The first Jobs and Skill Australia bills passed the Reps yesterday. Once in the Senate it will not take long there (CMM September 9 ). More legislation will follow but this is the start of a new model for making post school education and training policy.

Australian Catholic U will deliver the degree

The NSW state government adopts Teach for Australia, whereby mid-career professionals train to become school teachers.  People in the NSW programme will do a masters of teaching with Australian Catholic U.

“This is not about cutting corners; it is about rethinking the way we do teacher training to ensure future teachers have the hands-on experience they need to build their confidence and improve their practice,” says Education Minister Sarah Mitchell.

The coalition government signalled in 2020 it would bring the programme to NSW.

The Quality Initial Teacher Education Review last year made the case for programmes like TFA, “the prior learning of well‑qualified, suitable, mid‑career changers with skills in areas of high demand should be better recognised, with the goal of reducing to one year the time taken to complete a secondary teaching qualification.” QITR called for  “securing long term funding” for it.

In Expert Opinion this morning

Virginia Barbour (Open Access Australasia) on the National Health and Medical Research Council’s big open access move, (episode 16) HERE .

and in Features

Brett Mason has written a book on the achievements of great Aus scientists, Florey and Oliphant. John Byron (QUT) rates it, really rates it – HERE.

plus the Australian Collaborative Education Network Board on stakeholder engagement in the next strategy for work integrated learning. This week’s selection by Commissioning Editor Sally Kift for her celebrated series, Needed now in learning and teaching.

The Group of Eight warns Australia needs international graduates to meet the skills gap but recognising their qualifications isn’t all the answer

In a new policy submission* the Eight points out international students in 2020 made up 61 per cent of IT enrolments, 43 per cent in engineering and 30 per cent in architecture and building . The figures are higher for postgrads in a range of disciplines.

“The fact is that without these students and the ability to integrate them into the Australian workforce – whether for the long or medium term – the current skills crisis and workforce shortages … will continue and worse,” the Go8 warns.

Problem is, as the Eight notes, grads have to be able to find work here and that requires employers understanding post study work rights.

Right the Eight is. As Ly Tran (Deakin U) and colleagues point out, IT grads do well in the jobs market (transferable tech skills in a cosmopolitan industry) but not so much engineering and bized grads, where employers prefer international grads with permanent residency to those on PSWR (CMM August 19).

*but what about off-shore skills The previous government established a taskforce on Australia-India recognition of each other’s qualifications which present education minister Jason Clare says work on this will be complete by year end.  A working group is on it.

On Sunday an Austrade webpage reported this week’s mission  to India, including senior HE people, was being led by Trade Minister Don Farrell (CMM yesterday), but Monday Austrade said it wasn’t. Apparently the minister withdrew.

Senator Farrell was in the parliament yesterday. One reason he stayed might be that he was representing in the Senate,  the prime minister plus the ministers for foreign affairs, international development and the Pacific,  defence,  veterans’ affairs, defence personnel and defence industry.

Loose Ends: A Mixed-Initiative Creative Interface for Playful Storytelling from Max Kreminski.

It is probably fair to say that many of the “AI in education” stories that I have shared have sat in the raised eyebrows column of the ledger but, as with most tools that aren’t going away, there are equally promising new applications of the technology. This Twitter thread about Loose Ends, an AI based storytelling aid is one of those. It summarises an upcoming conference paper about a tool that writers can use to manage and inspire complex multi-threaded writing pieces.

***

Submissions to THETA 2023 close soon from THETA

The biennial THETA  (as in The Higher Education Technology Agenda) conference is one of the crown jewels in the Australasian education innovation calendar. Jointly held by CAUDIT, CAUL and ACODE, next year’s event in Brisbane will be the first since 2019. Conference sub-themes include Teaching to the attention economy, Cyber complacency, Online and Multi-modal learning for equity students and Testing times. Submissions are currently slated to close on October 1.

***

We need to deal with data privacy in our classrooms from University Affairs

Bonnie Stewart (University of Windsor, Canada) writes a strong piece about the potential data privacy risks embodied in teaching in the digital age. She draws on a survey she posted in 2020 which had responses from 300 university educators in 26 countries and highlighted notable gaps in knowledge about how and where data from education technologies go. As someone at the coalface in this space, I do feel confident that this is something taken more seriously (sometimes painfully so) by institutions than the article might suggest but it is always important to keep these issues in mind.

***

Optus Under $1 Million Extortion Threat in Data Breach from Bank Info Security.

This isn’t my normal content but given the scope and seriousness of the recent Optus data breach and its potential impact on educators and students, it is worth sharing. In a nutshell, private data including driver’s licence and passport numbers of Optus customers going back to 2017 have been exposed. This article provides the best explanation to date of how this seems to have happened and what happens next. In short, be particularly vigilant.
This post has some useful security suggestions

***

Survey shows majority of university students want blended learning from JISC

The UK’s JISC digital experience insights survey of higher ed students is always worth exploring for the size of its sample – 33 726 respondents this time.

Some takeaways of note, nearly three quarters of students rated the quality of their on-line learning environment as above average, 45 per cent of students want a mix of on-site and online learning and only 13 per cent of students had participated in an on-line forum in the two weeks before responding.

Colin Simpson has worked in education technology, teaching, learning design and academic development in the tertiary sector since 2003 at CIT, ANU, Swinburne and Monash University. He is also one of the leaders of the ASCILITE TELedvisors Network. For more from Colin, follow him on Twitter @gamerlearner

At UTS, Robynne Quiggin become interim PVC, Indigenous Leadership and Engagement, replacing Michael McDaniel who moves to special advisor to the VC on Indigenous priorities.  Nareen Young becomes Associate Dean, Indigenous Leadership and Engagement in the UTS business school, replacing Professor Quiggin.