Legislation to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission is before Parliament. It will empower ATEC to not only oversight and regulate, but also to set a university’s business plan through the compact process if it chooses to do so.
As the Explanatory Memorandum for the two Bills makes plain.
“If circumstances beyond a provider’s control affect its ability to meet commitments in its compact, the ATEC will proactively work with providers to understand the underlying factors and identify actions for improvement. This may include varying the terms of the compact.
“Where sustained engagement does not lead to improvement and performance continues to fall below ATEC’s expectations, the ATEC may consider further action. This may include suspending a provider’s compact and applying a default compact.”
Optimists suggest the default would be the previous compact, pessimists respond that ATEC decides.
Compacts date from the Ministry of Kim Carr, when they were meant to incentivise universities to develop individual missions, which is what they will do now; just wider and with more force.
“The purpose of compacts is to enable diversity of delivery and mission within the higher education system,” the EM states. But it adds, “compacts will enable providers to demonstrate how their unique mission – the institution’s core purpose, values, and goals – aligns with national, state, and local priorities, planning, and strategy, as well as industry engagement and innovations in learning and teaching. Informed by strategic priorities.”
Of course, ATEC will consult widely and there will be a Statement of Strategic Priorities every two years (starting for 2027-28) which will shape individual compacts. And heaven forfend anybody mistakes an SSP as a legislative instrument. It will just provide priorities rather than “prescribing or imposing obligations.”
Except that once the ATEC legislation is complete, the Commission will consider universities missions in terms of student place allocations as part of the compact. And lest anyone think the commission can be ignored, “future student profile allocations will be informed by provider performance against agreed objectives within compacts, and this will ensure that growth is managed sustainably across the system”
For anybody who still does not get it, growth in places will be “oriented to providers achieving their mission and supporting national priorities.”
As the learned Andrew Norton puts it, “higher education no longer has policy backing for its own academic purposes. It is just there as another policy tool to achieve government objectives.”