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Dr Brendan Nelson's university policy prescription: panacea, placebo or poison? Day 3

By Andrew Norton and Carolyn Allport - posted Friday, 26 September 2003


Havachats are week-long email dialogues between two prominent advocates on an issue of the day. To vote on the issue and make your view count, click here.

Day 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 .

Andrew goes first. Carolyn responds.

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From: Andrew Norton
To: Carolyn Allport
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 9:41 AM
Subject: Educating who for what and why

Dear Carolyn,

I'm glad you mentioned the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) target of 60% participation in higher education by 2020, because whether that number makes any sense is well worth discussing.

To put things in context, in 2001 less than a third of all school leavers went on to higher education. Even with that relatively low - at least relative to the ultimate 60% target - number, some universities were taking students with marginal academic potential. This showed in very high attrition rates among the weaker students. We know little about university drop-outs, but I doubt they gain much from their short time in higher education. Expanding the system is likely to result in still more people leaving university with little or nothing to show for it.

Or we can look at his issue from another angle, the labour market. Just over 20% of people aged 25-64 currently have degrees, so we are sitting at about a third of the AVCC's target. Actual unemployment for gradutes, below 3%, is low. But more than 20% are working in jobs that don't require degrees. We don't know to what extent this is a matter of choice, and to what extent graduates have simply failed to translate their degrees into appropriate work. But with only a few chronic labour market shortages for graduates, mostly in health and a few specialist types of teachers, there isn't much evidence that we need more people coming out of the universities.

A few years back Monash University's Centre for Policy Studies forecast demand for graduates. They predicted an extra 550,000 jobs between 1997 and 2010. It sounds like a lot, but even if we leave student numbers as they are now Australia's universities will churn out more than a million graduates in that time period.

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I've never seen any material from the AVCC that suggests their 60% target is based on good social science - in fact I don't think it is even based on bad social science. It was just plucked out the air. It's not a 'benchmark' we should take any notice of.

The government has been hinting at this issue, highlighting drop-out rates and suggesting that university isn't for everyone. Their chosen method for keeping numbers down is a quota system for government-subsidised places, and price for the non-subsidised places.

This is rather crude. While acknowledging the limits in using the past to predict the future, we need to look much more carefully at our recent experience of mass education. We must understand better who goes to university, how well they do, and what happens to them after they leave, with or without a degree.

The results of this research need feeding back into advice to prospective students. While school leavers usually know what interests them, they require more information to make a good choice of course and university. In industries, like higher education, where consumers are under-informed brokers have a role to play. They already exist in a small way in vocational education, and it would be worth trying them in higher education as well.

Regards,
Andrew

From: Carolyn Allport
To: Andrew Norton
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: Educating who for what and why

Dear Andrew,

You raise the issue of the AVCC's target of 60% participation, and question on the basis of current figures whether this is really needed. It is always difficult to forecast future labour market needs, let alone what our work patterns and needs might be in 20 or 30 years. However most countries in the world recognize the importance of lifting participation in the post-secondary sector to meet the demands of a knowledge economy. In this sense there is always the difficulty of achieving the best balance between expanding student numbers across universities, vocational training and specialist institutes. In the first instance, we probably need to expand numbers in all areas, particularly if we have to give substance to "life-long learning".

Achieving a good balance across the post-secondary sector, as well as building pathways across the sector will reduce drop-out rates, as well as enhance a student's opportunity to undertake courses of study that best meet their needs. I do not believe that the current government policy of limiting subsidized places is the correct policy mechanism - particularly since current policy, and the new proposals under consideration by the parliament, provide for additional entry to university on the ability for students to pay full fees. This is a policy that might suit some students, but it certainly won't meet the needs of many others. High tuition and living costs and accepting increased debt levels do influence students, especially those from low income or disadvantaged backgrounds.

I said yesterday that I wanted to talk about workplace relations, given the recent actions of the Government. I do so not just from a self-interested position in terms of the Union, but also because of what government intervention actually foreshadows for the future of universities. The Federal Government's own Workplace Relations Act is based on moving away from the older style industrial awards made by the Industrial Commission, and towards decentralized arrangements. The most popular of these arrangements are collective, or enterprise, agreements. Employers and employees hold rights under this legislation, introduced by the current Government, to choose to use collective bargaining agreements to regulate conditions of employment.

What the Government is requiring is that these collective bargaining arrangements are to be weakened over time to a point where staff are employed on individual contracts. This is unwarranted, and unprecedented interference in the institutional autonomy of universities, and flies in the face of accepted international standards. This is despite the fact that the Government does not employ university staff, nor provide the money to cover salary increases made under enterprise bargaining. The Government is not a party to any awards or agreements made in higher education and has no right to intervene. It is even more scandalous when we consider that under the new proposals for funding higher education, government will only provide a subsidy for each student enrolled, and that the majority of the costs of educating students will in fact fall on the shoulders of students and their families.

Most pernicious of all is the fact that government actually believes that attaching workplace reforms to core base funding for universities will help universities meet the challenge of providing quality teaching and research in our universities. The government is expecting university staff to give up rights that they hold under the industrial laws of this land. They demand of our employers that they give way to blackmail over funding. Some Vice-Chancellors have already said that it is not worth the trouble, even though we desperately need the money. The only way out of the present impasse is for the Government to withdraw in their entirety the prescriptive demands for workplace change, and recognize that higher education staff and Vice-Chancellors are more than well equipped to ensure that universities are able to meet the challenges of the future.

Over to you,
Carolyn

Day 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 .

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About the Authors

Andrew Norton is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and Director of the CIS' Liberalising Learning research programme.

Carolyn Allport is National President of the National Tertiary Education Union.

Other articles by these Authors

All articles by Andrew Norton
All articles by Carolyn Allport
Related Links
Centre for Independent Studies
Nationl Tertiary Education Union
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