This study found that a large number of students with visual impairments in public and private schools in New South Wales come from culturally diverse backgrounds, that teacher training does not incorporate multicultural perspectives, and that instructors and itinerant vision teachers lack knowledge and skills to teach from a multicultural…

Efforts to ensure that graduates leave university with the skills needed for career wide lifelong learning have been the focus of much activity at universities both nationally and internationally for over a decade. In this paper, we describe three projects aimed at developing student skills as part of the discipline content in line with current…

This report compares the provision of vocational education and training (VET) in Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom. It finds that training policies are increasingly based on similar general principles which promote the improvement and reform of vocational education and training, although the implementation of these principles tends to…

Although there is a general consensus that teachers are important for student learning, there is little discussion of the process by which teachers are employed by schools: the teacher labour market. We argue, based on a mix of a priori and inductive reasoning, that inflexible attitudes about comparative wages have contributed toward chronic…

Technology transfer managers are a new group of specialist professionals engaged in facilitating transfer of university research discoveries and inventions to business firms and other research users. With relatively high academic qualifications and enjoying higher salaries than many other comparable university staff, technology transfer managers…

A review of the literature identified social, cultural, and work-related issues that may affect the retention and selection of qualified human services staff in rural areas. A survey of 60 rural professionals and follow-up interviews examined attitudes toward living in rural areas, skills required by rural human services organizations, and gaps in…

The people responsible for managing school computing resources in Australia have become known as Computing Coordinators. To date there has been no large systematic study of the role, responsibilities and characteristics of this position. This paper represents a first attempt to provide information on the functions and attributes of the Computing…

This booklet is one in a series that has been written for the general reader who wants to understand important trends in vocational education and training in Australia. Its focus is competency-based training and assessment. The booklet starts with the specific working environment of a blackjack dealer in a casino and explores the meaning of…

A study examined the overall structure of Australia's engineering technical work force, the relationships between occupations in each branch and level of the engineering work force, and the job functions of each occupational cluster. The primary purpose of the study was to gather data to assist Technical and Further Education (TAFE) curriculum…

A study assessed the continuing education needs of Australia's Technical and Further Education (TAFE) senior staff (who were defined as spending 50 percent or more of their time on college administration as opposed to teaching). A literature search, interviews, and submissions were the principal sources of data for the needs assessment. The…

Reports findings from a survey of 215 reentry education providers in 3 Australian states. Few providers possess formal qualifications in adult education, but most are favorably disposed toward working with reentry students. Such students were perceived to have high academic success rates, but also high withdrawal rates. Recommendations are made…

Analyzes the Adey Report on National Standards and Guidelines for Initial Teacher Education regarding its potential contribution to Australia's teacher education reform, identifying the logic of its arguments and the context in which it places itself, discussing how it constructs graduates, exploring its goal of preparing a profession, and…

VET has an important role in providing equitable access to post-school opportunities for education and training, but is not satisfactorily discharging its responsibilities in relation to Australians with a disability. 16.7% of the working age population were estimated to have a disability in 1998, but only 4.5% of VET enrolments were students with…

This investigation identified major problems in pre-employment and early employment stages of new full-time lecturers in the South Australia Department of Further Education (DFE). Twelve new and twelve established lecturers participated in a seminar to identify beginning teachers' problems. In addition, slightly less than 32% of the November 1976…

A research project attempted to obtain data regarding the characteristics and background of provisionally-registered teachers in Queensland, Australia. Board of Teacher Education reports on 3,334 provisionally-registered teachers between December 1982 and July 1984 were analyzed in regard to: demographic characteristics such as age, sex,…