Leadership WA (“creating stronger communities”) and Edith Cowan U convene a forum on, well, leadership. Meanwhile at Murdoch, UWA and Curtin U it is all about the chances of a merger.
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Jason Clare delivered an “I follow the path blazed by Labor giants” speech yesterday. This one included John Dawkins. “The higher education system that exists today is his invention … his fingerprints are everywhere I go. And his success is indisputable,” the Education Minister said. Except perhaps, one big Dawkin’s invention, turning colleges that taught into universities that also researched what they chose.
It does rather appear Mr Clare thinks that this needs a change. He has ATEC investigating whether there are too many “broad based universities.” Instead, he suggests, we need “a system where we have universities of different sizes and who do different things. More like a constellation than the cut and paste approach we have today.”
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The Australian Research Council announces 63 new members of its College of Experts. The top four, each with more than five people are, QUT (seven), Uni Melbourne (seven), Monash U (six) UNSW (six).
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The Feds want to reduce the routes aspiring psychologists can take to registration, which practitioners and academics (the Go8 no less) think is a terrible idea. Warnings keep coming that accreditation will be slowed and screen-based practical training is no way to learn. So, are the regulators listening? Who knows? The Australian Psychology Accreditation Council reported last week that it is “discussing” “its reform-ready communications and stakeholder engagement strategy,” Plus it is “focused on key issues.” Just not to the extent of announcing what they are.
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports AI impact on job vacancies in August – education and training is not fussed. But you don’t want to be in Canberra.
For all the talk of transformation, the teaching biz ignored the new tech – there was a net 0.7% national decline in job vacancies. However, the professional, scientific and technical services category was down net 5%. The big demand for AI staff was in energy and waste services, with vacancies up 10%. But things were way harder for hacks, with a net 15% drop in vacant jobs in the information, media and telco sector.
The ACT took the hardest geographic hit, with a 7% fall in available jobs.
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The Australian Council of Deans of Science has views on what ATEC wants to happen next, responding to the draft Statement of Strategic Priorities. Member-specific concerns include, “research-active staff and technical staff,” “foundational science and maths as national capabilities” and “sector-wide approaches to low-volume disciplines.”
And deep in the detail is a polite comment on the Australian Tertiary Education Commission’s overall approach. “The mission-based compact model tends to address short-term funding questions, while longer-term infrastructure needs and cross-institutional collaboration remain significant practical challenges.”
But the Deans are also on board with what could become ATEC’s biggest change to what used to be called the “unified national system;” the Commission’s suggestion universities could concentrate research, “rather than maintaining research breadth across a wide range of teaching fields.”
The ACDS, “supports the intention to encourage mission-based differentiation while maintaining common system outcomes, enabling institutions to contribute according to their distinctive capabilities.”
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Incoming international education association president Jonathan Chew (Navitas) sets out the Board’s top three priorities, “in this transition to the managed era.” In a speech to the International Education Association of Australia he specified, “shaping the National Framework and its implementation to reflect members’ priorities.” “advocating for greater consistency, transparency and timeliness in visa processing” and “advocating for a new short-term study visa with a proportionate visa application charge.”
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The Australian Academy of the Humanities is cross with Treasurer Jim Chalmers because the R&D Tax Reform Bill explicitly excludes HASS. “Tackling some of the most serious challenges of the 21st century requires STEM and humanities, arts and social sciences researchers to work together,” Academy president Stephen Garton says.
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The seven legally-enforceable standards under the HE code to prevent/respond to gender-based violence applied to universities from January. Senate Estimates has heard they weren’t ready then– and many still aren’t.
Senator Scarr (LNP, Queensland) asked how many university plans “passed muster” back then and was told eight of 42 were “sufficiently compliant for this first year of regulation.” And 11 months on, just under half have not filed acceptable compliance plans, but officials expect them by the end of the year. Senator Scarr asked on notice for university names. Nor was he impressed by “sufficiently compliant.”
“The code is the code, and it should be incumbent upon universities to be compliant. … Either you are compliant or you are not compliant, and then the next step is what action is taken,” he said.
Back in ’23 a Senate committee, (chaired by Senator Scarr) reported on how universities managed sexual violence on campus. Students, “are being significantly re-traumatised and, in some instances, are unable to continue their higher education, as a consequence of their treatment by their university. The committee cannot over-emphasise how troubled it is by these outcomes, nor over-state how disappointed it is in the university sector’s overall response.”
Perhaps universities missed the report, unless of course they decided senators would forget.
Scarr, for one, has not.
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The Victorian Opposition promises $100m over four years for the state’s medical research institutes. Yes, it would also fill in a few potholes but nobody lobbies like the Vic branch of the MRI association lobbies.
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For-profit journal publishers continue to make many motzas from article processing charges and monetising data in journals, but nobody much outside libraries, who pay the subscription costs, seem much fussed. Still, the librarians pug away, Hero McDonald and Angus Cook from the Council of Australasian University Librarians were both at the recent 18th Berlin OA Conference which extended the “free to read” case to meta data. It, “must flow through existing community infrastructure rather than parallel proprietary systems, and must not be treated as a premium service for which the academy pays more.”
Publishers with vast archives are now monetising them – again, selling access to AI developers to train LLMs.
“Researchers’ access to the research record for AI must be at least equal to that of the companies to which publishers license it, and publishers’ own AI tools must be fully transparent” 18B announced.
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Uni Papua New Guinea VC Ian Findlay resigned Monday, citing differences with Chancellor Sir Robert Igara. Findlay arrived a year back to reform university governance finances and teaching, which did not go down well with everybody – there was a recent riot on campus. Prime Minister Marape got involved, calling on the chancellor to step down which he did. Riot aside, the place could pass for ANU.