Purpose: This article maps the rise of venture philanthropy in public education in Australia, exploring how policy networks mobilize high-level systemic reform and governance technologies. This is "philanthrocapitalism," a fundamental shift for policy mobility and modes of redistribution. Design/Approach/Methods: Drawing upon network…

National curricula influence, and are influenced by, political agendas. Understanding political enmeshment (both overt and covert) in curriculum development is therefore vital for ensuring transparency and quality in curricula. This paper analyses how the Australian Curriculum is represented in the federal Education Ministers' media releases.…

Schooling in Australia has become subject to increased processes of data-based governance. This article draws upon the insights of an experienced teacher, 'Meriam', who, having taught more than 34-years over almost a 50-year span, reflected upon the nature of such changes. Utilising theorising in relation to datafication processes and…

This article explores the rise of digitalisation in Australian higher education and its impact on learning and teaching, administration, and regulatory obligations. This digitalisation can be epitomised by the prevalence of learning management systems (LMS) which have reshaped the conduct and configuration of education. As universities have…

Considerable efforts have been made to better understand how global trends toward standards-based reforms have emerged in national education systems. Less well known, however, is the unfolding of standards-based reforms within and across federal education systems. In federal systems, national governments do not make policy unilaterally, but rather…

As student voice has become popularised as a school reform strategy, it has been critiqued as another instrumental strategy that schools may use to govern students' speech, bodies and subjectivities. What necessitates further analysis is the relation between student voice and regulatory modes of governance entwined with geopolitical attention to…

The year 2020 began with grand ideas about building future higher education. Thereafter universities have been through a constant swirl of uncertainties and confusions as they respond to a novel suite of radically reconfigured fundamentals and prospects. This essay charts this journey in order to document 2020 experiences and to clarify evolving…

University law schools have been beset with a sense of schizophrenia ever since first established in the 19th century. They were unsure as to whether they were free to teach and research in the same way as the humanities or whether they were constrained by the presuppositions of legal practice. More recently, this tension has been overshadowed by…

This paper reports on the findings of a genealogical study and argues that the global discourse of quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is based on a number of problematic assumptions that converge to identify 'quality' as the site of government investment. Using the Australian policy context as an example, the assumption that only…

In this paper, we use the development of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) as an illustrative case to examine how national schooling reforms are assembled in Australia's federal system. Drawing upon an emerging body of research on "policy assemblage" within the fields of policy sociology, anthropology and critical…

This occasional paper provides the views of 17 "thought leaders" in the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector. Their insight and opinions were sought to inform a larger research project focused on the student entitlement reforms that were introduced into the national VET system from 2012. These individuals offered a…

This paper explores the repositioning of state curriculum agencies in response to the establishment of the Australian Curriculum and the key national policy organisation responsible for its development: the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). I begin with an analysis of the federal Labor government's role in the…

Quality outcomes from vocational education and training (VET) are fundamental to ensuring a skilled workforce and supporting a productive economy. In a competency-based training system, assessment is the gatekeeper for quality. Audits undertaken by the Australian Skills and Quality Authority (ASQA) have identified concerns with compliance against…

This article draws on the sociology of Basil Bernstein to show how his detailed theories of "recontextualisation" and the "pedagogic device" provide useful analytic levers to examine the politics of educational change. We focus on recent policy developments that have significantly impacted Australian school education: the…

The higher education policy of the previous Australian government aimed to achieve an internationally competitive higher education sector while expanding access opportunities to all Australians. This policy agenda closely reflects global trends that focus on achieving both quality and equity objectives. In this paper, the formulation and…