Last week Martha Nussbaum – an Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago – delivered the 2011 Hal Wootten Lecture at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law. Nussbaum spoke about “a world-wide crisis in education” across all levels of the education system, spawned by an […]

NSW school students apparently are not compelled to learn about the Holocaust. It says something that we are agonising over this fact. The Holocaust was a terrible chapter in human history, but in terms of essential information it isn’t top level for me, anymore than it appears to be for those who write curriculum in […]

Baden Eunson from Melbourne Uni decries the “fallacy” that children “learn grammar by osmosis”, and it needs to be taught. I agree with him to some extent, but after reading Nicholas Ostler’s “biography” of Latin Ad Infinitum, I’m not so sure that it’s such a big deal. The Romans, driven I suspect by their infatuation […]

Generally the more in demand an item, the more expensive it is. So an Ivy League university ought to be pretty pricey. Not if you’re Yale. The press release pasted below implies that most Australian students could get into Yale for around $2,000 to $5,000 per year and pay the fees by doing 7 hours […]

Following my recent US theme I noted today that while the ALP and unions in Australia are opposing Julie Bishop’s merit pay proposals for teachers, unions and teachers in Minnesota, and a number of other US states, are enthusiastically embracing similar schemes. This NYT article quotes John Roper-Batker, unionist and teacher from Minneapolis, “I wanted […]