Search results

Argues that the proposals for primary education in the latest Education Sector Review in Papua New Guinea are seriously misguided. Recommends a major overhaul of the system in order to facilitate greater pupil access to primary school yet such an aim can be achieved by taking the much less radical step of increasing the average primary school class size. The structural proposals are also made in order to facilitate the introduction of a primary school programme based on a child‐centred notion of curriculum. The review would have done better to have recommended that the present primary school educational structures be maintained, that the present subject‐based curriculum be implemented properly, that steps be taken to improve the quality of the formal style of teaching with which the majority of teachers feel most comfortable and that everything possible be done to ensure that the quality of students entering the teachers′ colleges be of the highest intellectual calibre.

The traditional system of industrial relations in Australia has emphasised arbitrated decisions by central tribunals in order to achieve uniform wage increases without any consideration being given to productivity. Since the late 1980s, there has been a move towards negotiation at the enterprise level. Legislative reforms have occurred at both federal and state levels which present opportunities for individual enterprises to negotiate agreements defining terms and conditions considered to be most appropriate for their circumstances. One major arena where this development, popularly known as enterprise bargaining, is impacting, is that of education. Focuses on the phenomenon by: considering some of the literature on the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of the underlying notion of “bargaining”; outlining the general policy context within which enterprise bargaining has been taking place in Australia; presenting an overview of the emerging research base on award restructuring and enterprise‐based bargaining; outlining the need for research aimed at understanding participants’ perceptions of enterprise bargaining and of their experiences of the bargaining process; examining a major approach to engaging in such research, namely, the micro‐political approach.

Highlights the importance of school reporting to parents and the need for its effective management, as fundamental practices underpinning the central purpose of schools. Argues that, in spite of the centrality of reporting to the core activities of teaching and learning, current efforts to secure accountability appear to focus more on increasing school accountability to central offices and school councils than on addressing much needed and long overdue improvements in parent reporting. Identifies, through a review of literature on school reporting to parents, aspects of reporting on individual student achievement and progress which need to be rethought in order to align with developments in education policy and parental expectations in the latter half of the 1990s. Uses the aspects of reporting in need of improvement, as elicited from the literature review, to generate a set of roles and responsibilities for school leaders and administrators to adopt in improving the reporting process, which, it is argued, needs to be well managed and organized if it is to meet the expectations of all stakeholders.