Minnis Journals

ET News Digest

Your Weekly Education Newsletter

Aussie schools need to teach more life skills
Australians are largely positive about the level of education provided to their children but feel more attention should be given to developing students’ life skills in the classroom.
Parents also feel that respect and honesty are two values that should be instilled during schooling and students should be taught life skills as part of the curriculum which include knowledge in money management, job preparation, first-aid training and critical thinking, such as recognising fraudulent content online. Read more

AI beating dyslexia
As many as 10 to 15% of school-age children are dyslexic and the International Dyslexia Association estimates that there are 1 billion people with dyslexia worldwide. Early intervention helps to overcome it and a new piece of AI is helping to identify dyslexics so something can be done.
Fredrik Wetterhall, the co-founder of Lexplore, says his software can evaluate students’ reading levels and visualise the cognitive process that is happening when a child reads. Read more

Scrapping HECS debt for remote teachers welcomed
Experts have endorsed the announcement that the government will cancel the uni debts of teachers who commit to working for four years in remote indigenous communities and say more must be done to attract locals into the teaching profession. Read more

Class Clowns National Grand Final
Class clowns finally get the chance to bring their underappreciated talent to the big stage with Melbourne International Comedy Festival having scouted Australia for the funniest secondary schoolers, aged between 14 and 18 years, for its annual Class Clowns national comedy competition.
The program encourages teenagers with a talent for comedy to unleash their comic voice through stand-up, sketch or musical comedy and work on their performance with a professional comedian in a free workshop and rehearsal, before performing their act in front of a live audience.
Past participants include Joel Creasey, Aaron Chen and Tom Ballard. Read more

New $15k Reading Australia Fellowship for Teachers of English and Literacy open
The Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund has launched the new $15,000 Reading Australia Fellowship for Teachers of English and Literacy, the agency provides almost $2m in funding every year to support Australian creativity.
This Fellowship supports an experienced teacher to undertake professional development through a research project, which can be in Australia or overseas. Read more

Breakfast and lunch for better learning
Breakfasts at school have had a great effect on learning outcomes and it looks like the same goes for lunch according to an investigation of 120 million Indian students.
India’s midday meal program is the largest school lunch program in the world and it has proven to be a good investment with results showing a good lunch makes for significantly better students. The effect is cumulative as the more years of school lunches indicated better scores during testing.
Read more

Scholarship for exceptional Year 12 students who face financial barriers
The University of Melbourne’s new Hansen Scholarship Program to help talented, determined students achieve their ambitions, regardless of social or economic barriers is the result of a generous $30 million gift from philanthropists Jane Hansen and Paul Little.
It is the biggest donation the University has ever received to benefit students and will provide the 20 yearly recipients with accommodation and financial support. Read more

Ivanhoe university campus at Latrobe commences
Ivanhoe Grammar School has opened its Australian-first University Campus for Year 9 at La Trobe University. It offers a year-long program designed to expose students to the self sufficiency of university life building upon the school’s successful short-term program which ran for 10 years.
The project was developed through a partnership between the school and the university.
Read more