Contemporary planning education and Indigenous cultural competency agendas : erasing terra nullius, respect and responsibility

As noted in Universities Australia’s (2011a, 2011b) investigations into Indigenous Cultural Competency, most universities have struggled with successfully devising and achieving a translation of Indigenous protocols into their curricula. Walliss & Grant (2000: 65) have also concluded that, given the nature of the built environment disciplines, including planning, and their professional practice activities, there is a “need for specific cultural awareness education” to service these disciplines and not just attempts to insert Indigenous perspectives into their curricula. Bradley’s policy initiative at the University of South Australia (1997-2007), “has not achieved its goal of incorporation of Indigenous perspectives into all its undergraduate programs by 2010, it has achieved an incorporation rate of 61%” (Universities Australia 2011a: 9; http://www.unisa.edu.au/ducier/icup/default.asp).

Contextually, Bradley’s strategic educational aim at University of South Australia led a social reformist agenda, which has been continued in Universities Australia’s release of Indigenous Cultural Competency (2011a; 2011b) reports that has attracted mixed media criticism (Trounson 2012a: 5, 2012b: 5) and concerns that it represents “social engineering” rather than enhancing “criticism as a pedagogical tool ... as a means of advancing knowledge” (Melleuish 2012: 10). While the Planning Institute of Australia’s (PIA) Indigenous Planning Policy Working Party has observed that fundamental changes are needed to the way Australian planning education addresses Indigenous perspectives and interests, it has concluded that planners “! perceptual limitations of their own discipline and the particular discourse of our own craft” were hindering enhanced learning outcomes (Wensing 2007: 2). Gurran (PIA 2007) has noted that the core curriculum in planning includes an expectation of “knowledge of ! Indigenous Australian cultures, including relationships between their physical environment and associated social and economic systems” but that it has not been addressed. This paper critiques these discourses and offers an Indigenous perspective of the debate.

Coastal planning, education and the Australian context

The Victorian Planning Minister’s response to the ‘Coastal Climate Change Advisor Report’, initiated by the Baillieu government in 2010, identified the need to “initiate ! a skills audit with the view to developing a range of professional development courses to meet the shortfall of professionals with the capability to assess coastal climate change impacts” (Victoria 2012). The following paper addresses this deficiency by examining how Australia’s higher education and further education sectors currently attend to the issue of coastal planning.

A detailed review of a large number of national and international planning programs was undertaken to highlight the subject matter contained in each program with a specific focus on any coastal planning courses. Working from a theoretical perspective, the first part of the paper addresses why a dedicated subject on Coastal Planning is required in the present Australian planning school syllabus, and how such a program would be positioned within the intent of PIA’s Education Policy.

Utilising the benefits of Problem Based learning and Student Centred Learning in relating to delivering a Coastal planning course, the second part of the paper provides a theoretical overview of the types of competencies which students may be expected to attain when undertaking such a course. The third part of the paper proposes a series of 12 lectures to underpin a unit titled “Coastal Planning: The Australian Context” which includes a draft lecture relating to the monitoring of Coastal Erosion in Adelaide.

The social work bursary in England : impact of funding arrangments upon social work education and the future workforce

The financial support available to students on social work qualifying programmes appears to be a neglected topic in published social work research. This article draws on a literature review and secondary data analysis of an existing dataset to discuss what is known about this topic and specifically considers the impact of a financial incentive to undertake social work qualifying education in England, the social work bursary. In the context of major changes to the funding of higher education in England, it suggests that the introduction of the social work bursary has helped increase the number of students enrolling on social work qualifying programmes in England and supported some students whose personal and financial circumstances might have prevented them from undertaking social work qualifying education. While students report their appreciation of financial assistance in the form of the bursary, many have additional needs in the form of support for children and other dependants, and for help in defraying the costs of travel while undertaking practice placements. The paper concludes that attention needs to be paid to the specific needs of social work students when considering the impact of changes to funding higher education.

Oil unions and democracy in post-Saddam Iraq

Since the invasion of 2003, a complex array of political, religious and ethno-sectarian factions have formed civil society movements; uncensored news has been consumed across the nation; ordinary citizens have taken to the streets to protest key government decisions; and various local councils have been formed, deliberating on key decisions facing their immediate communities. Given this context, this paper focuses on the specific case of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), Iraq’s largest and most powerful independent workers union. The IFOU has repeatedly taken the Iraqi government to task over their poor pay and the dangerous nature of their work, as well as the government’s initial kowtowing to US plans to privatise the entire Iraqi oil sector. To do this, the IFOU have utilised a variety of very democratic mechanisms including peaceful strikes and protests, media campaigns and political lobbying. Such moves have met with mixed results in Baghdad – at times the central government has pandered to the requests of IFOU, but it has also gone as far as issuing arrest warrants for its senior members. The IFOU therefore serve as an interesting example of public power in Iraq and may well pose one of the greatest challenges to rising authoritarianism there.

Towards a sustainable assessment strategy for digital forensic education and training

In this paper, we show the development and application of a sustainable assessment strategy as an implementation of effective learning for a computer crime and digital forensics unit. The unit is undertaken by undergraduate students as part of an Information Technology Security course at Deakin University. Over a five year period the teaching team has made continuous improvements to the delivery of material and content taking informal student feedback and Faculty review into careful consideration. In addition formal student evaluation of the unit has been extremely positive. As part of reflective teaching practice the teaching team derived a map of the relationship between learning objectives, learning activities, the assessment and the unit outcomes to verify what has led to the favorable student experience and its impact on learning process in order to repeat this strategy for other tertiary courses.

Association between maternal education and diet of children at 9 months is partially explained by mothers' diet

Infants of mothers of low educational background display consistently poorer outcomes, including suboptimal weaning diets. Less is known about the different causal pathways that relate maternal education to infants' diet. The present study aimed to test the hypothesis that the relationship between maternal education and infants' diet is mediated by mothers' diet. The analyses included 421 mother–infant pairs from the Melbourne Infant Feeding Activity and Nutrition Trial (InFANT) Program. Dietary intakes were collected from mothers when infants were aged 3 months, using a validated food frequency questionnaire relating to the past year, and in infants aged 9 months using 3 × 24-h recalls. Principal component analysis was used to derive dietary pattern scores, based on frequencies of 55 food groups in mothers, and intakes of 23 food groups in infants. Associations were assessed with multivariable linear regression. We tested the product ‘ab’ to address the mediation hypothesis, where ‘a’ refers to the relationship between the predictor variable (education) and the mediator variable (mothers' diet), and ‘b’ refers to the association between the mediator variable and the outcome variable (infants' diet), controlling for the predictor variable. Maternal scores on the ‘Fruit and vegetables’ dietary pattern partially mediated the relationships between maternal education and two infant dietary patterns, namely ‘Balanced weaning diet’ [ab = 0.11; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.04; 0.18] and ‘Formula’ (ab = −0.08; 95%CI: −0.15; −0.02). These findings suggest that targeting pregnant mothers of low education level with the aim of improving their own diet may also promote better weaning diets in their infants.

Education and training deficits in industrial clusters : empirical evidence that managers can use to rectify the skills gap in Auckland precinct

Tertiary institutions should seek continuous feedback from industries to keep track of the needs of businesses to provide education and training. In designing programmes and upgrading curricula, there are important factors to bear in mind so that programmes "cater" for all levels of learners. The Auckland City Council financed this study, focussing on Auckland's Rosebank Business Precinct (ARBP). Surrounding communities, particularly Maori, Pacific peoples and recent migrants, experience disparities in employment. The target population were 500+ businesses operating on Rosebank Road. A total of 529 businesses were identified. Interviews with 102 companies with a 36-question questionnaire were conducted. Areas were identified and covered in this paper in the ARBP for developing programmes and curricula for tertiary institutions to provide employable students with the right knowledge, skills and attributes to grow and manage existing ventures. In the analysis we point out what education or training is necessary for ARBP to provide greater efficiencies and improvement in profit levels. Recommendations and conclusions are provided.

The task of designing tasks for teacher education and development

Posing, adapting, and creating worthwhile tasks that support student learning are significant pedagogical practices of teachers. However in mathematics education, task design and curriculum development are not often the responsibility of practicing teachers. Textbooks can become the main source of mathematics problems and teachers often follow the text and its sequence of problems. Although mathematics teachers can benefit from access to research-based curriculum resources, limited opportunities to adapt and design tasks can make it challenging to meet the diverse needs and interests of their students. More opportunities for learning to create problems are needed for both practicing and beginning mathematics teachers. What then is involved in learning to pose, adapt and create worthwhile mathematics tasks? More specifically, how can teacher educators design tasks that support teacher candidates in learning to create mathematical tasks? As teacher educators we have, over the past few years, used our own courses as sites in Australia and Canada for investigating various contexts to support preservice teachers in their learning to adapt and create mathematical tasks. Our research includes both large scale and small qualitative studies to explore the perspectives of teacher candidates on learning to create and pose mathematical problems, the kinds of problems they pose, and the opportunities and challenges this offers us as teacher educators. Our work is inspired by Variation Theory that focuses on learning as the act of awareness and discernment of variation. We are exploring both how variation theory can be useful for preservice teachers in their designing, posing and adapting of mathematical tasks and for teacher educators in their design of such pedagogical tasks. The results of our work support the argument that tasks to design, adapt and pose mathematical problems enhance their pedagogical understanding and should be a feature of teacher education courses. This is a new area for research and practice; further exploration of the suitability of particular tasks in elementary mathematics teacher education is recommended.

Internationalisation of vocational education and training: an adapting curve for teachers and learners

Competency-based training and training packages are mandatory for Australian vocational education and training (VET). VET qualifications are designed to provide learners with skills, knowledge, and attributes required for Australian workplaces. Yet, toward the end of December 2011, there were 171,237 international student enrolments in the Australian vocational education sector.

VET currently ranks second behind the university sector by volume of international student enrolments in Australia. The flow of international students into Australian vocational education, their diverse learning characteristics, and their different acquired values have created new challenges as well as possibilities for teachers to transform their pedagogic practices and contribute to reshaping the pedagogy landscape in vocational education.

Drawing on interviews with 50 teachers from VET institutes in three states of Australia, this article discusses the emergence of international vocational education pedagogy that enables international students and indeed all learners to develop necessary skills, knowledge, and attributes in response to the new demands of the changing workplace context and global skills and knowledge mobility.

This article addresses a number of important issues concerning the interrelationship of international pedagogy and learner-centered education, notions of productive and inclusive pedagogies, transnational skills mobility, cultural diversity, and internationalization within the context of the Australian VET sector. Finally, the significance of these issues to educational providers and teachers across different educational levels and national contexts is discussed.

Competency-based training, global skills mobility and the teaching of international students in vocational education and training

 In Australia, all vocational education and training (VET) qualifications must be based on competency-based training (CBT) and training packages. Yet, since 2005, there has been a major expansion in the number of VET international students in Australia, 85% of whom are from Asia. Given this development, the teaching and learning contexts in which competency-based training and training packages are located are becoming increasingly diverse and no longer reflect the traditional training characteristics and boundaries that apply for domestic students.
This paper examines the relevance of training packages and CBT for teaching international students in the Australian VET sector. It draws on interviews with teachers and international students from 25 public and private training providers in Australia. The discussion of the findings aims to assist the VET sector create a curriculum framework that supports flexibility, adaptation and responsiveness so that international students’ divergent and shifting study purposes and complex learning characteristics can be catered for effectively. This contributes to helping the sector remain viable in a context in which a VET course is no longer a pathway to migration.

International vocational education and training - the migration and learning mix

International VET students have divergent, shifting and in some cases multiple purposes for undertaking their VET courses. Students' motives may be instrumental and/or intrinsic and can include obtaining permanent residency, accumulating skills that can secure good employment, gaining a foothold that leads to higher education, and/or personal transformation. Moreover, students' study purposes and imagining of acquired values are neither fixed nor unitary. They can be shaped and reshaped by their families and personal aspirations and by the social world and the learning environment with which they interact. We argue that, whatever a student's study purpose, s/he needs to engage in a learning practice and should be provided with a high quality education. Indeed, we insist this remains the case even if students enroll only in order to gain the qualifications needed to migrate. The paper details the association between migration and learning, and argues that the four variations emerging from the empirical data of this study that centre on migration and skills' accumulation better explain this association than does the 'international VET students simply want to migrate' perspective. We conclude with a discussion of why the stereotype that holds VET international students are mere 'PR hunters' is unjust and constitutes a threat to the international VET sector.