Viewpoint - 22 April 2002

Don't Overdo Your Excuses

In her opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 19^th Michelle Grattan referred to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson, noting that he is being praised by the Costello camp as a good parliamentary performer. "Nelson, in the ministry only since last election, hasn't reached the status of a Costello running mate. But the fact that he is getting favourable mention will encourage the ambitious Nelson."

   Ms Grattan's evaluation of Dr. Nelson as an ambitious and rising Liberal parliamentarian leads to the matter of assessing the potential effect he is and may be having on higher education, research and development in Australia. His forthcoming review and the way he intends to implement it is cause for concern. It is in stark contrast to the two recent reviews of the university system carried out in Britain for the Office of Science and Technology (Study of Science Research Infrastructure) and HM Treasury (Set for Success).
    The OST review was conducted for it by JM Consultanting Ltd and it is clear from its contents that it was a "hands off" exercise so far as the OST was concerned.  In the case of the examination carried out for the UK Treasury it was commissioned as an independent review undertaken by a committee with physicist Gareth Roberts, president of Wolfson College, Oxford as chairman. [See also TFW News and Views, April 16^th and April 19^th, 2002]

The salient paragraphs of Dr. Nelson's media release dealing with his forthcoming review give the impression that it will be very much controlled by his departmental personnel:

Over the coming months I intend to identify the scope for improvements to the higher education sector and seek suggestions about how the Government might facilitate those improvements. Wide-ranging consultations and discussion on issues facing higher education will underpin the process.

Forming the basis for this ongoing debate will be;

• a general issues paper, released in the coming weeks setting the scene for consideration of policy options before us;

• and a series of separate specific discussion papers. These papers, examining particular issues and aimed at furthering debate on options to improve higher education, will cover areas such as equitable access, universities' role in regional development, research concentration, university specialisation, governance arrangements, industrial relations, balancing supply and demand and university financing.

These discussion papers will be supported by public consultations across Australia, with interested parties invited to make submissions.

So far so good, but the next paragraph calls into question the objectivity of the procedures.

Supporting the development of these papers will be a dedicated Secretariat established within my Department, consisting of Departmental officials, as well as some external representation. In addition to this I will be forming my own Reference Group drawn from a variety of groups within the sector and the broader community, and convened by the Secretary of my Department, Dr Peter Shergold. This Group will assist me to guide the consultations and the development of the discussion papers.

Rather different from the approach adopted by Britain's OST and Treasury.
    Dr. Nelson finishes:

I hope to conclude this process towards the end of the year with a forum to consider the issues presented in the papers and discuss options for addressing the needs of the sector.

---

Monday's (15^th April) Sydney Morning Herald featured several articles concerned with the state of Australia's higher education system and in particular its universities. Much of the reported comment missed the point and is misleading.

The Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr. Brendan Nelson, is quoted as saying that Australia does not have one university on the world's top 100 list, a corruption of a comment made over a year ago by Professor Alan Gilbert, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne who stated that Australian universities would not find a place in the world's top 75 to 100 universities. In the past, several other vice-chancellors of the Group of Eight have quoted Professor Gilbert in no way disagreeing with his assessment.

Considerable space was taken up with various individuals stating that such lists are meaningless. Dean Ashenden focused on the multi-billion dollar endowments of the US private universities and points out that while "Harvard is the richest even the next rank of American universities - and at least a handful of British institutions - has private bequests of such depth that any Australian institution is dwarfed in comparison."

As to lists no one referred to the Association of American Universities (AAU). They should have:

1. The AAU defines itself as "an association of 63 leading research universities in the United States and Canada."

2. Contrary to common belief in Australia not all North American leading research universities are private institutions with extravagant endowments. The two Canadian schools, McGill University and the University of Toronto, are public institutions. Of the 61 US universities, 34 are public, 27 private.

3. To list a few of the US public institutions: Indiana University; University of Colorado, Boulder; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; University of California, Berkeley. And it is noteworthy that the state of California, population 35 million, numbers 6 public universities in the AAU's group of 63. It also contributes three private institutions to the group. True, California is a very rich state, but is it that much richer than Australia? And to those who point out that it has a federal government to defend its borders, etc. Californians pay their federal taxes just like everyone else, they're not freeloading.

Finally, Mr. Ashenden pointed to the venerability of these rich US and British universities. But…

Brandeis University, a private university named for Louis Brandeis, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, was founded in 1948. Classes began with 107 students and 13 faculty members. In 1985 it was admitted to the AAU thereby gaining the accolade of one of the outstanding North American research universities. That took 37 years. You'd think with the relative head start that say one or two of the Group of Eight universities would have, we ought to be able to do better than say 25 years to get into the major league.

Brandeis' endowment: approximately US$400; A$755 million
Harvard's endowment = (US$19,000; A$35,850) million

As Lleyton Hewitt might admonish, "Common!"

Working toward having "one or two" of our universities achieve the competence of an AAU equivalent does not per se relegate the rest to being underdeveloped high schools. The pseudo-egalitarian arguments used in objection to the formation of a small number of elite research universities are counterproductive. Certainly the Canadian Government's approach has seen through that sort of rhetoric.

However, if our government wants something for next to nothing nobody wins. And there's the rub. Reading through DEST's media releases and Dr. Nelson's various statements, so far he has not shown himself to be an advocate for repairing the significant damage that has been and continues to be done to higher education in general, and basic research in particular. Statistics from both the Group of Eight and the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee show clearly the extent of the damage. In addition comparisons of the resources now being put into place by the Canadians, the Irish and indeed many if not most of the leading OECD nations to further higher education, research and development when compared to our government's support strongly indicate that we shall be left increasingly further behind unless marked remedial action is taken and taken quickly.
 

Alex Reisner
The Funneled Web