There are alarms in Queensland, where some schools taught the wrong member of the Julia family in ancient history, Octavian rather than uncle Julius. This, Alison Bedford (Uni Southern Queensland) attributes to “teachers working out of field.” FC suggests it is because Wayne and Shuster are not on the curriculum.
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Tim Ayres on AI in workplaces.
“There is no shortage of bright ideas about new agencies or ad hoc taskforces to oversee AI adoption in Australian workplaces. But good AI adoption requires thoughtful conversations in each workplace, rather than new national bureaucracies that duplicate what we already have,” the Industry and Science Minister’s speech to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Wednesday.
Interesting to see if Mr Ayres will use the same approach in responding to Robyn Denholm and colleagues’ government-driving approach in their Strategic Examination of Research and Development, due soon-ish.
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The Department of Education is asking the research-kit community what it wants in the new National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy just as the Australian National Audit Office invites opinions on how the former is handling the latter. What a coincidence!
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UTS VC Andrew Parfitt appears to have had it with people sticking their bibs in. He suggests in the university’s submission to the NSW Legislative Council committee inquiry into governance at the state’s universities that they, “operate within a complex web of oversight mechanisms. These include both State and Federal agencies, each with distinct but sometimes overlapping responsibilities.
“UTS encourages the committee to have regard to the layers of existing regulation and oversight as well as to the governance inquiries and consultations currently on foot when formulating its recommendations.”
To which he attached a 19-page statement of the UTS Governance Framework.
Perhaps he was hoping to discourage the committee focusing on one of its extensive terms of reference, “opportunities for legislative reform to strengthen governance, transparency and accountability.”
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Any in the ANU leadership who expected abandoning Genevieve Bell would end the insurgency could despair. Well-informed FOI applications continue, now relating to decisions and documents since Rebekha Brown replaced her. And in some it is still personal, there is an FOI to establish if Professor Brown billed the university for hair and makeup for the campus meeting where she announced she was in charge. Makes not much of a change from staff denouncing Professor Bell for her taste in sneakers.
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The Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes launches a campaign for the Federal Government to “release the full amount from the Medical Research Future Fund,” which rather looks like the campaign it has run in friendly media for months. “Full amount” presumably means the nearly $1bn return on the MRFF’s $24bn capital – which the overseeing Future Fund Board of Guardians says is available, according to its long-term objective, now a CPI plus 4-5% annual return on a rolling ten-year basis.
But the Government is only allocating $6.5bn for ’24-’25 through to ’33-’34 – the ten-year funding plan is decidedly independent of what the Guardians decide is available.
There might be a reason for the more modest amount. The market bouncing around has an impact on MRFF net earnings, $2.15bn in ‘20’-21 and $18m the next year. Volatile returns led to Treasury kicking in $250m in the 2021 Budget and $30m the next year to cover MRFF commitments. Perhaps cabinet wants to keep cash in the MRFF kitty to prevent more bailouts.
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Julian Hill (Assistant Minister for International Education) invokes history to explain why the Government will more rigorously regulate international education agents. “Back in the 1980s and 90s, it was drug company pharmaceutical reps—you know, secret holidays and TVs to doctors to get them to prescribe certain drugs. Government stepped in and cleaned it up. Then we saw, with mortgage brokers and with financial advisers, that the intermediaries were corrupting the market with hidden commissions and outrageous behaviours. “Governments eventually stepped in and cleaned it up. … the feedback which I have received over years now from the reputable private providers in VET and higher education is to please do something about the behaviour of the agent commissions because they are buying and selling students.” (Reps second reading speech, Wednesday).
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In news that had already broken, the ABC reported the other day a staff underpayment case at the University of Adelaide. VC Peter Høj told staff in September and the National Tertiary Education Union got the message out, deploring “the length it took for UoA to conduct broader checks on casual payments.”
Over eight years, 838 people were dudded a total of $1.25m, which on the Melbourne model of staff underpayments barely rates (last year the Fair Work Ombudsman found Uni Melbourne had underpaid staff $72m). But UoA should certainly have been on to this way earlier – what they missed was casual academic staff with PhDs qualification and/or others in course coordinator roles were not paid the specified rate for qualifications/tasks in the current and previous enterprise agreements.
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The University of Sydney has new creative in its “Leadership for Good” brand campaign, to explain what a splendid job it has done, is doing and will do in research and service. It also fits the new fundraiser “For Good,” “a bold movement to create lasting impact for generations to come.” The campaign includes “out of home placements” posters, bus shelters and the like – presumably to attract philanthropists who use public transport.
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The estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research reports what appears a big COVID crunch of the young. Data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Youth reveals that of people who turned 24 last year, 39% have a university qualification, back to the 2012 level and 7 %down on 2018. It is way worse for skills, 9% have completed an apprentice/training program, less than half than in 2012. And while 23% had no qualification in 2012 and 2018, last year it was 33% . Plus, young people reporting health or disability stopped them from work or study doubled over the decade to 12%. Over half of those with a disability identified it as mental health.
NCVER’s John King points to, “potential knock-on effects of a youth cohort impacted by the COVID pandemic and delayed study pathways.”
Be interesting to compare results from WA and Queensland with long locked-down Victoria.
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VETtrak, a student management system for registered training organisations was down yesterday – just as it has been for a fortnight. Owner ReadyTech said it expected to have an update for customers today but while the core platform is restored, the VETenrol function wasn’t. The Feds as in Australian National Office of Cyber Security and the Australian Signals’ Directorate’s Cyber Security Centre were informed by October 16 and on Wednesday the Supreme Court of NSW granted an injunction prohibiting disclosure/dissemination of data by third parties.