Monash University Vice-Chancellor, Knowing Which Shell Hides the Pea, Makes a Cogent Point. (December 14, 2005)

    With the last moment passage by the Senate this past Friday of the Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005 a predictable tunnelled vision by the media ensued. However, Richard Larkins, Monash University's vice-chancellor voiced his plain spoken annoyance as he pointed out the bleedin' obvious -- that the $80 million in transitional funding over three years from the Government was a "tiny fraction" of the amount needed for essential services which currently total about $160 million per annum.

Professor Larkins went on to tell The Age it was "offensive" that banning the fees had become a major issue for the Howard Government. "When you consider the magnitude of the challenges faced by our universities, this is really a side issue being driven for ideological issues. I find the whole process from beginning to end offensive."

Mind you Professor Larkins utterance will have no ameliorating effect on the continuing infarctions being rendered to the universities by the Federal Government.

In recent views expressed by Gavin Moodie in The Australian he suggests:

The federal Government could gain more influence over states' regulation of higher education by ceding more planning and funding authority to the ministerial council on higher education, as it has done with the ministerial council on vocational and technical education.

 

Even better would be for the ministerial council on vocational education to be expanded to include higher education as the Department of Education, Science and Training has tentatively suggested and become a ministerial council on tertiary education.

Dr. Moodie, a higher education policy analyst at Griffith University has a good point, but its not clear whose side he's on, i.e. does he believe this would be to the universities' benefit?

TFW has referred previously to former Princeton University President Harold Shapiro's views of Jennifer Washburn's recommendations that generally increased authority of the federal government would be desirable.

Professor Shapiro observed, "With the exception of a proposal aimed at strengthening conflict-of-interest regulations, I find these unpersuasive and, in many cases, a little naïve."