University lobbies argue they can drive national productivity, if only the Feds give them more money.
“Ensure policy and investment settings build and maintain a strong, vibrant university teaching and research system,” is the way to “unleash universities potential to drive productivity and increase the size of the economy,” according to Universities Australia.
Economists have bigger ideas, including training, and from the learned Andrew Leigh, social mobility.
The Economics Society of Australia has just polled 30 members on the three ways the Budget can increase productivity. Just over half picked; “expand the National Skills Agreement to fund additional fee-free TAFE places in priority shortage occupations.” Stronger anti-trust laws and more money for the ACCC was a close second.
Seven also called for an end to the Job Ready Graduates funding model but Mala Raghavan (Uni Tasmania) summed up the case for training, “expanding education and vocational training to align with industry needs will enhance workforce capabilities and facilitate technology adoption.” (She also called for more industry-university R&D collaboration.)
Same as in the previous poll on productivity when “skills and workforce” was 25% ahead of innovation and R&D in a poll on the seven most important boosts. “Skills and workforce capacity are key inputs to productivity. Technological change leads to productivity gains; however, without the skills and training to translate new developments into practice we cannot improve efficiency,” Alicia Rambaldi (Uni Queensland) commented.
And Adrian Blundell-Wignall (Uni Sydney) ties social mobility in education to productivity arguing for fee-free public and private schools to, “break the elitism whereby the income and wealth of parents is the best predictor of how well you do in school and beyond.”
It is an argument he shares with former ANU economist Andrew Leigh, now Assistant Minister for a bunch of stuff, including productivity. In a speech at his old university last week, he argued social mobility drives productivity.
“If talent is spread widely but opportunity is packed tightly, then low mobility is unfair and wasteful. It means a society is failing twice. It is failing children whose prospects are narrowed by circumstances they did not choose. And it is failing itself, because it leaves ability half-used and ambition underdeveloped.”
He said that social mobility is driven by access to health, schooling, mentoring and stable housing and that people’s potential “is left dormant” in their absence. This is not great; “In a world where value increasingly depends on ideas, judgment and specialised skills, a society that draws talent from a narrow social base is like a team running onto the field with half its players left behind in the changing rooms … Every barrier that keeps talent from rising also keeps the economy from growing.”
It was a closely argued speech by an economist who is also a Minister in a Government with a big social agenda focused on empowering people. Certainly, Dr Leigh included universities, once, mentioning the importance of community links, but only as one part of a “richer agenda.”
And an agenda way bigger than higher education.