ANU is in the market for a “senior philanthropy officer” to raise funds for “priority projects.” There is no mention whether reducing recurring operating costs by $250m, announced last week, is a priority.
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TEQSA announces action in the Federal Court against Chegg, (“from your first assignment to your final exam, get the right tools designed to help you learn).” The regulator alleges Chegg contravened 2020 laws that prohibit providing, offering to provide or arranging for a third party to provide an academic cheating service to an HE student.
In May last year TEQSA wrote to HE providers asking about “any concerns,” particularly with Chegg Expert Q&A.
Chegg has already taken TEQSA to the court, requesting a judicial review., which considers whether the agency correctly applied the law in making a decision.
A case management review of that matter is scheduled for Monday.
In what appears a fear of being ignored, training regulator ASQA announced next day (via X) that, “as a member of the Global Academic Integrity Network (GAIN), we stand up against academic dishonesty.”
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Just before the first anniversary of September 7, the National Tertiary Education Union adopted an institutional academic boycott of Israel and will support members implementing it, “within the principles and practices of academic and intellectual freedom.” The union will also call on Universities Australia to condemn, “the destruction of all Gazan universities by the Israeli government and decrying scholasticide.”
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There’s a new Tax Office report on where the Research and Development Tax Incentive goes which will interest those members of the public sector research establishment, who think business R&D is an oxymoron and that they could better use the $11.2bn. The ATO reports that in 2021-22 the biggest beneficiaries of the R&DTI were in the Professional, Scientific and Technical Services category (scientific research, computer system design and accounting services). Some 688 claiming “entities” picked up 43% of the funds. Next question will be how usefully it was spent.
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The World Literacy Foundation warns the world will be short 44m teachers by 2030 and that 1.7bn children won’t learn to read. Sounds like a job for the Khan Academy using AI.
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The Bill enacting the first tranche of Universities Accord recommendations is ticked by the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. This covers a bunch of stuff, including setting the indexation rate for HELP loans at the lower of the CPI or Wage Price Index, requiring universities to hand over 40 per of amenity fees to student organisations and placement pay for teaching, nursing and midwifery, and social work students.
The Committee reports criticism of just about everything in the Bill and states,
“ some argued that the Bill does not adequately address underlying issues created by the Liberals and Nationals’ Job-ready Graduates package.” However, while it “does not address every concern, or each recommendation of the Universities Accord, it is a significant first step.” Question is, will a second Bill address JRG?
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ACT Labor propose a governance review of University of Canberra. It is “to ensure the university is positioned to deliver the best education and research outcomes for our city and its students and staff,” Chief Minister Andrew Barr says. This is not exactly what the ACT Division of the National Tertiary Education Union might have had in mind in calling for a review. It’s the reasons for and cost of former VC Paddy Nixon’s unexplained (other than for “personal reasons”) exit that exercises the comrades.
But no reason why that won’t come up if the review goes ahead after the ACT election Saturday week; especially as Mr Barr announces “ACT Labor looks forward to continuing to work with the NTEU following the ACT Election.”
Won’t ANU executives be glad that they can’t be included, what with the university announcing it has to reduce recurring operating costs by $250m over the next 15 months. ANU was created by and continues under a Commonwealth Act, while Uni Canberra switched to Territory oversight in 1997.
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James Cook U announces the tenth year of a $30,000 student scholarship funded by the QCoal Foundation. Yes the terrible mineral that’s name is not spoken on green campuses. They do things differently in FNQ.
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After two years work, the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade report on international tourism and education is out. There’s way more about the former with only one substantive recommendation about the latter that, there be “support” for regional education providers. This is because international education was covered in last year’s interim report, which was great timing given the government has a but on, with international student quotas before parliament. Helpfully, the Committee’s final report suggests the government “should avoid a one-size-fits-all policy that may undermine regional and smaller universities and inadvertently favour larger, metropolitan universities.”
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Springer Nature (as in the science publisher) has floated on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange with shares trading marginally above the $A36.50 offer. If open access is about to doom for-profit journal giants, investors have not heard.
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There are barely 10,000 people at the bottom of the academic precariate, according to Jobs and Skills Australia. This does not seem many, but JSA states there are 9,500 university tutors in the country, 88% part-timers and over half under 35. Nearly half of them have postgraduate qualifications and you can bet a bunch of the close to 40% with Bachelor qualifications are studying for a higher degree. You can probably add most of the 25% of the 40,000 university lecturers who work part-time to the pool of academics waiting for a continuing full time job to turn up.
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The Coalition-created-Labor-continued research translation program, Australia’s Economic Accelerator is well underway. It is funding university-based projects with commercial potential and with seven industry experts looking for opportunities, it all sounds like progress. What does not is the tender the Department of Education issued in May for “strategic advice to the AEA board on market trends and to promote “program visibility with industry and end-users of research.” In June, it was suspended because of a complaint under s18 of the Government Procurement (Judicial Review) Act (2018) which allows suppliers to complain if they believe a Commonwealth entity or official is “in contravention of government procurement rules.” Whatever this is about is taking a while to be sorted. And since when does the Government need advice on how to promote that it has money to spend on research?
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Finalists are announced for Study NSW’s International Education Industry Awards including: * Australian College of Applied Professions * UNSW Water Safety Programme * Uni Newcastle’s 360 Degree Student Engagement Framework
Partnerships: * City of Newcastle’s international student ambassador program * Sydney Lord Mayor’s welcome * Redfern Legal Centre’s international student service.
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The Labor Opposition in Tasmania reiterates its support for the State university moving to the CBD, which the minority Liberal Government opposes. The charge against is led by Minister for a bunch of things but not education, Madeleine Ogilvie, whose seat includes Sandy Bay, where opponents of the move want U Tas to stay. The question Labor is wanting answered is what the Greens in State Parliament will do.
