In this paper a comparison is made between the structure and operations of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council and the Ako Aotearoa National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence of New Zealand. Both of these organisations were established in the mid 2000s and were created at a time when higher education institutions in both countries…

Significant efforts have now been made to identify the generic competencies required to succeed across different workplace contexts. The aims of this paper were to: (i) outline factors that contributed to the increased demand for generic competencies seen over the last three decades; and (ii) review the early generic competency frameworks…

This paper puts forward the view that engineering educators have a responsibility to prepare graduates for engineering work and careers. The current literature reveals gaps between the competencies required for engineering work and those developed in engineering education. Generic competencies feature in these competency gaps. Literature suggests…

There have been various published histories of Australasian universities but none as rich as the two most recent relating to the universities of Sydney (1991) and Melbourne (2003). The latter, in particular, was the catalyst for this exploratory study. How was it that at a time when many major British cities lacked a university institution, towns…

This issue is devoted to the publication of a doctoral thesis by Dr. David McKenzie, one of New Zealand's leading educational historians. The research in this essay was completed over 30 years ago. Inevitably, the standpoint from which it was written has altered with the passage of time. No one then, for example, could have predicted the strength…

Since 1989, when it became legally possible for private higher education to operate in New Zealand, the sector has grown to become a significant part of the country's higher education system. This paper explores the private penetration, traces the changes that have occurred in private higher education, and evaluate the sector's position in New…

Throughout Australasia, indigenous educational issues remain a subject of considerable debate. In New Zealand, Maori underachievement in education has long been a matter of widespread concern. Currently the most highly visible professional development programme now operating in New Zealand mainstream secondary schools, Te Kotahitanga claims to…

The historical development of teacher education in New Zealand manifests several major contradictions and tensions. One if these involves two conflicting models of teacher education that have historically struggled for dominance. The first model holds teaching to be an essentially practical craft involving classroom management, whilst the second…

From the late 1860s, when they were established in New Zealand, the district high (now area) schools have sought to provide academically able rural youth with the opportunity to study a high status, abstract, examination-oriented curriculum. This curriculum enabled them to pursue clerical and professional careers in the towns and cities. However,…

In this paper, it is argued that it is the centrality of the liberatory function of education--its "onto-formative" capacity--that has been most severely compromised through the contemporary recasting of "education" as both a marketable commodity (externalized knowledge) and a particular form of institutional activity…

Over the last 25 years there has been a growing corpus of literature internationally on the history of teachers. During the 1980s, educational historians in the United States became particularly active in developing this general field. However, the general field of the history of Catholic teachers' lives is still much under-researched…