Jason Clare’s team may not be able to shoot pictures as well as the great man, (no feet, much wall – below), but with just 43 days to go before ribbon cutting day for the Interim Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) they’ve got ample time to work on a new slogan.
Pic courtesy of Jason Clare’s LinkedIn
“Getting the band back together,” was the message when Mr Clare put the creation of the new omnipotent sector regulator in the hands of the tiny tribe that proposed it back in February. Fast forward a few months and Mr Clare is again lumbered with the Education portfolio, but his social media team have fallen back on the same old punchline to herald the first post-election meeting of the team.
Mary O’Kane, Barney Glover and Larissa Behrendt make up the Minister’s triumvirate of sector shapers, with the extraordinarily-busy Professor Glover noting that the team are getting the Commission set up to start work in earnest in 2026.
While the new ATEC may be a black box of potential intervention and strategic guidance in future, Professor Glover showed some early leadership in the selfie department, capturing a group shot with decidedly better cropping than his boss.
Pic courtesy of Barney Glover’s LinkedIn
Meanwhile, the Expert Panel on University Governance, consisting of Melinda Cilento, Sharan Burrow and Bruce Cowley have been handed the poisoned chalice of ‘looking at‘ executive salaries in universities.
Spare a thought for the nation’s education correspondents in the unlikely event that they actually sort out a solution – a quick Google search shows the same old arguments over VC pay have provided fodder on quiet days in the newsroom for close to a decade – and still University Councils, responsible for setting the pay levels, continue to fail to effectively address the issue. If only Australia could get as worked up about research funding…
The social licence drought for universities in the public eye is again painfully clear. This term, new approaches are clearly needed.
