Education at a glance 2011: OECD indicators

Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators 2011 offers a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators that reflect a consensus among professionals on how to measure the current state of education internationally. The indicators provide information on the human and financial resources invested in education, on how education and learning systems operate and evolve, and on the returns to educational investments. The indicators are organised thematically, .....Read more

Toward a personal learning environment framework

Over the past decade, it has been argued that technology-enhanced learning (TEL) could respond to the needs of the new knowledge society and transform learning. However, despite isolated achievements, TEL has not succeeded in revolutionizing education and learning processes. ...Read more

Petrol Pricing in the Hands of the People 4 the People

Are you tired of paying heaps for your petrol? Then read this ok!

THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' PETROL FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE AS A COLLECTIVE CAN GET PETROL BACK DOWN TO $1.00 PER Litre....

This was originated from a retired Coca Cola executive. If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this winter, take time to read this, PLEASE. This is great idea and very simple to participate. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day' campaign that was going around last April or May!

It is worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!! We are going to hit $ 2.00 a litre and it might go higher!! Want petrol prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at last year’s action because they knew we would not continue to 'hurt' ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now, you're probably thinking petrol priced at about $1.50 is cheap. It can only get dearer ... and dearer unless WE do something about it.

Politicians pay NOTHING for petrol - you the taxpayer, pays their petrol consumption. Do not expect them to fight for you. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre of petrol is CHEAP at $1.50, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place...not sellers.

With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket book by not purchasing their petrol! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How?

Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying petrol. But we CAN have an impact on petrol prices if we all act together to force a price war. Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY petrol from BP, the biggest price-up driver company. If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of BP petrol buyers. It's SO simple!

Now, don't wimp out at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions and even BILLIONS of people!! I am sending this note to 20 people.

If each of you sends it on to at least twenty more that's (20 x 20 = 400) .. And those 400 send it to at least twenty more (400 x 20 = 8000 ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the fifth group of people, we will have reached over SIXTY FOUR MILLION consumers.

20x20 = 400
400 x 20 = 8,000
8,000 x 20 = 160,000
160,000x20 = 3,200,000
3,200,000 x 20 = 64,000,000
64,000,000 x 20 = 12,800,000,000

That's 12.80 Billion people folks, who will have been contacted!!!!! unbelievable?? Do the maths and see for yourself. Again, all you have to do is send this link to 20 people. That's all...so just do it!

I'll bet you didn't think we had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.If this message makes sense to you, then please pass it on. THEY will LOWER THEIR PRICES TO BELOW THE $1.50 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK. It’s simple – send the message along to others and choose to not buy petrol from BP.

SIX BILLION people:

Now THAT's people power. LET'S JUST DO IT ! ! ! More power to you friend.

Note: IF YOU DO CHOOSE TO FORWARD THIS THEN PLEASE USE YOUR BCC FEATURE FOR EMAIL ok

"Skills For Prosperity: A Road Map For Vocational Education Education and Training" report - Skills Australia

Skills Australia is launching "Skills For Prosperity: A Road Map For Vocational Education Education and Training" report. The Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, Senator the Hon Christopher Evans MP is launching this strategy. This report is the recent review of the national VET sector over the last 10 years in which they recognise the important role of the VET sector in raising Australia’s productivity and addressing skills challenges to ensure Australia’s future economic growth and prosperity.

Australia’s VET system has served the nation well but we now need to take further strides along the reform path to help position the system to meet the needs of individuals and enterprises.

The launch is on Tuesday 3 May 2011 from 11.45am – 1.30pm here at Sydney Institute, Ultimo TAFE College, The Muse, Building C, Harris St, Ultimo (for map click here). The report will be available on the Skills Australia website or click here. There is also an upcoming conference for your diary - Skills Australia together with the nation’s 11 Industry Skills Councils will be hosting a conference with the theme Putting skills at the heart of the economy on Thursday 21 July 2011 at the Crown Conference Centre in Melbourne. Further details will be available soon at the Skills Australia website.

Medal of the Order of Australia for TAFE Outreach Coordinator

Nola is well known to us all for her tireless community work that goes well beyond her role as a TAFE Outreach Coordinator. Currently Nola's roles include TAFE Outreach Coordinator at Liverpool, a member of the Australian Multicultural Advisory Council (AMAC) and a range of multicultural positions in her local and broader community. These roles demand that Nola keep abreast of policies and issues relating to equity in education. Nola's commitment to social justice is put into practice on a daily basis.

Response to Skills Australia

TAFETA Outreach Special Interest Group submitted a response to the skills Australia's "Creating a future direction for Australian vocational education and training" discussion paper. The response welcomes the opportunity to advance the Australian VET system with particular emphasis on the public provision of Vocational Education and Training that serves to ensure the quality is not reserved for the privileged.

The quality of the training is limited by the funds that can be won rather than a commitment to funds to offer the best vocational education and training being made by the government of the day.This means that resources are not used cooperatively but rather in competition.It fools us into believing that we are doing the best because “someone won a tender” rather than collaborating and pooling more resources together to gain a better outcome.

The role of VET for the Australia of 2020

As our population grows older and our society depends on people staying in the workforce longer, it is important that the opportunities for relevant education is available for all at all stages of their lives. This could be in relation to industry identified skills shortages or enabling adult basic education for those who did not have adequate schooling earlier. Such education or training could be sponsored at a local community level where industry, RTOs and community organizations identify a gap in what is needed for the development of the local area. Currently the various Institutes of TAFE NSW fund TAFE Outreach sections which work directly with community organizations to enhance Community Capacity Building in the community by offering relevant educational courses as requested by communities. These courses are vital as a stepping stone to further training and education. The future of such courses could be jeopardized without a commitment by VET to flexible, community based delivery.

The current approaches by DEEWR to fund programs that incorporate partnerships between organizations such as the Innovations Funds and the Critical Skills Investment Funds reflects attempts to encourage planning at a local level. However this is perhaps somewhat in tension with VET curricula course planning being driven by industry skills councils. When funding is more directly market driven there is the danger that the most vulnerable learners will become more marginalized and that local communities will be unable to respond to their local labour markets (Collaborative Learning Ecologies: Reflections on the Governance of lifelong learning, 2009, p6[i]).

For Australia to be a leading international economy in 2020 we need to be informed by models of best practice and to encourage innovative thinking and work practices. This will not come through a sole focus on competency based training in the VET sector. In addition, with the current low standards of qualifications required by the trainers/educators of this sector we are losing the ability of the trainers to critique the sector, model flexibility and vision a different approach.

[i] Inquiry into the Future of Life Long Learning Sector Paper, Collaborative Learning Ecologies: Reflections on the Governance of Lifelong Learning, 2009, England, National Institute of Adult Continuous Education)

Adult Education in Europe: same same?

The European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults (RELA) is a refereed academic journal creating a forum for the publication of critical research on adult education and learning.

The journal examines issues in adult education in Europe within a broader global context. How different is adult education in Australia? Are they tackling the same barriers to effective practice as us? Where does adult education fit in term of policy?

...narrowing of the field of adult education: on the one hand, forgetting values that centrally gave birth to it, such as social emancipation and critical action and thought; on the other hand, using adult education as an instrument to mould workers to the new labour market, while legitimating the instrumental character of the neoliberal free market.