All educational organisations maintain a body of policies be they administrative, teaching, human resource, legal or some other type. Combined, they help create the effective operation of educational institutions and the effectiveness of the learning which occurs in them.

Such policies do not simply appear. They are created following reviews of existing processes and procedures and usually following some level of research locally, within the wider Australia setting or internationally. In many cases, people have opportunities for input prior to any final deliberations. International information is also becoming more widely accessible and used. Most major policies follow reports coming from reviews and related research.

Most reports, research data and policies are now easily accessible either online or in a format that is able to be downloaded for later reference.

This page contains policy documents and links from a range of international sources. Where possible, connections to similar interests in Australia, are a major factor in their inclusion.

The First Page looks at education policy sources in all states & territories, state & territory specific reviews and reports and some general information.

The Second Page looks at special reviews, reports and other documentation from a national perspective. These may be used in policy development in Australia, provide insights into, or linkages with, similar concerns and possible solutions in other countries. Information is also provided about the educational policies of a range of political parties in Australia.

Related pages include Conferences, Education Journals, Parent Involvement and Headlines.

International Reviews, Reports, …

Global Links

• Achieving Learning Impact 2007 Report
  Trends in Learning, Technology, and Standards. ‘Integrates an extremely diverse set of viewpoints and data that were presented at the Learning Impact 2007 conference’.
• Australia : OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education
  ‘The Country Review of Australia is the third report published in this series. It provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing the evaluation and assessment framework in Australia, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches’.
• Building a High-Quality Teaching Profession : Lessons from around the World
  ‘This report presents the best current evidence about what can make teacher-oriented reforms effective. It points to examples of reforms that have produced specific results, show promise or illustrate imaginative ways of implementing change’. Need to be able to access OECD material to get the full report.

Education at a Glance

• Education at a Glance - OECD Indicators 2007
• Education at a Glance - OECD Indicators 2008
• Education at a Glance - OECD Indicators 2009
• Education at a Glance - OECD Indicators 2010
• Education at a Glance - OECD Indicators 2011

Global Education Digest

• Global Education Digest 2009
  From UNESCO.
• Global Education Digest 2010
  ‘Presents the latest education statistics from pre-primary to tertiary education levels for more than 200 countries. Data are provided for the school year ending in 2008 or the latest year available, as well as for 2009 for a small number of countries’.
• Global Education Digest 2011
  From UNESCO. ‘Focus on secondary education’.

• How The World’s Best Performing …
  School Systems Come Out on Top. ‘McKinsey published a study in which 25 school systems, including the 10 top performing school systems, are compared. The study identifies aspects that make the top systems come out on top’.
• UNESCO Education Links - International Bureau of Education
  Also Links to Databases and Databanks on the Internet.

Other Links

• Long-Term Effects of Class Size
  ‘This paper evaluates the long-term effects of class size in primary school. We use rich administrative data from Sweden and exploit variation in class size created by a maximum class size rule’. Download a copy here.
• Mergers and More : The Changing Tertiary Education Landscape in the 21^st Century
  ‘The paper provides an analysis of changes to tertiary education policy and management over the last two decades. Starting with a focus on institutional mergers as a policy instrument for national governments, two different sets of objectives are identified : sorting out the system and raising the bar. The first is laying the foundations of tertiary education systems that can address issues of autonomy and massification. The second is about positioning institutions for increased global competition. The paper then explores the increasingly complex world of interorganisational relationships through providing a brief case study of Australian tertiary education’. Download the working paper here.
• Preparing for Success in Canada and the United States
  ‘Reviewing recent research on the determinants of the educational attainment among the children of immigrants born in Canada and the United States, also known as the second generation’. From Statistics Canada.
• Schools, Ability, and the Socioeconomic Gradient in Education Choices
  ‘Using a rich data set covering all students transferring from compulsory education to upper secondary education [in 2002], we find that student achievement at the end of compulsory school is the main predictor of dropout and delayed progression’.
• Withering Academia ?
  ‘Strong forces lead to a withering of academia as it exists today. The major causal forces are the rankings mania, increased division of labour in research, intense publication pressure, academic fraud, dilution of the concept of “university” and inadequate organisational forms for modern research. The conclusion is therefore pessimistic with respect to the academic system as it presently exists but not to scholarly endeavour as such. However, the transformation predicted is expected to be fundamental’. Click on One-Click Download to get a PDF version.

United Kingdom Links

• Evaluation of SHINE on Saturdays
  ‘The programme involves the Trust funding schools or other educational organisations to provide a SHINE on Saturday school aimed at underachieving children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The SHINE on Saturday model emphasises the creative curriculum and is based on alternative and accelerated learning concepts’.
• Exploring Young People’s Views on Science Education [Wellcome Trust]
  ‘This research report was commissioned by the Trust and conducted by NFER in 2011 to look at young people's experiences of science education and how they could be enhanced’. Download the full report here.
• Getting Them Reading Early
  ‘This focuses on early reading, including systematic phonics, and inspection methodology. It is one of two publications forming a programme of distance learning training materials for inspectors and has been written to support the implementation of the new framework for school inspection’. The Department for Education.
• Review of best practice in parental engagement
  ‘This report presents a review of studies of interventions aimed at supporting and improving parental engagement in the education of children aged 5-19, which also offer evidence on educational outcomes’. Available for download in multiple parts. The Department for Education.
• The Importance of Teaching - The Schools White Paper 2010
  ‘This White Paper outlines the steps necessary to enact such whole-system reform in England. It encompasses both profound structural change and rigorous attention to standards. It includes a plan for attracting and training even better teachers’. The Department for Education.

United States Links

• 2011 Horizon Report [EDUCAUSE]
  ‘Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education and creative expression over the next one to five years’. Download a copy of the The Horizon Report here.
• A Measured Approach to Improving Teacher Preparation
  ‘This 22-page report examines the way the United States currently prepares teachers and offers some specific suggestions on how to improve it’. Download a copy here.
• Class Size : What Research Says and What it Means for State Policy [Brookings Institution]
  ‘Class size is one of the small number of variables in American K-12 education that are both thought to influence student learning and are subject to legislative action. Legislative mandates on maximum class size have been very popular at the state level’.
• Effects of Preschool Curriculum Programs on School Readiness
  ‘Report from the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research Initiative. This report provides the individual results for each curriculum from the evaluations’. Multiple downloads available.
• Future Schools : Blending Face-to-Face and Online Learning
  ‘How schools implementing blended, or “hybrid”, instructional methods - which integrate traditional face-to-face teaching with greater use of online instruction - are pointing the way toward more effective and efficient school models’.
• Learning About Teaching
  ‘This 7-page US policy brief reports that student perceptions of teacher effectiveness are very accurate gauges of actual effectiveness’.
• Striving for Student Success : A Model of Shared Accountability
  ‘This 15-page US report provides an in-depth look at where shared accountability works to improve education, and on how other communities can use this approach to help all students succeed. Kelly Bathgate et a’.
• Student Teaching in the United States
  ‘Student teaching serves as a capstone experience for nearly 200 000 teacher candidates each year. In an effort to understand how to get student teaching “right”, NCTQ embarked on an ambitious effort to measure student teaching programs nationwide, assessing the degree to which they have the right pieces in place necessary for delivering a high quality program’.
• The End of Isolation
  ‘This research study provides new insight into how teachers use social networking sites, such as Twitter, as professional learning networks’.
• Trends and Early Lessons on Teacher Evaluation and Effectiveness Policies
  ‘US study providing an in-depth analysis of states with some of the most ambitious teacher effectiveness policies and a set of early observations on the development and implementation of performance-based teacher evaluationss’.
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
  ‘Reliable and timely data on the mathematics and science achievement of U.S. students compared to that of students in other countries. TIMSS data collected in 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007’. You can also use their Data Explorer. Being updated post 2011 with that year’s data.

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