Jason Clare is pleased legislation the levy on HE providers to fund the National Student Ombudsman passed Parliament yesterday. Think it is an intrusive expense? Read how Chloe was mucked-around by her uni for ten years and think again. FC @ HERE
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Sharon Pickering has a second term as Monash U VC – running until 2034. It’s a big endorsement by the University Council after less than three years in the job; she started in January ’24. Then again, as Council points out, her first term was “during one of the most turbulent periods in modern higher education.” As the university’s statement of her achievements demonstrates, so far, so very good.
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A week into the WA merger debate it’s a two-one split, with ECU happy to be out of it.
In “challenging times” Curtin U VC Harlene Hayne quotes then-PM-to-be John Curtin, universities are a “bulwark for liberty.” “What may be expedient for the state may well be a menace to mankind,” he wrote in The West Australian in 1932. Yes, the very paper that last weekend ran the State Government’s case for merging public unis.
Murdoch U VC Andrew Deeks makes a Candide-comparison, that universities are already working in a best of all possible worlds. “If there were simple ways to improve the performance of universities by billions of dollars, universities would have adopted them already.”
At UWA, however, Chancellor Diane Smith-Gander and VC Amit Chakma appear intent on ensuring nobody misunderstands their view, heading an internal comment, “WA university merger offers opportunity for greatness.”
And Edith Cowan U’s Clare Pollock is glad to be out of it. “The Government has recognised that ECU occupies a distinctive position in Western Australia, with unique offerings and opportunities for continued growth as an independent university.”
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In not great timing for the WA Government, the model merger that inspired them is not earning as expected. Adelaide U is down on international student income and word has filtered out from the campuses that early retirements are about to be available. There is no word if voluntary redundancies or (heaven forfend) targeted ones could follow. Management could probably weasel out of the two year ban on reducing staff, claiming the cash crunch is not a result of the merger, but it would be a terrible look.
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James Cook U connects to the ATEC ambition for a connected post-school system, announcing up to a year’s credit for unspecified TAFE Queensland courses towards degrees in business, nursing, social work, IT and law. At the University of Canberra some 17 NSW TAFE diplomas, (including salon management and sports/rec management) are worth 24 credit points toward the 96 points Bachelor of Laws.
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ANU’s new chancellor Gordon de Brouwer is calming everything down. With IVC Rebekah Brown, he chaired a staff meeting on Tuesday which was followed by none of the customary ANU uproar.
Staff heard a bunch of business-as-usual stuff about what anywhere else would be extraordinary events. Recommendations to fill all (as in all of them) external positions on council will go to Minister Clare next month – previous members resigned at the time TEQSA announced it would oversight what turned out to be Dr de Brouwer’s appointment. Staff consultation will commence for a new VC – with an appointment due in March. Professor Brown has been in place since Genevieve Bell resigned in the face of a revolt a year ago. The 2027 budget will look like this year’s, as in running a deficit. Council will meet fortnightly not monthly.
The meeting will give him and Professor Brown stuff to tell Senate Supplementary Estimates, if they represent ANU at the scheduled hearing, Thursday week.
What was not mentioned is how the university is going on meeting TEQSA’s requirement that it appoint an independent expert to strengthen governance and create a “financial sustainability plan.”
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There is marginal good news about domestic research student numbers. New load stats from DoE report commencers were up last year – just not by much. 70 or so to 978. This is off the bottom, 896 in ’23, but way short of 1266 in 2021. Frank Larkins (Uni Melbourne) warns that in 2024 some 32 universities had fewer local HDR students than in 2015 and suggests this is a problem for developing “ an internationally-competitive skill base framework for Australian industries and societal wellbeing,” (FC September 2).
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The joint House and Senate committee on artificial intelligence is not due to report to end November, but it has suggestions for the Prime Minister that apparently could not wait. Including, a “reserved compute capacity allocation” so “frontier and other labs” operating in Australia have to allocate “an adequate amount of compute capacity” for national security operations” as well as to support university R&D.
Plus the government should invest directly to “meet national research needs that cannot be met by LLM training data centres. The committee suggests using the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, an idea that did not feature in last month’s task-focused discussion paper for the next NCRIS roadmap. But lobby Science and Technology Australia thinks it is a splendid suggestion, “our national research facilities support work that commercial systems cannot always accommodate, especially in unique architecture and colocation with enormous research datasets.”
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Uni NSW led the ANZ higher education and research institute system for new start-ups and spin-outs for three straight years according to Knowledge Commercialisation Australia’s 2025 survey. Overall Australian commercialisation revenue was $299m in 2021 and $336m in ’25. Comparable NZ figures were $NZ 131m and NZ$189m.
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As the new student funding model passed, the Senate the National Tertiary Education Union let fly with two huge serves at the Government. One was a denunciation of the hated-in-all-of-university-land Job Ready Graduates fee model, “a key driver of university funding stress.” The other was that the government funds private schools at the expense of public universities. The messages were; universities should get more public money, non-government schools less, and students should not be slugged with JRG fees.
Standard stuff but deliberate timing – with The Greens letting the Government’s bills through essentially intact and the Oppositon irrelevant, the comrades are announcing they are the HE Opposition.
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Last week Charles Sturt U told staff 100 EFT mainly professional staff would have to go by end 2027 to save $35m after three years of deficits. It was big news in CSU heartland media but it’s the same $35m the university warned in June ’25 it would need to save. Back then VC Renée Leon said universities were “jeopardised by needlessly restrictive and unsupportive government policies.” But even if that explains why CSU is under half its international student quota, it does not account for it being down 1,000 domestic student starts on 2025, as per new DoE enrolment stats.
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Voced regulator ASQA reports a 40% hike in tip-offs, to 5,200, in the last financial year. The top three are about assessment, student support and administration/governance. Presumably they are all about colleges that are trying – people at ones that are just cover for their working are unlikely to complain.