December2008

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Volume 6, December 2008

Career Contribution to VET research acknowledged

Prof Roger Harris acknowledged for career research into vocational education University of South Australia researcher in vocational education and training (VET), Professor Roger Harris has been named in the Australian Training Awards as the inaugural VET Researcher of the Year, sponsored by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. Professor Harris is a Key Researcher in the Centre for Research in Education, Equity and Work, within the Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Societies.

The award has been established to recognise and promote the value of an evidence-based approach to improving policy and practice in the vocational education sector. Professor Harris has been researching in the field for more than 20 years, initially focussing on competency-based training. His work in this specific area is regarded as seminal in the VET sector.

Across his career, Prof Harris has lead successful teams who have completed more than a $1million of funded research projects, a significant set of grants for any professor in education in the country. His research has been broad and significant in examining contemporary VET practice including apprenticeships, workplace learning, the integration of on and off-job learning, two-way student movement between VET and higher education, and most recently, the development of the VET workforce.

UniSA Pro Vice Chancellor for Education Arts and Social Sciences, Professor Pal Ahluwalia says the breadth of Prof Harris’ research is impressive.

“Through his work, Prof Harris has brought credibility to VET research work and steadfastly promoted the value and importance of VET as a sector,” Prof Ahluwalia said.

National Centre for Student Equity welcomed at UniSA

Stronger progress in the participation of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, Indigenous students, and students from regional and rural areas, are some of the central challenges facing all universities. So is the impact of increasing numbers of students with disabilities entering higher education and the limits on their employment prospects following graduation.

The National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education sponsored by the Australian Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) and hosted by the University of South Australia has been established to research these policy and practice issues in student equity and to lead the development of new knowledge in the field.

The National Centre’s founding Director is Professor Trevor Gale Professor Gale is a sociologist of education with an enduring research interest in social justice and education policy, particularly in the fields of higher education and schooling. He is the founding editor of Critical Studies in Education and a past President (2005) of the Australian Association for Research in Education.

"There has been embarrassingly little change in the participation rates of ‘equity groups’, especially Indigenous, rural and regional and low socio-economic status (SES) background students over the past 20 years," Professor Gale says.

“For example, low socio-economic students are one-third less likely than high socio-economic status students to gain access to higher education.”

“We need to start asking the right questions about how we can make a difference. It will require us to think outside the traditional interests of higher education. Increasingly, widening participation in higher education is about social inclusion in education more generally. The higher education sector needs to collaborate with other education sectors to promote equitable outcomes for all students.”

“I think the Bradley Review provides us with an opportunity for these student equity matters to be mainstreamed in Australian universities.”

The foundation of the National Centre itself suggests that there are signs that it will be.

Exciting Announcement in the School of Education

Associate Professor Michele Simons has been appointed Dean and Head of School of Education.

Assoc Prof Simons has worked at the University of South Australia since 1993 in a variety of roles including a part-time lecturer and research assistant, a Senior Lecturer in Post-compulsory Education and Training, as well as Campus Coordinator for Education at the Mawson Lakes campus. During those periods, Michele has also been a prolific researcher, particularly in the areas of vocational education and training, and marriage, family and relationship education. Assoc Prof Simons is a researcher in the Centre for Research in Education, Equity and Work, within the Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Societies.

In her many roles, Michele has consistently demonstrated a commitment to her work that is often well above the call-of-duty. It is testament to Michele’s managerial ability and to her steadfast dedication to staff that the School has continued to flourish under her leadership as Acting Head of School.

Teaching literacy in a Web 3.0 world

New digital technologies are said to be opening avenues for people to create and contribute content to various communities in ways that previously were not available. Web 3.0 is seen as the next evolution of the internet, characterised by its capacity to connect users everywhere at the same time to customised information.

Research SA Chair and Professor in UniSA’s Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures, Victoria Carrington, has been focusing on the evolution of Web 3.0 in connecting people to the growing availability of 3-D immersive virtual worlds.

As young people embrace new forms of communication, Prof Carrington says it sets a new context within which educators must now think about teaching literacy.

“Participatory culture refers to the concept that there is a movement towards greater participation in a range of communities,” Prof Carrington said. “It’s a culture reflected by the out-of-school practices of many young people using digital technologies to interact with one another through unique styles of social text.”

Prof Carrington's current research interests include new literacies and literate practice, digital technologies, and youth and participatory cultures. Before joining UniSA in 2007, she was an Associate Dean at the University of Plymouth, a Unit of Assessment Coordinator for the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise and worked with universities in Queensland and Tasmania. Victoria writes extensively, is on the editorial boards of a range of journals and is an editor of the international journal, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

Questions or Comments?

Contact Annie Campbell, Senior Business Development Manager, Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences on
8302 4061

This is a publication of the EAS Business Development Office 2008

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