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Improving teacher quality has become the hallmark of Australian education reform with a plethora of measures introduced in teacher education to improve future teachers' instructional competencies. This policy focus has also changed the discussion of strategies for addressing disadvantages in schools; improving teacher quality, as opposed to addressing structural inequalities in the system and larger society, has become the "solution." This paper looks at the National Exceptional Teaching for Disadvantaged Schools (NETDS), which aims to channel high performing teacher education students to disadvantaged schools. Using the taxonomy of conservative, liberal and critical approaches to education reform, the paper first identifies the ideological contradictions inherent in the program, and then discusses, drawing on post-qualitative research literature, how the program coordinators negotiated the tensions and the moral/ethical dilemmas as we designed and implemented the program for a group of external students at University of New England.

Setting in train various forms of curriculum and pedagogic change in schools whilst seeking to improve both teaching strategies and Aboriginal educational outcomes in Australia is a complex business. This involves a sustained effort to equip the next generation of educators with the skills and knowledges to identify, diagnose, and devise remedies for the 'problems' that are sometimes ascribed to Aboriginal learners. The work of Paolo Freire is a point of reference here. However, the halo around Freire and his work may occlude thinking about how to evoke his concepts, (specifically conscientisation) in the contemporary Australian context. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Freire's work in this light. We also discuss the Culturally Nourishing Schooling (CNS) project, a whole school reform model where teachers are encouraged to shift their reflective gaze onto themselves and on the settings in which they work. We argue that for 'success' in education to no longer be defined by deficit thinking, firstly, conscientisation must be a collective process. To change teachers and their practice and schooling requires a different conception of both change and of conscientisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the renewed emphasis on higher education as an agent for development and economic growth, Australia has joined other Western countries in contributing to increasing the intellectual workforce of Africa[1]. While Australia has provided scholarships to Africans for more than three decades, since 2005, the Australian Government has dramatically increased its commitment to invest in Africa's future by providing a series of development awards scholarships for Africans to advance their learning in priority areas including agriculture, food security, water and sanitation, public health, energy and resource management. These scholarships are the largest component of Australia's total aid to Africa. However, very little empirical research has been done to determine the impact of Australia Africa Long Term scholarship awards (AALT). This paper examines this new African intellectual workforce by presenting qualitative data from alumni engaging in this new flow of knowledge mobility. Experiences of public health graduates of Australia scholarship awards from Uganda and Mozambique will be discussed. Overall, we argue that that the Australia Africa scholarships program has a positive impact on alumni and is viewed favourably by Alumnis' employers and their alumni's families. However, there are many challenges and struggles which can impede alumnis' success in bringing forth the change they might envisage. Some of these factors include: finding a job at a suitable level, implementing their new knowledge, using their new skills and, generally, reintegrating into their home country (both socially and professionally).

The number of highly skilled Africans leaving their country of origin, many with PhDs, has reached disturbing proportions. Meanwhile, Africa spends billions per year to fill the capacity gaps that are created by the exodus of the highly skilled. In Africa, Ethiopia ranked first in terms of rate of loss of human capital. Many African governments are unable to match salaries or offer incentives to draw the highly skilled to return home in this context. The article focuses on the knowledge Diaspora, and the possibilities that exist to offset the potential impact of brain drain on their country of origin. The paper examines pathways for the mobilisation of the African Intellectual Diasporas, in particular the Ethiopian knowledge Diaspora, by addressing the main factors that played a role in shaping the new direction of the brain drain phenomenon. (Contains 2 figures.)

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to posit a possible reason why non-Indigenous educators are seen to be 'cautious' in their pedagogic engagement with First Nations perspectives in curriculum, why interventions and programmess around reconciliation and truth-telling have limited traction in affecting change in school culture, and why the Australian education system is constructed to be, and remains, largely hostile to First Nations Peoples and perspectives. Despite several decades of studies exploring these phenomena and concerted efforts to 'fix the problem', there has been a systemic failure to shift discourses and practice beyond the completely absent, tokenistic, or superficial inclusion of First Nations narratives in Australian education. We argue that power-knowledge relations of settler-colonial discourses are fundamentally at play and that by examining how disciplinarity and settler-colonial frameworks of knowledge control operate in education, we conceptualize a possible reason to the pedagogical challenges faced in the decision-making and integration of First Nations narratives in curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A concern for social justice pervades the espoused curriculum of many pre-service teaching programmes, but the extent to which that curriculum influences the beliefs students hold is an open question. With the goal of developing an instrument suitable for evaluating such beliefs at the degree programme level, the present study analysed responses to the Learning to Teach for Social Justice-Beliefs (LTSJ-B) Scale (Enterline, S., Cochran-Smith, M., Ludlow, J.H., & Mitescu, E. (2008). "Learning to teach for social justice: Measuring change in the beliefs of teacher candidates." "The New Educator," 4, 267-290. doi:10.1080/15476880802430361) from 304 Australian pre-service teachers. Exploratory factor analysis and Rasch analysis both indicated a two-factor structure, driven by a methodological artefact of item valence. We conclude from these findings that a short, five-item version of the LTSJ-B Scale would suitably balance psychometric and pragmatic considerations, in the broader context of working within an institutionally aligned system of teaching evaluation with multiple levels.

Over the last decade authors have critiqued the hegemonic structures that perpetuate knowledge hierarchies in the dominant research regimes that foster privilege across the globe. The authors in this article use collective biography to reflectively engage with knowledge production in the academy. They explore the nature of prudentia as an affective shame that surfaces through reflexive engagement with the politics of research cultures. Collective biography, as a ‘grassroots’ form of deliberate and collaborative interrogation, produces insight from ‘difficult knowledge’ that sheds light on power imbalance in North/South relations in research practice. In endeavouring to grapple with Southern Theory, the authors surface ‘unwelcome truths’. These disquieting ruptures reveal the power of prudentia for academics who are desirous to unsettle the complacency of Northern assumptions as they engage in an ongoing struggle with doing Southern Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

International scholarships for higher education are a large component of foreign aid in many high-income countries, including Australia. The aims for Australian scholarships awarded to African students are to achieve development in Africa and advance the influence of Australia. However, well-articulated theories of change that define how scholarships are linked to these and other outcomes are not available in the literature. In order to address this gap, the authors explore the perspectives of Australian-funded Master's-level alumni from Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique on the implementation process before, during and after their scholarship award, and the outcomes of the scholarships. The authors found that Australian scholarships to Africans have the potential to spread Australian influence, and that returnee scholars, by virtue of their study in Australia, gain the capacity to become agents for development in their country. The process of choosing scholarship awardees, the local circumstances in each country on return, and support and mentoring networks after return can influence the achievement of these outcomes. Investments in international scholarships should be directed to develop additional skills and facilitate networks in order to further prepare the returnee scholars to influence development in their country and perpetuate Australian influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the renewed emphasis on higher education as an agent for development and economic growth, Australia has joined other Western countries in contributing to increasing the intellectual workforce of Africa1. While Australia has provided scholarships to Africans for more than three decades, since 2005, the Australian Government has dramatically increased its commitment to invest in Africa's future by providing a series of development awards scholarships for Africans to advance their learning in priority areas including agriculture, food security, water and sanitation, public health, energy and resource management. These scholarships are the largest component of Australia's total aid to Africa. However, very little empirical research has been done to determine the impact of Australia Africa Long Term scholarship awards (AALT). This paper examines this new African intellectual workforce by presenting qualitative data from alumni engaging in this new flow of knowledge mobility. Experiences of public health graduates of Australia scholarship awards from Uganda and Mozambique will be discussed. Overall, we argue that that the Australia Africa scholarships program has a positive impact on alumni and is viewed favourably by alumni's employers and their families. However, there are many challenges and struggles which can impede alumni's success in bringing forth the change they might envisage. Some of these factors include: finding a job at a suitable level, implementing their new knowledge, using their new skills and, generally, reintegrating into their home country (both socially and professionally). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A concern for social justice pervades the espoused curriculum of many pre-service teaching programmes, but the extent to which that curriculum influences the beliefs students hold is an open question. With the goal of developing an instrument suitable for evaluating such beliefs at the degree programme level, the present study analysed responses to the Learning to Teach for Social Justice–Beliefs (LTSJ–B) Scale (Enterline, S., Cochran-Smith, M., Ludlow, J.H., & Mitescu, E. (2008). Learning to teach for social justice: Measuring change in the beliefs of teacher candidates.The New Educator,4, 267–290. doi:10.1080/15476880802430361) from 304 Australian pre-service teachers. Exploratory factor analysis and Rasch analysis both indicated a two-factor structure, driven by a methodological artefact of item valence. We conclude from these findings that a short, five-item version of the LTSJ–B Scale would suitably balance psychometric and pragmatic considerations, in the broader context of working within an institutionally aligned system of teaching evaluation with multiple levels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The number of highly skilled Africans leaving their country of origin, many with PhDs, has reached disturbing proportions. Meanwhile, Africa spends billions per year to fill the capacity gaps that are created by the exodus of the highly skilled. In Africa, Ethiopia ranked first in terms of rate of loss of human capital. Many African governments are unable to match salaries or offer incentives to draw the highly skilled to return home in this context. The article focuses on the knowledge Diaspora, and the possibilities that exist to offset the potential impact of brain drain on their country of origin. The paper examines pathways for the mobilisation of the African Intellectual Diasporas, in particular the Ethiopian knowledge Diaspora, by addressing the main factors that played a role in shaping the new direction of the brain drain phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]