Last week, the CPP, the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development and the OECD’s Local Economic and Employment Development Programme hosted a conference on the topic of Partnerships for Social Inclusion.

While the process is gradual, many of the presentations and papers from the workshops have now been uploaded. (just click on the talk title to download the PDF).

A small number of presentations and papers from the keynote sessions have also been uploaded:  If no hyperlink is provided, it means I do not currently have any notes to upload. If however, you are having trouble downloading from the hyperlink, please email me at  lrose@unimelb.edu.au and I will send you through the document as an attachment.

The Blueprint for Education and Early Childhood Development – after a broad range of community consultations including one held at the last Cardinia Education Forum – was launched on the 2nd of September by Premier Brumby. The Blueprint includes an increased emphasis on partnerships – with parents and families and with local communities and businesses. There is an emphasis on integrating the educational pathways for children from early childhood through to secondary schooling.

The Blueprint also emphasises the importance of young people making good transitions from school and lays out actions for this to occur. One of the key actions referred to in the document is “improved transitions” (page 21). Schools, including those secondary schools in Cardinia Shire, will have responsibility for monitoring young people’s pathways until they complete Year 12 or equivalent with greater expectations for accountability placed on schools to support their students to meaningful post-school pathways.

Read the paper and additional information

Speaking at the 2008 Agri‐Food National Conference, Professor Julian Cribb told the audience that Australia as a knowledge nation must prepare for the coming famine and that cities could already be death traps for a starving global population. "The warning signs have been plain to read for quite a while, Professor Cribb told the 190 strong audience. "Grain reserves are at their lowest level in half a century and if we fail, we sentence our grandchildren to famine, dislocation and war. We must all be aware of the position, and if possible, alarmed."

Cities of the future would have to be self-supporting ‘green’ cities capable of feeding their own people. Town planners had removed food production from cities creating death traps. A billion people were obese but competition for food would lead to a new age of famine and disaster.

Australia needed to rediscover it’s colonial spirit and that determination to make a difference. "We must act - as individuals, as communities, as industries, as countries and as a species. We need to replenish our science, our skills and our generosity. Not only because it is right – but because it is our destiny as a people to do so." ­

Read the full presentation.

In 2006 the Canadian Council on Learning introduced the Composite Learning Index

 The CLI has now been extended to include Learning Communities, this article from the CCL discusses the potential for the CLI to be used by learning communities around the world.

"It is estimated that there are now more than 300 “learning communities” around the world, the majority of them in Europe and Australia. In Canada, the idea of developing learning communities has spread eastward from Western Canada since the late 1990s. 

Today, Canadian cities and regions from coast to coast (including Vancouver, Edmonton, St. John’s and the Town of Fort Erie) have either started a learning community initiative or are seriously considering the idea."  read the full article here.

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The complete program is available here.

The summary of the program is:

Sunday 26 October 2008
5:00pm    Conference Registrations open
6:30pm – 8:30pm    Welcome Reception - Blake’s Restaurant, Hyatt Regency Hotel


Monday 27 October 2008
Conference Opening – Day 1

8:15am    Registrations Open

9:00am    Conference Opening
    Hon Paul Caica, Minister for Employment, Training & Further Education

9:50am    Keynote Address 1 - Peter Kearns OAM, Director, Global Learning Services