The importance of close connections between vocational education and training (VET) systems and industry is highlighted in this report, particularly as Australia and Korea aim to meet the demands of globalised and knowledge-based economies. Tae-Hwa Jung, Josie Misko, Kisung Lee, Susan Dawe, Sun Yee Hong and Kwan-Choon Lee find that any system of entry-level training...

Bruce Johnson outlines the 'micropolitical strategies' of school leadership teams dealing with local school reform. The strategies challenge many of the orthodoxies of educational managerialism, as the schools used the 'positive politics' of negotiation, collaboration and conflict resolution to address issues of local concern, rather than the 'controlling politics' of new managerialism.

This study by ACER for the Smith Family found that family wealth has a weak affect on students' post-school plans. Gender, ability and vocational orientation are the most important factors influencing post-school plans. The report describes the post-school plans of a group of young Australians in the late 1990s; the factors associated with the development...

Schools in NSW share with families and the community the responsibility for teaching values. While values are learnt predominantly in the home and modified through relationships and life experiences, parents and the community have high expectations about commonly held values also being taught in schools. Public schools teach values, including the values that underpin learning...

The considerable debate since 1996 about Commonwealth expenditure on schools has been driven by policy changes that have significantly restructured Commonwealth funding and influenced the relative funding share between the government and non-government schools sectors. In this Research Note Marilyn Harrington briefly explains these policy changes and the trends in Commonwealth funding for schools since...