difficulties…

A feasibility study has been conducted in Australia to investigate school and teacher objectives and practices in the development of oracy, to determine oracy skills agreed to be important, and to assess the feasibility and desirability of testing competence in oracy. The need for oracy assessment arises from a need for schools to account for…

This book consists of 16 selected papers that focus on the broad topic of new trends in Australian education. All the papers were originally presented at the Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Australian College of Education, which was held in May 1976. Titles of the papers include "Perspectives on Recent Changes in Australian…

In April 1999, the (Australian) Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs established a taskforce on making educational equality for Indigenous peoples a national priority; enhancing the performance and monitoring framework for the National Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Programme (IESIP); and developing…

In 1976 a questionnaire designed to gather information about methods to determine the allocation of staff within tertiary institutions in Australia was mailed to universities and colleges. The results are discussed including methods of allocation, student-load/staff ratios, staff contact hours, and sabbatical and study leave provisions. (MLW)

Examines the policy context of the adoption of competency-based training (CBT), including in English as a Second Language. The article argues that, although it is doubtful that CBT can deliver the substantive economic, educational, and equity goals claimed for it, it fulfilled important political and management objectives for the Labor government.…