Current ePortfolio Practice in Australia

The Policy Context For Eportfolio Activity In Australia

Higher education policy is set against the background of the broader education policy. Following the federal election in Australia in November 2007, the new Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) established a Review of Australian Higher Education (the Bradley Review). The terms of reference for the review panel included the need to report on the sector’s “fitness for purpose in meeting the needs of the Australian community and economy” (DEEWR, 2008a), as well as the options for ongoing reform. The issues of national productivity, participation in the labour market and the ability to respond to the needs of industry were topical, specifically in the context of positioning of higher education within the broader tertiary education sector in order to achieve a more integrated relationship with vocational education and training. In 2009, the Federal Government responded to the recommendations of the Bradley Review by proposing a reform agenda that promised to “transform the scale, potential and quality of the nation’s universities and open the doors to higher education to a new generation of Australians” (DEEWR, 2009).