10 February 2016

‘It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, only that you tried and did your best.’ This is often said to help children come to terms with suffering a defeat of some sort. In fact, this valuable lesson only applies where competition exists. Competition breeds excellence and cultivates cooperation, but today there is no top of the class. Scores are

1 December 2015

Parents deserve the right to choose which school best meets the needs of their children, writes Hannah Pandel. The war over school choice has been reignited and once again, opponents of market-based education reforms entirely miss the point. A national study released in April this year analysed the cognitive outcomes of 4,000 Australian primary-school children at government and non-government schools.

1 August 2015

Australia’s National Curriculum is a political exercise, write Hannah Pandel and Stephanie Forrest In his book People Puzzle, sociologist Morris Massey outlined a values development spectrum in which a person’s core beliefs and values are developed during three distinct periods of their life. The first stage is between the age of zero and seven, and is known as the ‘Imprint

17 July 2015

Undergraduate history degrees in Australia fail to teach fundamental aspects of Australia’s history and how Australian liberal democracy came to be. Instead, they offer a range of disconnected subjects on narrow themes and issues—focusing on imperialism, popular culture, film studies, and ethnic/race history. This report contains the results of a systematic review of the 739 history subjects offered across 34

4 November 2014

This article from the November 2014 edition of the IPA Review is by Research Fellow at the IPA, Hannah Pandel. A 2012 Lowy Institute poll revealed only 60 per cent of Australians believed ‘democracy is preferable to any other kind of government’. Of the younger generation—those aged between eighteen and 29 years—this figure was only 39 per cent. Professor James Allan’s