A new document that tells the tertiary sector where to go and how floated onto the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) website this week.
The Interim Statement of Strategic Priorities emerged without a press release, probably because it contains few surprises for those who have followed the statement of the nascent overlord of Australia’s tertiary system – particularly those who read Stephen Matchett’s preview of the SSP in FC two weeks ago. Also because it is designed to be replaced by a new two-year vision to be launched early next year, after the yet-to-be-appointed ongoing ATEC Commissioners take charge.
While the interim Statement flags compacts with universities, harmonisation of the tertiary system and a focus on quality of higher education teaching, along with other key stanzas from the Accord’s greatest hits list, the report gets a little more interesting in the Appendix, as State and Territory Ministers clearly can’t agree on messaging or formatting (and that’s without beginning to talk about governance, funding or other key points of contention, such as JRG).
In terms of the State responses, Chris Minns gets the big tick in the party line stakes with his government declaring a firm commitment to work with the ATEC, whereas the Victorian Government appear to have cut and pasted from a policy document, not referring to the ATEC at all and talking about the importance of universities for the State’s economic and social challenges ahead.
Queensland is more concise, and slightly more personable, reflecting on the need to prepare Queenslanders for the future and WA manages not to mention possible university mergers or the reasons for them, instead focusing on a swathe of WA-centric hobby horses, including energy transformation and local issues with skills, equity and research.
The Victorian Government’s pre-election Budget, also released yesterday, promises $101 million for three new TAFE centres of excellence, funded in conjunction with the Commonwealth as part of a $459 million spend on TAFE in the State. While much of that money will flow towards creating an additional 59,000 subsidised training places in TAFE (of which around 15,000 will be Free TAFE) and $87 m for a TAFE Services Fund to improve completion rates and upgrade facilities.
The Victorian Budget appeared relatively silent on support for university initiatives and all eyes will now turn to next Tuesday’s Federal Budget.