“You can learn all sorts of skills at TAFE, snake handling included,” Skills Minister Brendan
O’Connor, via Twitter. The accompanying pic included an actual reptile, not a member of the Victorian Right.
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Student contribution rates for 2025 are announced. Undergraduates in law, business and HASS will pay over-the-top whack, $16,992 and the feds will kick in $1,286.
Bized and law lobbies have largely kept quiet about the costs since the Libs introduced them for 2021, perhaps because they want prospective students to think their degrees are a bargain at any price. But while humanities and social science groups have complained loud and long, this has not led the government to do anything. It is a contrast with “prac poverty,” where the government responded to community pressure with funding, at least for trainee teachers and nurses. Certainly there are assumptions that student fee structures will change under the ATEC imperium but after years in place, this Government is under no new pressure to contribute more so students pay less.
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Quantum computer developer PsiQuantum announces a partnership, including Uni Queensland , Griffith U, QUT, USQ and Uni Sunshine Coast to, “build out targeted educational programs to meet the skills requirements for the rapidly growing sector.” It’s the least the company can do. PsiQuantum has $1bn in Commonwealth and Queensland government investment to, build “the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer” in Brisbane.
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The Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs is accepting submissions on a Bill to establish a commission of inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities. It’s a private members bill from Liberal education shadow, Sarah Henderson, who is fierce in her criticism of university managements’ handling of protests against Israel’s attacks in Gaza, particularly Uni Sydney and especially its VC, Mark Scott. If called to give evidence, Professor Scott’s Senate Estimates experience as MD of the ABC will probably be useful.
Whatever the Committee recommends and the Senate decides, the Bill is unlikely to pass the House. Last week PM Albanese ruled out an inquiry, saying “you don’t need an inquiry to know that there’s been a rise of antisemitism at some of the universities.”
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WA media reports alleged soldier and cyber spy Kira Korolev studied at Edith Cowan U, but her subject was film – which must have been a relief to management. Imagine the media merriment if she had studied a cyber security degrees or at the ECU-based Cyber Security CRC, which planned to embed students in industry partners.
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The Australian Academy of Science issues a direct order to the government, in its submission to the Senate inquiry on the international student cap Bill. “It is the Government’s responsibility to outline a comprehensive plan to fix the broken funding model of university research,” the Academy states. Apart from that, there are two sensible submission suggestions; that HDR students are not included in caps and that caps for public universities and private ones eligible for research funding are set for three years.
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The NSW Government announces $4.5m for its new Non-Animal Technologies Network, to research and ultimately reduce the use of animals in research. “This may include complex multi-organ models, organs-on-chips, or approaches using machine learning and artificial intelligence.” In March, State Parliament adopted legislation prohibiting forcing animals to swim and inhale smoke for medical experiments. The National Health and Medical Research Council has also recently forbidden such tests.
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The pace is picking up on the research commercialisation program announced by the Coalition and continued, with adaptions, by Labor. Universities will share $180m in new money for Australian Economic Accelerator Ignite (proof of concept) and Innovate (scale) projects. Money is for research in the seven priority areas covered by the National Reconstruction Fund.
The roll-out follows a seed grants pilot last year “to test and refine key processes and decisions.” In what might be the shape of grants to come, Group of Eight universities won 16 of the 21 (FC October 25).
The 2024 round of National Industry PhD Projects is also announced, (“co-designed research projects with university and industry participation”). Of the 48 awards, QUT leads with six. FC’s fave is a “naturalistic conversational agent to reduce passive fatigue and driver error for commercial transport in regional Australia,” (QUT).
When lobbies lament the state of public research and development funding, guess what the government will point to. As for discovery research, the funding argument is lost for the next election and probably the one after.
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Charles Sturt U does not appear alarmed by the prospect of caps on international students at city campuses. It has signed a ten-year lease on a teaching site in Berry Street North Sydney.
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The University of Tasmania has had a rare win in its campaign to move to Hobart CBD.
A Bill before State Parliament proposes requiring Government approval of the sale of large parts of the Sandy Bay campus for housing – without which the university will struggle to fund the relocation. The University plan is long and bitterly opposed by community activists but Labor has sided with UTAS and announced it will oppose the Bill.
“The move puts education into the heart of our capital city. It builds world-class facilities in a more accessible location for all southern Tasmanians. It will revitalise the city and rebuild our state’s education assets,” Opposition Leader Dean Winter says in a fighting speech, warning that if passed, the Bill will, “irreparably harm Tasmania’s reputation as an investment destination, by pulling the rug out from under a development process the government has supported for the best part of a decade.”
The minority Liberal government, with the Greens, should have the numbers in the lower house but the Legislative Councill will be decided by some of the seven crossbenchers in the 15 member chamber. The Bill is fronted by minister for a bunch of stuff, other than education, Madeleine Ogilvie, whose seat includes Sandy Bay. She says Labor, “has betrayed the people of Hobart”.
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While the new collaboration is not long announced, anybody who wants to serve on joint committees to support the Medical Research Future Fund and the National Health and Medical Research Council has until month-end to apply. Committees are: public health and health systems, industry, philanthropy and commercialisation and the Indigenous and consumer advisory groups.
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The Group of Eight is celebrating its 25th birthday (staff have to get out more) by asking former chairs for tweets of wisdom.
Including Ian Young (as ANU VC) who wins full marks for frankness.
“Surveys actually say that the community loves us, in a sense. They respect researchers, they hold universities in high light,” Professor Young says for the Go8, on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“But” (and it is a very big but), “when it comes to the politicians they elect, those politicians don’t back that up with the sort of investment that I think is important. … We have had successes, we have moved forward but I still don’t believe Australian society, or the politicians they elect actually understand fully the importance of research intensive universities and then back that up with the political will to invest in those institutions and that is the on-going challenge for the sector and the Group of Eight, the challenge for the whole 25 years of its existence.”
Suggests a new pitch might be needed.
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The Deans of Arts, Social Science and Humanities recognise the times are changing. DASSH invites all interested to a consultation today on the national skills taxonomy being developed by Jobs and Skills Australia, to replace the Australian Skills Classification. HE in general does not appear all that interested – as if a skills model is for the lesser beings in training. But DASSH gets that members needs to be involved, “to help identify and position the skills and capabilities associated with humanities, arts and social sciences disciplines.”
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The Council of the now not long for this life University of Adelaide announces two appointments, company director Susy Daw and “people and culture specialist” Belinda Jefferys.
But what happens when Uni Adelaide disappears into Adelaide U, which will have a Council of its own? A Transition Council is already in-place for the university-to-be, which stays to the end of 2026, as do the two existing university Councils. Members of the three will be eligible for the new Council (unless they are on the selection committee for it), as will people from “the wider community.”
Cynics suggest it is a case of deckchairs on the Titanic, which is harsh – the State’s new uni flagship can hardly sink before it is launched.
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An alliance of initialisms* is working to update the cataloguing standard used by Australian libraries. A new official Resource Description and Access will replace the original, introduced in 2013, and cover public, academic, school, health, law and special libraries, and agencies that issue meta-data.
* NSLA (National and State Libraries, Australasia), AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies), ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association), ACORD (Australian Community on Resource Description), CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians) and CAVAL(Council of Victorian Academic Libraries).
