Minister for Tertiary Education Proclaims "Expert Panel for Higher Education Base Funding Review". (October 27, 2010)

The Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, and Jobs and Workplace Relations, Senator Chris Evans yesterday announced the appointment of "an expert panel to conduct a review into higher education base funding". Chairing the panel will be Dr Jane Lomax-Smith, former South Australian Minister for Education and Tourism.

Other members of the panel are:

• Emeritus Professor Dennis Gibson,  former Chancellor of RMIT University,

• Dr Louise Watson Principal Researcher in Lifelong Learning, University of Canberra and

• Professor Beth Webster, Principal Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

Senator Evans noted that demand driven funding for teaching and learning is to commence in 2012 as is the intention to "establish enduring principles to underpin public investment in higher education, including the appropriate balance between public and private contributions towards the cost of undergraduate and postgraduate education [and] will identify and articulate the principles that should underpin the appropriate distribution of funding by discipline, the share of funding from Government, students and other sources and the best funding model to deliver increased teaching quality."

The minister went on to say: “In response to the Bradley Review, the Government committed to lifting caps on undergraduate university places for domestic students, at an estimated additional cost of $2.1 billion over five years from 2010, and a new indexation approach will mean that Universities will have an additional $2.6 billion over five years from 2011 to provide top quality education. We are also making a substantial investment in higher education infrastructure. Already, more than $4.1 billion has been committed from the Education Investment Fund for strategic infrastructure in the tertiary and research sectors".

The review was promised to independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott as part of the inducements to secure their support in Parliament. However, according to the ABC: "Critics of the plan say it will hurt regional university campuses because they will not be able to offer the same breadth of courses as those in the cities."

 The executive director of the Group of Eight, Michael Gallagher, in welcoming the Government's honouring its commitment said the Go8 hopes that a broad approach will be undertaken to ensure all options are canvassed.

This review needs to provide a framework for the sustainable financing of Australia's universities. It will be disappointing if this opportunity is missed and only minor modifications result from the review. The terms of reference need to be interpreted broadly to permit consideration of differential government funding rates and price point differences across the system. The current model of the same funding rate for all courses at all institutions regardless of differences in costs of delivery and quality is no longer appropriate for sustaining a diverse system. Given the broader student population to be catered for it will be essential that enabling funding is included in the review, not as a top-up but as an integral element in the funding base.

We know from the 2003 higher education reforms that within two years of legislation allowing universities to charge up to 25% more than the base level of HECS, all universities were charging the maximum amount.

This review does not release the Government from its responsibility to students already in the system and those who enter university in 2011 and 2012. [Finally,] the review's timeline means that it will be the 2013 academic year before any funding increases can flow to universities. Current students will continue to suffer funding inadequacies unless the Government addresses the issue in the 2011 Budget.

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Terms of Reference – Higher Education Base Funding Review [as published by the Department of Tertiary Education, Skills, and Jobs and Workplace Relations]

Context: Australian Government reforms and commitments

In response to the findings of the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education, the Australian Government introduced a comprehensive package of reforms to Australian higher education in the 2009 Budget. The reform plans were articulated in ‘Transforming Australia’s Higher Education System’, which stated the purpose as enabling Australia to participate fully in, and benefit from, the global knowledge economy. ‘Funding that meets student demand—coupled with ambitious targets, rigorous quality assurance and full transparency—is the only way Australia can meet the knowledge and skills challenges it faces. In that process the nation must provide educational opportunity for all, not just the few’.

The Government response is designed to support high quality teaching and learning, improve access and outcomes for students from low socio economic backgrounds, build new links between universities and disadvantaged schools, reward institutions for meeting agreed quality and equity outcomes, improve resourcing for research and invest in world class tertiary education infrastructure.

The Government’s package of measures is designed to transform the scale, potential and quality of the nation’s universities and open the doors of higher education to a new generation of Australians.

The review of base funding will take place in a rapidly changing higher education environment.  Demand driven funding for teaching and learning will commence in 2012. Postgraduate courses are becoming a much more common entry into the professions, rather than a form of professional upgrading. The proportion of the population participating in higher education is increasing. 

As announced in its response to the Bradley Review, the Government is now commissioning a review of base funding levels and cluster funding. This review is the next element in the Government’s commitment to delivering on its reform package.

Terms of Reference

This review is to deliver the Government’s commitment to:

‘commission a review of the base funding levels for learning and teaching in higher education to ensure that funding levels remain internationally competitive and appropriate for the sector, together with work on options for achieving a more rational and consistent sharing of costs between students and across discipline clusters as recommended by the Bradley Review.  This review will report in 2011.’

The review will establish enduring principles to underpin public investment in higher education, including the appropriate balance between public and private contributions towards the cost of undergraduate and postgraduate education. The review should identify and articulate the principles that should underpin the appropriate distribution of funding by discipline, the share of funding from Government, students and other sources and the best funding model to deliver increased teaching quality.

Benchmarks

The review will identify international benchmarks and trends for undergraduate and postgraduate coursework education and the level of base funding required for Australian universities to deliver competitively. Without limiting the matters considered by the review, it should identify international benchmarks for course quality and student engagement.

In identifying benchmarks the review should have regard to the future development of a standards framework by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.

Cost relativities

The review will examine the cost relativities of undergraduate education for different disciplines and compare this with the funding relativities of the Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding clusters.

The review will examine the cost of delivery of quality postgraduate education and whether it is higher than undergraduate education and, if so, whether this is in general or is a feature of particular disciplines or teaching methodologies.

Student contribution amounts

The review will consider the relative maximum student contribution amounts for different disciplines and propose options for setting maximum student contribution amounts to reflect a fair contribution to the cost of delivering high quality courses and the level of public and private benefit.

In developing options the review should ensure that they are consistent with the Government’s equity agenda of increasing access and participation of disadvantaged groups by providing financial incentive to enrol low socioeconomic status students. It should be consistent with the Government’s agenda to ensure that fees should not be a barrier to participation in higher education.

Access

In considering matters related to undergraduate student places at public universities, the review should be conducted on the basis of the Government’s commitment to abolish full fee places for domestic undergraduate students at public universities.

Options

The review will provide advice and make recommendations to the Government on:  

• what is needed to ensure that Australian Government funding for Australian undergraduate and postgraduate coursework education remains internationally competitive and appropriate for the sector

• options for achieving a more rational and consistent basis for:

  • funding across discipline clusters

  • he student contributions for different disciplines and for undergraduate and postgraduate coursework study

• options to ensure that universities are provided support on the basis of the cost of delivering courses of high quality while students make a contribution which bears some relation to the private return for their education

• options for funding models that give all institutions a strong incentive to focus on investing in and delivering high quality teaching and maintaining strong academic standards

• options to maintain the substantial financial incentive for institutions to enrol low socioeconomic students as the system grows.

Completion of report

 The review will provide a report to the Government in October 2011.