{"id":20109,"date":"2016-08-26T16:40:33","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T08:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/austcham.org\/?p=20079"},"modified":"2016-08-31T15:00:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T07:00:03","slug":"etp260816","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/?p=20109","title":{"rendered":"Education Talking Points | 26\/08\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EducationTPB\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s Talking Points:\u00a0Private equity firm Bain Capital set to enter the Australian childcare sector;\u00a0NSW Independent education authority given power to close schools and run inspections;\u00a0Chinese scientist, Max Lu, calls for a greater focus on basic research and development to strengthen the economy;\u00a0petition against the Safe Schools program, including\u00a0more than 17,000 signatures from the Australian Chinese community has been tabled in the New South Wales Parliament.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Bain Capital set to acquire early learning business Only About Children
\n<\/strong>Private equity firm Bain Capital looks set to enter the Australian childcare sector with the acquisition of Only About Children with the deal expected to be announced this week. \u00a0Only About Children is one of a number of companies in the Australian childcare industry including the leading G8 Education which has 478 centres in Australia, 20 centres in Singapore, and 7.9 per cent local market share and Goodstart Early Learning, formerly ABC Learnings Centres, which holds 7.2 per cent market share. in 1987 Bain was a founding investor in US childcare group Bright Horizons which has grown to more than 700 childcare centres globally with Bain continuing to hold a 25 per cent stake.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0Australian Financial Review<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NSW Independent education authority given power to close schools and run inspections
\n<\/strong>The Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards (BOSTES) is being given enhanced powers to close down non-compliant schools and conduct random unannounced inspections in Catholic, private and public schools. These new powers are aimed at lifting student results by ensuring school compliance and teacher quality. Random and risk-based audits, will give the agency the ability to warn and ultimately deregister a school not meeting regulatory requirements. Inspectors will be trained to observe classrooms and even be able to examine students\u2019 workbooks to ensure work reflects the official curriculum. Rapid turnover of senior staff or school boards, finance concerns, poor academic results or an abundance of parent complaints are issues that could potentially lead to risk audits and school inspections.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0Canberra Times<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chinese Scientist says China must concentrate on research
\n<\/strong>Chinese scientist and president and vice-chancellor of the University of Surrey in Southern England, Max Lu calls for a greater focus on basic research and development to strengthen the economy. China\u2019s 13th Five-year plan (2016-2020) also pushes for China to become a leader in innovation and technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina\u2019s number of research publications, as well as its quality and citations and patent registrations, are all accelerating. At the same time, challenges still exist in terms of investing in basic science and also in the translation of research into practical applications\u201d Lu said.<\/p>\n

China currently spends about 5 percent of its research funding on basic research, far behind other developed countries, which on average spend around 30 percent on basic science according to the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Whilst China\u2019s research strength is yet to be fully optimized, it is heading in the right direction, Lu said. For example, there is an increasing focus on peer review in the process of allocating research grants as opposed to having grants decided by government officials. Academics are also being given more flexibility when they receive funding across multiple years.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0China Daily<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Australian Chinese Community petition against Safe Schools anti-bullying program
\n<\/strong>A petition against the Safe Schools program, of more than 17,000 signatures from the Australian Chinese community has been tabled in the New South Wales Parliament. Safe Schools is a federally funded program against bullying. It aims to help protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and\/ or intersex (LGBTI) school students from discrimination. The petition says that the program should it be cancelled as it \u201cpromotes a particular ideology, including gender fluidity, that is contrary to our cultural and belief system.\u201d It also states that the program \u201cdiscriminates against children and parents from other cultures who have a view of sexual relationships involving male and female as normative.\u201d The petition has been tabled in Parliament and will be debated on September 22.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0ABC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today\u2019s Talking Points:\u00a0Private equity firm Bain Capital set to enter the Australian childcare sector;\u00a0NSW Independent education authority given power to close schools and run inspections;\u00a0Chinese scientist, Max Lu, calls …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20140,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20109\/revisions\/20140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westchina.austcham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}