The AV-CC's Seventeen Recommendations

1. The AVCC restates its strong recommendation that the Government index both its funding and the HECS levels by the same level as schools’ indexation arrangements
    

2. The AVCC urges the Government to reconsider the AVCC’s proposal that substantial contestable Government funding be made available to universities to support the education of students from under-represented groups. These funds should roughly equal the total income raised from HECS contributions set above the standard rates by those universities that choose to do so.
    

3. The AVCC calls on the Government to untie significant additional education funds from requirements for changes to governance and workplace relations. Funds to support the quality of universities’ teaching and learning should only be tied to requirements directly related to universities’ teaching and learning performance. Instead, the Government should work with universities to support useful changes in governance and workplace relations. To do this:
   the AVCC urges State and Commonwealth governments to work together with universities to improve governance arrangements through effective national protocols that will provide governance that supports the diversity of Australia’s universities; and the AVCC calls on the Government to provide considered criteria for the new workforce productivity program that will truly measure the effectiveness of actions to increase flexibility and improve arrangements of advantage to the institution, rather than criteria that presume that particular paths must be taken.
    

4. The AVCC urgently calls on the Government to assure universities that it does not seek to determine centrally, and externally, the internal balance of university activity, but will rather let universities develop (within agreed funding levels), in response to student demand, regional participation rates and community needs.
    

5. The AVCC calls on the Minister to make available clear information and detailed guidelines relating to the new Commonwealth Grant Scheme (and other funding arrangements) to allow universities to assess how they should take advantage of the Government’s reforms.
    

6. The AVCC recommends that, given the complexity and initial unpredictability of the impact of the new Commonwealth Grant Scheme, there be clear transition arrangements for its introduction to ensure no university is unfairly affected.
    

7. The AVCC reiterates its call on the Government to improve student income support arrangements.
    

8. The AVCC calls on the Government to raise the loan repayment thresholds to the average graduate starting salary from 2003-04.
    

9. The AVCC calls on the Government to remove the proposal to levy a real interest charge on FEE-HELP and Overseas Study HELP.
    

10. The AVCC asks the Government to clarify that Overseas Study HELP is open to both full-time and part-time students, while noting that the overseas study should be full-time.
     

11. The AVCC calls on the Government to abandon its intended restrictions on student services fees and arrangements for membership of student organisations.
     

12. The AVCC urges the Government to change its guidelines for the Commonwealth Learning Scholarships so that they: cover the period required to complete the student’s course; do not count as income for Youth Allowance (and similar allowances) income testing purposes; can be allocated by universities to maximise participation by the target groups, not necessarily by academic merit nor only to full-time students; and are doubled in number.
     

13. The AVCC urges the Government to work with the AVCC to develop a better package of international initiatives, funded through direct Government support for a major export industry.
     

14. The AVCC recommends that the Government’s proposed next package of investment in research and development focus on underwriting the base research infrastructure of universities.
     

15. The AVCC recommends that the proposed funding levels for each discipline group be reset following assessment of the cost of effective provision, without being limited to what is actually being spent now on each course.
     

16. The AVCC recommends to the Government that it make clear its ongoing commitment to supporting Australians in life long learning by legislating the basis for renewing learning entitlement as part of the legislation to introduce the entitlement.
     

17. The AVCC urges DEST to work with the AVCC and universities to consider the details of the proposed Higher Education Information Management System, and restates that any system must involve reporting the essential information only, and build off the preferred information collection arrangements of each university.