An economist looks at what it costs society to invest in children and their education- and what it pays.

In 1979/80 the government set aside $1,047,140,000 for education. That is 5.2% of our Gross Domestic Product. Spending on Education has been increasing but now fewer babies are being born, immigration has almost ceased, emigration is at an all time high, times are tougher economically, so how may education expect ...

"What is believed to be essential for mental health is that the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother-substitute - one person who steadily 'mothers' him) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment."
This is perhaps the most notorious ...

Teachers are almost universally agreed that large classes "are exhausting, a cause of frustration, and a reason for failure in basic subjects". Their views about what constitutes a "large" class have changed considerably in recent years, however. The same author quotes figures for England to show that the optimum size ...

We still put children in classes. But we now believe that every child has a right to be taught the things that fit his or her needs, and taught them at the pace and in the manner that fits his or her abilities. These are new responsibilities. The techniques to ...

In both Australia and NZ there has been a great deal of interest in the effects that external examinations have on the subjects taught and the way they are taught in secondary schools. In 1970 Queensland took the plunge, scrapped a final internal exam and introduced internal assessment. How has ...

In the late 1950s programmed learning was set to revolutionise teaching. B. F. Skinner started the movement in 1954 with a provocative paper entitled 'The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching'.
We are on the threshold of an exciting and revolutionary period, in which the scientific study of ...

As teachers, we should be clear why we are testing. We should not test just because it is always done. Certainly, tests often do help motivate students to work harder. But the results can be discouraging too, if the results are poor.
In fact, the purpose of the test should ...

What can a teacher, faced by the problem of helping immigrant second-language pupils in his or her class, learn from recent research? One important research project has made us aware of the sort of obstacles which books, as well as classroom talk, are throwing in the path of the immigrant ...

Ages, Stages, Classes, Years, Grades, and Systems compared