Time to rediscover a liberal arts education

Higher education in Australia should be a broad, transformative experience, preparing students for a life of active and productive citizenship in a rapidly changing world. Yet today, our university system emphasises professional degrees. Most undergraduates proceed straight from high school into degree programmes such as accounting, surveying or physiotherapy. Too often, the pursuit of knowledge is driven not by the desire to become a well-educated person, but by the goal of grabbing a high-paying job as quickly as possible.
 
It is time for Australia to rediscover the value of a liberal arts education. An ideal way to do this would be to require all undergraduates to enrol in either an arts or science degree for their first year of university. During that year they would be free to study anything from anthropology to zoology. At the end of their first year, students could then apply, if they so desired, for a more specialised professional course such as business, engineering or teaching.
 
Requiring all university study to begin with a year of liberal arts will add a year to those programmes that do not already have such a requirement. Some students will be less inclined to undertake a four-year degree, given the increased cost in the higher education contribution scheme (HECS) and forgone earnings, but the benefits of this proposal will greatly outweigh the negatives.
 
More than one in five students now fail to complete their degree - doubtless in some cases because they realise that they chose the wrong course. Since the late 1980s, the Adelaide University law faculty has selected its students not on the basis of year 12 marks, but on performance in first-year university classes.
 
We also propose that Australia establishes a dedicated liberal arts university. Such a university would fill a glaring gap in the Asia-Pacific regional higher-education market. Whereas in Australian universities students sometimes attend lectures with more than 300 other students, and participate in tutorial discussions led by postgraduate students, the US liberal arts colleges (much like Oxford and Cambridge) place their students in direct contact with academics. The priority given to the student learning experience is the reason US liberal arts colleges attract many of the world's best students and teachers.
 
We imagine that an Australian liberal arts university, if properly established and adequately funded, would quickly become Australia's pre-eminent institution for teaching, providing a liberal arts degree of international standing.
 
Perhaps more boldly yet, Australia could transform one of its small and idyllically located regional universities, such as the University of New England, in Armidale, NSW, into a separate institution specialising in the liberal arts. It is true that such a university would require significant funding to allow it to recruit the best arts and sciences academics from the Asia-Pacific region, and to reward them not for research output but for outstanding teaching. The Australian Government should commit to providing this new liberal arts university with a proportionate share of the national research budget, to enable it to focus exclusively on teaching.
 
We believe with appropriate resources and leadership, an Australian liberal arts university would be instrumental in promoting the liberal arts, and provide a source of competition to prod the larger research universities into improving the quality of their teaching.
 
The Howard government should rediscover the reforming zeal inherent in the Chifley Government's creation of the Australian National University, the Menzies reforms of the higher-education sector and the Hawke Government's introduction of HECS. As former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once remarked, upon the education of the people, the fate of a country depends. Education matters not only for our long-term economic prosperity, but also in a broader philosophical sense. Advancing knowledge, broadening horizons, creating a more informed public and fostering a richer cultural and intellectual life are essential to the vitality and quality of life in Australia.
 
Despite the Howard government's willingness to entertain controversial and interesting ideas over recent years, we have lost our overall vision and commitment to higher education.