Work, education and prosperity

Dr Bob Birrell is the director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University and author with Virginia Rapson of Clearing the Myths Away: Higher Education's Place in Meeting Workforce Demands. He writes in The Age today:

"Is Australia's prosperity delivering dividends in the education and training that the country needs?

Clearly not. Popular myths about education and training seem to have hijacked public debates.

As a result, recent Federal Government policy on higher education and training has been misguided.

The three principal myths are:

1. There has been too much emphasis on university education.

2. There is inherent conflict between expanding trade training and maintaining or increasing university education.

3. The number of young people entering the workforce will fall".

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

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#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas stopped him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed behind his back into their patrol car, where they say he shot himself in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story, says in an interview that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?

Mahler's Prodigal Son

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