President of the National Tertiary Education Union Pens a Bottom Line. (January 14, 2009)

In 1994 Carolyn Allport became the foundation president of the National Tertiary Education Union and continues in the position. She represents the Union’s 27,000 academic and general staff members in matters relating to tertiary education funding and policy issues.

Writing in today's Australian she summarises the major points and recommendations of the Bradley Review of Higher Education.

She then closes:

As for the Government's response to Bradley, political and international economic factors will obviously exert an influence. There are many in the cabinet and on the Government benches who strongly believe education is the key to overcoming social and economic disadvantage and increased productivity and workforce growth. This is a compelling argument in difficult economic times.

An appropriate response would be the phased introduction of the Bradley funding recommendations. The 2009-10 budget must make a strategic down payment to the university sector if there is to be an orderly and efficient transformation of post-secondary education in Australia.

A point made in the Bradley report that Dr Allport doesn't emphasise is that the funding recommendations made would only allow Australia to maintain its present status within its OECD cohort which ought to perturb not only our political leaders but the Australian population in general as much as the current financial downturn... because the review acknowledges "that Australia has fallen behind other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and important new players such as China and India".