Baby steps or giant strides?

In its 2014 review of the child care sector, the Productivity Commission revealed that parents of one in six children were struggling to access child care services in their area, with just over one half of parents indicating that a failure to secure child care was hindering their ability to meet work commitments. This paper considers the childcare and family policies currently being considered by the Australian Parliament, and assesses how those policies stack up against the best practice features of other nations

The Evolution of a Stakeholder Model for DIT as it Enters a Merger of Three Institutes of Technology in Terms of Policy Definition and Control of Implementation

As the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) prepares to amalgamate with the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown (ITB) and Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT) in advance of becoming a technical university, we present a comparison of stakeholder research from 2008 and 2016, questioning how DIT might become better able to respond to the radically changing environment it faces. Using the McNay Model and Fourth Generation Evaluation, we consider the views of two groups of DIT stakeholders on the best model for change. In both years, it was felt that the entrepreneurial university model from the USA was unlikely to be successful, largely because of DIT’s inability to raise sufficient funding. A corporate model was also rejected at both times and it was concluded that a European style of university incorporating collegial innovation was most appropriate. What was perceived as excessive bureaucracy in 2008 was considered to have increased by 2016 and current stakeholders fear that the culture of bureaucracy will survive beyond the merger, hampering progress and stifling innovation. We find the stakeholder is less convinced that change will happen on a large enough scale and at a fast enough pace for the Institute to survive into the 21st century

Home and away: the policy context in Australia

The policies that shape early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Australia are formulated within overlapping national and international contexts. Globalisation, the development of international law and the spread of electronic communication technologies all play a role in the rapid diffusion of ideas and practices to the broader policy community surrounding ECEC internationally. In recent decades ECEC has grown as a component of the in-kind service provision of all Western welfare states (Meyers & Gornick 2003). Women’s rising labour force participation and government policies mandating ‘workfare’ rather than ‘welfare’ are important reasons for this. So, too, are ideas about the significance of the early years for the intellectual, social and emotional development of children. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), ‘ … the education and care of young children is shifting from the private to the public domain, with much attention to the complementary roles of family and early childhood education and care institutions in young children’s early development and learning’ (OECD 2000, p. 9). This chapter provides an overview of the domestic (‘home’) and international (‘away’) contexts surrounding Australian child care and early education policy. The broad argument is that there is a lack of fit between the emerging international agenda around ECEC which is increasingly child-focused and the Australian Government’s adult-centred, instrumentalist approach to ECEC which sees it as a service linked primarily to supporting workforce participation. The chapter begins with an overview of international developments and moves on to discuss the domestic policy framework established by the Coalition government since 1996

Quantum Computational Supremacy: Security and Vulnerability in a New Paradigm

Despite three decades of research, the field of quantum computation has yet to build a quantum computer that can perform a task beyond the capability of any classical computer – an event known as computational supremacy. Yet this multi-billion dollar research industry persists in its efforts to construct such a machine. Based on the counter-intuitive principles of quantum physics, these devices are fundamentally different from the computers we know. It is theorised that large-scale quantum computers will have the ability to perform some remarkably powerful computations, even if the extent of their capabilities remains disputed. One application, however, the factoring of large numbers into their constituent primes, has already been demonstrated using Shor’s quantum algorithm. This capability has far reaching implications for cybersecurity as it poses an unprecedented threat to the public key encryption that forms an important component of the security of all digital communications. This paper outlines the nature of the threat that quantum computation is believed to pose to digital communications and investigates how this emerging technology, coupled with the threat of Adversarial Artificial Intelligence, may result in large technology companies gaining unacceptable political leverage; and it proposes measures that might be implemented to mitigate this eventuality

Horticultural therapy activities for the rehabilitation of physically disabled children

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 B75Master of Scienc

Grandparents raising grandchildren: towards recognition, respect and reward

Executive Summary: Grandparents have long played a major role in the lives of their children and grandchildren, with some providing extensive emotional, material and practical support. Since the last quarter of the 20th century in Australia as in many other countries, grandparent carers - the focus of this study - have become both politically organised and a focus of policy attention. The growing public visibility of grandparent carers reflects not only their political mobilisation but also the increasing reliance of child protection authorities on kinship care (mainly grandparent care). In 2012, almost 41,000 children and young people across Australia were the subject of care and protection orders issued by child protection authorities (AIHW 2013) and more than half of those placed in home-based care are with relatives or kin␣mainly grandparents␣rather than with non-related foster carers (AIHW 2013, Table A15). Thousands more grandparents are raising their grandchildren as a result of private family arrangements that may or may not be known to child protection authorities. Still another group of grandparents assume responsibility for their grandchildren following orders of the Family Court or Federal Magistrates Court. Children are placed with grandparents because their parents are unwilling or unable to adequately care for their children. The reasons for placement include substantiated abuse or neglect, often associated with domestic violence and parental substance misuse and mental illness; and irretrievable breakdown in the relationship between children and parents.This study of grandparents raising grandchildren draws on multiple sources of data. These include a literature review, analysis of ABS statistics including Census 2006, a survey of grandparent carers, interviews with Indigenous grandparents, and focus groups and interviews with policy makers and service providers. Grandparents from every Australian state and territory participated in the research: the 335 grandparents who participated in the survey were drawn from every state and the ACT; the twenty Indigenous grandparents who took part in interviews came from New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory. The fifty-five policy makers (drawn from Commonwealth, state and territory agencies) and service providers who participated in focus groups were from New South Wales, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory.Authors: Deborah Brennan, Bettina Cass, Saul Flaxman, Trish Hill, Bridget Jenkins, Marilyn McHugh, Christiane Purcal and kylie valentine

Education, Behaviour and Exclusion: the Experience and Impact of Short School Days on Children with Disabilities and Their Families in the Republic of Ireland

This report is about the educational experiences of children with disabilities and their families in the Republic of Ireland. The research was carried out by Technological University Dublin and Inclusion Ireland. The research involved an on-line survey and interviews. 393 parents of school-aged children from all over Ireland answered the survey

The Evolution of a New Technological University in Terms of Policy Definition and Control of Implementation

This paper derives from a Doctoral case study completed in the Technological University Dublin (DIT) in 2008. The main issues of the case study are still being addressed today as DIT prepares to amalgamate with the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown (ITB) and Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT) in 2015. The combined new institute will become a university in 2016 and is in the process of a move to a green field site. The rate and scope of these changes are challenging for all concerned. Through a series of interviews and focus groups in 2008, a story of DIT emerged. The McNay model was used as a Conceptual Framework and Analytical Tool to examine various types of university model and compare them with the cultures, practices and understandings of stakeholders in DIT. The classic entrepreneurial model from the USA was shown to be unlikely to be successful, largely because of the Institute’s inability to raise money on the scale of the US model. The corporate model using managerialist practice was also rejected by stakeholders. It was concluded that a European style of University with Collegial Innovation was appropriate, that bureaucracy needed be greatly reduced and that the culture and power residing within the organisation must be acknowledged in the process of change