NewsBite

Our Team

Stephen Matchett

Latest

COMMENTARYHigher Education

A group of multietnic students celebrating their graduation by throwing caps in the air. Education, qualification and gown concept.

Why students are abandoning arts degrees

Australians starting university aren’t buying what humanities academics are selling, and it’s not just to do with how much they cost.

Stephen Matchett

COMMENTARYEducation

Happy woman chatting on smartphone . She is seating in front of a concrete wall with messages translated in many languages

Why are Australians shunning studying languages?

Community pressure is keeping geographically irrelevant languagues on life-support.

Stephen Matchett

COMMENTARYEducation

Close up image of human hand holding test tube with money symbol

Message to unis on R&D review: just what is in it for taxpayers?

At the core of university culture is a 1000-year tradition of pursuing knowledge for its own sake and if the community benefits – well that’s a bit of luck.

Stephen Matchett

COMMENTARYEducation

Australian universities make a mess of the case for vice-chancellors’ high salaries.

Why VCs are failing to make the (pay) grade

There are utterly hopeless vice-chancellors paid at grades way above their ability.

Stephen Matchett

COMMENTARYNation

Group of students walking on path in college campus after classes, rear view of multiethnic young people carrying backpacks going to lessons, cropped shot of diverse university friends

Coalition wants quota cake and to eat it, too

There are dangers for both Labor and the Coalition on this high risk political strategy, but this is a problem of universities’ own amking. The elite Group of Eight campaigned so hard against quotas they gave the government no room for concessions.

Stephen Matchett

CommentaryHigher Education

Law education Images for Chris Merritt .Istock - Young woman in library

Unis must explain humanities’ worth

The brutal truth is taxpayers will want a better case for stumping up more cash for degrees that do not qualify anybody for anything specific, other than being an academic.

Stephen Matchett

COMMENTARYNation

Graduation cap put on AUD 20 dollar bill, a diploma or certificate, famous currencies. Concept of competition on education market which students seek to study at the best and prestigious institution.

Why academics hate uni ranking season

They create markets too much like capitalism for those in academia who believe the role of government is to write the cheque and then leave universities alone – or ask hard questions about the quality and value for money of the courses they teach.

Stephen Matchett

COMMENTARYHigher Education

Red price tag having white dollar signs attached to a black graduate cap with orange brim on yellow background. Illustration of the concept of university undergraduate tuition fees, student loans

Why should an arts degree cost more than medicine?

An arts degree will cost students just under $17,000 a year, which makes medicine and dentistry a bargain at $13,000. There are ways to address this, just not politically easy ones.

Stephen Matchett

COMMENTARYEducation

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: Newswire Photos: MAY 02 2024: A general view of the Sydney Uni where Protests in support of Gaza have spread to about 50 US universities and are now in four Australian universities, with students committed to permanently occupying university land until their demands for divestment are met. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Uni debacle was always going to get ugly

Our two oldest universities are both loudly left-wing campuses – they have activist staff and student groups where the party-line is settler-colonist theory – in which Israel as is has no right to exist.

Stephen Matchett

higher educationHigher Education

An Emirati student arrives at the building of the University of Wollongong in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, Dec. 28, 2009. A senior official at a Dubai university says the man suspected of trying to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day studied there through the middle of this year but is no longer a student. University of Wollongong in Dubai Vice President Raymi van der Spek told The Associated Press on Monday that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab took classes for seven months beginning in January. The school, located near the beach and Dubai's palm island, is a branch of an Australian public university.(AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)

The many pitfalls of exporting education

The Victorian government will kick $5m to local universities to set up overseas and avoid Canberra’s international student quotas. Now why hasn’t anybody tried that before? They have and it doesn’t do much.

Stephen Matchett

1
…
3
4
5

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/stephen-matchett/page/5