PhillipsKPA have estimated that the so-called reforms would cost between $40 million and $50 million above the amount earmarked by the Government for transition. In all the report gives 16 options for cutting red tape, however, the report stresses that many of the problems lie with the policy and programs themselves, not their application. "The complex links between policy, programs and reporting make it genuinely difficult in many cases to reduce reporting requirements substantially without changing the policy or the program design or, more fundamentally, the nature of the relationship between the commonwealth and universities."

 

One of the report's key points is the desirability of creating a more arms-length relationship between the commonwealth and universities.

 

But the report also points out that the cost burden comes with an extra $1.78billion in government funds over four years so that, "In simplistic terms, therefore, it could be said that, over the first four years the cost of the changes to universities will represent between 8per cent and 10 per cent of the new funding," and would be expected to decline with time.

 

Jenny Macklin, Labor's spokeswoman for education told The Australian that the Nelson reforms are "distracting [universities] from focusing on producing quality research and educating Australia's future doctors and engineers."

 

But the Opposition is yet to detail its policies for tertiary education and research.

 

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Recently Richard Lambert, author, together with Nick Butler, of  The Future of European Universities: Renaissance or Decay? wrote in the Financial Times of six steps that were needed to "revitalise Europe's higher education.

Europe's universities, taken as a group, are failing to provide the intellectual and creative energy that is required to improve the Continent's poor economic performance. Too few of them are world-class centres of research and teaching excellence. Many are desperately short of resources.

 

The picture is not uniformly bleak. Taxpayers in the Nordic countries already make generous provision for higher education. Countries such as the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark have in recent years greatly improved the way their universities are run. The UK has some of the best research universities in the world, thanks in good measure to the relative autonomy of its institutions and to the way that research funding is allocated on the basis of peer-reviewed excellence, as opposed to the whims of central government.

 

[However] Across Europe as a whole, higher education is crying out for reform in six important areas.

As Lambert sees it:

1. The best universities in the world all have the autonomy needed to manage their own affairs in an efficient fashion. Universities that are an emanation of the state, as is in effect the case in France and Italy, have very little control over their resources and are unable to set relevant academic priorities.

2. Higher education needs to be properly funded. The European Union countries currently invest about 1.2 per cent of their gross domestic product in this area. A figure nearer to 2 per cent would be required to make the EU an effective competitor with the best in the world.

3. European countries are going to have to become much more selective in the way they allocate resources... Selectivity is also important when it comes to accepting students. World-class universities have to be free to pick their own talent rather than to take what comes.

4. Europe needs to develop a much more diverse system of higher education. Rather than attempting to make them all equal, the aim should be to create a rich mix of institutions - some offering world-class teaching and research, others concentrating on regional or local needs.

5. Curriculum reform. This is already under way in more than 40 countries across the Continent, through what is known as the Bologna process. The idea is to establish easily recognisable and comparable degrees based around a two-cycle system of studies, starting with a bachelor degree and moving on to a masters.

6. Europe needs to avoid the temptation of top-down initiatives, which invariably turn out to be expensive distractions... devote any extra funding to the new European Research Council, which will allocate its money solely on the basis of peer-reviewed excellence.

It should be of interest to our political masters that Thomas Barlow in his recent book, The Australian Miracle, PhilipsKPA, and Richard Lambert in the Financial Times all emphasise that universities require autonomy in order to properly manage their affairs. As Lambert puts it, "Universities that are an emanation of the state have very little control over their resources and are unable to set relevant academic priorities."

 

In a phrase, if a government really wants to foster the best of universities, don't micromanage.