Academe and the Jobs Market. (April 8, 2010)

Early last month TFW noted a Guardian article by Jonathan Wolff A University Consists Not of its Estate, but... its Academic Staff in which the philosophy professor noted that "If a university starts to shed academic staff, the international marketplace responds. Academic stars will leave and none can be induced to replace them. Research students go to where the best academics are".

It seems relevant to return to this point in the light of today's announcement in The Australian that "Universities Australia has commissioned Access Economics to investigate the relative costs of university teaching" and the Minister for Education. Julia Gillard's Department has confirmed to The Australian's HES it was instituting a new review as well.

However, while the terms of reference for the governmental review remain to be announced later in the year, Universities Australia have charged Access Economics with determining "the extent of cross-subsidisation of core activities, [that] will include a literature review, international comparisons and an analysis of the current funding model."

What appears to be driving these inquiries is the perceived "shortfall in professionals" needed for Australia's future economic wellbeing.

However, there is an odour of moving the deck chairs rather than improving the resources (most importantly human) of the sector.

The Australian National University's Bruce Chapman, developer of HECS and Bradley review panellist Peter Noonan, told the HES that the task of reforming disparate government subsidies for the various disciplines will be difficult while one senior observer close to the Bradley review said: "if you change the relativity [of the funding formulae], you have the potential to move money between universities very significantly. That's not taken lightly because their cost structures are based upon the funding rates they have been used to."

A knowledgeable observer of US, UK and the Australian academic sectors wrote TFW:

Unfortunately, right now I disagree with Jonathan Wolff that "If a university starts to shed academic staff, the international marketplace responds." Today, the international market place for academics, at least here in the US, is essentially broke.  Ironically, the best long-term strategy for the UK would be to hire lots of bright young people from the US right now.  There are almost no jobs in mathematics, and more generally the number of jobs in the physical sciences is well down.  There are very few opportunities here for senior people to move right now. Actually, Australia looks relatively bright, in the sense that at least there have been no recent cuts there.  While Australia has not improved the dismal position it was in a year ago, in the US the position has gone downhill in 12 months, reflecting the deterioration of state budgets.  The private schools will look better when the stock market does, but it seems as though US state budgets will stay down for quite a while.

Most disturbing is that for a number of years Australian Governments and universities' administrations have failed to take advantage of the world situation to attract the best in order to develop an outstanding tertiary sector for learning and research. Instead we see small piecemeal allocations with great hype and self-adulation.

The world situation will turn and Australia will have lacked the opportunistic ability to take advantage.

Although referring to a very different situation, perhaps the observation of  NYT columnist Thomas Friedman is pertinent for a nation currently so dependent on mining for its economic wellbeing: "The first rule of holes: 'When you’re in one, stop digging.'" And like it or not Australian academe is in one.