Development’ discourse in the mainstream, is often defined in terms of economic growth that privileges modernity, urbanization, and scientific expertise. Across the Global South, this model has been internalized and reflected in a national focus on science—and recently STEM—education.

Our guest today is Aizuddin Anuar a researcher from the University of Oxford Department of Education specializing in Comparative and International Studies.

In this episode, we explore and focus on rural young people’s aspirations related to development, as they engage with (STEM) education as the state’s instrument for national development in Malaysia. Please follow Aizuddin’s work @aizuddin_anuar.

In this episode, we examine how the Australian and Taiwan governments produced higher education enrolment policies between 2005 to 2009.

These policies transformed both country's higher education systems in an endeavor to meet the national priorities. My guest is Leo Ren-Hao Xu a researcher from the University of Sydney, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Their enrolment policies include the 2008 Bradley review and the Labor government’s response, 2009 Transforming Australia’s Higher Education System (colloquially called the demand-driven system), in Australia; and the 2009 Conditional Standards of Developmental Enrolment and Resources for Tertiary Education and the amended University Act of 2005, in Taiwan. 

In an endeavor to meet the national priorities, both policies were shaped as a way of governing student enrolment through changing the quantity of government-supported university places within different areas of study. This study adopts Foucault’s concept of Governmentality and Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be (WPR) to frame the understanding of how governmental interventions were produced in the specific political-cultural climates. This qualitative study employs semi-structured interviews (n=40) and policy document analysis. Data are primarily drawn from 19 interviews with senior politicians, policymakers, and university executives in Taiwan who engaged in the formation of selected policies between December 2019 and March 2020; and 21 equivalents in Australia from June to August 2020. Beyond these interviews, a considerable corpus of archival sources (e.g., policy documents and gazettes) was collected from the National Central Library of Taiwan and Parliamentary Library of Australia, and used in the analysis to support and complement the interview data.

Grace Tidmarsh is a Researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK. The PhD is a collaborative project with St Basils’ housing support service for youth (16-25 years) experiencing homelessness.

Grace’s PhD research is part of a wider project in which a mental skills training programme (MST4Life) is delivered to service users. Outcomes from the programme include improved mental health, improved life skills and re-engagement in education, employment or training.

The research itself focusses on process evaluations to develop a deeper understanding of mechanisms that work or do not work with regards to 1. Delivering positive youth development programmes in complex community settings and 2. The extent to which it is possible to train front-line service staff to deliver these psychologically informed interventions with high fidelity.

The PhD includes a fidelity assessment of the delivery style of MST4Life, a systematic review on process evaluations of PYD programmes for disadvantaged youth, evaluation of young people’s feedback on the programme and finally a protocol of evaluating the fidelity of training delivered to frontline service staff.

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