The NSW Government, with collaborators including UTS, announce “world-first” guidelines on safe work with “collaborative robots.”

 

In Features this morning

The pitch for merging Uni Adelaide and Uni SA is it would, “unlock benefits far beyond collaboration and scale, making transformational investments in both teaching and research,” (CMM December 8). It might well work for research – as Nicholas Fisk and Daniel Owens (UNSW) explain HERE.

with Robert Vanderburg and Anthony Weber (both CQU) on students as partners against cheating. Sally Kift’s first 2023 selection for her series, Needed now in learning and teaching,  HERE.

and Amanda Janssen (Uni SA) and Amy Milka (Uni Adelaide) report on academic integrity experts responding to the challenge of ChatGPT.

(No CMM tomorrow, back Friday)

 

UNESCO dedicated it to the girls and women of Afghanistan, “who have been denied their right to learn, study and teach”

Worth mentioning in the ministerial announcement Australia’s long-expected ratification of the global convention on qualifications, (CMM HERE and HERE) as a reminder of where the benefits of education do not reach?

Apparently not.

by CLAIRE FIELD

key Commonwealth agencies specify what’s needed

Anyone wondering if the new government shares the same concerns as their predecessors about Australia’s international education sector (especially the lack of diversity in higher education) would only have to read three submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade’s ‘Inquiry into Australia’s Tourism and International Education Sectors’ to find the answer.

And that answer is a resounding yes – universities in particular will need to do better.

The Department of Education’s submission argues the need for more diversity, noting that in public universities the top five student source markets represented 72 per cent of international enrolments in 2021. They also note the drop in international student satisfaction during COVID (down from 75 per cent to 67 per cent) and go on to highlight that “Australia was falling behind competitors in international student satisfaction prior to COVID-19” and that “international students seek greater engagement with domestic students and Australian communities.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s submission reiterates the importance of the focus on diversity in the Australian Strategy for International Education (2022-2030). Their submission also emphasises the importance of a positive international student experience and also notes the drop in student satisfaction, as well as emphasising the need for more connections between international students and the Australian community.

Austrade’s submission echoes these concerns and also focuses on risk, noting that “there are significant risks for providers who are overly dependent on a small number of student source markets.” They go on to highlight that “pandemic impacts, such as the depleted wealth profiles of families sending students and uncertainty regarding the potential reintroduction of restrictions, is driving some students to study closer to home or to undertake part of their studies from home (online or locally available TNE) before transferring to Australia.”

VET providers should also be preparing for change.

The Department of Education and Austrade submissions both focus on the quality issues in parts of the international VET sector.

ASQA goes further – arguing in its submission for training providers to be required to meet a more comprehensive suite of governance practices (through revisions to the Standards for RTOs). They also argue the need for new measures to regulate education agents and potentially for ASQA to regulate non-AQF offshore delivery by RTOs.

Claire Field is an advisor to the tertiary education sector. She has produced a comprehensive analysis of the changes currently impacting Australian higher education, international education, VET and EdTech.

Soldiers are said to prepare for the last conflict – not this veteran

ANU Press publishes Come Hell or high fever: readying the world’s megacities for disaster by former US Army officer Russell W Glenn, previously at the university’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. “Recovery considerations ought to be organic to disaster plans,” he argues.

Its free to download here.

Yet another original, important book from the ever-innovative ANUP.

Universities are sold hard to future students (CMM yesterday) but people who find their way to training are happy

The estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research reports its 2022 student survey results, including,

* 88 per cent of qualification completers were satisfied with training “overall”

* 65 per cent of qualification completers had “improved employment status” (up 4 per cent on the ’21 survey)

* 73 per cent trained for “employment related reasons”

* 87 per cent of completers “achieved their main reason for training”

And 33 per cent of completers were happy-enough with the product to commence further study.

“We are committed to addressing our history, its legacies and contemporary racism, by taking action to respond to and prevent racism in all of its forms at the University of Melbourne,” 

In a statement released late yesterday the university committed to developing an anti-racism action plan through, “on-going consultation with our university community and informed by the lived experience of our students and staff.”

It is based on a four-part commitment, a university definition of racism, a statement on the historical context of racism at Uni Melbourne, defining Islamaphobia and antisemitism and its anti-racism, “vision and commitment.“ It also includes,

“curricula, broadly conceived to include what we teach, the materials we use, and our pedagogies

* “hiring practices, including how we determine and assess the capabilities we seek in leaders and colleagues, and

* “student selection procedures, including the attributes we stipulate for our students and how we assess them.

“We commit to take action to respond to and prevent racism at the University of Melbourne,” the university states.

The commitment to addressing the university context may build on last year’s announcement of a project at the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, to “examine the relationship between Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne from its foundation in 1853 until the present, (CMM August 19 2022).

 

 

The Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences announces four new members of its mentorship programme, Pascal Duijf (QUT), Kristin Gainey (UWA), Gavin Pereira (Curtin U) and Natasha Rogers (Westmead IMR and Uni Sydney).

Mark Erickson becomes registrar at Uni Southern Queensland). He moves from academic registrar at Uni Queensland.

Kalinda Griffiths is incoming director of Poche SA+NT, Flinders U’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research centre. She moves from UNSW.

Mark Hughes (Southern Cross U) is the new e-i-c of the Australasian Journal on Ageing.