This paper examines the impact of the minerals boom to date on the demand for higher education in Central Queensland, and the sustainability of higher education providers in high economic growth environments. Several datasets were used to examine changes in the demand for higher education among specific student groups within the region, the…

Quantitative methods and secondary data informed by critical realism and a feminist standpoint provide a contemporary snapshot of academic gender ratios in Australian universities, along with historical data, for the entire population of interest. The study is set in the context of the well-researched, worldwide gendered nature of higher education…

Higher education is viewed as part of the national agenda in transforming Malaysia into a high-income nation. This has resulted in a sky-rocketing number of graduates in Malaysia's recent history. Industry relies on higher education as the source of skilled employees, and it is important for industry to attract and retain talented employees…

Projected student enrolment growth places the Australian higher education system on the precipice of significant change, leading to philosophical debates about how the system should respond. One suggested policy change is that resources be redirected from non-research intensive regional universities to other providers. The Liberal Party is the…

In this essay, the authors talk about higher degree supervision as a human relationship, and shares how to supervise a PhD. There's a tendency now to talk about supervision as if it's a technical process one needs to learn the rules of. This paper urges educators to think about this as a human educational relationship, which has all the ups and…

How best to understand the curriculum problem in doctoral research education: that is the question that this paper engages. It begins by noting that curriculum as such is little referenced and inadequately theorised in higher education and certainly in doctoral education, and indeed has been described as a "missing term". The paper then reviews a…

With growing international interest in diversifying sites for pedagogical work within the doctorate, doctoral programmes of different kinds are being developed in different disciplinary, institutional and national settings. However, little is known about how the pedagogical work of these programmes is designed and enacted, and with what effects.…

Successive waves of neoliberal reforms to higher education have taken their toll on the academy. This paper uses the zombie metaphor to discuss the causes and consequences of organisational change on Australian academics as a background to exploring zombiefication as a form of passive resistance and survival. The paper uses the literature and…

The stellar rise of the education export industry in Australian higher education, and the even more spectacular downturn now occurring, mask underlying tensions that have long dogged the industry and prevented it from improving quality or achieving long-term sustainability. The international education programme has been unbalanced by the drive for…

Happiness research provides guidance on what academics can do to increase their satisfaction at work. Changes in external circumstances, such as salary rises, seldom have a lasting effect. More likely to improve long-term happiness levels are exercising well-developed skills, building strong relationships, helping others and cultivating…

The authors want to figure out what happened in Australian post-secondary education over the last 50 or so years and to predict what sort of arrangement their great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, will encounter 50 years hence. To put this modest project another way: what in 2060 might a historian (assuming there are, then,…

This paper examines why the development of a world class university system represents a rational, even inevitable, policy approach for Australia in response to world university rankings. It assembles evidence questioning the value of policies which direct undue emphasis on the concentration of resources and the development of elite universities,…

School choice is most commonly considered in the context of private/public schooling and access to university. University entry remains a key element in family decision-making about which school they would like their children to attend. Debates about school choice are most commonly framed in relation to marketisation and the relative popularity of…

From the inception of post-Colombo Plan international education in Australia, three broad research emphases have been evident: the student as student, as migrant and most recently, as victim. The victim role plays easily into preconceived notions, helping to sustain an exploiter and exploited framework in which deeper issues remain unaddressed.…

The "Review of Higher Education in Australia" (the Bradley Review) has recommended a massive expansion in the level of domestic training in Australian universities. This article examines the Report's rationale for rejecting the previous orthodoxy that there is no need for such expansion and, to the extent that there is, it would be better focussed…