Throughout the OECD the Shortage of Academic Talent is Being Felt. (May 30, 2008)

While Oxford's chancellor, Chris Patten, is twisting arms to get an A$2.6 billion fundraising drive underway to boost student support, facilities and academic recruitment in a bid to rival the US Ivy League universities following Cambridge's efforts, Australia is slowly getting underway to reverse the oncoming train wreck of tertiary education that John Howard's efforts have set in motion.

But will the effort be too late.

Guy Healy writing in this week's Australian Higher Education Supplement points out:

According to University of Adelaide professorial research fellow Graeme Hugo, the percentage of the academic workforce aged over 50 increased from 26 per cent in 1991 to nearly 40 per cent in 2006 [and] during [the] 15 years to 2006, there was an increase of more than 80 per cent in the academic workforce aged over 50.

Macquarie Graduate School of Management dean Roy Green tells the HES, "institutions appear to be keeping afloat with all the outward trappings of normality, but beneath the surface a national crisis is looming if Hugo's assessment is correct". Green - like other academics HES has spoken to - says the budget signals the Government understands the challenge, but the question will be about allocating resources to address it.

"Higher education's role has been reduced by the policies operating over the last decade; we have been dumbing down the nation," he says.

And professor Green went on to say the nation needs: "an education rescue plan, with an emphasis on preparing the next generation of university teachers and researchers." And the need is urgent.

James Cook University associate dean of business, law and creative arts Brendan O'Connell told Mr Healy: "Universities are already having severe difficulties attracting appropriately skilled staff."

And of course the fact that there is increasing competition world-wide to recruit good staff, let alone outstanding talent is hardly news.

For example in July 2006 the Department of Education, Science and Training, with Julia Bishop as minister, published Audit of science, engineering & technology skills which warns on pp 32-33:

For science professionals, the model predicts a total increase in demand (defined as the change in total demand from year to year plus replacement demand) from 2004–05 to 2012–13 of around 55,000 (Table 4.1). When compared to projections of total supply from higher education, demand is not expected to exceed total supply of science graduates.
 

However, supply is predicted to be reduced significantly by many graduates choosing not to work full-time.
For example, the Graduate Careers Council data indicates graduates may elect to study further, in related or unrelated fields, or may have family responsibilities. In addition, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data shows that even at graduation, many graduates elect to work in areas unrelated to their studies and this proportion tends to increase over time. These predictions indicate that available supply may total only 35,981,leaving a possible shortfall of about 35 per cent (Table 4.2).

While Graeme Hugo point out the exodus of academic retirees will gather momentum during the next two decades, Melbourne Business School economics professor Joshua Gans told Guy Healy: "'the crunch time will be far sooner', especially in the sciences, since time taken to do PhD and postdoctoral work - which often requires working overseas - has extended the time to produce an academic by up to 10 to 12 years."