With ATEC up and running, it seems its DoE staff are indeed Schrodinger’s Public Servants, both outside and inside the Department, which is how secretary Tony Cook explained working arrangements to a Senate committee FC December 12). ATEC’s email for press inquiries is media@education.gov.au .
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The Senate Committee hearing on the Greens Bill to abolish JRG met Tuesday, including a bunch of deploragrams about humanities students being slugged with unfair course costs. But the outrage was qualified, with university representatives not backing the Bill because it would cut the student contributions without replacement funding from the Feds (what with money bills not starting in the upper house). Kate Fullagar (Australian Catholic U), who gave evidence wearing her Australian Historical Association hat, noticed.
“I fear our remarks did not really land – many unis and deans and experts arguing against the Greens bill to repeal JRG. On the grounds of course that they then lose the money they otherwise rely on 18 year old history students to pay. And because it does not solve the larger funding issue in higher ed. (I have to remark these are often the same folks who roll their eyes at Greens being ‘purist’),” she wrote on LinkedIn.
But HASS has a friend at QUT. Vice Chancellor Margaret Sheil told the committee her university will teach a new BA from next year, “co-designed with employers to ensure it reflects what industry needs and looks different to what universities have traditionally offered.” A traditional BA it ain't. Majors include, “story-telling, digital, culture and games,” and “disaster, justice and community recovery.” There is no mention of old arts staples such as , history, English lit and anthropology.
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TEQSA’s April news-sheet is out, but it does not include perhaps the newsiest news in its history, taking control of the process for ANU to select a new Chancellor. Maybe the decision was made after deadline.
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The learned Andrew Norton has crunched numbers nearly beyond counting on LNP government programs to compensate universities because they did not enrol enough students to receive max funding. Where $1bn went is HERE . Policy focused as ever, Professor Norton does not mention it was the hated Coalition that began handing out a thousand big ones for free. Instead he makes a point about central planning; “these policies have sensibly been abandoned for 2026. Unfortunately, what has not gone is the idea that politicians and bureaucrats should decide where student places are located; that is a central assumption of the ATEC era that officially starts this week.”
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TEQSA has allowed ANU Council to choose two (of five) members of the selection panel for the new chancellor. One is retired public servant Andrew Metcalfe, appointed to the Council in August. The other is staff-elected council member, accounting academic Juliana Ng. TEQSA has already announced its former CEO Peter Coaldrake will chair the panel, but is yet to announce its other two nominees.
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The overall sense on the report of the Senate Committee inquiry into CSIRO is that jobs should not go, management should do what staff want and chant the eternal mantra of every research agency everywhere, “more funding is needed.” Senator Pocock (Independent-ACT) summed it all up the with his recommendation, that the Government tell management, “to substantially reduce the need for cost-recovery targets in research areas designated as public-good or as protected sovereign capabilities, and … explicitly recognise the legitimate public-good purpose of certain research that cannot reasonably be commercialised.”
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Australian Industry Group is alarmed by the state of training, what with the estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research reporting apprentice and traineeships down 10% annually in September Q ’25 (FC April 16). And AIG points out that the new $10,000 FT apprentice and $5,000 employer Key Apprenticeship Program subsidy only applies to clean energy and construction trades (payments for other occupations are halved). “Today's declining commencements are tomorrow’s severe skill shortages,” AIG warns. This will surprise as many as none – apprentice numbers go up and down in sync with Commonwealth subsidies.
But isn’t FEE FREE TAFE helping? Maybe, maybe not. There are no public stats on attrition/completion.
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Friendly media gave Uni Canberra an ANZAC Day-appropriate run for its study support program for current/former members of the ADF. Good to see another university enlisting in the effort underway at Australia Catholic U since 2018.
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As of last week, Uni Melbourne was the sole public HE provider to be close to cracking its quota of international students, with somewhere between 80% and 115% of its allowance of visa applications submitted off-shore. UoM’s New Overseas Student Commencement “indicative allocation” is 10,500. Public universities in general are just over 50% of their comparable NOSCs.
The Feds said numbers on visas for VET providers are not publicly available at this stage.
There is supposed to be new data today.
Overall, most universities are okay on international enrolments for now. DoE stats for January are 347,000 enrolments, up 10,000 on last year and a third-higher than the bottom of the pandemic. But it is bad for VET, with 167,000 this January; a quarter down on last year and back to where it was in 2020. And ELICOS is evaporating. It is half the size it was in 2024.
But wait for March numbers, when HE and VET first semester commencements will appear.
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Aston U goes the whole Mortein, being on a good Australian thing and sticking to it. The UK uni announces its new VC is Colin Grant, who moves from DVC Global at UNSW. He replaces Aleks Subic who came home to run Torrens U. Prior to Aston Subic was DVC STEMM (STEM plus medicine) at RMIT. He replaced Alec Cameron who moved from UWA to Aston and is now RMIT VC.
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The peak research agencies have new policies on peer reviewers using AI. The National Health and Medical Research Council allows appropriate use, being “human oversight and decision making.” But using AI to “evaluate, critique and/or score applications” is not on. There are 24 specific principles and responsibilities rules.
The Australian Research Council also specifies what research assessors can use AI to do which is, “correct or help with grammar, spelling, formatting and readability of drafted assessments.” Maybe they are mixing it up with word processing.
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The Commonwealth Government’s Executive Cyber Council 2026 includes 33 businesses and industry groups, including the Group of Eight, which is the only HE organisation. How fortunate, a learned reader remarks that Their Brilliances are always inclusive.
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TEQSA’s provider portal is offline after it, “became aware of potential cyber security vulnerabilities.” FC assumes this means somebody tried to hack it. The agency assures users “secure alternate arrangements are in place” and an update is expected “soon.”