Event podcast: At this Capital Ideas event, Grattan Institute’s CEO John Daley and the CEO of the Financial Services Council, Sally Loane discussed the possible futures for Australia’s super system.

A conversation with Higher Education Fellow, Ittima Cherastidtham. What factors may make it more likely that you will drop out of uni? What things can you do to increase your chances of successfully completing uni? And is ATAR still a relevant guide to student performance?

Event podcast: At this Policy Pitch event, the panel discussed the reasons students leave university without completing, and what universities are doing or can do to ensure students get the best outcome from their higher education experience.

A conversation with Energy Program Director, Tony Wood. Energy has become one of the great barbecue-stoppers of Australia. Electricity and gas bills are soaring, energy supplies seem to be less reliable than they used to be, and if you really want to start an argument around the barbeque, say you’re in favour of coal-fired power, or that you want nothing but renewables such as wind and solar.

A conversation with Budget Policy and Institutional Reform Program Director, Danielle Wood and Fellow, Brendan Coates discussing this years budget announcements. Also featuring Transport Program Director, Marion Terrill and Higher Education Program Director, Andrew Norton.

Event Podcast: At this Energy Futures Seminar, ESB Chair, Kerry Schott, Grattan Institute’s Tony Wood and Tim Nelson from AGL as they explained, discussed and debated these issues. The Forum was moderated by Jennifer Hewett from the Australian Financial Review and was hosted by the Melbourne Energy Institute, Grattan Institute and the State Library of New South Wales.

Event podcast: At this Policy Pitch event, the panel looked at how current generations are faring in retirement, and what kind of retirement we can all expect in the future. They discussed the policy levers such as the Super Guarantee, superannuation draw-down rules, retirement ages, and the level and means testing of the Age Pension. And they explored the trade-offs that these involve for spending before retirement and for government budgets.

A conversation with School Education Fellow Julie Sonnemann. Following the release of the recommendations from the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools, we ask what Gonski 2.0 has found, why it has received a cold reception among some in the industry and how the implementation of Gonski’s findings should be managed.

Links to research discussed in this podcast:

Goss, P., Sonnemann, J., Griffiths, K., and Chivers, C., 2016, Circuit breaker: a new compact for school funding, Grattan Institute: https://grattan.edu.au/report/circuit-breaker/

Event podcast: In this State of Affairs event, Julie Sonnemann, Grattan Institute School Education Fellow, along with a panel of leading policy thinkers explored: What is needed to lift educational outcomes at scale; what are the benefits, challenges and risks of Commonwealth interventions; and, where should the Commonwealth focus its efforts, and why?

A conversation with Higher Education Fellow, Ittima Cherastidtham. More than 50,000 students who started university in Australia this year will drop out. Part-time students are particularly at risk. Policy makers should do more to reduce the number of young people who leave university with nothing but debt and regret.

Read the report: https://grattan.edu.au/report/dropping-out/