The authors reflect critically on their experiences of teaching research methods/methodology/techniques (MMT) courses in human geography for the first time. Through a highly reflexive process involving journaling, they engage with the broader scholarship of teaching and learning approach. Three themes characterize commonalities in their…

Narrative inquiry is an innovative means of encouraging students to internalize concepts, reflect on experiences or create applications for theoretical ideas. The use of first-person creative writing in a second-year cultural geography course prompted initial scepticism from students but eventually highlighted their constructivist engagement with…

This article examines the deregulation of the overseas student sector that took place in Australia during the mid-1980s. It focuses specifically upon the short-term English- language courses that were sold to students from the People's Republic of China. The article suggests that the Hawke government's policy of encouraging Australian language…

The South African public higher education system is at a point of transition as the mould of segregation is broken through a process of mergers and incorporations. This paper reports a study of governance at this transitional stage. Using case studies of 12 institutions, representative of the system as a whole, four types of governance were…

Where are university administrators placed in texts that are centred around universities? There appears to be either a total confusion in terminology about administration or a complete disregard for administrators' work but in most cases administrative staff in universities are largely invisible. This paper explores a range of texts (academic,…

Australian higher education's interest in performance dates back to the 1960s but intensified during the 1990s, with the increasing focus on measuring outputs and outcomes rather than input. This development has been partly prompted by greater interest in quality assurance mechanisms and the recent advent of the Australian Universities Quality…

Drawing on theories and concepts in ecology, higher education and its environment are perceived here as an ecosystem. Issues of collaboration versus competition, survival of the fittest versus mutualism, organisational ecology theories, and the pursuit of harmony and balance through diversity within are explored in the higher education context.…

This paper discusses the implications for higher education of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations towards the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS; see http://www.wto.org/) from the perspective of Australian educational institutions.

This paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of the school-to-work transition of Canadian post-secondary graduates based on three waves of the National Graduates Surveys, representing those who successfully completed their programmes at Canadian colleges and universities in 1982, 1986, and 1990. Information was gathered during…

This paper examines the relationships between Australian universities and their offshore partners as they deliver Australian academic programmes in the South-East Asian region. Australian universities have signed over 1000 agreements with offshore universities, industry associations, and private providers, and it is estimated that around 36% of…

This study examines student perspectives on their deferral and withdrawal from arts courses at Monash University during 2000. The research highlights a commonly unacknowledged difference between students in first semester and in second semester: it suggests that temporary and even permanent withdrawal in the early part of the academic year is most…

Universities provide a competitive environment that in some ways resembles the sporting field. But unlike the arrangements made for disabled athletes, for whom separated fields of competition are available, disabled students are required to enter into open competition with non-disabled students. To make this open competition fair, students with…

This paper critically examines a recent book about the University of Melbourne. It uses this as a case study to explore traditional conceptions of the university in the Western tradition, and aspects of the Australian debate about government policies and institutional strategies.

Australian universities, like their counterparts in most Western countries, have suffered a dramatic reduction in the level of public funding in recent years. One issue on the horizon that is of relevance to students and universities is the latter's exposure to National Competition Policy and, more specifically, the Trade Practices Act. Recent…

Institutions outside the US have been relatively slow to develop a formally constituted institutional research capacity (rather than undertaking research into institutional functioning as the need is perceived), perhaps because of differences in the way that higher education is organised in their countries. Some examples of engagements in UK…