John Cain: In the 15 years to 2002, Commonwealth support for the cost of higher education had dropped from 90% to between 40% and 45%. (July 11, 2005)

    At the beginning of June the Research Quality Framework National Stakeholders Forum met at the Australian Academy of Science's Shine Dome to thrash out the various viewpoints considered pertinent to the development of a framework to ensure, so far as possible, the best approach to obtaining the highest quality of research of which Australia was capable. Not surprisingly the role of Australia's universities figured much in the discussions.

According to the list of attendees 94 individuals attended (by invitation). The former Labor Premier of Victoria, John Cain wasn't among them - presumably he's not considered to be a stakeholder.

On the other hand Mr Cain was invited to address the Adelaide Festival of Ideas this past weekend.  You may recall that in January 2004 Cain together with John Hewitt had published Off Course. Reduced to a phrase what is exercising the former Premier is that economic rationalism and the market economy have become increasingly pervasive in higher education and increasingly university administrators have become imbued with its philosophy to the detriment of our universities and our society.

Eighteen months down the track Mr Cain hasn't tempered his views. According to Shane Green of The Age "In a bleak assessment of the state of higher education, the former Labor premier says those running universities have no certainty about their medium or long-term futures."

And Mr Cain told his audience that many university administrators see closures of some courses and departments as imminent possibilities and went on to state that between 1987 and 2002 commonwealth support for the cost of higher education had halved from 90% to between 40%-45%, while, "The last eight to 10 months have seen managements - vice-chancellors - display a mixture of frustration, aggression and defeatism."

He went on to slam the current Commonwealth government of John Howard declaring that in his opinion the Federal Government had no intention or desire to provide more money, and might provide even less and urged the higher education sector that it should "assert loudly that higher education is not another consumer good - it is a driver of knowledge".

Note: The most significant outcome of the RQF stakeholders' forum is that the Minister's deadline of December 2005 has been put by

11. Point of agreement. Need more time to fully develop RQF, but also need to meet Minister’s expectations in reporting progress/recommendations by December 2005. And further work identified. Core principles will be agreed by October 2005 with detailed design work and guidelines to be developed through 2006.

 

12. Point of Agreement: Refinement of the details of the RQF model to proceed in 2006, with implementation during 2007.