Australia's Universities Faring Better Than At Least Those in 10 OECD Countries. (June 9, 2010)

The Australian's Catherine Armitage reports Colin Walters, acting deputy secretary of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, was up-beat about the government's support of universities. He noted that Australia was faring better than at least 10 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, including Britain, Italy and Ireland, which face higher education funding cuts of up to 10 per cent.

Considering there are 31 OECD Nations Mr Walters is either wrong, been misquoted or Australia's higher education sector is in serious strife.

Mr Walters was responding to observations being made by Universities Australia's executive director Glenn Withers who noted at a higher education conference in Sydney yesterday: "In the early years of this government we have had an increased share of GDP, as one would have expected, given the criticism of the then Coalition government, but every year from 2009-10 onwards is a declining share of public funding in GDP for higher education, exactly the same pattern this government criticised the Coalition for when it was in government. In that sense we are not going towards an improved outcome for Australia, in terms of the debate in the run-up to this election."

According to Dr Withers the government is short changing the education revolution, through measures such as deferring $200 million worth of grants under the Education Investment Fund until 2013-14, which it euphemistically refers to as reprofiling. Therefore, its actual funding commitment is only for the coming financial year.

In the view of Education consultant and L. H. Martin Institute professorial fellow Vin Massaro: "The government doesn't intend to adequately support its preferred higher education model [of universal access to quality education]. The Bradley review provided a set of recommendations which sounded really exciting for the government but [there is] no follow-through from the people who were going to make sure they were funded."