Education
Uni bosses move to ‘protect’ HSC as early offers set records
Tens of thousands of university offers were made before this year’s HSC, leading to concerns that some Year 12 students were slacking off before the exams.
- by Lucy Carroll
Latest
Students should achieve minimum ATAR of 70 to enter teaching degrees, inquiry finds
In its final report on Tuesday, the education committee found university education faculties had “actively encouraged the deterioration in teacher quality”.
- by Lucy Carroll
Centre-right student ‘shamed’ in Sydney Uni exam controversy
A law student has lodged a formal complaint about an assignment using her name for a character that kills a left-wing victim and has unprotected sex.
- by Anna Patty
High school closes to most students as one-third of teachers contract COVID-19 in new wave
In a letter to parents, the Sydney school said it had made “a very difficult but necessary decision” to close to most pupils for the rest of the week.
- by Lucy Carroll
Exclusive
University boosts female enrolments in male-dominated subjects after lowering ATAR bar
A controversial program to lower entry scores for female school-leavers at a Sydney university has significantly boosted the share of women in engineering and other male-dominated courses.
- by Daniella White
Exclusive
‘Brains trust moving west’: Sydney suburbs with the highest education levels
University graduates now make up a larger share of Parramatta than many parts of the north shore as highly educated graduates spread across Sydney.
- by Matt Wade and Nigel Gladstone
Exclusive
University students caught paying others to do their work at record levels
Serious cheating at the state’s two biggest universities was found at record levels last year, with students paying to have assignments done for them.
- by Lucy Carroll and Daniella White
Universities ‘level the playing field’ on IB marks after perfect score surge
Closer scrutiny will be applied when converting IB marks to ATARs due to concerns of potential grade inflation and overly generous marking.
- by Lucy Carroll
Australian colleges identified in allegedly helping women enter country to work in sex industry
More than a dozen education providers have been identified as allegedly “corrupt” by investigators probing the sex industry.
- by Nick McKenzie
Opinion
Why boys are falling behind at school
The brain development of boys is different to girls – and the difference has an impact on their performance in the classroom.
- by Kevin Donnelly
Opinion
HSC maths exam gets an F for failing our students
After completing an exam, one of my students said: “I felt like I never got an opportunity to show them what I know!”
- by Scott Lankshear
Pay of almost $150,000 for ‘expert teachers’ in reform proposal
A survey of 1350 public school teachers found more than two-thirds would be interested in taking on one of the proposed roles.
- by Lucy Carroll
Reading standards for year 9 boys at record low, NAPLAN results show
Despite overall results from this year’s NAPLAN tests being stable there are still some areas of concern.
- by Lucy Carroll
Exclusive
Parents to be trained as ‘first responders’ to aid suicide prevention
The NSW government will train 200,000 parents to be “first responders” to identify people at risk of suicide, develop a safety plan and refer them for help.
- by Mary Ward
University unlawfully sacked lecturer over Nazi swastika incident, court finds
The University of Sydney broke the law by sacking senior lecturer Tim Anderson for his comments about Israel and other matters.
- by Michael Koziol
Opinion
Leave us kids alone: it’s time to stop gaslighting HSC students
We regularly get told the HSC does not define us, but the system is set up to remind us that it does.
- by Angus McGregor
How one Sydney school turned around its reading and maths results
When principal Manisha Gazula started at Marsden Road Public six years ago, the majority of students were finishing primary school reading two grades below the expected level.
- by Lucy Carroll
Exclusive
Open-plan classrooms encourage ‘fad’ teaching methods, inquiry finds
A parliamentary inquiry has recommended that open-plan classrooms should be avoided, and that no public school should have more than 50 per cent of its classrooms as demountables.
- by Lucy Carroll
Who are the winners and losers in this budget?
Your guide to who gained the most – and who missed out – in the federal budget.
- by James Massola
Get smart: planning boss’s big gripe with ‘pretty’ but vacuous Sydney
Head of the Greater Cities Commission Geoff Roberts says Sydney needs to end its reliance on pretty imagery and take itself seriously as a clever, connected society.
- by Michael Koziol
‘It’s not easy’: Why Ivan does up to 14 hours of school a day
Ukrainians in Australia say strict conditions on their humanitarian visas are causing deep uncertainty and anxiety.
- by Jordan Baker
Opinion
Cranbrook’s pool was no good for water polo, so the taxpayer helped fund a new one
The hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars flowing from government coffers to wealthy, high-fee independent schools must be urgently redirected to those with genuine educational need.
- by Ken Boston
Exclusive
Climate change and maths to feature heavily in new science courses
The high school science curriculum is set for an overhaul to enable more students to succeed in physics and chemistry in the HSC.
- by Lucy Carroll
Thousands of extra university places created to help plug skills gaps
The federal government push includes more than 4000 extra university places for teaching students, giving priority to those from disadvantaged and rural backgrounds.
- by Adam Carey
Is this one of the toughest HSC maths questions yet?
The last question of the extension 2 paper is notoriously difficult, but this year’s was “out of reach” for even some of the best students.
- by Lucy Carroll
Video
The hardest 2022 Maths Extension 2 exam question explained
Watch James Ruse Agricultural High School student Prithika Dhiwaharan solve one of the hardest Mathematics Extension 2 exam questions.
Western Sydney kids wear brunt of COVID restrictions
Months of school closures during the pandemic and loss of face-to face lessons will reverberate for years, an independent review has found.
- by Lucy Carroll and Tom Rabe
Strathfield students breathe easy after HSC maths exams
Up to 59,000 students sat the Mathematics Advanced, Standard 1, Standard 2 and Extension Maths exams on Thursday. Experts described the papers as being controversy free.
- by Billie Eder
Opinion
The crisis that NAPLAN is writing into our classrooms
Some of the world’s finest writers, including Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver and Cormac McCarthy, might fail NAPLAN writing tests.
- by Shelley Davidow and Michael Carey
New Sydney public schools to share space with shops, apartments under radical proposal
A plan for an education campus at Macquarie Park, with a capacity of up to 3000 students, could include shops and high-rise apartments on the same site.
- by Lucy Carroll
Pandemic review says ‘schools should have stayed open’
Mass school closures hit students in low socio-economic postcodes hardest and contributed to more women than men leaving the workforce early in the pandemic.
- by Chip Le Grand
‘Fractured’ pandemic response failed the most vulnerable, independent report finds
A panel chaired by former top bureaucrat Peter Shergold recommends an overhaul of pandemic planning before the next public health crisis.
- by Chip Le Grand
Same-sex couple prompts backlash to Catholic schools’ musical
Sydney Catholic Schools billed its production of School of Rock as taking school musicals to a whole new level. Instead, it has had a flood of complaints.
- by Jordan Baker
Opinion
Let’s get uni students face-to-face again – for their mental health
Too many undergraduate subjects are being taught online, denying young university students crucial in-person social and learning experiences.
- by Erica Cervini
Exclusive
‘We can use the word illiterate’: The writing crisis in Australian schools
Most year 9 students punctuate their sentences like those in year 3, and structure them at or below year 7 level, new data shows.
- by Jordan Baker
Opinion
Stop saying the HSC doesn’t matter. It does
Educators keep telling teenagers not to stress about the HSC, but they must be careful not to discourage hard work and high achievement or students will belatedly confront a harsh reality: they will be measured against their contemporaries for their entire lives.
- by David Cross
Exclusive
Aboriginal language boost in curriculum overhaul
Students whose first language was Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander can deepen their knowledge of that tongue as part of the curriculum for the first time.
- by Harriet Alexander
Opinion
The lesson lottery: teacher planning overload holds back students
Some schools are already flourishing by allowing their teachers to do less planning and more teaching.
- by Amy Haywood
Government considers shared lesson plans to reduce teacher workload
The Grattan Institute says all Australian schools should have access to a bank of lesson plans, under a radical plan to boost student results and reduce teacher workload.
- by Madeleine Heffernan
Schools need shared lesson plans for teachers to stop learning ‘lottery’
All schools should have access to a bank of lesson plans under a proposal to reduce teacher workload and stop educators having to plan classes from scratch.
- by Lucy Carroll and Madeleine Heffernan
Exclusive
‘Stuck with useless land’: Harry Triguboff fights council over Bondi synagogue
The billionaire property developer has asked the NSW government to review Waverley Council’s refusal to rezone the site of a synagogue as residential.
- by Andrew Taylor
Cranbrook unveils $125m revamp as private schools compete in building boom
Its new centre includes 25 new classrooms, a double-height orchestra room, a 267-seat theatre, a chapel, an Olympic-sized pool and a gymnasium.
- by Lucy Carroll
Updated
WA Police to investigate after WA teacher accused of punching students
Department of Education Director General Lisa Rodgers said it was a very serious allegation that had been referred to police.
- by Holly Thompson
Staff at serious risk of psychological harm at embattled uni: SafeWork
A university whose former vice chancellor was accused of smearing saliva on a schoolgirl’s face has been ordered to improve its working conditions.
- by Harriet Alexander
Class of 2022 relieved after ‘fair’ HSC English exam
The first written HSC exams began on Wednesday with more than 60,000 students sitting English Paper 1.
- by Daniella White
Sydney’s universities climb ladder in latest world rankings
Seven Australian institutions cracked the top 100, up from six last year, and Melbourne is home to two of the world’s 50 top-ranked universities for the first time.
- by Lucy Carroll and Adam Carey
HSC students turn away from harder English subjects in record numbers
Data shows plummeting Extension 1 and 2 English enrolments over the past 15 years, with the number of pupils taking the courses dropping by 40 per cent and 45 per cent, respectively.
- by Lucy Carroll and Daniella White
WA mandates consent education from pre-primary
Australia’s education ministers endorsed adding mandated consent education to state curriculums in April, with emphasis on coercion, power imbalances and gender stereotypes.
- by Hamish Hastie