The Productivity Commission asked for ideas about (who would have thought) improving productivity.
There is rent-seeking and special pleading aplenty among the 400 plus submissions, but there are also challenging ideas that vice chancellors will not like.
And yes, there is a call to abolish the Productivity Commission, which apparently,
“comfortably maintains its intransigence towards active industrial policy.”
Notable submissions include:
- Investment in a productive ideas economy ““sustained, high levels of funding for research and development and must cover basic and applied research. This will lead to the development of new industries, increasing Australia’s productivity and economic resilience
- Establish an office of national research, “a central body to focus on finding ways to maximise the uses of our resources in national defence and to respond to our other national priorities”
- Establish more university hospitals to, “make Australia a net exporter of healthcare workers through the accessible provision of medical qualifications, rather than to take health workers from places that need it most.”
- Discourage degree inflation, “normalising hiring straight out of school, normalising bachelors degrees without an honours year and discouraging professional masters degrees could unleash a wave of willing workers. They may be moderately less productive in their first year in the workforce, but more productive over a lifetime of work.”
- Boost work-related training, “to address stagnant productivity growth and increase the resilience and agility of Australia’s labour force … transparent and consistent accreditation of work-related training should be developed at the federal level, beginning with formal micro-credentials developed in collaboration with education providers.”
- Digital skills training should be expanded; “government-funded micro-credentials and co-designed learning experiences … to inclusively closing the digital skills gap and increasing productivity”
- Create a league table for rates of university spin-outs: “to spread best practice and deliver productivity growth in Australia from our university funding.”
And yes, there is a call for government regulation of universities with minimum standards for all courses, “to maintain basic quality controls.”
