 |
||||||
|
|
 |
|
 |
"[It] is analogous to sending all motorists a traffic ticket if one of them gets caught speeding."
A Subtext story on the government's plans and on the export education industry is at this web page.
Academics lash out at 'control freak' Government Universities say a "control freak" Government is trying to erode their independence and stifle their academic freedom. Reported in the New Zealand Herald last week, the Vice-Chancellors' Committee said sweeping state service reforms were spawning the greatest threat to universities since they gained statutory protection 15 years ago. The row centres on a bill that will redefine Crown entities as "organisations in which the Government has a controlling interest". The Public Finance (State Sector Management) Bill is designed to give the Government greater control over Crown-linked organisations, including the Securities Commission and Accident Compensation Corporation as well as tertiary institutes. But the vice-chancellors have claimed it will sabotage the university role as "critic and conscience of society".
Business schools earn prestigious accreditation Business schools at Otago and Auckland universities have been given Equis accreditation by the European Foundation for Management Development, an honour given to fewer than 80 organisations worldwide, The Press has reported. The schools join distinguished establishments including the London Business School, Canada's Richard Ivey School of Business and the Rotterdam School of Management. Both schools earned the top distinction of five-year full accreditation as opposed to partial accreditation of three years.
Upskilled workers will boost productivity, says research The number of workers being up-skilled through industry training in New Zealand can double by 2007, and the wage and productivity gains of those trainees will be between five percent and 20 percent, new research shows. The research was released last month by the Industry Training Federation. ITF chairman Pieter Burghout said the research also showed that "training density" is associated with increases in wages and increases in value added per worker. "We know that firms are putting in the equivalent of at least two dollars for every dollar the government contributes and wouldn't do if they didn't see a return on their investment," Mr Burghout said. More information is at the ITF website.
Significant Australian employer investment in training Total investment by Australian employers in work-based training is much larger than previously believed, a new study concludes. The study measures the increase of workers' productivity as a result of learning skills on the job. Workers' productivity is obtained by observing how fast wages grow with additional years of general work experience and of tenure with the current employer. More information is at this web page.
UK specialist schools can be more effective Specialist schools - state schools which have successfully applied for a particular subject specialism, having raised required private sponsorship money and agreed on targets - can do well, a study shows. "Some specialist schools, in particular those of long standing and the more recent technology and sports schools, are more effective than non-specialists." "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Specialist Schools" - and other reports from the London School of Economics Centre for the Economics of Education - is at this web page.
Private girls' schools excel at maths and science, study shows Private UK girls' schools are educating significantly more female mathematicians, engineers, scientists and linguists than schools catering for both sexes, research shows. The research, based on new figures for the last academic year, revealed that the take-up of maths, science and modern languages was much stronger in girls' independent schools than in schools nationally, the Guardian has reported. The story is at this web page.
Private schools dominate Quebec's 'Top 100' List Eighty-six of Quebec's top 100 schools are private, the recently released fifth edition of the Fraser Institute's and Montreal Economic Institute's renowned Report Card on Quebec's secondary schools says. Quebec has Canada's highest private school enrolment level. When all grade levels are counted, more than 10 percent of the province's students go to private schools and, in the secondary grades, more than 17 percent. In the provincial capital, Montreal, one-third of secondary school students are enrolled in private schools and among Anglophone students, the proportion is more than 40 percent. More information. A Subtext story on the impact of the Report Cards.
Workshop on "Education and Training: Markets and Institutions" in Germany A conference focusing on empirical research into economic aspects of education and training, including the role of markets and institutions, is to be held in Germany next March. The conference is in Mannheim, 18/19 March. The deadline for paper submission is 20 January. Send a title and a paper/abstract (paper preferred) as electronic copy to Birgit Herrmann bherrmann@wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de
The top 10 degrees in demand by US employers 1. Accounting A CNN story.
Harvard University research economist Roland Fryer is testing whether paying children for doing well at school works. The trial at some of the poorest performing New York schools sees students tested every three weeks and if they improve they are paid US$20, the Marginal Revolution website has reported. Control groups are tested and early results have been encouraging. "For years white parents have been giving their kids money for A grades, now we are trying the same system for black kids." More information is at the Marginal Revolution webblog. Information on Roland Fryer.
How well are American students learning? The fifth annual edition of the Brown Center Report on American Education is now online. The report, which looks at student learning, teacher training and a successful schools programme, is at this web page.
World's largest early childhood merger One of the US's largest early childcare chains, Knowledge Learning Corporation (KLC), has bought the largest, KinderCare Learning Centers. The merger deal, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2004, calls for KLC to pay US$550 million in cash for all outstanding equity in KinderCare, and to assume US$490 million of KinderCare's debts. In 2003, KLC then the fourth-largest US for-profit child care chain, made news when it acquired Children's World Learning Centers, the third-largest chain.
Australia gets first private medical school Seven hundred applicants are vying for 65 undergraduate places at Australia's first private medical school starting in May. The Bond University medical degree, at $15,000 per semester (three per year) for five years, will cost $225,000. The programme will be based on a conglomerate of models but at its core will be second and third years based on the University of Sydney medical school's first two years. A story in The Australian on the medical school. Another story
in The Australian.
|
||
