Universities Australia welcomes the HELP debt cut legislation and proposes more ways to upset Treasury. CEO Luke Sheehy suggests ending the Job Ready Graduates fee structure and expanding the Commonwealth prac payment have “broad Parliamentary support.” “When”, to paraphrase Slaven and Nelson, “ever-more funding, is never enough.”
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ANU management has changed the schedule for the next round of staff rage. Consultations on the proposed restructure, with all-but-assured accompanying job cuts, for the Colleges of Arts -Social Sciences and Medicine-Science were supposed to close this week, but now stay open until August 7, after the proposal for the Academic support portfolio, due at month end. This is so staff in the Colleges can consider how they would operate with a restructured Academic operation – which rather makes a case for having held College proposals already out until the Academic prop was ready.
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The imminent Adelaide University’ Indigenous, name, Tirkangkaku (place of learning) is included in establishing legislation. The name results from consultation among Aboriginal staff of the university, with cultural consent from the Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi, the keeper of the original language of the Adelaide Plains.
So, will Tirkangkaku appear on AU livery? Yes, AU advises “First-nations led artwork is being worked on at present.”
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As long promised, the 20% HELP debt cut was before the House of Representatives on the first working day of the new Parliament when it got down to business. Education Minister Jason Clare stuck to the campaign-sell, that it was to “cut the debt of 3 million Australians. To take a weight off their back. To help with the cost of living. And to help build Australia’s future.” He went on to add the benefits of other Labor policies, for study hubs and practicum payments before challenging the Opposition to vote for the Bill and “admit they got it wrong” in opposing it. Of course, the Coalition could point out that the $16bn cut will add to the Government debt burden of taxpayers without degrees, but they probably won’t. Labor now owns education as an issue probably through to the next election.
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So what’s the Government’s interest level in what university leaders think? So low, no Vice-Chancellor will sit at the Economic Round Table. So subterranean no lobby leaders got a guernsey. So to hell-in-a handbasket, no academic economist with publications-a-plenty will lecture the luminaries. In fact, the only HE representative is Andrew Fraser, the Chancellor of Griffith University, although he might have made it more for being Chair of the Australian Retirement Trust and a former Queensland Labor Government Treasurer and Deputy Premier. That superannuation industry and union movement veteran Cath Bowtell will be there while they aren’t will be won’t cheer-up university leaders – she is also deputy chair of the Ministerial Advisory Board for peak voced policy agency, Jobs and Skills Australia. Plus a long-time ago a National Tertiary Education Union official.
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It’s a big month for the feds funding research – just different agencies spending money on the same sort of programs. The ARC has announced a bunch of funding, mainly for applied research. The Department of Education has committed money to university-led research projects that might make it to market. And now the Department of Industry, Science and Resources announces funding “to develop solutions to market-led challenges using quantum technologies.” Oh, and the first stage of Round 26 of Cooperative Research Centre bids is expected next week. Apart from badging and bureaucratic gate-keeping, what’s the diff?
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HILDA will keep calling Uni Melbourne home. The feds have renewed its Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research’s contract to deliver the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. HILDA was born there, in 2001, and has never left. For anybody late to the statistical soiree, HILDA annually interviews everybody in the same households aged 15 and over about life and work. That’s 17,000 people in 9,000 homes – providing a continuing guide to the lived state of the nation.
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Skills Minister Andrew Giles talks up Fee Free TAFE announcing 170,000 courses were completed between January 2023, when it started and September last year. Good-o, but not great, because there were 568,400 FFT enrolments in the same period. While some will still be current, it looks as if students in hundreds of thousands courses dropped out. But why? The National Centre for Vocational Education Research, the keeper of all stats for voced does not know. In January, it reported it cannot break out FFT stats from the total numbers per state. “If tasked with collecting and reporting on Free TAFE, NCVER could provide robust, public data and insights into the initiative,” it told a Senate Committee Inquiry into scheme funding.
Could might become will. The NCVER advised this week that, it is, “working closely with all Australian Governments on changes that will enable this identification.”
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Did Uni Southern Queensland management misplace the prime directive for regional universities? – never, ever stop asking the locals what they want. The university announces a “renewed commitment to working alongside its communities.” There is an “engagement program” through to September, “where all community members can share their ideas and aspirations for their university.” So when did USQ stop?
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The legislation-required review of reduced HELP debt for doctors and nurses in rural through really remote areas and teachers in the very back of beyond is underway. Terms of Reference include recommending other occupations the scheme should cover “with a focus on the health, mental health and education sectors.” Standby for lobbying for every industry association that missed out on Commonwealth prac payments.
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Ten deans councils have met to establish what looks a united front for “rebuilding public trust in universities.” “We are stronger together. Whether we’re tackling the complexities of higher education policy challenges and opportunities, regulatory compliance, or funding unpredictability, shared solutions and resources make us more resilient” is the longish battle-cry. So the deans united will never be defeated, at least until ATEC gets going on the expected study on the cost of teaching different disciplines.
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QUT completes its damage control of the controversy caused by a January conference on opposing racism at its Carumba Institute, releasing a report by Federal Coury judge, John Middleton. Mr Middleton found that despite media report of antisemitism, “the intent of presentations remained aligned with the university’s standards and the purpose of the Debate”. However the timing was terrible, “in the current social and political climate following October 7 2023.”
His six recommendations are all adopted including, “an appropriate group of personnel” should consider speakers and topics for public events at the university, “to assess whether the topic and the material is appropriate, taking into account not only freedom of expression and academic intellectual freedom, but also providing a safe, respectful and inclusive university environment.”
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The University of Canberra Corporate Governance Review reports, “council meeting papers generally exceed 500 pages with key issues sometimes buried in dense documentation.” There are a bunch of other comments communicating the shambles in governance Bill Shorten arrived to fix but this takes the brevity biscuit.
Implementation of 23 of Ian Chubb and Sue Chapman’s 24 recommendations is underway or scheduled with Chancellor Lisa Paul and VC Shorten knocking back but one. That is for Council to have “considered oversight” of campus development through a standing committee.
