There was an hooraython in response to the Accord’s ideal of an independent agency to plan higher education. Now that lobbies are seeing what the feds propose for the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, not so much. And lo! the special pleading has started
The Australian Academy of the Humanities suggests the Department of Education’s proposal is “strong on administration” but rather misses the point.
Success of Accord and ATEC “will not be decided only or mainly by Department of Education officers, nor in university executives’ offices, but by the quality of the learning that occurs in tutorials and lectures around the country.”
Recognising reality, the Academy accepts HE is stuck with the DoE proposal but suggests something can be saved by, “targeted, substantive revisions,” including:
- keeping ATEC above administration. “A strategic ATEC should advise on the objectives, which come before the policies, which in turn precede the sector’s metrics.”
- rather than people appointed for “administrative or corporate capacities” running ATEC will take “a high level understanding of the structure and history of higher education”
- including defining ATEC’s purpose in legislation, “providing all Australians with tertiary opportunities because learning is not only useful, it is a primary individual and public good. Learning is fundamental to what it is to be human. It is inexhaustible. It recreates and reforms society. Learning bridges the past, present and future; and benefits the individual, society, and nation.”
- ATEC be empowered to seek advice outside officialdom
- use the five leaned academies, “to map and monitor our national sovereign capabilities with regard to education programs, disciplinary expertise and output. to map and monitor our national sovereign capabilities with regard to education programs, disciplinary expertise and output”
Overall, the Academy wants academics not officials being the advisors that ATEC relies on,
“ATEC will be an effective steward of the tertiary education in Australia when it can distil informed lessons from researchers and educators, and draw on current advice to improve policymaking and implementation across the higher education sector.”
The IRU and ATN also released statements calling on the planned structure and reporting of ATEC to be reconsidered, while the Go8 took the chance of the change in Home Affairs and Immigration portfolios to call for a re-think on international student caps.
