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Introduction

The first case of coronavirus in Brazil was confirmed in February 2020, followed by a rapid increase in cases, news, and discourses on social media. Since then, life for many Brazilian students and teachers has become more difficult not only due to the diseases health impacts, but also its social impacts. For education, the immediate repercussion of the pandemic was the sudden suspension of face-to-face activities and the temporary closure of schools and universities. As a result, emergency distance learning activities were implementedgenerally without adequate technological infrastructure, educational material, or previous teacher training. This took place amid economic, social, and political disruptions in which educational institutions played a key role. Our effort in this report is to understand and share what Brazilian teachers, parents, and students are discussing on social media about education both before and during the pandemic.

This report is the third in a series of social listening research from the Center for Universal Education (CUE). Earlier analyses reported on the findings of social listening in England and the United States, and a study of India will follow.

Understanding conversations on education in Brazil represents broader research interests at the CUE. Brazilian organizations participate in CUEs Family Engagement in Education Network (FEEN), a global peer learning and exchange community of practice that looks at how family-school engagement contributes to education system transformation. We were interested in understanding the broader educational conversation in Brazil beyond our FEEN.

As in our studies of England and the United States, we were interested in understanding what parents, teachers, and students were discussing in relation to education and how those discussions have shifted over time. We were also interested in whether the three groups were talking about the same things or talking to each other. Finally, we wanted to know if the groups were talking about major news related to education in Brazil. Our analysis uncovered the following key takeaways:

To conduct the analysis, we developed a query for education and related words in the Talkwalker platform using a Boolean search. We focused our query on the average social media user to better understand the everyday conversation around education versus that of a celebrity or influencer. WeusedTalkwalkerdata to gather results and analyzed thecontent, author, source, and engagement of postsobserving, for example,how many times a tweet was shared or anarticles view count.

We categorized the data into three time periods:

For each period, we analyzed top themes and the most engaging posts within each theme to get a sense of the overall conversation around education.

The data included three social media sources: Twitter, online news, and blogs. We recognize that the conversation on Twitter in Brazil is not representative of the entire social media conversation (8 percent of the population is on Twitter), so we triangulated our data with other online news sources wherever possible.

Our sample encompasses 3.9 million results over the period from September 11, 2019 to October 15, 2021. From Figure 1 below, you can see that the biggest spike in conversation occurred in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic first shuttered schools in Brazil.

Source: Talkwalker.

Our analysis mostly looks at Twitter posts, which made up 60 percent of our sample (Figure 2). To determine whether the Twitter conversation reflected major education news, we also looked at online news and news-related blog posts, such as G1.Globo.com, ElPas Brasil.com, and CNN Brasil.com, which together made up the remaining 40 percent of the sample.

The tweets in our sample were almost entirely in Portuguese. For the purposes of this paper, we have used the Twitter translate feature, which uses Google Translate so that the tweets are readable by an English-speaking audience. We realize this English translation is not always entirely accurate, so we describe the Tweets in the main body of the paper.

Source: Talkwalker and authors calculations.

Our sample represents a younger user base than our other analyses (i.e., compared to England, U.S., and India). Close to half of all users in the sample are in the 18-24 age bracket. The 25- to 34-year-olds represent the second large demographic at 44.3 percent. (Figure 3).

Source: Talkwalker.

Another interesting finding from Brazil versus the other countries in our series is that users from our Brazil sample skew female: 55.6 percent of users identified as female, while 44.4 percent identified as male (Figure 4). Typically, social media users skew male, as we saw in our England, India, and U.S. analyses. Worldwide but also in Brazil, social media users exclude those who have no access to technology or who are not literate, which include some of the most marginalized communities.

Source: Talkwalker.

Across our sample, we found a range of motivators driving conversations about education. At any given moment, some people want to share information from their networks, others want to vent their frustrations, and still others sought to share accomplishments. As seen in the word cloud below (Figure 5), the topics of conversation were variedwith top themes emerging around schools (especially elementary schools and public schools), face-to-face classes, and students family members (particularly their mothers).

Source: Talkwalker and authors calculations; Design credit: Meghan Foley.

Surprisingly, the conversation about education in Brazil was not significantly more positive before the COVID-19 outbreak. We observed that even before the outbreak of the pandemic, many discussionsespecially among studentsreflected negative feelings about the public school system and their overall educational experience.

In addition, a unique feature in our sample was low usage of hashtags (a departure from our samples in England, the United States, and India). The most relevant hashtag we found was related to #AdiaENEM (postpone ENEM National Exam), which became prominent among students beginning in 2020 (discussed in Insight 2).

We also noticed a slight increase in posts from parents and teachers during the pandemic. However overall, we saw very few posts from parentsa finding we will discuss further in Insight 6.

Another notable departure in the Brazilian education conversations from the social media discussions in other countries that we analyzed was the low expression of group or community identity on social media. In the U.S., for example, it was very common for teachers to self-identify in their Twitter bios as a 3rd grade science teacher or for their Twitter handles to indicate their professionfor instance, @MissSmithGr5, denoting they are a classroom teacher in grade 5. Teachers and parents in Brazil often did not self-identify in their Twitter profile. Knowing these characteristics can be a helpful tool for understanding how a specific community has felt the impacts of the pandemic crises on their daily lives and how they have faced the struggles related to school closures or their posts.

Overall, there were six main themes that emerged in our analysis, which are described below.

Brazil, like the rest of the world, has been heavily impacted by COVID-19. The health crisis exposed latent social tensions among students, teachers, and parents. While reviewing the educational conversations happening online, we observed that for many key areas of discussion, discourse on Twitter and traditional news and media coverage diverged. Only sometimes did the conversation on Twitter reflect the full scope of education news covered by the traditional news sources in our sample.

One example of this divergence is the impacts of the pandemic on working mothers, a topic that did not show up in our sample of tweets but did in traditional media sources. According to an Atlas Politico survey commissioned by EL PAS online media, 74 percent of mothers say that housework and work with children has increased due to the suspension of face-to-face classes, compared to 69 percent of fathers.

This article goes on to describe the mental toll that this added household burden has taken on many Brazilian mothers. One mother explains the guilt of not always being able to juggle all her responsibilities: I always say that the daughter of a single mother has a forced independence. During the pandemic, Marina had to learn to shower alone, because I didnt have time to help her anymore.

Another article details the concerns of mothers as in-person work returns. The article describes the scramble for childcare as workplaces open without the concurrent opening of schools, and the economic ramifications.

The various stages of the pandemic have posed disproportionate hurdles for Brazilian mothers, and while these are documented in the news, mothers have not turned to Twitter as an outlet, reflecting the lack of parental voice on social media about childrens education.

Another divergence between traditional media and tweets in our sample is the discussion of teacher strikes. In early 2021, two sets of teacher strikes were reported in the news as teachers faced returning to in-person classes without widespread vaccination. While teachers expressed their opinions on Twitter about returning to school (discussed in Insight 5), we did not observe tweets from teachers supporting, disapproving of, or calling for additional strikes.

One potential reason our sample may not have contained tweets from mothers discussing the mental and financial toll of the pandemic or teachers rallying for strikes could be that that we observed few Twitter users expressing their collective identity in their social media bios or posts, as discussed above.

Twitter became a major outlet for students to disclose their unhappiness and frustrations with their education both prior to and during the pandemic. Related to Insight 1, online news sources in our sample did not capture the level of frustration, fear, and negativity from students across topics such as dissatisfaction with the school system, bullying, and anguish about their academic and professional future.

Students pointed to deficiencies in the quality of learning even before the start of the pandemic. For example, this student expresses not feeling prepared for grade-level math.

Another student tweeting before the pandemic expresses dissatisfaction with the pace and structure of school, writing that there is too large a gap between the relaxed education of earlier grades and the strenuous education of secondary school.

Bullying is another common topic in our sample. This student points to an unexpected silver lining of the pandemic, explaining that the lack of in-person classes meant no bullying.

When the COVID-19 outbreak began, students shared their feelings of demotivation and frustration on social media. The 2020 school year took place predominantly in a remote environment for most students in the country. Students shared their thoughts on this new mode of learning, commenting about the volume of activities to be carried out, the lack of guidance, and frustration with themselves for being behind. This student notes he is behind on his schoolwork, which is having an impact on his mental health.

In addition to the emotional toll of mounting schoolwork, students shared their isolation, loss of opportunities to bond with friends, and devastation from missing out on school traditions. In this post, a student shares the loss he feels for adolescent and school experiences.

As the above tweets indicate, most students were focused on their own experiences, and it was not common for students to share tips or suggestions for navigating the challenges of education during the pandemic. Students appeared to show support through sharing their own challenges. For instance, this student expresses dissatisfaction with her school experience, connecting her experience with that of other public school students.

A notable exception to the trend of students focusing only on their own experiences was students reaction to the timing of the High School National Exam (ENEM) (Box 1). Here students turned outward to protest and empathize with their peers.

Box 1. What is the ENEM and what controversies have surrounded it in recent years?

The High School National Exam or ENEM (in Portuguese: Exame Nacional do Ensino Medio) is a noncompulsory, national standardized test used as an admission exam for many universities in Brazil and for high school degree certification. The ENEM contains five sections, each with a score range of 0-200, and the highest possible score of 1,000.

Multiple controversies have surrounded the ENEM, intensifying during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2020 school year, President Jair Bolsonaros administration received pushback for the decision to administer the ENEM in person despite high rates of COVID-19 and closures of schools across the country. The 2020 ENEM had a record number of abstentions, with about half of the 5.7 million registrants not showing up to the test.

Controversies continued into 2021. Only 3.1 million students enrolled in the 2021 ENEM, the lowest number since 2005. The low enrollment is purported to be explained by the administrations decision to stop exempting fees for those who missed the exam the prior year (exemption of fees are usually available for students whose families make under a certain income). These decisions have changed the composition of students taking the ENEM, with many fewer Black and low-income students taking the 2021 ENEM.

Scores on the ENEM exam can translate to scholarships for Brazilian students. However, in 2021 the government reduced the number of potential Student Financing (Fies) contracts from 100,000 in 2020 to 54,000 and also increased scoring requirements.

President Bolsonaro has long criticized the ENEM for what he sees as its left-wing bias. Controversy came to a head when 37 education ministry officials resigned just two weeks before the 2021 ENEM, citing intolerable pressure and harassment as they were forced to change exam questions. President Bolsonaro explained the changes by saying, The questions on the Enem are starting to resemble this administration.

Launched in 1998 to assess the quality of secondary education in Brazil, the High School National Exam (ENEM) has gained importance as a passport to higher education for Brazilian students. Although it is not mandatory, many high school students choose to take the exam for this reason. During the pandemic, there were multiple controversies surrounding the ENEMs scheduled timing, its questions, and its scoring (see Box 1).

Many students posted on social media that they did not feel safe taking the ENEM during the pandemic for fear of contagion. Others worried they were not prepared for the test given school closures. Feelings of frustration, anger, and injustice were prevalent and often directed toward the Ministry of Education and the broader education system.

In the example below, a student laments the many challenges of taking the exam during COVID and specifically calls out the Bolsonaro government for exacerbating these challenges.

The Brazilian Union of Secondary Students (Ubes) and the National Union of Students (UNE), on behalf of secondary students, organized a social media campaign against carrying out the 2020 ENEM according to the scheduled calendar.

Stefany Kovalski, 20, a high school student and coordinator of Ubes, is quoted in the tweet below, commenting on the injustice of conducting the ENEM when there are students who lost access to schooling during the pandemic.

Students joined this social media campaign, using the hashtag #AdiaEnem (postpone ENEM) to show their support. In the post below, a student highlights the stakes of the decision to hold the ENEM, writing that postponing the ENEM is a question of equity.

Students level of unhappiness and reaction to national exams during the pandemic was not unusual. In our studies of India and England, two countries with similar high-stakes exams at the end of secondary school, we found that national exams also created controversy.

Given all the above challenges both during and before the pandemic, students made it clear that they appreciated any support from parents and teachers. This student reflects on a teacher he remembers fondly.

Another student excitedly shares a TikTok her mothera teachermade, celebrating her commitment to her students.

The level of student unhappiness was poignant and something not captured outside of Twitter. However, Brazilian students who looked to teachers were often met with many offers for support, as we will explore in Insight 5.

Students and teachers in our sample raised issues of inequality in a number of different ways. Notably, they discussed the differences between public and private education in Brazil and emphasized how the pandemic widened these differences.

Discussing the school system more generally, one teacher shared how she only received one message wishing her a happy teachers day since many of her students have dropped out of school. She wrote that her students understand that the school system is flawed and acknowledged that the school system bears some responsibility for drop-out rates.

Students chimed in to discuss the educational advantages of private school even before the COVID-19 pandemic. This student complains that private school students do not understand the value of their education:

The critiques of the differences between private and public schools increased during the pandemic when many public schools were unable to go online. This tweet from a conversation thread explains that although the pandemic was difficult for students in private schools where remote learning was taking place, many in public school did not have access to the internet.

Teachers also shared their experiences in under-resourced public schools, like this teacher who comments on the lack of hygiene products and the large number of students:

Although inequality comprised a larger part of the online conversation, we did observe some students describing social mobility opportunities through education. However, these stories were individualistic, unlike many of the posts on inequality that focused on its systemic nature. For instance, this student celebrates his graduation by commenting on the importance of mobility opportunities that have helped him and his siblings become engineers, doctors, and lawyers from a working-class family.

Additionally, the student below explicitly notes that although she has achieved personal career success after a public school education, she knows she is the exception and not the rule. Both this post and the one above reference meritocracy and the fact that it is not universally accessible, with the student suggesting that the idea there is meritocracy in Brazil is a barter or scam.

References to inequality were tied to education in our sample since education is often seen as a way to support social mobility. This notion was challenged by many in Brazil who noted that students who were least socially advantaged often lost access to schooling during the pandemic.

The pandemic highlighted value-based debates in Brazil, as it did in many other parts of the world. Political and education debates often coalesced into the issue of what should be taught and tested in schools.

When president Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, he did so on a campaign agenda that included combatting feminism, rescuing family values, and respect for Judeo-Christian religion. We observed clashes over these values as people questioned what belonged in schools. The content of textbooks was one such question. In 2019, Bolsonaro made clear his desire to in his words soften and take out leftist ideology from textbooks, while adding the Brazilian flag and national anthem. Many of the textbook changes took effect in 2021, during the middle of the pandemic. We found strong reactions to these changes.

For example, LGBTQIA+ education was questioned by the government. Bolsonaro brought back into public discourse the School Without Homophobia program (pejoratively called the gay kit), a program that sought to address homophobia in schools. We saw strong reactions to this politicized issue, such as this teacher who emphasizes that homophobia is a crime.

Teachers and students on both sides of the political spectrum reacted to increasing political tensions on school-related topics by commenting onor in some cases taking legal action againstwhat they viewed as indoctrination in schools. We observed this throughout our samples timeframe, beginning with a student suing the state of Santa Catarina for leftist indoctrination in the classroom in early 2020. Later in the pandemic, a teacher comments on the irony of people who worried about indoctrination pre-pandemic, but who are now desperate for the return of in-person classes, as seen in this tweet below.

Students also discuss the topic of indoctrination on social media. In this post below, a student says the fight to end indoctrination in schools must start with students.

Teachers were active on Twitter throughout the pandemic, sharing their experiences with remote work, returning to the classroom, and how the pandemic was impacting education. While teachers worried about their own safety, they also worried about their studentsacknowledging the challenges they faced and often going above and beyond their job descriptions to offer support.

After being thrown into remote work at the beginning of the pandemic, many teachers responded with trepidation when asked to return to in-person teaching. As discussed in Insight 1, teacher strikes were reported in the news in early 2021 as teachers faced returning to in-person classes without widespread vaccination. While they did not mention the strikes on Twitter, teachers did express their frustration, such as one teacher who cites the irony of returning to teach in-person as a science teacherwhen science would support staying at home.

See the original post here:
Adolescent isolation, ideology, and the missing voice of parents: A social listening analysis of Brazilian education - Brookings Institution

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Noisy Beast was established back in 2012 initially as a joint venture with Swisse Vitamins and three directors at the time.

Since last year, Noisy Beast has separated from the supplements brand to become its own growing independent full-service agency.

Managing director David Brown spoke toMediaweekabout buying out management during the pandemic, its diverse range of clients and investing in digital for the future.

Noisy Beast was initially set up more than a decade ago as a joint venture with Swisse Vitamins.

After the original directors had left, Brown explained that he joined the agency in 2018, an in-house agency for Swisse and other client wins outside of the brand.

Last year, the agency formally parted ways with Swisse following the completion of a management buyout from Hong Kong-based H&H Group.

Brown was previously group managing director of DDB Melbourne, managing director at M&C Saatchi and managing director of RAPP.

The managing director said that coming from holding companies to Noisy Beast as fully integrated: you definitely see some of the issues in the industry of when it was decoupled and how a lot of agencies are still trying to put it back together.

Brown noted Noisy Beasts benefit as an independent is being fully integrated. He said: not have any silos, not to have to fight between channel and clients budget, and always giving the best opportunity for the client instead of worrying what should fit the group.

As the global managing director, he oversees the Melbourne, Sydney and the UK offices. We try and run a generic culture, but something that can be quite local for each market. We always try and support each other; we dont try and replicate skill sets, he said.

Brown said that part of his role is to ensure the company maintains a strong culture and finance and that their work for clients is powerful.

The managing director noted that the agency is a small and mighty team specialising in creative, conception work, branding, and brand design. He also said that they have a fully functional and content arm of the business.

Its integrated into how we work and the traditional and performance side of digital media. Were full service, and I think those arms work very in a specialised manner individually but also work very powerfully together, he said.

As a result, Noisy Beast has quite a diverse range of clients, and some long-term key partnerships include King Living Furniture, Suzuki, Xero, and Drummond Golf.

Noisy Beast also counts Porsche and, more recently, UniSuper as part of its client list.

Brown shared that theyve given back to the community through their work with not-for-profits and charitable projects such as Monash Health and Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.

Were very passionate about giving back to clients that we can help, he said.

The clients are a good mix of discipline and tenure, which helps support our model. I think our model also helps support what clients are trying to achieve at the moment, Brown added.

Agencies across Australia have had varying reactions to the pandemic, and for Noisy Beast, it was a unique journey.

Brown explained the management buyout midway through the pandemic was a massive leap of faith in a world of uncertainty.

However, I think we were so confident that the model was right and that our clients supported us in what we wanted to do. It became quite an easy decision as hard as it was to decouple the Swiss business and lose people that worked on that account, which is always the bad part of our industry, he said.

Most people have gone on into different directions, but then our agency has just gone from strength to strength, he added.

The managing director admitted that it was a tricky time as they had no precedent to work from but said that the talent shone through from his observation.

I dont think its because people were working from home or suddenly because people were working in the office. I think a lot of that hid behind the fact that your strong talent is always your strong talent, whether theyre working from home or in the office, he said.

Brown noted that because the pandemic made working environments challenging, they have become flexible.

We work in a fully flexible environment. People come and go as they please. We have full confidence and trust in all of our staff to deliver for the clients, deliver for the team, and support each other. So, theres no issue where people work.

In terms of the business, Brown revealed that Covid had, in fact, accelerated growth.

Its got businesses to think about what their strengths are and what their core strengths are. For us to have that fully integrated offering has just helped us become more integrated and to be able to invest in those skill sets content and digital to help grow the business, the managing director said.

Brown added that while the first year of the pandemic was very uncertain, Noisy Beast was confident in its positioning in the second year.

Its always been a great time to be in advertising, and I genuinely think that now is also a great, fascinating time as the worlds moving at such a rate of knots. Its an exciting time to be around, Brown added.

The managing director revealed that the agency has been heavily investing in the digital side of its business in the year ahead and explained: I think thats probably been on the back of the pandemic. Whats happened is that buyer behaviour has changed.

I think a lot of clients have lots of data, lots of clients have had their digitalisation accelerated over the last couple of years, we are now in the process of very quickly and rapidly building out the extension to our media team and in the digital sense.

Were very much expediting the digital side of our business, as well as the content side of the business. So, once you have the digital channels, it needs content. Within the agency, we built a content studio. Weve had clients in his shooting work, and we shoot the work ourselves.

Brown also shared that their team is expanding with new appointments in the digital media space of the company.

Noisy Beast joined the IMAA last year, and Brown praised the organisation for unifying independent agencies across the country and giving them a forum to network and support each other.

The managing director also praised the IMAA for offering platforms and tools that they wouldnt have been able to access.

Brown said: as soon as we had the opportunity to get into it, we did. I think theres a great network of people on there. There are some great brands and some really good businesses on there, and it feels like a good community.

Top image: David Brown

VOZ shows Total TV reached 19.064m Australians. 55% of the population viewed exclusively on linear TV, 5% viewed exclusively on BVOD and 13% viewed on a combination of both linear TV and BVOD in week 18. Click for more

Originally posted here:
Noisy Beast MD David Brown on the management buyout in the pandemic - Mediaweek

Asian American people are typically categorized simply as Asian for the purposes of health research and reporting. It is a simplification that does not expose their true diversity.

A new large, retrospective study finds that some Asian American subgroups are at particular risk for ischemic heart disease, heart failure, and cerebrovascular disease.

Working with mortality data from 2011 to 2016 collected in the United States Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDCs) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the study reveals the flaw in considering the health of all Asian Americans as a single entity.

A recent analysis of the same data found that non-Hispanic Asians were more likely to have ideal cardiovascular health than non-Hispanic whites, missing entirely the higher cardiovascular risk associated with some Asian subgroups.

Dr. Pei Jai Michael Ho is a co-author of an editorial released alongside the new study. He told Medical News Today:

Americans with Asian ancestry can trace their roots to more than 20 countries, ranging anywhere from China to the Indian subcontinent. These origins come with incredibly unique cultures, languages, and histories, including immigration status. Therefore, it is difficult to expect that these diverse individuals will face the same medical problems or have similar medical needs.

Lumping everyone with Asian ancestry into a single Asian group masks potential healthcare disparities and makes it more challenging for our healthcare system to meet the needs of the unique subgroups in this population.

Dr. Pei Jai Michael Ho

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing demographic group in the U.S., increasing from 11.9 million people in 200 to 22.4 million people by 2019, which is an 88% increase.

The new study was published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

While an accurate assessment of Asian Americans as a single group is difficult for risk factors such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension, the new study focused on deaths from three cardiovascular disease categories:

To determine age-standardized mortality rates from the three disease categories, the researchers compared deaths from all causes for 618,004 Asian Americans, 30,267,178 non-Hispanic white Americans, and 2,292,257 Hispanic Americans.

For the purposes of the study, Asian Americans were identified by the country from which they or their families migrated to the U.S.

Deaths from ischemic heart disease significantly decreased for all women over the period the data covered.

They also decreased for non-Hispanic white men, Hispanic men, and for Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Korean men. However, deaths remained stagnant for Asian Indian and Vietnamese men.

The highest number of deaths from ischemic heart disease was among Asian Indian women and men.

Hearth failure levels remained static for Chinese, Korean, and non-Hispanic white women, and Chinese and Vietnamese men. They significantly increased, however, for Filipino, Asian Indian, and Japanese women and men, as well as Korean men.

The greatest increases in terminal heart failure were for Asian Indian women and Asian Indian men.

Deaths from cerebrovascular disease fell for Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese women and men, and remained stagnant for Asian Indian, Korean, and Vietnamese women and men. Even so, Vietnamese women and men accounted for the highest number of cerebrovascular fatalities.

Dr. Ho told MNT, Its important to realize that no amount of racial subgrouping can adequately capture the ethnic makeup of the rapidly evolving U.S. population.

When an individual self-identifies as part of a racial/ethnic group, they may refer not just to their ancestral origin but also to multiple origins, to their own definition of what identifies a person as belonging to that group, and to their living experience with this identity, he added.

Racial subgroup disaggregation is a start toward capturing this information, but further research is needed.

This study should be only the beginning of a complicated subject and should start the conversation of how we can better care for our patients, Dr. Ho said.

Original post:
Heart disease risk: Why one size does not fit all Asian Americans - Medical News Today

The McGowan Government is implementing new initiatives to attract skilled migrants and international students to Western Australia to help alleviate skills shortages.

As part of the State Government's $195 million Reconnect WA strategy, an additional 194 occupations have been added to the Graduate Occupation List - taking the total number of listed occupations to 331 - to attract more international students to study in WA.

Expansion of the Graduate Occupation List will help to attract a broad and diverse range of skills that align with the State's current and future workforce needs.

The skilled migration pathway will also provide international students graduating in WA with the option to apply for permanent residence.

Along with prioritising applicants who are already in WA and Australia, the State Government has expanded the skilled migration criteria to allow offshore candidates to apply for WA State nomination.

The changes will simultaneously support the international education sector and add to WA's pipeline of skilled workers in priority areas.

The new initiatives also complement strategies to address skills shortages following industry consultation at the Perth and Regional Skills Summits.

More information is available on the Migration WA website: migration.wa.gov.au.

Comments attributed to Education and Training Minister Sue Ellery:

"Meeting Western Australia's skilled workforce needs is a priority for the State Government, to support the State's strong economic growth and pipeline of works.

"The WA Government's management of COVID-19 has helped to keep the State's economy strong and stable. With world-class education, healthy job opportunities and strong public health management, there is no better or safer place to live, work and study.

"The State Government is committed to encouraging the return of international students to WA to support our international education sector and address skills shortages in key industries."

Comments attributed to International Education Minister David Templeman:

"International students are an important part of the WA community - they make a positive contribution to the State's diversity and vibrancy, and support local jobs in a variety of industries.

"Providing a skilled migration pathway is key for attracting international students to Western Australia to retain their capabilities once they have completed their studies."

Education and Training Minister's office - 6552 5700

International Education Minister's office - 6552 5400

Continue reading here:
Welcoming skilled migrants and international students to study, live and work in WA - Media Statements

BARCELONA, Spain -- The Spanish Grand Prix hit the reset button on Formula One's 2022 championship. After six rounds, just six points separate Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc at the top of the championship and there is next to no margin between the performance of the Red Bull and Ferrari on track. Meanwhile, Mercedes has finally started to unlock the potential of its car, introducing the prospect of three teams fighting for wins in the coming races.

The reliability issues that cost Verstappen 36 points earlier in the season were partly cancelled out by Leclerc losing 25 points to his own issues on Sunday. Ferrari, which has enjoyed strong reliability up until this point of the season, finally showed some mechanical weakness, although it should be noted that Verstappen's Red Bull remains a temperamental beast, with the Drag Reduction System (DRS) on the rear wing refusing to obey his commands while fighting for position with George Russell's Mercedes.

Leclerc's shortened race leaves unanswered questions hanging over the true performance difference between Ferrari and Red Bull, but up until lap 27 he looked like he had the race firmly in control as Verstappen had to battle back from an uncharacteristic mistake. The upshot is a championship that is incredibly difficult to call between the top two, combined with the added spice of Russell and teammate Lewis Hamilton entering the battle.

Verstappen's victory in Spain means he has won every race he's finished this season. The two times he hasn't secured victory -- in Bahrain and Australia -- his car's reliability let him down, making it easy to draw the assumption that he's verging on being unbeatable this year.

But as impressive as Verstappen's win record in 2022 is, it only tells a fraction of the story. At the two events where Verstappen retired, he did so from second place after being outperformed by Leclerc. What's more, his most recent win in Barcelona was anything but easy and would have been a second place finish had Leclerc's car not failed him on lap 27.

After lagging behind Red Bull in Imola and Miami, Ferrari brought a significant upgrade to its car in Barcelona. The new package, which is based around an upgraded floor design, was Ferrari's first major attempt at extracting more performance from the car since the start of preseason testing.

Rivals Red Bull have been adding new parts since the start of the season, but Ferrari have taken a more staggered approach to upgrades hoping to extract a big step in performance from each one. In Friday practice it looked as though Ferrari may have not made have found the performance it had hoped for, with both drivers struggling with excessive tyre degradation, but by Saturday the team had honed its car setup to the new parts and unlocked a small but significant edge over Red Bull.

Reflecting on the race on Sunday evening, Leclerc was convinced he would have won the race had he not encountered reliability issues.

"With the laps I have done, honestly everything was going really, really well," he said. "I think it would have been difficult for them to catch back up because there would have been quite a bit of a gap and we had very good degradation on the soft tyres and we could do quite a few more laps compared to them. So, overall, I think we had this race under control."

However, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes it may have been closer had the race played out, owing to the tyre degradation experienced on Carlos Sainz's Ferrari towards the end of the race and the fact Leclerc looked committed to a two-stop strategy whereas Verstappen found an advantage over teammate Sergio Perez from his three-stop approach.

"I think if you look at the degradation that Carlos has in the second half of the race, I think we actually faired very well," Horner said. "I think it's a shame we didn't get to see that race between Charles and Max today, because I think it would have been very close.

"And maybe the three-stop would have worked better versus the two that they adopted. I think the cars are still very closely matched."

But that ignores the fact that Sainz was struggling with car damage after his mistake earlier in the race, which will not have helped his tyre management or his performance. It also ignores the more significant fact that Verstappen was struggling to overtake rival cars due to a problem with his DRS, which kept him bottled behind Russell's Mercedes for 18 laps and meant Red Bull had to ask teammate Perez to let him by to win the race.

Despite the obvious disappointment of going home without any points after securing pole position and leading the first 27 laps of the race, Leclerc was upbeat about the overall progress Ferrari made in Spain.

"Let's say that I feel better after this weekend than after the last two weekends," he said. "Of course there is this issue on the car and I am very disappointed, but on the other hand I think there are plenty of positive signs throughout the whole weekend. "Our qualifying pace, the new package worked as expected, which is not always a given, and everything was working well with our race pace and tyre management. On tyre management at the last two races we have been struggling quite a bit compared to Red Bull and today it was strong.

"So in those situations I think it is good to also look at the positives and there are plenty today."

In theory, Ferrari should also hold an advantage at the next round in Monaco. Ever since the first test, the Italian team has held an edge over its rivals in slow-speed corners and the lack of long straights, on which Verstappen has often benefitted from the lower-drag aero package of his Red Bull, means Ferrari should stretch its advantage over its rivals.

Complicating the battle between Ferrari and Red Bull is a resurgent Mercedes. From the start of the season the world champions were confident they had a car with the potential to fight for victories, but the W13's tendency to bounce on its suspension when the floor of the car was forced into the track surface - a phenomenon dubbed 'porpoising' as it made cars replicate the motion of a porpoise moving through water -- at high speed meant that potential remained locked away.

In order to stop the bouncing, which in extreme cases was damaging the car and in any case was making it incredibly difficult to drive, Mercedes had to lift the ride height at the rear. In doing so it traded off downforce and performance, and for the first five races the potential the team had seen in its simulations back at the factory remained unobtainable.

In Spain, updates to the floor were introduced to help ease the bouncing and Mercedes was able to hit upon a setup that allowed it to tap into the true performance of the car. Russell qualified 0.6 off Charles Leclerc on Saturday, but Mercedes' engineers believe there is just a 0.3s deficit per lap in race performance.

Hamilton's performance was particularly impressive as he fought back from 19th after an early puncture to fifth place (having briefly held fourth before a water leak and concerns about overheating forced him to back off). At times, Hamilton was the fastest driver on track as Mercedes adapted his strategy to allow him to return to the track after each pit stop with a clear road in front of him. If you minus the 40 seconds he lost on the opening lap from his race time, he would have been in the running for second place alongside Perez and ahead of teammate Russell.

After the race Toto Wolff said the car looked like a championship winner, but took the opportunity to clarify those remarks when he spoke to the media later in the evening.

"What I meant to say is that I've seen a race car today that reminded me of the race cars of previous seasons, where you're 30 plus seconds behind the whole field, and you come all the way to the front and near the podium," Wolff said. "And that is very encouraging and shows that we've made another step.

"Can we fight for a world championship? Well, we bet we can. But we just need to have a car that is able to finish first and second. And I think we have reasons to believe that we can get there, but also if you look at the odds they are against us.

"Motor racing is a different ballgame. We've seen today that Ferrari didn't score a lot of points although they should have. We are absolutely pushing flat out in order to bring us back into the game."

Now that the bouncing issues are better understood, Mercedes hopes it can focus on adding performance. Finding 0.3s in the wind tunnel is a very achievable objective according to sources within the team, but the tricky thing will be transferring that to the track without triggering the bouncing again.

"I think we are literally learning as we go along," Wolff said. "These regulations have caught us off guard in a way, and step by step we are understanding what we need to do in order to bring the performance back into the car.

"We've seen another big step this weekend, probably we have halved the disadvantage to the front runners. But still there is there is a long way to go in order to be right up there in the fight.

"With Lewis we had probably the fastest race car today. He was 50 seconds behind at the end, and he caught all the way up, and at stages in the race he was the quickest, and that shows the potential that the car has."

Having a situation where Russell and Hamilton are both in the fight for victories will force both Leclerc and Verstappen to up their games significantly. What's more, Russell's gap of 36 points to Verstappen will start to look much smaller if the reliability issues on the Red Bull and Ferrari persist and Russell can challenge for wins.

At 64 points, Hamilton's gap looks much harder to close than his teammates, but spread across 16 races it only equates to four points per race. The 2022 championship is only just getting started.

Read more here:
How the Spanish Grand Prix reset the F1 title fight - ESPN