There is now a Ballarat edition of monopoly – and yes Federation U is on the board. No, FC does not know if it is expensive real estate.
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The National Student Ombudsman reports on university management of confidentiality in complaint processes. They found failures at James Cook U, Uni Newcastle and UTS in their use of confidentiality requirements and specify what each need to address. The Ombudsman’s advice for all universities is, “develop plain English written guidance to supplement their explanation of confidentiality requirements in official complaint and misconduct policies.”
Finding aside, UTS appears keen to make it known how seriously it takes student wellbeing. It is recruiting for an internal investigation unit, “in relation to gender-based violence, misconduct, discrimination, harassment, and bullying.”
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The legislative stars go dark for good Tuesday at what were Uni Adelaide and Uni SA. FC wonders whether those architects of their own exits, Peter Høj (the former) and David Lloyd (the latter) will rocket off into the celestial sunset or will they turn-up in academic galaxies not so far away.
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The gods of the university and research establishments look like they have come over all götterdämmerung.
HE lobbies meekly accepted ATEC last month, abandoning their arguments for amendments to the Bill, accepting that the regulator as intended is better than no regulator at all.
Now research peaks are supplicating before SERD, which proposes abolishing much of their research structure. In just one par the Strategic Examination of Research and Development proposes paying for its new centralised system by “consolidating funding” from five major programmes, CRCs, Industry Growth, Trailblazer Universities, Australia’s Economic Accelerator and NCRIS. Plus SERD wants a slice of research block grants. This is surrender on an operatic scale. And yet, Jane O’Dwyer from Cooperative Research Australia aside, there is not a dickey-bird.
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People can live longer, taxes change but not enough maths teachers is immutable. Perhaps it is why governments never do anything about them. But a science-maths alliance has a three-pillar plan to at least reduce the shortage by “rapid upskilling” of out-of-field teachers taking high school maths classes. The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute and Science and Technology Australia have a Budget submission that proposes:
- Creation of a national data set of teachers’ qualifications and where there are teaching
- Upskilling existing teachers in maths, “potentially as stacked accredited micro-credentials”
- Creating a steering group to make it happen.
“Our failure to adequately prepare students in maths threatens economic capacity in high-value industries … essential for a technology-driven economy,” STA warns,
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Uni Wollongong officially opened its new purpose-built Liverpool campus, in southwest Sydney, yesterday. It builds on a bet a decade back when then management decided it could not rely on its Illawarra heartland for enough domestic students – Liverpool enrolments started at 240 in 2017; there are 1600 now.
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Monash U announces Lauren Brincat will be artist in residence at its Prato Campus (in Tuscany) for the European Summer. Her project “explores fabric as a medium of memory, resistance and transformation.” Monash Prato also teaches a “specially curated curriculum,” which “integrates local perspectives and industry learning, field experiences and live projects … . You will also have the opportunity to participate in our program of cultural and social activities.” Some 7,000 students have done just that over 20 years. Monash Prato may not be where Education Minister Jason Clare has in mind when he urges universities to increase enrolments of low SES students.
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UTS pulls its early entry scheme for this year’s HSC class to make things “clearer and fairer.”
“There is growing momentum both from schools and government bodies for a review of early entry programs across the higher education landscape,” UTS explains.
Suspicions in schools that uni access is not a fair competition regularly roll around. A decade back, there was such a sense that bonus marks rorted ATAR scores that the Higher Education Standards Panel reviewed admissions.
Whatever is going on now, UTS appears to be making sure nobody looks judgementally at them.
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Uni Wollongong’s core values are now translated into “specific observable behaviours, that will guide how staff work, lead and male decisions” – “thrive together, pursue excellence, be accountable and lead with integrity.” There is a bit of this about – Uni NSW set the standard in 2017 with its “Five Behaviours” “demonstrates excellence, drives innovation, builds collaboration, embraces diversity and displays respect.” A national award for universities patronising staff cannot be far away.
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The Fair Work Ombudsman has won its Federal Court appeal against Torrens U in a staff underpayment case. The Ombudsman had directed the university to pay casual academics for marking under the Higher Education Industrial Award. However the university won a complicated case in the Court. The FWO then contested that ruling, that marking was covered by payments to casual academics for teaching. Justice Lee, for a full bench, found they are not. “The lecturing rate compensates for one hour of lecture delivery together with the limited body of work associated with that delivery (principally preparation, but potentially other things such as marking a test or other form of assessment administered during the lecture or speaking to a student at the end of the lecture).
“The separate marking rate applies to the ordinary activity of marking assessment tasks,” he stated.
As National Tertiary Education Union General Secretary Damian Cahill put it after the original judgement; the university’s case “risks turning tutorial and lecture rates into bottomless pits where staff can be forced to mark stacks of essays or exams for free.”
As well as the FWO and Torrens casuals staff this is a win for the NTEU which intervened in the case. Justice Lee referenced the “cogent arguments” advanced by its senior counsel. It follows the union’s Federal Court win last year against Monash U in a three-year dispute over the correct rate to pay academic casuals for student consultation hours.
The Torrens judgement matters not much for public universities, which all have enterprise agreements and do not rely on the HE award. But it adds to the union’s argument that managements are not to be trusted with peoples’ pay. “The days of treating casual staff as an endless source of free labour are over," Dr Cahill said Wednesday.
FC asked Torrens U for comment, which was, it “will review the Full Court of the Federal Court’s judgment in detail and consider our next steps.” But the FWO knows exactly what it thinks they should be, “consistent with the court’s orders, the Fair Work Ombudsman now expects the university to comply with that Compliance Notice, which requires it to calculate and back-pay any outstanding entitlements owed to a casual lecturer employed by the university between 2018 and 2024.”
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Adelaide U (the new one) announces a new chair in AI cyber security supported by Cisco. Its news, just not especially newsy news given this is what the IT networking company has long done. Cisco funds applied R&D at ten Aus universities and provides curriculum for cyber security and network tech subjects in TAFE. It’s been quietly doing it for years.