Media Releases
Posted on 22 December 2009 at 10:31AM
The radical overhaul of Australia’s preschool sector will require better legislating for the sector and increasing the number of early childhood education teachers, according to a policy paper released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
The policy brief, Preschool Education in Australia, summarises the current structure of preschool in Australian in contemplation of major policy shifts announced by the Commonwealth. It follows a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) commitment last year to a “radical makeover” of the preschool sector.
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ACER Policy Briefs
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Posted on 11 December 2009 at 12:02PM
It comes as no surprise that one in five first-year Australian students drop out of university, says Principal Research Fellow Hamish Coates of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
National university attrition rates released this week by the federal government only confirm the April findings of the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) that as many as one in three students across the country seriously considers leaving university during their first year of study.
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Posted on 02 December 2009 at 07:29AM
To prepare for the future young Australians need an education that is holistic, flexible and encompasses a commitment to both work and life a new review of research concludes.
But, according to Australian Education Review 55, released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), there is emerging consensus that a school system designed to meet the needs of Australia in the past cannot prepare today’s youth adequately for future challenges.
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Posted on 27 November 2009 at 03:33PM
Three of Australia’s leading universities will next week administer an aptitude test to identify candidates with the potential to succeed at university who may otherwise have been overlooked.
Flinders University will hold a sitting of uniTEST on 30 November. The Australian National University (ANU) will hold its sitting on 1 December followed by Macquarie University on 7 December to select students for their 2010 intake. Close to 700 candidates will take part.
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uniTEST website
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Australian Education Review 54 released
Posted on 30 September 2009 at 01:03AM
The case for increased second language learning in Australia is better grounded in the personal benefits to individual learners than in arguments about economic and social benefits according to a new review of research released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
Releasing the review, ACER Chief Executive Professor Geoff Masters said that even limited contact with a second language can have a positive effect by supporting and illuminating students’ knowledge of their first language.
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Posted on 21 August 2009 at 04:03PM
This year’s Principal for a Day program will help to develop partnerships between businesses, the wider community and government schools. Victoria’s event is to be held on 25 August.
One hundred primary, secondary and special schools in metropolitan and regional Victoria will be matched with business and community leaders who will become their ‘Principal for a Day’.
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Posted on 18 August 2009 at 09:17AM
Likely reasons behind Finland’s continued success in international tests of student achievement will be presented to a leading education conference in Perth today.
Professor Patrik Scheinin from the University of Helsinki will present the case of the Finnish comprehensive school to discuss strategic questions of educational policy, teacher education and teaching in a keynote address to the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference.
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Posted on 17 August 2009 at 10:15AM
Student literacy developed at more than double the expected rate in schools that used student assessment results to improve teaching practice, University of Auckland Professor of Education Helen Timperley will tell the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference today.
Professor Timperley’s research looked at 300 New Zealand schools that took part in a professional development program on how to interpret and use student assessment results over a period of two years.
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Posted on 17 August 2009 at 10:06AM
National assessment programs are useful for improving education, University of Western Australia Dean of Education Professor Helen Wildy will tell the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) annual conference on Tuesday.
Professor Wildy has drawn on the experience of several projects conducted in WA over the last 10 years that have aimed to improve the skills of primary and secondary school teachers and leaders to interpret the results of student assessment in meaningful ways.
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Posted on 17 August 2009 at 09:41AM
While some educators argue that information from system-wide tests is not useful for improving learning, good quality data from a range of sources can and should be used to inform teaching, according to a paper to be presented at the ACER Research Conference in Perth today.
“What matters is the quality rather than the source of information,“ says Dr Margaret Forster, Research Director of the Assessment and Reporting Research Program at ACER. “And that means the diagnostic power of the assessment – the power of the assessment to illuminate strengths and weaknesses in students’ understandings. Informative assessment, assessment that can drive teaching and learning, bypasses the division between assessment of learning and for learning.“
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Posted on 17 August 2009 at 09:09AM
A greater emphasis on more ‘culturally inclusive’ assessment and teaching methods for Indigenous students may help to address their pattern of under-achievement in national benchmark data and international testing programs according to a paper to be presented at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) conference in Perth.
The presentation, by Professor Val Klenowski from Queensland University of Technology and Ms Thelma Gertz of the Catholic Education Office Townsville, is based on an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage research project examining equity issues as they relate to the validity and fairness of assessment practices.
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Posted on 14 August 2009 at 03:52PM
It is time to reconsider the widespread practice of reporting school achievements as A to E grades according to the chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) Professor Geoff Masters.
In the opening keynote address to ACER’s annual research conference in Perth on Monday, Professor Masters will tell delegates that the use of A to E grades, together with some other common approaches to assessing what is learned in schools, run the risk of being inconsistent with what is known about the best ways to promote student learning.
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Exciting new awards initiative for schools
Posted on 20 July 2009 at 12:57PM
Applications are now open for a new and exciting awards initiative designed to reward excellence in school-community partnerships. Schools are invited to apply for a Schools First award that will help them build strong partnerships with groups and organisations in their local communities.
Research shows that strong school–community partnerships can make a positive contribution to young people’s educational outcomes, including improved skills, greater engagement with learning, more positive attitudes, and improved transitions into the workforce, further education or training.
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Schools First
Research Developments
Posted on 13 July 2009 at 01:55PM
A summary of Indigenous students’ results in international tests of reading, mathematical and scientific literacy suggests that initiatives to improve the education of Indigenous students have, to date, had little effect.
According to the report, released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Indigenous students remain overrepresented at the lower levels and underrepresented at the upper levels of proficiency. Performance of Indigenous students has not improved over time.
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Posted on 30 June 2009 at 03:19PM
The Queensland Government announced on 29 June that it had accepted all five key recommendations from a review of the state’s primary school education conducted by ACER’s chief executive, Professor Geoff Masters.
Professor Masters made the recommendations in a report, A Shared Challenge: Improving Literacy, Numeracy and Science Learning in Queensland Primary Schools, which was delivered to the Queensland Government in late April.
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Full report available on Queensland Government website
Posted on 30 June 2009 at 03:06PM
Meaningful feedback on student engagement in higher education can be used to help institutions to attract and retain students and support students’ learning, education experts will tell the 2009 Student Engagement Forum this week.
The Forum, to be hosted by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and La Trobe University in Melbourne on Thursday, will feature keynote speaker Indiana University’s Professor George Kuh, the Founding Director of the United States’ National Survey of Student Engagement.
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Posted on 29 June 2009 at 05:04PM
Australia must avoid the allure of simple but potentially misleading approaches to comparing the performances of schools, according to the chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Professor Geoff Masters.
Speaking in Sydney ahead of the first in a series of nation-wide seminars for school leaders on the use of student achievement data, Professor Masters said Australia had the opportunity to learn from overseas experience and avoid simple but problematic approaches to the construction of school league tables.
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Posted on 17 June 2009 at 12:01PM
University students who live on campus are more engaged, feel more supported, and have better general development, according to the latest briefing paper from the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE).
More than 25,000 students from 29 Australian and New Zealand universities participated in the latest cycle of the AUSSE. About nine per cent of the Australian students surveyed indicated that they lived on campus in a university college or hall of residence.
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Posted on 06 May 2009 at 11:54AM
Men are more likely than women to gain highly-paid, full-time work after completing university, according to a new study conducted by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
The Graduate Pathways Survey, conducted by ACER for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, canvassed more than 9,000 bachelor degree graduates five years into their careers.
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Visit Graduate Pathways Survey homepage http://www.acer.edu.au/gps
Posted on 24 April 2009 at 03:10PM
A third of Australian and New Zealand tertiary students seriously consider leaving their institutions before graduation, according to results from a new study of student engagement released today by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
A representative sample of more than 25,000 students from 29 Australian and New Zealand universities participated in the latest cycle of the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE), conducted in 2008 – the largest and most advanced survey of its kind.
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Posted on 24 March 2009 at 02:36PM
Early years education systems must focus on effective teaching and learning strategies and improving staff qualifications to ensure successful outcomes for all children, Professor Collette Tayler will tell educators in a series of seminars for the Australian Council for Educational Research in March and April.
Professor Tayler, Chair of Early Childhood Education and Care in the University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education, will stress that in terms of the overall education debate, nothing matters more, or has more long term impact on education outcomes, than the provision of quality education in the early years.
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More information on Early Learning State Conferences
Posted on 24 March 2009 at 02:25PM
Early childhood learning and school systems should promote young children’s cognitive as well as social and emotional development and focus on improving transitions for young children, UK early childhood learning expert Professor Iram Siraj-Blatchford will tell educators in a series of seminars for the Australian Council for Educational Research in March and April.
“Young children are learning all the time, and however implicit or hidden it may be, the content of this learning – the curriculum – is determined by the adults who care for them,” says Siraj-Blatchford, who is a Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of London and President of the British Association for Early Childhood Education.
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More information on Early Learning State Conferences
Posted on 18 March 2009 at 10:26AM
ACER has been awarded Employer of Choice for Women status by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA). ACER is one of 111 Australian employers to receive the citation today.
ACER was awarded the citation on the basis of its existing policies and practices that were shown to support women across the organisation and have a positive outcome for both women and the business.
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Read the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency media release on the EOWA website
Posted on 10 March 2009 at 05:02PM
Everyone agrees that schools should be preparing all young people to be lifelong learners – but, Professor Guy Claxton wants to know, what does lifelong learning mean to a 37-year-old hairdresser in Bacchus Marsh?
UK education expert, professor of learning sciences and co-director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester, Professor Claxton will bring his brand of “real-world learning” to Australia for a seminar hosted by the Australian Council for Educational Research in
March.
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Posted on 16 February 2009 at 03:32PM
Education systems must overcome ‘biological social determinism’ to focus on student learning, Professor Steve Dinham of the Australian Council for Educational Research will tell education leaders in a series of seminars next week.
“Many people today, including practicing teachers, still subscribe, consciously or subconsciously, to various forms of biological social determinism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary,” says Professor Dinham, Research Director of ACER’s Teaching, Learning and Leadership research program.
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Posted on 16 February 2009 at 03:18PM
The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is mourning the loss of Dr Ken Rowe who died in Victoria’s recent bushfires. Dr Rowe was alone at his family’s property in Marysville when the town was devastated by fire.
“Ken’s loss is being deeply felt not only by colleagues at ACER where he had worked for eight years, but across the entire education community,” said ACER Chief Executive Professor Geoff Masters. “We are all simply devastated by this awful news.”
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Ken Rowe Fund: Following the tragic death of Dr Ken Rowe in the Victorian bushfires on 7 February 2009, ACER has decided to commemorate Ken’s significant contribution to ACER and to education nationally and internationally. Find out how you can donate
Posted on 20 January 2009 at 09:16AM
Social background plays only a small role in accounting for differences in occupational status and earnings at age 24, indicating that education is enhancing social mobility, a recent Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) study found.
The study, released today, found that, in general, post-school education and training leads to higher status occupations and higher earnings, compared to not doing any further study or training.
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The Occupations and Earnings of Young Australians: The role of education and training
(LSAY Research Report No 55), November 2008 Gary N. Marks
See LSAY Research for other LSAY reports
Posted on 14 January 2009 at 12:37PM
An approach that measures educational ‘outputs’ through student, school and teacher assessment is needed to ensure accountability in the education system, says a new paper from the Australian Council for Educational Research.
The paper, Output Measurement in Education, by ACER Principal Research Fellow Dr Andrew Dowling, is the latest in a series of policy papers released by ACER.
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Posted on 13 January 2009 at 11:43AM
Staff of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) have been saddened by the passing of former Chair of the ACER Council, Professor Peter Karmel, AC, who died on 30 December at the age of 86.
Professor Karmel played a very significant role in the history and development of ACER. He was a member of ACER Council for more than 30 years, from 1968 to 1999, and Chair of the Council from 1979 to 1999.
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Posted on 09 January 2009 at 04:37PM
The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) has been contracted to conduct stage two of the Federal Government’s pilot National Student Aptitude Test for Tertiary Admission (SATTA). ACER will supply uniTEST for 2009 and 2010 entry.
Four universities are using uniTEST in 2009. Flinders University conducts its test session today with The Australian National University to conduct its test session on Monday. Macquarie University and the University of Ballarat recently held test sessions. Enquiries have been received from a number of other universities considering the program for 2010 entry.
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