Opinion-15 March 2001
"When all around are in a state of abject panic
while you remain perfectly calm, it's a good sign that you probably don't
comprehend the seriousness of the situation." foxhole humour.
"Most students, academics and vice-chancellors from
both sides of the ideological debate agree - despite their best efforts,
standards are slipping under the weight of declining funding and burgeoning
class sizes. In 10 years, the student-teacher ratio has gone from 12:1 to 19:1,
with some classes reaching 35. What they vehemently disagree upon is how to fix
the problem." [Insight, March 8th]
The public affairs program Insight
telecast on March 8th by SBS examined the state of tertiary education
in today's Australia. It opened with the assertion, "The vice-chancellors
of Australia's 38 universities say the system is in crisis. Deregulation 12
years ago, and budget cuts since, have propelled our universities into the brave
new world of the tertiary education marketplace." Later in the program,
during the debate, Senator John Tierney (Liberal) was asked if he thought the
system actually was in crisis. "No I don't, and I think it's a pity in the
way in which this program has been put together that you're actually
contributing to this campaign by Senator Carr [Labor] to actually reduce the
impressions of good quality in Australian universities. I've been around to most
of the universities in Australia. I find they're running excellent programs, the
staff is highly professional and the outcomes are good."
Does Senator Tierney have a point? Well, it depends on how
you define crisis. It's interesting to look at an interview Kerry O'Brien ran
six days later on the ABC's
7:30 Report.
Kerry O'Brien opened the segment saying, "Professor
Ian Chubb, vice-chancellor of the Australian National University, and chair of
the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, told the National Press Club that
our universities are falling behind the rest of the world, that unless we move
now to address the drift, we may never be able to catch up." Then speaking
to Professor Chubb, "Ian Chubb, never has the rhetoric, the political
rhetoric, about the need for a clever country, a knowledge nation, an innovative
society been stronger than it is at the moment, yet you're telling us that
universities are currently heading for a very ordinary future - why?"
Ian Chubb's measured reply is interesting, "Well, I
think that what has caused some of this rhetoric, Kerry, is a recognition that
over the years, there's been a slow but steady decline in the Commonwealth
funding investment in universities, and that if we don't do something about
that, then the future's very ordinary. Of course we argue that if the
universities are pretty ordinary, then the prospects for Australia are
too."
So you see it very much depends on your definition of
crisis. At one point the discussion between the two senators centred around the
$5 billion decrease in funding from "the public purse". The exchange
is worth reproducing because it points up what might be called governmental RRP
(resource replacement policy).
Senator Carr: "... some $5 billion [have been]
taken out of the system, both in terms of research effort, in terms of the
broader education system..."
Senator Tierney: "There is more funding in
universities than there ever has been. What Senator Carr is totally neglecting
is, of course, the amount of private funding, overseas student funding, funding
from different corporations who put money in, student fees. When you put all
that together with Government funding, funding has gone up, as indeed has the
number of students by 40,000 since this Government came to power."
Senator Carr: "There [have been] $5 billion
taken out. The public purse has seen the $5 billion removed from our
universities and research infrastructure. Universities are now 50% more
dependent on private income from overseas students, and enormous strain has been
placed upon the universities, which of course has meant that they have felt the
need to respond to those demands of that private income source."
Returning to Ian Chubb he told Kerry O'Brien, "What
gives me cause for optimism, I think, is that both of the main political parties
and the Democrats too, and I suspect others, have made at least the rhetorical
commitment to improving education in the universities in Australia. Now, as I
also said today, I think we have to turn that rhetoric into action."
Looking on, one gets the impression that Senator Tierney is
denying that any significant changes to the Federal Government's approach to
tertiary education is warranted by current circumstances (presumably beyond that
of the Prime Minister's pledge in the innovation statement of January 29th).
Senator Carr disagrees but it should be remembered that so far we have yet to be
informed as to what Labor policy on education is to be. Similarly Senator Stott
Despoja as Democrat spokesperson for science and education has made no
definitive policy statements regarding either. As has been voiced many times –
the devil is in the detail.
But Professor Chubb six days later was saying to Kerry
O'Brien, "I think that the point that we're making is that we have got to
be a lot better than [average]. We're a small country, a bit isolated, not big
enough to secure our own future unless we're actually extremely good at what we
do. So our position is really very simple - we have to be good."
When he was asked what the hard evidence was that Australia
is "slipping behind our place at the international level" he replied,
"The evidence for that is primarily, I guess, the moves that other nations
are doing. I referred to some of them in the speech [to the National Press Club]
today, but you can look at Singapore, you can look at Hong Kong, you can look at
the United Kingdom, you can look at Canada and the United States and after a
period of decline not too dissimilar from ours, they're all now reinvesting that
government funding, that patient capital we talk about and we're slipping behind
that. [That's the capital that goes into the base that gives you the room for
the longer-term investment, the capacity to shift and to do different things and
do things differently. ... It was striking for me that that's where the
Americans began their revitalisation, by identifying the need for reinvestment
of that patient capital. ... The real danger is that we'll slip badly behind
those nations with which we would compare ourselves. We won't have the talent.
We will be exporters of talent, as I said. We will be importers of knowledge.
We'll be derivative. We will not be a nation that can make its own way because
it's extremely good at what it does.
Kerry O'Brien: "So we have no time, basically?"
Professor Ian Chubb: "I don't think we've got any
time, no.
But really it's just a matter of how you define crisis.
Alex Reisner
The Funneled Web