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Negotiations at the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are entering their second week after things got off to a rocky start.

Even before the event started, many were stunned that COP29 would again be hosted by a petro state. Just last year, COP28 was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and this year it is Azerbaijan’s turn. Approximately 90 per cent of Azerbaijan’s exports are in the oil and gas sector.

The president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has described oil and gas resources as a “gift of god.” Meanwhile, the country’s deputy energy minister (and chief executive of COP29) has been caught on tape using the conference to advance oil investment deals.

At the same time, and despite years of COP meetings, 2023 was 1.48C warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, and it’s looking like 2024 will be even warmer, likely surpassing the 1.5C mark for the first time.

After nearly three decades of COP meetings, the level of human-created greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is 534 parts per million — approaching twice the pre-industrial value when the gases are converted to their carbon dioxide equivalent.

The UAE Consensus, a landmark achievement of last year’s COP28, committed the parties to “transitioning away from all fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner in this critical decade to enable the world to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, in keeping with the science.”

This, however, begs an important question. Just what exactly does it mean to reach net-zero emissions “in keeping with the science?” I was a co-author in a recently published landmark study that may just help provide the answer.

Read more:
US politics has long shaped global climate action and science – how much will Trump’s opposition matter?

What is net zero?

Defining net zero requires an understanding of timescales. Millions of years ago, trees, ferns and other plants were abundant when the atmosphere had much higher concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2).

As the years went by, plants would grow and die. This dead vegetation would fall into swampy waters and, in time, turn into peat. Over millions of years, the peat turned into brown coal, then soft coal, and finally hard coal.

Raw coal from a coal mine pours off of a conveyer belt near Trinidad, Colo. in 2011. Coal is the end product of millions of years of geologic process.
(Mark Reis/The Gazette via AP)

A similar process occurred within shallow seas where ocean plants (such as phytoplankton) and marine creatures would die and sink to the bottom to be buried in the sediments below.

Over millions of years, the sediments hardened to produce sedimentary rocks, and the resulting high pressures and temperatures caused the organic matter to transform slowly into oil or natural gas. The great oil and natural gas reserves of today formed in these ancient sedimentary basins.

Today, when we burn a fossil fuel, we are harvesting the sun’s energy stored in a life that lived millions of years ago. In burning fossil fuels, we release the carbon dioxide that had been drawn out of that ancient atmosphere — the same ancient atmosphere that had much higher levels of carbon dioxide than today.

Simply put, unless we can figure out a way to speed up the millions of years of geologic process, the idea that we can stop global warming solely through nature-based solutions or “planting a tree” simply isn’t realistic.

Read more:
Climate entropy: reflections on the ground from COP29

Reaching true net zero

A series of scientific analyses published in 2007, February 2008, August 2008 and 2009 demonstrated that the stabilization of global mean temperatures required net-zero emissions. Policymakers interpreted these findings as a green light to emit carbon as long as these were natural “offsets.” This is a gross misinterpretation of the facts of net zero.

And so I, alongside a global team of 25 scholars and scientists involved in the early research, teamed up to correct this misinterpretation and explain just what exactly is (and is not) net zero.

Our research, recently published in Nature, makes four key recommendations for reaching true net zero:

1) Stabilization of the global mean temperature at any level requires net-zero anthropogenic emissions.

2) Reliance on “natural carbon sinks” like forests and oceans to offset ongoing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel use will not actually stop global warming.

3) “Net zero” must be interpreted as “geological net zero” wherein each ton of carbon dioxide emissions released to the atmosphere through fossil fuel combustion is balanced by a ton of atmospheric carbon dioxide sequestered in geological storage.

4) Governments and corporations are increasingly seeking carbon offset credit for the preservation of natural carbon sinks. Protection of natural sinks cannot be used to offset ongoing fossil fuel emissions if net zero is to halt warming.

Steam rises from AES Indiana Petersburg Generating Station in October 2023, in Petersburg, Indiana. True net-zero emissions requires sequestering carbon in the ground where it is not at risk of re-emission.
(AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Human activities since 1750 have emitted 2,634 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; 1,814 billion tons (69 per cent) of our total emissions originated from the combustion of fossil fuels and 820 billion tons (31 per cent) from changes in land use such as deforestation. As such, nature-based solutions only have a limited role to play in emissions reduction and certainly can’t be used to offset future emissions from fossil fuel combustion.

Nature-based solutions do, however, have an important role to play in climate change adaptation and the preservation of biodiversity, but there is a growing danger that governments, industry and the public will come to rely on them to maintain the status quo. This impulse must be avoided at all costs.

The example of B.C.

The British Columbia New Democratic Party government has remained adamant that the province can reduce emissions to 40 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030. While admirable, there is a real risk that this target can only be achieved through creative carbon accounting and the use of natural sinks that will not stop warming.

For example, Shell Canada is now promoting its efforts to ensure “the protection and restoration of natural ecosystems such as forests, grasslands and wetlands” as a central component to its greenhouse gas mitigation strategy.

Of course, there is no mention of greenhouse gas emissions from the ever-increasing area burnt by Canadian wildfires. Nor does Shell mention the emissions being released as permafrost thaws and previously frozen organic matter begins to decompose.

Read more:
B.C. election: Party proposals on climate action point in opposite directions

The Darkwoods Forest Carbon project offers a glimpse into what is being considered by government and industry decision-makers as a means of offsetting emissions from the natural gas sector. The project aims to “offset” these emissions with carbon trading and forest conservation.

Such efforts will prove futile and, as we have shown, natural carbon sinks (like forests) do not stop warming and cannot be considered offsets.

Lessons for the negotiators

As we move into the final week of COP29, one can only hope that international negotiators acknowledge the difference between natural and geological sinks of anthropogenic carbon.

Only the latter will lead to net-zero emissions and keep warming to below 3C above pre-industrial levels. Of course, the most efficient way to reduce emissions is to rapidly decarbonize global energy systems. Everything else only delays the inevitable.

Policy negotiations should be focused on eliminating emissions at source and developing approaches to directly extract and geologically store carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere.

Sadly, given socioeconomic inertia, ongoing political inaction and geopolitical instability, as well as the slow rate at which energy systems are transforming to become emissions free, it is almost certain that 1.5C warming will be surpassed imminently with 2C following suit within the next two decades. The Paris Agreement is in trouble.

Surely we can do better. Läs mer…

Beginning in January 2025, Republicans in Washington will achieve what’s commonly known as a governing “trifecta”: control over the executive branch via the president, combined with majorities for their party in both the House and the Senate.

You might think that a trifecta, which is also referred to as “unified government” by political scientists, is a clear recipe for legislative success. In theory, when political parties have unified control over the House, the Senate and the presidency, there should be less conflict between them. Because these politicians are part of the same political party and have the same broad goals, it seems like they should be able to get their agenda approved, and the opposing minority party can do little to stop them.

But not all trifectas are created equal, and not all are dominant.

Research shows that political gridlock can still happen even under a unified government for reasons that are likely to be on full display when Republicans assume leadership of Congress and the presidency.

With a slim majority, will GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, be able to pass Donald Trump’s priorities?
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Majority size matters

A unified government will make President Donald Trump’s ability to enact his agenda much easier than if, for example, Democrats controlled the U.S. House, as they did during the second half of his first term, from 2021-2022. But tight margins in both congressional chambers mean that, even with a trifecta, it won’t be a cakewalk.

Trump will be the sixth consecutive president with a trifecta on Day 1 of his presidency. But history – and simple math – show that presidents with trifectas have an easier time passing partisan legislation with bigger majorities. Bigger majorities mean majority-party defections won’t easily sink controversial or partisan legislation. A bigger majority also means that individual members of Congress from either party have less leverage they can use to water down the president’s policy requests.

Trump also held a trifecta during the beginning of his first term in office; in particular, a big Republican majority in the House, which passed major legislation with relative ease and put pressure on their Senate colleagues to comply. Trump signed a major tax reform package in 2017 that was the signature legislative achievement of his first term.

But Trump will have a much smaller advantage when he takes office for the second time. Every president since Bill Clinton has entered office with a trifecta, but Trump’s seat advantage in the House on Day 1 will be the smallest of all of them after all the votes are counted. Trump’s relatively small advantage in the Senate also may put in jeopardy his already controversial proposed cabinet nominations.

Majority party troubles

In addition to the nearly guaranteed opposition from Democrats in Congress, Trump and other Republican leaders can expect continuing internal divisions within their own party.

In a closely divided House or Senate, there are plenty of tools that Democrats, even as the minority party, can use to stymie Trump’s agenda. This most notably includes the filibuster, which would force Republicans to garner 60 votes for any nonbudgetary legislation Trump might wish to pass. But even dominant legislative trifectas, again like the one former President Barack Obama enjoyed when he took office in 2009, can’t prevent divisions within political parties, as different politicians jockey for control of the party’s agenda.

Despite entering office with a 17-vote advantage in the Senate, Obama’s signature legislative achievement – the Affordable Care Act, also sometimes known as Obamacare – had to be watered down significantly to win a simple majority after backlash from conservative Democrats.

Obama’s trifecta was bigger in size; but in a polarized America, a large majority also means an ideologically diverse one.

If Republican infighting in the most recent Congress repeats itself, Trump is likely to face similar pushback from members of his own party in his second term. For the past two years, the Republican-led House has been repeatedly riven by leadership struggles and an often aimless legislative agenda, thanks to a lack of cooperation from the the party’s far-right flank.

This group of lawmakers will largely remain in the next Congress and will be large enough to stall any party-line vote that Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to pass. The potential for continued chaos – especially with a passable legislative agenda on the line – is monumental. If the past is any indication, even a task as fundamental as passing a budget could be challenging, much less major reform to policy areas such as immigration.

Competing pressures

Despite Congress’ reputation as a polarized partisan body, members of Congress ultimately serve multiple masters. The Republican divisions in the current Congress reflect the competing pressures of national party leaders in Washington and the local politics of each member’s district, which often cut against what party leaders want.

For example, some Republicans represent heavily Republican districts and will be happy to go along with Trump’s agenda, regardless of how extreme it is. Others represent districts won by President Joe Biden in 2020 and might be more inclined to moderate their positions to keep their seats in 2026 and beyond.

Trump has also made life difficult for himself by using Congress, as many incoming administrations do, as a hiring pool for his incoming administration. He’s said he would nominate three Republican House members elected for the next Congress to high-level posts in his administration, knocking Johnson’s seat advantage down to the low single digits. Läs mer…

New research reveals serious privacy flaws in the data practices of new internet connected cars in Australia. It’s yet another reason why we need urgent reform of privacy laws.

Modern cars are increasingly equipped with internet-enabled features. Your “connected car” might automatically detect an accident and call emergency services, or send a notification if a child is left in the back seat.

But connected cars are also sophisticated surveillance devices. The data they collect can create a highly revealing picture of each driver. If this data is misused, it can result in privacy and security threats.

A report published today analysed the privacy terms from 15 of the most popular new car brands that sell connected cars in Australia.

This analysis uncovered concerning practices. There are enormous obstacles for consumers who want to find and understand the privacy terms. Some brands also make inaccurate claims that certain information is not “personal information”, implying the Privacy Act doesn’t apply to that data.

Some companies are also repurposing personal information for “marketing” or “research”, and sharing data with third parties.

What is a connected car? How does it transmit data?

Connected cars sold in Australia can transmit data about the car, its driver and passengers in real time via the internet. The data can go to the overseas vehicle manufacturer and other businesses.

Manufacturers often require the owner or driver to download and use an app to make use of various “connected services”.

Depending on the brand and model, these may include the ability to remotely:

heat, cool, lock or unlock the car
locate the parked car, including through remote use of headlights and horn
check fuel level and tyre pressure, or
use the car’s internal and external cameras to view its surroundings and interior.

How connected cars transmit data.
Katharine Kemp, based on Dept of Infrastructure, Telecommunications Legislation and Connected Vehicles Discussion Paper, 2023, Figure 2

The introduction of connected models in Australia has lagged behind the European Union and the United States. Some popular brands in Australia – for example, Subaru and Isuzu – still offer no connected models.

However, Austroads predicts that by 2031, 93% of new car sales in Australia will be connected cars.

Why do we need data privacy?

Personal information collected by your car can be misused in various ways. It could be disclosed to insurers or data brokers without your consent. It can facilitate crimes, including domestic violence, stalking and robbery.

Such data also presents the risk of unjustified police or government surveillance, and even national security risks.

In 2023, Mozilla Foundation researchers analysed connected car privacy terms in the United States, calling it a “privacy nightmare on wheels”. This was revealing, but not directly useful for Australian consumers.

This new report analyses the privacy terms of new connected cars sold by the 15 most popular car brands in Australia. The goal was to find out how car brands approach customer privacy and potential risks, and whether consumers can make decisions about their data privacy before buying the car.

To avoid comparing apples with oranges, this analysis only included brands that currently offer connected cars in Australia. “Unconnected” cars don’t offer consumers the same features via the internet (although they may still collect data to some extent, and can still present privacy risks).

Privacy terms aren’t easy to find

There are massive obstacles to consumers who want to read and understand the relevant privacy terms.

This includes brands referring consumers to multiple, lengthy documents. Consumers are directed to an average of three documents totalling around 14,000 words per brand to discover the applicable privacy terms.

There can also be further privacy notices in the vehicle, the user manual or the purchase contract.

Other hurdles for consumers included missing privacy terms, unhelpful interfaces, and significant errors in published privacy policies.

What counts as personal information?

Several major brands fail to recognise the full scope of personal information protected by the Privacy Act.

They claim, for example, that certain information “does not, on its own, personally identify” the consumer and they can use this for “any purpose”.

But this can, in fact, be personal information about a reasonably identifiable individual.

For example, on its own, a map of your precise location throughout the day may not identify you. But once matched with your home and work address, or location history on your mobile phone, it can be linked to you.

Using data for unrelated purposes

Given the intimate and often sensitive nature of the information, car companies should not use it for unrelated purposes without consent. Any consent to use it should be active, opt-in, express, unequivocal and fully informed.

However, most of the brands in our report say they will use the information collected from connected cars for undefined “marketing” or “research” purposes. In some cases they say they will use it for making predictions about the individual’s behaviour – all without requiring express consent.

Several of the brands also have broad data sharing arrangements with digital platforms, advertising technology companies, data brokers or artificial intelligence developers.

Most of the privacy terms also make vague references to providing personal information to insurance companies, without specifying limits on these disclosures to ensure insurance companies don’t repurpose this information against consumers’ interests.

Consumers in the US are suing General Motors for passing on driving data to insurers, which then increased their insurance premiums.

Privacy law reform is overdue

The Australian Privacy Act has been under review for several years.

To improve privacy protections in connected cars, we must update definitions of “personal information” and “consent”. We also need a “fair and reasonable” test for data practices. It’s not enough for consumers to technically consent to a practice, the practice itself should be fair when its consequences are fully understood.

The government’s current “first tranche” of proposed privacy law reform does not include these amendments.

In the meantime, the data practices surrounding connected cars need immediate attention and guidance from the privacy regulator.

Customers should be able to easily find and understand the privacy terms and choices of the cars they want to buy. Businesses should recognise the full extent of personal information collected by the car and adequately protect it. Läs mer…

Australia’s gender pay gap has been shrinking year by year, but is still over 20% among Australia’s private companies, a new national report card shows.

But that gender gap is even bigger at 25% among chief executive officers, according to figures collected for the first time in 2023–24.

And the widest gap of all is among older workers, with women in their late 50s typically earning $53,000 less each year than men the same age.

The release of the scorecard coincides with the federal government announcing it will introduce legislation this week requiring employers to set gender targets for boards, for narrowing the pay gap and for providing flexible work hours.

These and other measures will apply to companies with 500 or more employees. They build on legislative changes that enables the Workplace Gender Equality Agency to publish the size of their gender pay gaps, which came into effect this year.

Tracking Australia’s gender pay gap

Each year, the gender equality agency measures the gender equality performance of all private sector employers with 100 or more employees. This adds up to more than 7,000 employers and 5 million employees nationally.

Drawing on data collected in the annual employer census, the agency looks at several key indicators including gender composition of the workforce, gender balance of boards and governing bodies and equal pay for equal work.

One important indicator is the gender gap in average total remuneration. This is calculated for all employees – full-time, part-time and casual – by converting employees’ pay into a full-time annualised equivalent.

The gap continued to shrink in the past year to 21.1%. This has been largely fuelled by growth in the pay of the lowest-earning women in the workforce.

This came about, in part, because in June 2023, the Fair Work Commission awarded a 15% minimum pay rise to several aged care awards, where women hold 80% of jobs. Raises were also given to the retail trade, accommodation and food services sectors, also large employers of women.

Another reason the gap narrowed was because the remuneration of women managers rose by 5.9% from 2022-2023, compared to men’s which increased by 4.4% over the same period.

A bigger gap among high earners

The increase was particularly significant for high earning women (up 6.3%) compared to high earning men (4.1%). However, men still outnumber women in management, holding 58% of positions.

For the first time in 2023-24, the agency collected CEO salaries. The gender gap in CEO total remuneration was 25%.

Just one in four CEOs are women, and the gender pay gap for these key roles is the largest of all management roles. Women CEOs are paid, on average, $158,632 less total remuneration than men.

When CEO salaries are added into the mix, the overall gender pay gap stretches to 21.8%.

Little change for women on boards

The gender agency knows that women’s representation on governing boards matters for steering organisational change towards gender equality, monitoring these changes on the scorecard.

However the overall percentage of women on boards has hardly budged in recent years, at around one-third.

And about one-quarter of companies have no women on their governing board at all. This share is even higher in male-dominated industries, such as construction where the boards of 55% of companies are all men.

Women in their late 50s face the biggest pay gap

In dollars, it means Australian women are earning, on average, $28,425 less each year than their male colleagues.

This gap widens further among older workers. At its widest point, women aged 55 to 59 years are earning $53,000 less each year than men – a gap of 32.6%.

One of the big drivers of this pay gap are gender patterns in different industries and occupations.

The gender agency’s scorecard shows that half of all private sector employees work in an industry that is either male-dominated or female-dominated, meaning its workforce least 60% of a single gender.

It’s been a longstanding feature of the workforce that male-dominated industries outstrip the average earnings are female-dominated industries of education and training, and health care and social assistance.

How supportive are employers?

The workplace gender agency also measures employers’ policies supporting work and family balance, such as flexible hours and extra paid parental leave on top of minimal government provisions.

The finding that more employers are offering paid parental leave, rising from 63% to 68% in the past year, is a tick on the scorecard.

Men’s involvement in caregiving has a direct impact, enabling women’s involvement in the workforce. The proportion of parental leave being taken by men is up from 14% to 17%.

These improvements are set to increase under the government’s new legislation.

Providing a safe workplace

The final indicator on the scorecard looks at employers’ actions to prevent and respond to sexual harassment and discrimination in their workplace, as required under new Respect@Work laws.

Almost all (99%) of employers report having a policy in place. But there is scope for improvement in other ways.

Almost half (40%) don’t monitor the outcomes of sexual harassment and discrimination complaints and half don’t review the policy and consult with employees. As well, about 25% don’t incorporate inclusive and respectful behaviour into regular performance evaluation.

How reporting can drive change

As with any report card, there are marks for effort.

In the last year, 75% of companies reported they had analysed their own organisation’s gender pay gap and had made changes. This was up from 60% the previous year.

The gender agency attributes this to the publication of individual organisation’s gender pay gaps for the first time earlier this year.

Almost half (45%) of employers are now setting goals to improve gender equality. This includes targets to boost the number of women in management, reduce the gender pay gap and to achieve a gender-balance in their governing body.

These higher aspirations are likely to also be a response to plans to make target-setting part of the requirements for bidding for government contracts.

These changes show how incentives can bring about improvements. They arose from the 2021 Review to the Workplace Gender Equality Act that used research-based insights, data and community consultation to develop practical steps to reduce the gap and improve conditions for women. Läs mer…

Even before the COVID pandemic, which added significant pressure to the health-care workforce, Australian doctors experienced poor mental health at higher rates than the overall population.

The risk is particularly high for medical students, junior doctors and female doctors. A recent review of data from 20 countries found suicide was 76% more likely among female physicians compared to the general female population.

All this is a problem for the doctors themselves, and often for their loved ones. But it’s also a problem because we rely on doctors to provide high-quality health care for the population. If they’re burnt out, or experiencing anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues, this can affect their capacity to look after us.

Our new study published today in BMJ Open explores how doctors’ workplaces and working conditions affect their mental health.

What we did

We interviewed and then “work shadowed” 14 doctors while they were on shift in a public hospital in South Australia between June and October 2021. The doctors who took part were from varying cultural backgrounds, genders, sub-specialties, and at different stages of their careers (junior and senior).

We asked doctors about their roles, duties they perform, training requirements, and hospital regulations or standards that affect their experiences of their work.

We then watched the same doctors working at different times of the day, observing:

features of their working environments (such as pace and demands)
interpersonal relationships (team dynamics, mentoring, supervision, patient interactions)
the types of pressures they contended with alongside delivering clinical care (patient loads, administrative tasks).

During the shadowing, we explored with doctors how their workplaces could better support their mental health.

Our research focused on a public hospital setting.
hxdbzxy/Shutterstock

Administrative burdens on top of patient care

Among several challenges participants reported in their day-to-day work, the burden of administrative processes (such as completing paperwork and gaining approvals required for referrals) was a particularly strong theme.

One doctor said “the hospital processes are more stressful than clinical scenarios”.

The administrative burden required on top of clinical care left doctors feeling disenfranchised and negatively affected their satisfaction with service delivery. One said:

If the [patient’s] outcome is poor because they’ve had a terrible accident or got a terrible illness, I can rationalise that. But if they’ve had a poor outcome because we’ve not been able to deliver them a good service that feels a lot worse.

Workforce and rostering shortages

Doctors also described under-staffing and fragmented teams, which often required them to absorb pressure to provide high-quality care. This, compounded by the effects of shift work, led to exhaustion and took a toll on their mental health.

Despite this, doctors described feeling unable to refuse shifts or take leave for fear of losing professional credibility among colleagues or with senior staff who might control future job opportunities. One participant said:

We just keep taking it, keep taking it, keep taking it […] until we can’t. And I think, particularly doctors who don’t want to be seen as causing trouble or rocking the boat […] or seen as weak. You don’t want to be the one to admit that actually, this is impossible for one person to do.

Under-resourcing was regarded as a big problem.
Twinsterphoto/Shutterstock

A combination of pressures

Doctors in our study were highly trained, motivated and proficient in providing clinical care relative to their career stage.

However, their medical practice occurred within work environments characterised by high patient loads, time constraints, geographical challenges (services dispersed across sites) and administrative burdens. As one participant explained:

I think that just bubbles over years and it just makes this horrible feeling of injustice. Which is why I think doctors just feel burnt out, tired, frustrated, because they’re trying to do the right thing, and they’re trying to be better, and the system just doesn’t allow it.

The combination of competing pressures often collided with ambitions of being “a good doctor”. As one junior doctor explained:

In addition to all that knowledge and actual competence that you need to have, it is so important to convey to others that you are this rational, measured human being who is there to get the job done in an efficient way, in the right way. You just have to step up to that role and fulfil all these different tasks, and different expectations within this one job.

What next?

Our study was conducted only in South Australia’s public hospital system, so our findings can’t be generalised to other hospitals or other health-care settings where doctors might work.

But to our knowledge, ours is the first study of doctors’ mental health where, alongside interviews, researchers entered participants’ workplaces to observe their working conditions. In this way, it provides unique insights on the organisation and system-level factors which influence doctors at all career stages.

Our findings indicate doctors’ working conditions can have a direct impact on their mental health.

Protecting doctors’ mental health often focuses on how individual doctors can build resilience and increase their capacity to manage stress, for example through employee assistance programs.

While these approaches are important, they place ultimate responsibility for mental health on the individual doctor. This will not be enough, because doctors’ working conditions are largely outside of their control.

Programs are also not always accessible, for example due to stigma, workplace and professional culture, concerns about confidentiality or perceived risks to registration.

Protecting doctors’ mental health will require system-level changes, including addressing workforce shortages and restructuring leave provisions so that staff feel able to take time off. These changes are a crucial starting point to better look after our doctors, so they can look after us.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. Läs mer…

If parents have a choice, the decision about where to send a child to school and what will be best for them can be a really difficult one.

One question that comes up frequently in media reporting is whether single-sex or co-ed schools are better for students. There is ongoing debate about this for both private and public schools.

There has been community outcry over some schools’ plans to go co-ed. So it may surprise parents to know this isn’t a key question for many education researchers.

As someone who studies gender, social justice and schools, there are other questions I consider to be more important, such as: does a school give students equal opportunities for education and future life success? And how do we make sure all our schools do this?

What does the research say?

Single-sex vs co-ed debates have been going for decades. Which creates better outcomes? Is co-ed better for boys? Is single-sex more suitable for girls?

But decades of research into the topic is inconclusive.

What we can say is that the biggest predictors of a student’s academic success are socio-economic status, whether they live in a rural or remote area, and whether they are Indigenous.

There is also a widespread view it’s good for boys to be with girls, but better for girls to be on their own. But again, there is little comprehensive research evidence to support this premise.

These debates are also dominated by a belief that girls and boys learn differently. There is no strong basis for this in educational research.

Read more:
Why do we have single sex schools? What’s the history behind one of the biggest debates in education?

A different question

Looking only at gender differences between boys and girls at school can mean we ignore other important factors that impact on students’ educational success such as social class, race, school location and funding.

This is why, instead of getting stuck in old debates about single-sex vs co-ed schools, we should be asking more important questions:

do schools support all students?
do they create an environment that gives every student a fair chance to succeed?

US philosopher Nancy Fraser has a helpful framework for us to think about these questions. Her framework provides guidance about what schools and schooling systems should focus on to provide a fair and quality education.

This includes three elements: economic, cultural and political justice. These elements support not only students’ academic and social learning but also their physical, social and emotional wellbeing.

If we just look at gender differences we can ignore other important components of school success.
Jacob Lund/ Shutterstock

What about funding?

Economic justice is about fair access to resources. In Australia, reforms like the Gonski model aim to do this by focusing on student needs, such as location, Indigenous background, disability and language support. The idea is schools in needier areas should get more government funding and support.

However, there’s still a long way to go for funding equity. Public schools that serve the most disadvantaged students remain underfunded compared to private schools, which receive substantial government support.

This funding gap limits students’ access to the resources, safe spaces and support they need to thrive.

Respecting all backgrounds

But money alone isn’t enough. Schools need to respect and value the different backgrounds and experiences students have.

In Australia, with its rich multicultural makeup, it’s important schools focus on cultural justice by recognising and challenging discrimination based on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religious background and ability.

They can do this by, for example, including Indigenous perspectives across the curriculum, teaching gender respect in relationships and setting up classrooms where cultural differences are valued. This helps create a welcoming and supportive school environment for everyone.

This is not about reducing identities to stereotypes. It is about supporting a deep understanding of different cultures that goes beyond labels and addresses the issues that keep certain groups marginalised.

Read more:
Australian schools need to address racism. Here are 4 ways they can do this

Are all voices heard?

Schools also need to foster political justice. Good schools provide opportunities for all voices — especially those from marginalised communities — to be heard and be part of decision-making.

This is something that can easily be obscured in debates about single sex or co-ed schools being better for one gender. For example, while single-sex schools may try to address gender-specific needs, they often reinforce stereotypes and can exclude non-binary and transgender students.

Schools can foster political justice by creating ways for all students, families, and communities to have a real say in policies and practices.

Inclusive decision-making helps students, families, and the school community feel connected and valued.

Schools should allow all students to contribute to decisions and policy.
DGL Images/ Shutterstock

What can you look for in a school?

Parents interested in whether a school is working to give all its students opportunities to succeed, could ask questions such as:

how does the school allocate resources to support disadvantaged students and ensure equal access to facilities and opportunities?
does the curriculum include diverse perspectives, celebrate cultural differences, and address issues like racism, sexism, and ableism?
are teachers trained to respond to diverse student needs?
how does the school ensure students, families and communities have a voice in decision-making?
finally, does the school’s staff reflect the diversity of its student body and if not, are there steps to rectify this? Läs mer…

It is a new idea to many Australians that their past is connected to the tragic history of transatlantic slavery.

Some aspects of this relationship have begun to be uncovered: for instance when Britain abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies – places such as Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Grenada – it struck a deal with the slave-owners to pay them £20m compensation for the loss of their human “property”.

An online database hosted by The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery allows anyone to search for the individuals and companies that benefited from this money. New historical research has traced the extensive investments of this compensation in the settler colonies of Australasia.

Review: Black Convicts: How slavery shaped Australia – Santilla Chingaipe (Scribner)

Along with capital, investors brought knowledge and attitudes – how to grow sugar in Queensland, for example, using techniques developed on slave plantations in British Guiana.

Digging the Cane-holes. Ten Views in the Island of Antigua,1823.
Wikimedia Commons

Likewise, British military forces violently quelled slave rebellion in the Caribbean and then travelled to Australia, where they applied the same techniques of violent punishment against First Nations Australians. Using biographical and genealogical methods, many stories are also tracking the movement of people from Caribbean slave-worked colonies to places such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

But this is frequently a top-down view, reflecting the continuing imbalance of power, recorded evidence, and prejudices flowing from this unequal past. In her new book, award-winning filmmaker Santilla Chingaipe sets out to explore links to slavery and their legacies from another direction, focusing on Black convicts of African descent.

Santilla Chingaipe.
Scribner

Ambitiously, and “with much urgency” she also aims to investigate how hierarchies of race, class and gender came to be in the Australian justice system.

Chingaipe began this journey in 2018 after visiting an exhibition about the colonisation of Australia. It mentioned at the start that Africans were among the first arrivals here – but did not further explore this history.

She undertook her own research about men of African descent on the First Fleet and in colonial Australia. “What I was not expecting,” she writes, “was for quite literally hundreds of non-white people from across the British Empire to reveal themselves in the archives.”

Her publisher tells us that Black Convicts “builds on” and takes further “Chingaipe’s critically acclaimed and award-winning [2021] documentary Our African Roots”. While not a professional historian, Chingaipe undertook study in history to acquire the tools she needed to research and tell this story.

Narrowing her focus to convicts – and consequently the convict colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemens Land – Chingaipe engages with a “handful of scholarly accounts” and archival sources, as well as drawing from newspaper accounts, radio interviews, and websites in producing her “collection of transatlantic stories”.

She is also critical of some previous historians in this field, singling out award-winning writer and historian Cassandra Pybus for her use of “racialized language and stereotyping” in writing about certain Black subjects. As a Zambian-born Australian, Chingaipe seeks to write something “beyond” history that might “act as a partial corrective to the epistemic violence of these narratives” and to help “us see these people as more than commodities and convicts”.

However Chingaipe’s aim to counter the misrepresentations of previous accounts perhaps leads her to overlook or deny existing scholarship, with some ill effects. Early in the book she states, “I have been able to conclusively identify at least ten people of African descent” who were convicts on the First Fleet, based on their archival description.

These are John Moseley, John Caesar, John Coffin, John Randall, John Martin, Daniel Gordon, John Williams, Black Jemmy Williams, Thomas Orford and Samuel Chinnery.

This misleadingly gives the impression that no one had done so before her – yet all of these figures have been previously researched and written about by historians, notably in Pybus’ 2006 Black Founders and Mollie Gillen’s 1989 The Founders of Australia: A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet.

Indeed almost all are subjects of online biographies published by the Australian Dictionary of Biography or People Australia. In “correcting” previous biases I believe it is important not to introduce new ones.

In places, this partial engagement with conventional historiography shallows Chingaipe’s analysis: for example, the case of Mauritian convict Eugene Doucette who in 1848 helped arrest a First Nations man has been researched by Queensland historian Libby Connors, who noted his friendship with Noonuccal man Bobby Winter and his acceptance by the Noonuccal at Amity Point on Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island).

Connors pointed out that Doucette’s and Winter’s arrest of another First Nations man “was probably a product of traditional law” as much as British colonial justice”. Her analysis opens up our understanding of the sophistication and underlying logic of First Nations law rather than seeing these events through the colonisers’ lens.

A fresh perspective

These limitations aside, Chingaipe brings a fresh and urgent perspective to bear on Australian history, re-telling many stirring, surprising, captivating moments of encounter or Black experience. Over much of the book, reflecting its foundation in her documentary film, she adopts a movie-like method of gleaning a crucial point or argument from the work of an established historian, whom she then interviews or takes to visit a historical site.

This technique enlivens her narrative and links it to the present, as she literally travels from places such as the ruins of Fort Dundas in the Tiwi Islands, where a disproportionate number of Black convicts were sent in 1824, to rowing across Sydney Harbour in a boat like that of ferryman William (“Billy”) Blue.

Born into slavery in the United States, Blue became a soldier in the British army. In London in 1796 he was sentenced to transportation for stealing sugar. In Sydney he married white convict Elizabeth Williams and they had six children together. As harbour watchman and ferryman, Blue became well-known and is still remembered through landmarks such as Blues Point.

This book is perhaps best appreciated as a film rendered in words, and is no less powerful for being so.

‘Ugly truths’

With a bowerbird eye Chingaipe looks again at our seemingly well-known, White-dominated past to show Black people as active and indeed integral participants across the colonial period.

For example, she examines the status of Black emancipist John Johnstone as a perpetrator of the 1838 Myall Creek Massacre of Wirrayaraay people in New South Wales.

Johnstone was of African descent, born in Liverpool, Britain, and was transported to New South Wales in 1829. Chingaipe points out that

to presume Johnstone’s actions could be predicted from the colour of his skin is exactly the sort of blindness this book sets out to challenge.

Scribner

As her account shows, by the time of the massacre, Johnstone had spent a decade on the violent frontier, his shifting status as victim/perpetrator shattering the binary view of colonial race relations.

In telling her cinematic stories, Chingaipe raises numerous topics and places, threading together Africa, the Caribbean, Mauritius, and the Australian colonies. Her book shows how themes such as water, sugar, capital, labour, Black protest and resistance, the survival of African religious beliefs, and the experience of Black women and children weave through Australian history, embedding it within global processes.

One revealing life journey is that of Robert James, born in 1809 in Barbados, and transported for the rape of a white woman. He made a life for himself in Hobart, where he married Lucinda, a woman from St Helena, their marriage witnessed by two other Black convicts, Thomas and Mary Jane Burrows.

The couple opened a lodging house in Collins Street, which was seemingly a haven for Black people, and James died at a venerable 86. Their friends, the Burrows family were not so fortunate. Their son Francis Burrows’ story is especially confronting.

Aged ten, Francis was living with a white farmer, ominously named Charles Slaughter, charged with looking after his cattle. Following continued mistreatment and abuse Francis died in late 1859. Slaughter was exonerated of murder. As Chingaipe comments, “it’s hard not to feel that” this injustice “had something to do with Francis being Black”.

While underlying structures linking slavery and colonisation remain implicit, as collective biography these empathetic stories build up a picture of Black experience across diverse contexts and moments.

Clearly-written, with a frequently poignant turn of phrase, the result is a fresh and compelling account of Chingaipe’s journey of discovery, that carries the reader along with her.

Foregrounding her Black perspective on a seemingly well-known narrative, Chingaipe achieves her aim to ask “us, as Australians, to confront some of the ugly truths of our history”. Läs mer…

Drag Race Down Under is back for a fourth season, only this time something is different. The Australasian franchise is no longer helmed by the eponymous RuPaul. Instead, this season the main judge and host is RuPaul’s long-term “best Judy” Michelle Visage, a woman from New Jersey who came to fame in the late 1980s as a member of dance-pop group Seduction.

Visage has worked as a panellist and judge on all US variations of Drag Race since 2011, and on the UK and “Down Under” (Australia-New Zealand) spinoffs.

On Down Under, Visage has now become the authority who determines who sashays and who stays in the fierce contest between ten queens.

This promotion has significance far beyond Visage’s own career. Importantly, it has prompted debate in drag communities that brings to light tensions across queer gender politics, and also reveals shifts in drag culture – for which Drag Race’s huge global popularity is largely responsible.

The mother of queens

On one hand, Visage’s elevation to host can be seen as a milestone for cisgender women in the world of drag, a culture long dominated by cisgender gay men such as RuPaul himself.

Along with the rising mainstream profile of drag over recent years, a growing number of cis women have identified and performed as drag queens (a category sometimes called “bioqueens”).

In 2021, UK Drag Race contestant Victoria Scone made headlines as the first cis woman to compete on a Drag Race franchise.

More recently, runaway pop sensation Chappell Roan – famous for elaborate costumes and makeup – has claimed the mantle of drag queen. Cis women have also performed as drag kings for decades, though “kinging” remains comparatively marginal and under-resourced.

Visage taking the reins is something categorically different: a position of power and authority within the drag world conferred by no less than RuPaul, the world’s preeminent drag artist.

It’s one thing for a cis woman to self-identify as a drag artist; it is quite another to be anointed as a drag gatekeeper by the individual who almost single-handedly brought this queer artform to the mainstream.

Although notoriously reluctant to allow trans women to compete in Drag Race, RuPaul has no qualms about extending queendom to Visage. In the foreword to Visage’s 2015 memoir The Diva Rules, RuPaul wrote Visage “knows the world of drag (she’s a drag queen herself)”.

RuPaul wrote Visage ‘knows the world of drag (she’s a drag queen herself)’.
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Not so long ago, cisgender heterosexual women in gay culture were often dismissed as “fag hags”, a sometimes misogynistic (and also homophobic) label that reduced them to mere hangers-on.

Now, Visage is in the spotlight. The season’s blocking, editing, wardrobe and dialogue all position Visage as direct successor and equal to RuPaul.

There can be no doubt: on Drag Race Down Under, this cis woman is now the mother of all queens.

More than an ally

Since Visage was announced as host, Drag Race fandom has been alight with debate, with many concluding Visage lacks necessary credentials.

Online disputes among Drag Race fans flared on Reddit, asking if “they couldn’t find an Aussie?” and questioning whether Visage could legitimately be considered a drag queen herself.

Most conspicuously, Willam – a US Drag Race celebrity alum – was indignant “a drag ally is the host of a drag show”.

On the podcast Race Chaser, Willam said:

Why would you have someone who is not a drag queen hosting a drag show? […] It’s like someone who is coeliac hosting a baking competition.

But Willam seems to have missed some new developments, as well as certain histories, in drag culture.

Visage and RuPaul first met in New York’s ballroom scene, a subculture established in the mid-20th century by Black and Latinx queers, especially trans women (or “femme queens”) in response to racism in white-dominated drag spaces.

In ballroom, individuals are adopted into Houses, who then compete in categories such as “Vogue” (a dance style inspired by fashion modelling) or “Face” (a beauty category that focuses on the contestant’s face) at regular balls. Ballroom and drag are not synonymous, but ballroom has been a strong influence on contemporary drag culture and Drag Race.

Visage entered the ballroom world in the late 1980s, adopted into the House of Magnifique, becoming a top vogue dancer. As she said in her memoir, she was a “wild drag child”.

As a white, cisgender heterosexual woman, Visage was an outlier in ballroom but, nonetheless, the community became her “surrogate family”. During these years Visage created her drag persona. Born and raised as Michelle Shupack, she changed her named to Visage (French for “face”) after winning the Face category at many balls.

Drag and ballroom were once necessarily peripheral. They were spaces marginalised queer people carved out for themselves where they could celebrate, empower and compete, setting their own rules.

Yet, in the past decade, the global Drag Race phenomenon and social expansions of gender categories have changed how people engage with these previously underground subcultures.

All drag is valid

In this new drag-world order, Visage can ascend to a rightful place as a bona fide drag queen – a status she claims with “drag queen” tattooed on her upper thigh.

For Visage, all genders have equal claim to the artform:

I think that trans women do drag just like biological women do drag, just like trans men do drag […] all drag is valid, and all drag is welcome.

As the drag artist Michelle Visage, her name has become synonymous with a distinctive aesthetic: leopard print, exaggerated make-up, big hair, long nails and (until recently) artificial DD breasts – a high-camp nod to her New Jersey roots.

Michelle Visage’s elevation to Drag Race Down Under host is a milestone for cis women in drag.
Stan

“This is my shield, my superhero costume,” Visage explains. “When I put on my makeup, my drag, I feel like I can take on the world.”

She may not yet have conquered the world, but this queen has certainly conquered Drag Race, forging a new frontier for cis women in drag culture. Läs mer…

The global shortage of trained nurses has been described as a health emergency by the International Council of Nurses.

In response, Australia and other countries have developed nursing workforce strategies to protect their health systems. But there has been no response to calls for a similar approach in New Zealand.

Registered nurses make up the largest proportion of the healthcare workforce, in New Zealand and elsewhere. A sustainable supply of culturally and clinically competent nurses is fundamental to a safe health system. But because of funding constraints, New Zealand is grappling with both a nursing shortage and an oversupply.

Earlier this year, hundreds of experienced international nurses registered to work in New Zealand struggled to find jobs. At the same time, nurses continue to report being short-staffed, with no back-filling for staff on leave or off sick.

It is difficult to respond to rapid changes in demand because the time it takes to train a nurse creates a significant supply lag. But not maximising nursing investment makes little strategic sense and I argue New Zealand urgently needs a workforce strategy.

Investing in growing our own

Preparing a registered nurse for practice requires significant investment. It takes three years of full-time undergraduate or two years of full-time postgraduate study.

The study pathway is intensive, with at least 1,000 hours spent in clinical learning across multiple health settings in primary and community care, mental health and hospital services. This includes undertaking rostered and rotating shift work as preparation for registered nursing practice.

The Tertiary Education Commission investment in undergraduate nursing represents around a third of all undergraduate health funding and 7% of all undergraduate funding in the tertiary sector.

In 2023, 1,784 new New Zealand-educated registered nurses were available for employment in the system. This represents a cumulative national investment of around $70 million.

“Cost-containment” cuts previously led Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand to freeze employment of graduate nurses into the hospital system. This risks not only losing these valuable new health professionals but also reducing new enrolments into nursing programmes.

Nursing programmes are financially challenging. Many nursing graduates incur considerable debt related to their tuition fees (around NZ$30,000 across the whole programme), plus the additional costs associated with the clinical learning requirements (immunisations, clinical equipment, uniforms and travel).

Recent announcements in Australia of financial support for health students to address placement poverty (financial hardship during unpaid clinical placements) have been welcomed. There are no plans for similar initiatives in New Zealand.

Potential triple impact on nursing

Addressing the financial barriers to nursing students completing their education and subsequent employment is critical to achieving equitable access to healthcare and universal health coverage.

Creating a sustainable nursing workforce has a triple impact in supporting better health outcomes, the economic growth of communities and gender equality.

The latest government policy statement on health sets an objective for a culturally competent and homegrown workforce that reflects the population of New Zealand.

According to the Nursing Council’s 2023 annual report, New Zealand’s current nursing workforce is making slow progress toward better reflecting the population it serves. But we have a solution within the current body of nursing students.

Of the 8,885 students enrolled in nursing bachelor programmes in 2023, 18% identified as Māori, 15% as one or more Pacific ethnicities, and 25% as Asian. This student body (if retained) will have a positive impact on the current profile of nursing in New Zealand.

There is also an international expectation that developed countries reduce their reliance on the recruitment of qualified nurses from less developed countries, which places their health systems in peril. New Zealand ranked second in the OECD in having the lowest proportion of domestically educated nurses in 2021, at just 70.1%.

Most other OECD countries in that year reported that 90-95% of their nurses were domestically educated. Australia is an outlier at 82%.

But now New Zealand’s proportion of domestically-trained nurses has declined even further to only 53.7%. Our current reliance on internationally qualified nurses is not a sustainable strategy and risks not delivering on government workforce policy and equity targets for Māori.

Where to from here

Registered nurses are critical to the sustainability of health systems globally. New Zealand will not be able to continue to pull from overseas jurisdictions. We need to grow and keep our own domestic nursing graduates to meet government targets around the health workforce.

The are some potential solutions already in place. The current voluntary bonding scheme could start in the final year of the pre-registration programme to address some of the placement poverty issues.

Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand could explore models such as the New South Wales state government’s GradStart approach which provides a job with the option of metro-to-rural or rural-to-rural employment exchanges offered through a supported central system.

There is a critical need for the development and resourcing of a New Zealand nursing workforce strategy that considers recruitment (growing our own) and retention (keeping them). Both are critical elements of a sustainable workforce plan informed by Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

This would support the system to proactively plan for and resource a more sustainable approach to protect the investment we have already made in nursing education. Läs mer…

Why do people attend college or university? While there are many reasons to do so, a widely accepted outcome of completing post-secondary education is increased opportunity. Gaining and keeping stable employment at a higher income than a high school graduate is significant.

In Canada, median incomes for bachelor’s degree graduates are 47 per cent higher then those with a high school diploma. Nearly 75 per cent of employment growth in Canada is connected to occupations requiring a post-secondary credential. Currently, the majority of those with lived experience in Canada’s child welfare system are not completing high school. This contributes to youth unemployment.

More targeted efforts by provincial and federal governments are required to monitor and evaluate health, social, economic and educational impacts on the lives of those who have experience with child welfare systems.

Recent study on youth homelessness

A recent national study on youth homelessness by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness included 1,103 youth respondents who experienced homelessness. Among these youth from 47 different communities across Canada, more than 60 per cent had a history of involvement with the child welfare system.

A man walks through an encampment on Notre-Dame Street in the east end of Montréal in October 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes.

Those with experience in the child welfare system face emotional challenges related to trauma, abuse and neglect. In addition, they contend with multiple changes in their living situations and schools. As a result, they generally have less education: for example, former youth in care are less likely to have graduated from high school or to complete post-secondary education than those without care experience. Consequently, they earn less income as adults.

Post-secondary graduation has the potential to transform lives and reduce unemployment. It is also a pathway for historically marginalized populations to improve their life chances and overall quality of life.

Black, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQ+ youth

Existing data indicate that post-secondary education not only contributes to employment and income over a person’s lifetime. It also positively impacts health and social outcomes, making education a key social determinant of health.

Education is a key social determinant of health.
(Pexels/Newman Photographs)

Despite this, Black, Indigenous and 2SLGBTQ+ youth who are over-represented in the Canadian child welfare system are vastly under-represented in post-secondary programs.

Providing better access to post-secondary education for former youth in care can help improve their individual circumstances. It can also address intersecting social, employment and income disparities more broadly.

Addressing barriers

Data from a recent Ipsos poll conducted in April 2024 indicates that 91 per cent of Canadians agreed that post-secondary education is beneficial for the future prospects of youth in Canada. The poll was conducted for the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada.

Ninety-three per cent of those surveyed felt that youth in care should receive equal access to education. The same percentage of respondents agreed this would be beneficial for all Canadians and for our collective economic prosperity.

Considering the low income levels among those with experience in the child welfare system, and their disparities in finishing high school and post-secondary education, it’s clear greater action is needed to address barriers to education and employment.

Better data needed

Increased government efforts to bolster equitable educational opportunities and supports for people with experience with child welfare systems are needed. Actions should include collecting comprehensive, longitudinal data on indicators of success, such as:

completing high school;
successfully transitioning to college or university;
getting and maintaining employment;
securing stable housing;
improved physical and mental health.

A lack of comprehensive longitudinal data is part of the overall problem in understanding the complex issues facing former youth in care. Scholars from the University of Kansas have offered plausible strategies for research with youth in foster care. Such data would better clarify whether and how current child welfare initiatives contribute to better outcomes across people’s lives.

We need to better understand how former youth in care secure stable housing over time.
(Shutterstock)

Wrap-around supports critical

To further reduce disparities in the employment and income of those with experience in the child welfare system, we must ensure that appropriate wrap-around care supports are provided.

Child care, mental health services and housing need to be available and accessible to ensure equitable access to education. This is supported by recent research in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.

Research from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs indicates that Canada is among governments falling behind in ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting life-long learning opportunities — Sustainable Development Goal 4.

A provision in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that “every child has the constitutional right to access the benefits of education.” However, this isn’t the case for far too many youth with child welfare system experience.

More inclusive pathways needed

It doesn’t have to be this way. In 2020, the not-for-profit organization People for Education released The Right to Education Framework.

Schools, boards, policymakers and education systems can use this framework to monitor, measure and be publicly accountable for ensuring every person can access a quality education that prepares them for a brighter future.

By monitoring and evaluating core educational equity issues impacting youth with care experience, Canada can establish more inclusive and supportive pathways to education and employment. Through needed efforts, the overall quality of life of people with care experience can be vastly improved. Läs mer…