For a sector that produces all of Australia’s doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers, physiotherapists, psychologists, vets, accountants, diplomats, teachers, economists and politicians, you’d think the social and economic value of universities would be universally appreciated and their funding assured.
And yet every budget the university sector, represented by Universities Australia, leaves the field disappointed, not only failing to claw back its recent losses, but exiting with some fresh new insult: in the latest budget, a 9% funding cut.
After a horrendous year for the sector as overseas students were kept at bay by COVID-19, universities weren’t offered more government assistance, but more austerity.
In April 2020 university revenue was projected to fall by $19bn; by February this year 17,000 job losses were recorded. Staff at Monash University offered to take pay freezes to help stem job losses.
The large portion of the blame for this parlous state of affairs must go to Universities Australia’s strategy when it comes to funding.
It’s easy to blame the government, but given the government’s long and well-known track record of hostility to the sector and endless rounds of cuts, Universities Australia desperately needs a new battle plan.
At the moment the strategy appears to be to make funding pleas pre-budget, to express disappointment they didn’t materialise post-budget, then to go away and conduct more research and analysis into the value of the university system. Presumably there’s some inside lobbying with the education minister along the way. But where’s the campaign that draws in the public, wins it over and puts the government’s feet to the fire?
The university sector has been framed by the government as an incubator of cultural Marxism and postmodern wankery, funded by hardworking Joe Taxpayer.
Where is the counter-narrative? Where’s the counterpunch? It doesn’t take much imagination to think of ways the university sector could have campaigned for more funding during COVID — the period between the last budget and this one.
The university sector gives you a world-class health system staffed with highly qualified doctors and nurses. If you want a banana republic healthcare system in Australia, then by all means, let’s keep cutting uni funding.
Health in regional Australia? Why, universities can help you there too!
Infrastructure is the way we’re going to build back Australia. Did you know engineers and project managers keep buildings from collapsing and contain the cost of building projects? Nice to have, Australia.
And have you ever watched a thing called a TV? Apparently, a lot of Australian entertainers, even ordinary blokes like Mick Molloy, went to university. Even did an arts degree.
Has your dog ever choked on a chicken bone? You know that place you send your kids during the week? Remember when you pulled your back and got it fixed up?
How many ways could the university sector represent itself to the public as absolutely integral and enmeshed with the high quality of life we enjoy? A million ways.
Can you imagine all the case studies you could line up to talk about how university transformed their lives, the economic value they add, the quality of life that is attendant to that, the marginal seats you could target with messages?
Universities Australia has a responsibility not only to its own members and immediate community of staff and students, but to the future of this nation to start campaigning properly on this issue. A social media, digital media, and traditional media campaign that is open, engages the public, and reframes the way the public perceives the university system, from a self-indulgent sink of iniquity to an integral investment in a high standard of living.
Forget going as a supplicant for A-B conversations with the education minister of the day. Start having a conversation with the Australian people and politicians in marginal seats. Those are the conversations Universities Australia needs to start having, today.
David Latham is director of PR and a lobbyist at Good Talent Media.
The problem with universities is that they full of people who think, worse than that, they teach others to think. The problem with people who think is that they are likely to ask questions, seek information arrive at logical conclusions and then, most alarmingly, act on those conclusions. Autocratic governments dont like that. History shows us that autocracies can be very brutal to intellectuals. What we have here is a bunch of weak minded crooks trying to dumb down Australia to make us easier to manipulate and exploit.
…and a lot of arsehole autocrats went to university…which is no argument against ..quite the opposite in fact..Could you imagine a dumb uneducated autocracy of Australia !?..It’d be too stupidly awful to be able to think about it…
You mean more stupidly awful??? It’s hard to imagine, but I guess it’s possible.
and so many of the coalition guys are law grads – know how to beat their gums…. Their spin misters, as are so much better than Labor’s – always been the way. LNP hate educated people as they are convinced they will vote Lab or Green. Forget what’s good for the country – the only aim is getting into and staying in power . . .
Ditto in Abbott, Downer, Sheridan and (Kevin) Andrew’s favourite nation, Hungary, most universities are now supervised by foundations made up of govt. members or friends; to promote conservative values, family and Christianity.
Many students are tied by bonds to remain in country (encourages many to study elsewhere in the EU), while independence and gender studies have been disappeared……
Many bent right wing governments in Europe and the Americas promote catholicism and repression and control. Orthodoxy and submission are the backbone of conservative reactionary approaches.
Further, Abbott would be happy, while Soros’s CEU was effectively pushed out of Hungary, to Vienna, China’s Fudan University will set up by 2024, funded by the Hungarian govt.; the latter is often looking for any reason to wind up the ‘liberal’ EU for electoral purposes……
White Christian nationalists are quite inconsistent on China (trade issues), but also obsessed with dog whistling the EU, Pope Francis, women’s rights etc., and educated ‘elites’.
It is also notable that communist goverments tend to promote literacy. The Indian state of Kerala is a notable example. It had several decades of communist government and emerged from it with the highest level of literacy in India.
Howard started it, this lot are trying to finish the job. They like uni, they just like the ‘right’ people going there. It’s ok for some plebs from Boganville to get a teaching degree, they don’t want them getting the sort of degrees that will leed to management roles
If we were designing an Australian tertiary education and research system from scratch today, would it be the heavily overpatched upper-class incubator and Old Boy Sinecure Warehouse that we inherited from 19th century colonialism scrabbling to export paper to foreign students who can’t come?
Or if not… is there a better time to redesign it than when its chartered privilege is being starved both socially and economically anyway?
Not one for the current government, perhaps, but how about for a successor?
The industrial relations of how universities are treating a lot of their staffing could sure do with some good once upon a time Laborite redesigning ..
Agreed regarding the problem, Rosella. As a former academic and visiting lecturer I consider the whole system moribund as far as careers go.
But I’m not sure that the answer is politically-aligned. While the Coalition vision appears to be to beat it until it submits, I haven’t seen a Labor vision of the tertiary sector that inspires me.
I think it may need an external, international perspective.
Labor made mistake of appearing to favour higher education over VET during the Gillard govt. on the basis that it was ‘high value’ (vs. VET), especially due to international students and their fees (but then dog whistle them on ‘sustainable population’ wink wink).
Universities and (many private) higher education institutions, especially in business course related, are like factory assembly lines with semi-permanent management admin, but casual teaching personnel; leads to minimum compliance for maximum numbers and sub-optimal quality (while many would be unable to apply for a mortgage due to uncertainty).
That’s part of it, Drew, but I think it goes back decades earlier, and runs deeper.
The artificial VET vs degree dichotomy is definitely one key though; as though there’s a class of citizens that doesn’t need productive job competencies, and another that doesn’t need to explore, think, correctly identify falsehoods and manage their own futures.
Agree on the higher ed vs. VET dichotomy; more an old class system which disturbingly is seen in less developed nations (with little social mobility), not places like Australia.
In fairness, the Gillard govt. like others, were confronted with perceptions of quality issues, re. various factors, on an expanded VET sector for both domestic and international; media and some MPs banged on incessantly, especially international…..
However, the mistake was using a top down approach for ‘improvements’ via the AQSA that led to VET delivery becoming more an administrative, as opposed to an education & training, system to be managed….. no recognition between known high quality courses or providers vs. those happy with the objective of minimum compliance.
One suggests to any younger person now, with fees, start VET (cheaper) and explore future directions (plus work, travel etc.), then transfer to university with more concrete ideas based on experience; would probably produce better rounded individuals and better targeted investment.
Regarding your last, I think we’re in a sort of vacuous self-referential loop. Drew. Consider:
Q. What is a degree?
A. An accreditation offered by a University;
Q. What is a University?
A. An educational institution offering degrees.
Bwah?
A year out and employers don’t want to hear this. Seven years out and the student will begin to wonder what specific career benefits their loans have actually funded.
When universities are diverse and funding is mostly by domestic participation, at some point graduate pathways into domestic industries may begin to reveal some of what a degree needs to be.
But when universities are all competing for the same foreign student market and a lot of graduates head overseas the cycle of chasing status over industry competence becomes entrenched and funding-critical: the institution becomes a rent-seeker on aspiration, and begins to operate like an airline whose profitability is inversely measured on empty seat-kilometers.
I’ve already said that VET/degree is a false dichotomy, but under Gillard VET was funded by participation only and neither attainment nor pathways were closely monitored.
Consequently we had fly-by-night VET agents signing up students with promises of free laptops that would retrospectively be funded by the additional taxation they had unwittingly accrued. It was scandalous, and quickly swept under the rug.
Charles Darwin University in Darwin is the main VET provider in the NT – so they offer certificates as well as degrees. Recently they have been looking at merging VET and higher education – mainly for budget reasons, I think. I haven’t kept up to date with the process, and I’m not sure how they were proposing to do it, but it seems like a direction that has the potential to improve both areas.
Common in Victoria with Swinburne, RMIT and Victoria Universities, plus Melbourne Polytechnic and TAFES, having both VET and higher degrees; with horizontal and vertical mobility.
This model is well ahead of other nations where there is not just a divide between both sectors, but a wall that can preclude further study and/or changing disciplines; more a proxy class system.
Maybe a few international compsrisons; why is Germany renowned for engineering and high value manufacturing? maybe it’s because they value university education… enough to make it free.
Bejeeesus on vegemite toast & the fatted lamb roast land of AussieOstrich Oz, even living in air-conditioned McCaves needs universities going gangbusters..;-)