Traditional practical classes in many countries are being rationalised to reduce costs. The challenge for university educators is to provide students with the opportunity to reinforce theoretical concepts by running something other than a traditional practical program. One alternative is to replace wet labs with comparable computer simulations.…

This article analyses the educational visions put forward by Australian federal politicians in their maiden (first) speeches to Parliament. The theoretical approach was a Habermasian-based analysis of the communication strategies adopted by the politicians, meaning that it was not only the content of the speeches but also the delivery that was the…

School-sector differences in student performance are often viewed as largely reflecting the intake characteristics of students and having little to do with differences in the provision of teaching and learning between school sectors. The contrary view is that school-sector differences show that non-government schools "add value" to student…

There has recently been a shift towards private expenditure in the tertiary education sector accompanied by a shift of public subsidies to students themselves. Implicit in this shift is the message that tertiary education is a private rather than public good, belonging to individual students rather than society. This paper explores the research on…

Transnational higher education is a rapidly growing phenomenon that is under-researched and often even misunderstood. As the world's most promising market, China has the potential to dwarf all traditional offshore markets. Little research has been done to seriously analyse the fast growth in China. A sound understanding of the Chinese situation…

There is a wide variety of universities, university campuses and university courses in Australia available to those interested in pursuing a higher education degree. This paper examines the impact of increasing competition for entrance to university on the educational outcomes for students from the government school sector. Using Melbourne as a…

This paper reports on a study conducted into how one cohort of Master of Teaching pre-service visual art teachers perceived their learning in a fully online learning environment. Located in an Australian urban university, this qualitative study provided insights into a number of areas associated with higher education online learning, including…

Universities in Australia are expanding their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies programs to include Indigenous populations from around the globe. This is also the case for the Indigenous Studies Unit at the University of Wollongong (UOW). Although systems of nomenclature in Indigenous Studies seek to be respectful of difference, the…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a Malaysian translation of the 22-item Approaches to Teaching Inventory for application in higher education. The Approaches to Teaching Inventory was a quantitative measure used by teachers of higher education to gauge their own teaching approaches that had been psychometrically assessed and widely used in…

As a teacher educator I am concerned with developing understandings of my teaching as it evolves over time, in relation to the university teaching context and more broadly in terms understandings of teaching practice. In this paper, I outline the development of a framework designed for this purpose. The Relational Framework for Investigating…

This paper explores the experiences of three teachers as novice researchers as they taught full-time in a university English language school in Turkey. Viewing the participants' experiences as researchers through a narrative understanding of teacher knowledge and a critical literacy lens enhanced their critical cognisance of their positioning…

This article presents a number of possibilities that digital technologies can offer to increase access for Indigenous people to higher education in Australia. Such technologies can assist Indigenous high school students acquire the knowledge and skills they require to be accepted into higher education courses. They can also assist Indigenous…

Education for Sustainability (EfS) has an intimate relationship with professional employment as we seek to develop graduates who will take EfS values and understanding into their workplaces to build a sustainable future. The connection is through the capabilities that employers are wanting in the people they employ, and they are the outcomes of…

Higher education institutions are considered by many to be pivotal in shaping the next generation of thinkers and practitioners required to further work towards addressing the sustainability challenges faced by contemporary societies. The extent to which higher education has embraced this responsibility is debateable. Notwithstanding, this article…

The expectation is that higher education curricula which purports to incorporate education for sustainable development (ESD) supports university graduates in becoming more sustainable. It would then follow that if academics are to offer such curricula they need to be adequately equipped with the motivations, knowledge and skills to teach it.…