Ms Gillard Gives Universities Australia a Rousing Pep Talk to Go Forth and Educate Fiercely. (March 3, 2010)

The Hon Julia Gillard MP, Minister for Education. Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Social Inclusion, Deputy Prime Minister.

Address to the Universities Australia Annual Higher Education Conference

It’s great to be back at this important higher education policy forum.

The magnitude of the Rudd Government’s commitment is clear given that our budgetary response came in the middle of the global financial crisis.
A commitment to equity – through the low SES loading and outreach programs
A commitment to access – through the expansion of opportunity through the student centred system.
A commitment to sustainability – through an indexation increase that recognises the real costs that universities face.
A commitment to research – through the move to fund the full cost of research over time.
And a commitment to quality teaching – by rewarding high quality performance and establishing the new national regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.

Last year, and at last budget, I crystallized the approach this Government has taken to reform by delivering ‘funding that meets the demands made by students, coupled with exacting targets, rigorous quality assurance, full transparency and an emphasis on equity’

Today I want to outline our continued efforts to deliver the system architecture necessary to achieve improvements in equity, quality and transparency.

EQUITY AND QUALITY ARE THE SAME THING

But our moves to open up the system alone aren’t enough. Increased access needs to be coupled with a stronger focus on quality.

We will not improve a student’s life chances unless we can ensure an educational experience that is engaging and challenging. We also know that employers consistently demand and need graduates with a breadth and depth of knowledge – a fact which will become more important still as the economy continues to recover.

I know that the period since the May Budget has been one of profound and sometimes difficult policy change. On top of our reform agenda this has also been a year of other big challenges, most notably in international education.

These recent challenges emphasize the pressing need to forge ahead with a core element of the Rudd Government’s higher education reform agenda – quality.

We are working with state and territory authorities to improve safety and crack down on crime.

And ultimately, TEQSA [Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency] will be at the heart of any effective response to these issues by bolstering our reputation by assuring quality for all students – domestic and international students alike.

Like many of you, when it comes to university education I’m a traditionalist. I respect academic rigor. I value the traditional disciplines. I understand the importance of students developing a love for what they learn and the process of learning. But unlike my predecessors in this role I’m not a reactionary or an elitist.

I believe a university degree should be challenging—something that a student has to earn. It should take diligent, sustained effort to achieve a degree qualification.

We need universities to increase their focus on rewarding good teaching.

The best and brightest academics should be encouraged to focus on improving and expanding their skills as teachers and they should be rewarded for doing this.

So how is the Government going about this?

The Government is therefore establishing a new national regulatory and quality agency for higher education, TEQSA... with powers to regulate university and non-university higher education providers, monitor quality and set standards.

 As part of the move to the new system the Government is also encouraging each university to think anew about its role. Later this year, each university will negotiate a funding compact with the Government:

      defining its unique mission;
      describing how its mission will contribute to the Government’s goals for higher education; and
      setting targets for performance funding.

[T]oday I announce that the Government will implement a complimentary measure to the My School website a ‘My University’ website which will help inform students about institutions, courses and pathways. It will showcase the quality of Australia’s higher education providers.

It will be developed over time in partnership with the sector and it will commence no later than January 2012.

Does Ms Gillard really believe that this micro-managerial approach  is what makes the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard, Cambridge, ETH, University of Wisconsin all among the top 25 research universities in the world?

It's time she and her colleagues got real -- the best of university environments, academics and infrastructure, begets the best of universities and not until Australia's governing oligarchy (i.e. the federal cabinet) can look upon its universities as investments, and work with them as such, will there be hope of significant improvement in the sector. The fact that Australia's top research university ranks 59^th with its next best 75^th is not the best of advertisements.

Obsessing about, straight-jacketing compacts, hubs and spokes and retro-viewing through an ERA is a certain avenue to extending mediocrity.

Elisabeth Blackburn said it like it is, but was anyone in Cabinet listening?: "I think there are tremendously good scientists in Australia but sometimes I just feel, are they really being able to run with it in the way they are capable of?" Professor Blackburn asked rhetorically of Mr Trounson, and went on to say that in the US, she benefited from a five-year grant that allowed her to follow her nose without having to write up "damn little" reports and catalogue milestones on a regular basis. "This was the perfect setting and I'm not aware that I would have been able to do that [here]."