Labor's Higher Education Policy Remains a Costed Free Zone, But is it Probable That the Sector Would be Worse off Than Under Australia's Current Regime? (July 22, 2006)

The 101 page document issued by the ALP

    The federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, seemed to fly out of her nest like an angered hornet.

"It's a confusing mishmash of threats and policy catch-up."

The number of undergraduate places would fall, HECS would be imposed on TAFE students and the taxpayer would have to fund student services, she said.

"It's full of hypocrisy."

Various spokespersons for higher education and science were rather more supportive.

Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee President Professor Gerard Sutton said:

“The AVCC is pleased that the paper released today recognises the critical contribution that universities make to Australia. The policy statement will be reviewed in detail before the AVCC makes a detailed response to the Labor Party.

"Initially, however, Vice-Chancellors note that some of the policies in this document align with existing AVCC policies, such as indexation and reduced red tape. The AVCC will also be talking to the Labor Party about their policy on reinstating the independence of the Australian Research Council - something that Vice-Chancellors have argued strongly for in the past."

And finally, "The AVCC is also pleased that the Labor Party is interested in having discussions on their new policies before finalising them in the lead up to the next election."

The President of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), Professor Tom Spurling greeted Labor's White Paper saying:

"In essence, Labor proposes to drive greater diversity in the higher education sector by providing universities the capacity and responsibility to set their own profiles and missions.

"Giving universities more control over their future will be balanced by a stronger quality assurance scheme to ensure universities deliver minimum standards across degrees and broad discipline areas.

"FASTS supports the implicit assumption that strong, independent institutions deliver better outcomes than weak, micromanaged institutions.

"FASTS applauds the White Paper¹s concern for quality science teaching, however, in order to develop good teaching you need to have good teaching infrastructure and this is an area the paper is silent on.

"There is a growing sense that Australia is frittering away the opportunity to invest in future productivity and human capital, delivered by the current commodities boom."

However, Professor Spurling also pointed out, "Labor's proposals will require significant levels of additional Commonwealth funding. But, it is no longer a question of whether Australia can afford increased investment in education but whether we can afford not to ramp up that investment."

While the Group of Eight has yet to issue a statement, Glyn Davis, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Melbourne and Chair of the Go8, according to The Age welcomed Labor's plan to make institutions more flexible to pursue their own paths and direct places to popular degrees. He said universities would need to see whether the compensation for the loss of full-fee places increased current funding per student. "We would prefer that full fee-paying domestic students would continue, but at least they are offering compensation, which is a big shift in their policy," Professor Davis said.

To get to the nub of the matter, the white paper issued yesterday by the Australian Labor Party spends considerable time detailing what it perceives are the wounds the governing coalition has dealt Australia's higher education sector over the past decade. But it must be said that, as has been its wont, when outlining its policies it has eschewed costing its promises.

The Australian reports, "Funding details would be spelled out before the next election, but would not compromise Labor's pledge to sustain budget surpluses, Mr Beazley said."

Summarising Labor's promises -- Labor:

1. will encourage diversification and innovation in the provision of higher education,

2. is committed to increasing public investment in higher education and research, including through better indexation of university operating grants, linked to quality, improvement.

3. will strengthen the processes of accreditation and quality assurance of all institutions and providers offering Australian higher education qualifications,

4. develop reviews for each major area of study... They will establish the minimum acceptable standards of student achievement for qualifications in each field,

5. will end Government interference in the internal management of universities, and reduce compliance and reporting burdens,

6. remove workplace relations and governance conditions attached to funding.

7. restore the independence of the Australian Research Council,

8. restore rolling triennial funding to universities.

Public universities [will be funded] through a compact, negotiated to value universities’ individual missions and their different roles and circumstances:

9. Teaching cost relativities will be updated, reflecting [the cost of] clinical, laboratory/field and classroom learning,

10. and where deemed appropriate there will be,

    • dual funding [for research and research education] through national competitive, grants and institutional block funds,

    • the provision of services to meet community needs,

    • structured activities including knowledge transfer, collaboration with other universities and institutions.

11. Universities will determine their priorities, and shape their activities to suit their different missions. The excluded option is that of the ‘teaching-only’ university.

12. All academic staff must have the opportunity to conduct research.

13. There will be a continuation of university functions of wider community benefit that would otherwise be lost in a purely market-driven system.

14. The HECS burdens on students will be eased. Details of this relief will be announced in our final policy.

15. Full-fee places for Australian undergraduates at public universities will end.

16. Campus amenities, services and student representation will be restored.

17. To improve the graduation rates of Indigenous students, Labor will provide incentive payments to universities for Indigenous student.

18. Extra funding will be provided to expand Commonwealth supported student places at Associate Degree level in TAFE colleges and universities.

19. The dual system of funding research through national competitive schemes, and funding research infrastructure through institutional block grants.

20. A process of evaluating the quality of the research education environment and the research performance of PhD supervisors will be instituted, and PhD and Masters by research students are admitted to candidature only in those fields of research where universities can demonstrate that they are performing excellent research on the basis of independent external validation.

21.  Major research hubs ...fitted with state-of-the-art equipment will be developed, to attract star international researchers.

22. A long-term investment program will be developed to renew Australia’s professional researcher skills base in science, mathematics, engineering & technology.

23. The existing commitments to research funding under Backing Australia’s Ability will be enhanced, the Cooperative Research Centres Program revitalised, and capacity and confidence in CSIRO restored.

Finally the white paper reiterates its commitment to establish a network of 10 innovation centres across the country to connect people in business with the experts in universities, public research agencies and TAFEs and to fund up to 200 Australian Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. Each Knowledge Transfer Partnership will involve a business and either a university, TAFE or public research agency to develop and improve products and services in that business.

It's quite a list and it'll take determination, administrative competence and, yes, courage, to implement it.

One of the questionable implementations Labor promises is governmental assessment of academics as to their fitness to act as PhD and masters supervisors ( 20 on the list above). That's something best left to the institutions which employ them.

However, all things considered would higher education, research and innovation be diminished by a federal Labor government in comparison to what has been perpetrated by a decade of the Coalition's hostility?

It would appear doubtful.