Labor Puts a Toe into the Pond of Higher Education Policy. (June 8, 2006)

    Stephanie Peatling has a short report in today's Sydney Morning Herald that the Australian Labor Party is in the throes of reformatting its higher education policy.

The ALP's deputy Opposition leader and spokeswoman for education, Jenny Macklin has stated that the reforms to higher education instituted by John Dawkins in 1987 in producing a "one size fits all approach" no longer reflects modern reality.

While the weasel words were to be expected,  through Jenny Macklin the ALP has all but acknowledged one time Minister for Science and former ALP President, Barry Jones' observation when speaking at The University of Melbourne in April 2002, "A turning point in the history of Australia's higher education was the comprehensive reorganisation that was initiated, and indeed imposed, from 1987 by John Dawkins, Bob Hawke's Minister for Education and Training. I have little doubt that Dawkinsisation will prove to have been the greatest single mistake of the Hawke-Keating years."

Jenny Macklin

Nevertheless Labor has to grasp the devil and enunciate the detail. All Ms Macklin has said is "I believe we must embrace diversity within our universities. We must allow institutions the freedom to develop their unique characteristics and support them to do so."

She also stressed, "It is time we had a new approach to the evaluation of quality in our universities, consistent with mission and purpose, and referenced to a new set of minimum standards to be required by publicly supported degrees," but precisely what that means in regard to policy awaits promulgation.

Labor, however, has also disquieted the universities by restating its intention to drop full-fee university places. The universities point out that they have become reliant on full- fee-paying students to make up for cuts in federal funding, thereby placing the onus on the ALP to guarantee the lost revenue.

In fact Labor will have to do far more than that if it is to honour the promises implied in Ms Mackin's words.