The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities and inequalities of national education systems and hindered the education of millions of children globally. In response, the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Centre, which is a long-term, strategic partnership between the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the…

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected children's care and education worldwide. This article reports on patterns of participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) across Australia as influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and national policies. Using ECEC data from Xplor -- a software platform used across Australian childcare…

Crisis makes bold policy actions possible. In responding to socioeconomic and technological ruptures, policymakers create new imaginaries or revitalise existing ones. With the Australian Government's Job-Ready Graduates (JRG) reform during the COVID-19 pandemic as an empirical case, this paper shows how crisis instrumentalism and policy…

In its response to COVID-19 in 2020, the Australian Government excluded international students from the temporary financial assistance it offered most permanent residents. This article examines the status of international student welfare as a policy question before and during the pandemic, and discusses post-pandemic policy implications. It draws…

The 2014 national curriculum of Australia is a significant initiative that the Australian government has taken in proposing a curriculum that stresses Australia's engagement with Asia. In practice, this means that Asian cultures, beliefs, environments and the connections between Australia and Asia are embedded in the learning processes of…

The Dawkins white paper of 1988 was introduced by the Australian government to reshape the Higher Education (HE) landscape. Dawkins' discussion paper of 1990, Nelson's policy document of 2003, the Bradley Review of 2008 and the Lomax-Smith Review of 2011 built on and extended Dawkins' white paper. Such policy reforms have transformed the culture…

In March 2020, the Australian government introduced a raft of public health initiatives to curb the rising cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) including closing schools and work from home orders. As a group of female academics, we were immediately attuned to the potential of COVID-19 to dilute progress made towards reducing the academic…

This paper revisits the issue of institutional diversity in Australian higher education, taking account of international trends and research on the subject. Drawing on empirical studies over the last three decades, I adopt a within-country case study approach to analysing institutional diversity in the Australian higher education policy context…

"Research Messages 2021" highlights the diverse range of research activities undertaken over the past year by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). In 2021, research was shaped both by the VET (vocational education and training) reform agenda, and issues emerging from the pandemic. The 2021 national VET research…

Following the 1989 unified higher education reforms, the Australian academic research system was built upon the notion of depoliticisation (i.e., keeping the political character of decision at one remove from governance) to govern the contradiction between research credibility and governmental economic priorities. The article argues that the…

Research messages is a summary of research produced by NCVER each year. This year's compilation includes a range of research activities undertaken during 2023, comprising of research reports, summaries, occasional papers, presentations, webinars, consultancies, submissions, the 32nd 'No Frills' national research conference, and various additions…

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity to examine the initial policies developed by Australian, Canadian, English, German, Greek and Irish governments to limit the spread of the virus. This has revealed governments' conceptualisation of the early childhood sector and its workforce. This paper argues that neoliberal ideology and…

Over the last 18 months, the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had dramatic implications for education systems across the globe. In Australia, state and territory governments have worked in consultation with one another and the federal government to respond to outbreaks. State-level policymakers have introduced the measures and…

This paper engages with current debate on the role of the university following COVID-19, exposing the ongoing corruption of traditional values of the tertiary sector, and the shift in teaching and learning expectations across the academy. It highlights the negative impact of the huge decline in government funding since the 1990s, salary inequity,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major disrupter in the Australian early childhood education (ECE) sector. ECE educators had to respond quickly to frequent surprises and risky challenges. Their stressful, exhausting experiences as they constantly managed change are explored in this paper. The study used an interpretive social constructionist…