Orphaned University Compacts Discussed at an LH Martin Institute Meeting. (February 9, 2013)

"I don’t know what they are for; we have had our compact discussions but there is no money attached to it," Professor Andrew Vann, vice-chancellor of Charles Sturt University, told a seminar on mission diversity and profiling at the LH Martin Institute in Melbourne earlier this week.

The Australian's Andrew Trounson reports that professor Vann went on to say: "We are going to compete in the market so won’t (fail to) enrol students just because we are likely to over run something in the compact. As far as we understand we won’t lose our license to operate because of that."

Previously Group of Eight executive director, Michael Gallagher, told the meeting that none of the 8 vice-chancellors favoured compacts: "I haven’t got one vice-chancellor in the Go8 that likes compacts. And having been one of the people involved in their original design that left me a bit lonely."

Mr Trounson noted:

Speaking to the HES earlier in the week Charles Darwin University vice chancellor and chair of the Innovative Research University group, Barney Glover, backed individually-tailored mission based compacts.

But he was disappointed the government had cut teaching performance funding in the compacts. He said more funding incentives were needed to recognise and drive quality outcomes such as in teaching.

"I do think there needs to be a discussion with government around how we can better recognise some of those true indicators of delivering a quality student experience and quality outcomes that influence the funding regime," Professor Glover said.

It would appear that with the forced departure of Senator Kim Carr from the tertiary-education portfolio, any governmental interest in enforcing compacts has waned significantly, and it would appear that that's looked upon as betrayal or benign neglect depending on your viewpoint.