MIT's [Massachusetts Institute of Technology ]Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a network of 59 affiliated professors around the world who are united by their use of Randomized Evaluations (REs) to answer questions critical to poverty alleviation. J-PAL's mission is to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is based on scientific evidence. Their current work in the Education…
Tag Archives Education Policy
Building the education revolution. The Government has announced Building the Education Revolution, a $14.7 billion long term investment to improve the quality of facilities, like gymnasiums, libraries and science labs in Australian schools. Prime Minister of Australia, 3 February 2009. Comment: This appears to be a truly massive amount of money, I hope the expertise and coordination is equal to…
What is school for? Seth Godin Seems like a simple question, but given how much time and money we spend on it, it has a wide range of answers, many unexplored, some contradictory. I have a few thoughts about education, how we use it to market ourselves and compete, and I realized that without a common place to start,…
Staying at School Ain’t Silly. Andrew Leigh - Nicholas Gruen draws my attention to a piece on school completion by CIS researcher Peter Saunders (based on a longer paper here) [Broken Link - see below], who argues: Three-quarters of students currently stay to year 12, and most of them benefit from higher earnings and better job prospects as a result.…
COAG Communique released. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) held its 20th meeting on 20 December 2007. In addition to the Prime Minister, Premiers, Chief Ministers and the President of the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA), Commonwealth and State and Territory Treasurers also attended. COAG agreed to a new model of cooperation underpinned by more effective working arrangements. COAG identified…
According to reports, TEACHING students would not graduate from university unless they passed national skills tests, under a Labor plan to improve literacy and numeracy in Australian schools. Source: Labor plan to lift skills of teachers. Theage.com.au
I think it is a big step forward, and it should have happened 20 years ago
New Global Alliance to catalyse education reform announced. The private sector, governments, international organizations and donors have joined forces in an unprecedented partnership to accelerate progress towards Education for All (EFA). The new Partnerships for Education (PfE) was announced by the World Economic Forum and UNESCO, yesterday "Keeping Our Promises on Education"? conference in Brussels. [eGov monitor - Education]
In the biggest petition to be tabled in the Victorian Parliament in the past five years, more than 34,000 voters urged the State Government to shift responsibility for preschools out of the Department of Human Services and into the Department of Education. They say the move would put more emphasis on early childhood learning, cut kindergarten fees, help children in…