As the Federal Government, through its new Education Minister, Dr. Brendan Nelson, embarks on yet another review of higher education in Australia, it must accept the fundamental reality that
Australia’s universities are seriously under-resourced in international terms.
Still centres of very considerable excellence, they are trending towards mediocrity. That does not necessarily mean that more taxpayers’ dollars must be spent on higher education, but it does
mean that major changes in public policy are now critically important.
All Australians, not just an economic, cultural or social elite, will bear the consequences of another political failure to address this fundamental issue. What is at stake – without
exaggeration – is the long-term capacity of Australia to sustain a prosperous, informed society in which quality of life and freedom of choice matches that of leading developed societies
elsewhere.
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The Harvard economist, Robert Reich, was right in his seminal 1992 publication, the Work of Nations, in identifying access to ‘knowledge workers’ – people educated and trained to
use up-to-date knowledge in highly sophisticated ways – as the most important single determinant of success for national and regional economies and corporations in the emerging global knowledge
economy.
Intellectual property will become the most dynamic and lucrative form of property, knowledge work the most rewarding and highly valued type of professional employment.
As scarcity of knowledge workers becomes the great divide between success and mediocrity in the knowledge economy, societies unable to educate and constantly add value to world-class knowledge
workers will find it increasingly difficult to attract such key people from societies that have invested wisely in knowledge infrastructure, including higher education.
So time is running out for enlightened university reforms in Australia.
Australia will either compete internationally in higher education, or fail as a knowledge nation. Without greater resources, even Australia’s research-intensive universities will find it
harder and harder to attract and retain the top researchers Australia needs, and to maintain cutting-edge research infrastructure.
Unless they are better resourced, the learning environments that Australian universities provide for undergraduate and postgraduate education and training will also become degraded.
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Good public policy will have two fundamental objectives. First, every Australian capable of benefiting from university study should be able to find a place in a university, irrespective of
socio-economic, cultural or geographic circumstances.
Second, quality must be non-negotiable. It will profit Australians little to have ready access to mediocre universities.
To improve access, several changes are needed.
The capping of university places should be abandoned. It currently excludes thousands of qualified students. Up-front fees and charges should be abolished, and all private costs and charges
associated with higher education should become deferred liabilities re-payable (like HECS) on an income contingent basis. Scholarship support should be available for students genuinely requiring
cost-of-living assistance to enable them to undertake university study.
There is no magic Antipodean formula for securing educational quality at a massive discount. The ‘bottom line’ is that Australians will get the universities that they pay for, whether as
taxpayers or individual beneficiaries.
I would encourage the Commonwealth to consider increasing investment in research infrastructure substantially, and to consider introducing powerful tax incentives for industry to invest in
university teaching and research.
With issues of equity properly managed through targeted scholarships and discounts, universities should be given the power to set their own fees, with the Government’s liability capped and
the students taking on an income contingent liability for the remainder. Without such initiatives there are simply no mechanisms through which even the best-funded Australian universities can
attempt to match their international competitors.
This de-regulated system need not cost taxpayers much more in the long run, but it will be essentially dynamic, facilitating enrolment growth and encouraging individual universities to pursue
international levels of quality and competitiveness.
The Commonwealth will need to retain funding and other mechanisms to protect rural and regional universities and to secure adequate enrolments into socially important professions such as early
childhood education or nursing. But its main contribution to the competitiveness of Australian higher education will be to assume the temporary fiscal burden of extending the principle of income
contingency to all student fees and charges, and thereby promoting student-centred, equitable, high quality universities.