The Commonwealth’s Student Ombudsman is a happening thing, with recruiting underway for a First Assistant Ombudsman, to be “the face” of the new function. Plus there’s a senior assistant. Heaven forfend anybody suggests the new friend to students is two-faced.
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UNSW has an historic underpaid staff problem that isn’t sorted. In 2019 the university estimated liabilities for underpayment of casual academic staff at $23.7m for 2018 and $25.6m for 2019. In the 2022 annual report there was a $92m provision, including for “a thorough review into historical pay practices and the possible amounts due to current and former staff.” And in this week’s report for 2023, $82m is allocated, which includes “underpayments of casual and permanent employees.”
Regarding which, the NSW Auditor General comments that it is a key audit matter, “because of the extent of significant management judgements underpinning key assumptions used to estimate the liabilities.”
The Fair Work Ombudsman expresses itself forcefully about the underpayments – it commenced a Federal Court action against the university last September, alleging, “record-keeping practices so inadequate that they made it difficult to identify whether employees had been underpaid.” In the 2023 report UNSW states it is defending the proceedings and the outcome and costs are “uncertain.” The impact on the university’s reputation if it loses won’t be.
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Adrian Barnett (QUT) and Paul Glasziou (Bond U) want to know what interests researchers about how funding is allocated. So they asked them to rank 77 questions. Number one as of this morning is “would a lottery be fairer and more efficient (method of distributing research funds) without reducing quality?” Good question, as Professor Barnet says, “when you have a highly competitive system, with lots of excellent applicants and not enough money … it is like choosing your favourite shade of blue”
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There is grumbling about members of the Committee to advise on the legislation to create the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. There are complaints that the range of universities is not represented and concerns from Queensland that no member comes from the State (as yet there are no calls for WA to secede over its similar status). But no one has complained that TAFE has a member, Jenny Dodd, head of lobby TAFE Directors Australia. Perhaps universities welcome this clear indication that ATEC will be about a single post-secondary system. Unless they have not grasped the significance of her appointment. If they haven’t, a budget announcement might help – there is $15.9m over four years to “improve tertiary collaboration,” including VET and HE credit recognition, VET regulator ASQA piloting course accreditation by TAFEs and “improving regulator approaches” for dual sector providers.
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Macquarie U presents a unique selling proposition in its annual report, announcing it is the only university in Australia “with its own metro station”. Sydney Trains might have a view as to “own” but sales reps at the commercial ranking providers will surely see the potential for a new product.
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The Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching has released the 2023 Employer Survey (in FC this week) and an excellent resource it is too! So why has the government knocked $8m off QILT across the forward estimates? Not a rhetorical question. And who will work with less? Also, who knows? Tenders have closed for a new contract, the expiring one is held by ANU’s Social Research Centre.
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UNSW has released plans for the first stage of its Canberra City campus. When first announced in 2018 there was talk of 10 000 students, but now the proposal is for 6,000 in 15 years. UNSW plans to start this year with a cyber security degree, only for “domestic students.” Very wise, given the prospect of the Commonwealth imposing new quotas for internationals and UNSW not planning campus accommodation, which will be required for above quota growth in international numbers, until stage three.
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Headline of the week is from University of Otago, “Origins of extinct duck revealed.” As NY Times publisher Adolph Ochs nearly said, “all the news that is fit to quack.”
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The new QILT survey of employers of graduates reports 87 per cent of those who hire new teachers are satisfied with their skills, a bit above the all-discipline average. This rather contrasts with Education Minister Jason Clare’s oft-repeated remark that initial teacher education courses don’t prepare new teachers for the classroom. Unless Mr Clare was talking to recent grads – QILT reports that across the board supervisors rate how prepared new employees are higher than the grads rate themselves.
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Western Sydney U reports it was hacked a year back but did not know until January. 7,500 people were being notified this week. No threats were received but just in case, WSU has a Supreme Court injunction against publication of stolen information. That will help – hackers always respect the court.
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Charles Sturt U’s is at pains to point out that it did not apply for an “extension of time” for tabling its 2023 Annual Report in State Parliament. So why announce business as usual? Perhaps to distinguish the new report from 2021, which was late. Back then, conspiracy theorists speculated that CSU was so broke that bailiffs had seized the laptop where the report was filed. The truth was more mundane; the university had misunderstood new accounting standards and had to do accounts again. Not this year.
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Scott Bowman has another med school win. A couple of weeks back the Commonwealth agreed to a med school at Charles Darwin U – he started campaigning for this when he arrived there as VC. And now Uni Queensland is funded to expand its med school programme at Rockhampton “in partnership with CQU.” Professor Bowman announced the case for CQU med school in 2018, when he was VC there.
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Consultation on the Australian Government’s Draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework has opened, with submissions due by 5pm 14 June. Stand by for extensive feedback. For anyone who has missed it, the Government’s blueprint for cutting enrolments not quite as much as Peter Dutton can be found here.
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The Australian Academy of Science announces its 2024 Fellows .
- Australian Institute of Marine Science: Madeleine van Oppen
- ANU: Nerilie Abram, Andrew Blakers, Kylie Catchpole, Mark Krumholz, Shahar Mendelson, Hrvoje Tkalčić
- Curtin U: Zheng-Xiang Li
- Monash U: Rachelle Buchbinder, Roslyn Gleadow
- Neuroscience Research Australia: Matthew Kiernan
- QUT: Dmitri Goldberg, Gene Tyson
- RMIT: Calum Drummond
- Uni Adelaide: Jose Polo
- Uni Canberra: Arthur Georges
- Uni Melbourne: Michael Kearney
- UNSW: Louisa Degenhardt
- Uni Queensland: Mary Garson, Glenn King, Lianzhou Wang
- Uni Sydney: Georgina Long, Budiman Minasny, Willy Zwaenepoel
