Editorial - 27 February 2009
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D-Day for the Government's Response to the Bradley Review Approaches

 

 

 

 

 

 

If there were ever a question of the spokespersons for Australia's Group of Eight universities needing tuition from professional lobbyists, its been unequivocally answered in the affirmative over the past week.

 

Greg Craven, vice chancellor Australian Catholic University, surely speaks for a healthy majority of those institutions outside the Go8 in saying: "Some of the stuff coming out of the Group of Eight at the moment is embarrassing for the sector as a whole. It is so obviously self-interested.''

 

That said, Alan Robson V-C of the University of Western Australia and current chair of the Group of Eight told the National Press Club not so many months ago: "Excellence should be funded wherever it occurs;" which is certainly not being advocated by Michael Gallagher, Go8 Executive Director when he writes in the February 18 Australian: "What is presented [in the Bradley Review of Higher Education] as a tightening of criteria for university status, based on the mythical 'teaching-research nexus', could well loosen expectations of research quality and further dissipate the nation's research investment. The thinking reflects the worn-out, one-size-fits-all notion of a university rather than mission-based structural differentiation fit to varying needs. The Bradley report reflects a parochial and complacent view in the context of aggressive concentration of research investment in many other countries. The consequence is a distraction of scarce resources for an unattainable vision of an undifferentiated university system, while Australia slips further behind world pacesetters."

 

Filled with non sequiturs as it is, it's hardly subtle as a grab for research funds. And above all it is founded on the implication that the institution has a stature apart from its faculty.

 

Certainly Dr Gallagher points out a weakness in important recommendations which the Bradley Review promotes such as a target of 40% or above of 25 to 34-year-olds with a bachelor degree by 2020, or even a target of 35%. But when he moves to advocating what is essentially enforced diversification from the top and advocates that the research teaching nexus as regards universities now needs be broken, the Go8's self-serving agenda shines out beacon-like.

 

That self-serving viewpoint brings us to the vice-chancellor of The University of Melbourne Glyn Davis' promotion of converting a number of non Go8 universities to "community colleges" comparable to those extant in the US state of California. They are in essence two-year TAFE's though so designed that they also are able to act as feeder institutions for the middle level State University of California campuses (where extensive research, mostly but not exclusively applied in nature, is undertaken) or the 10 campuses of the highly prestigious University of California research universities (which also teach a high percentage of undergraduates, contrary to the "Melbourne Model").

 

Put simply, Professor Davis' proposal ain't gonna happen. No government would have the political will to even moot the initiative.

 

Professor Robson in an attempt to calm the wave of annoyance of the non-Go8 sector said of the Bradley Review: "This is a chance for the Government to address the immediate concerns and then for us to have a policy debate on the shape of the tertiary education system in the future." He went on to say that while there were flaws in the review in terms of how a system would develop, he wanted a new taskforce or working group to examine how best to boost participation.

 

For his part  Universities Australia's chief executive Glenn Withers told The Australian's Andrew Trounson: "Matters of difference can be worked out over time or are second or third order concerns. No differences are such show-stoppers that they need prevent (us from) moving now.," while La Trobe University vice-chancellor Paul Johnson gave the Go8 a backhander with some resonance: "If the Go8 are as good as they say, they will benefit enormously. But that should be resolved through evaluation and evidence, not rhetoric about mediocrity."

 

The squabble has now gained the attention of The Times Higher Education Supplement. John Gill concluded his report with: "Like other Group of Eight leaders, Professor [Fred] Hilmer [vice-chancellor of the University of New South Wales] is said to be "bristling" at what is seen as the review's attempt to deconcentrate research. Australian concerns echo those of the Russell Group, as leading research-intensive universities in England await next month's quality-related research funding allocations.

 

As matters stand, Australia's federal Labor government is keen to micromanage the tertiary education sector, with Senator Carr leading the pack, while the Go8 appear not  to be prepared to let research funding be allocated on the basis of the "Robson Principle" that  Excellence should be funded wherever it occurs.

 

Indeed from subsequent comments professor Robson seems prepared to modify his view to Excellence should be fully funded wherever it occurs.

 

Unfortunately what will probably be more of a deciding factor will be the milieu of the global financial meltdown and how the government wants to be perceived  as behaving prudently. Investing in the tertiary sector as providing for the nation's future may not be seen as a politically sound strategy.

 

 

Alex Reisner

The Funneled Web