The discussion paper on higher education in Australia has resulted in a polarisation of views. On one hand, the Vice-Chancellors (broadly representing university management), students (the consumers) and staff have reacted by calling for more government money to be put into the sector. On the other hand, the Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, has flatly rejected the idea until the universities come up with plans for change arising out of the review.
It is an unfortunate polarisation. In fact, both reform and more money are needed.
Going back to the 1980s, the Dawkins changes to the university system have been condemned for creating too many universities (perhaps as many as 25 of the 38 institutions) with too many courses not suited to academic discipline. That may be true, but whether they are called universities, colleges or technical schools, they serve a need in educating and training and need funding. Whatever the merit of the institutional changes, the Dawkins changes brought a potential source of that funding with the HECS system. It was a system of fees payable by students when they started earning the larger incomes that tertiary education invariably brought. It should have been the end to the universities’ funding woes. But it has not been because successive governments have put that money into consolidated revenue and barely given the universities credit for it. Instead universities have been continually squeezed and required to raise an increasing percentage of their revenue from other sources, particularly overseas students.
The review was an eclectic collection of ideas and conclusions – much based on anecdotal evidence — which enabled the Minister to seize upon some elements of it to conclude that universities were failing in some areas and therefore that there should be no more money (or even less money) until those problems were addressed. Dr Nelson leapt on to the barely disguised ideological mantras of industrial relations reform and user pays. He painted a picture of bloated university staffs with inefficient work practices and students feeding of the public purse.
That might have been true 20 years ago. These days academics are over-worked and underpaid and students are over-paying and under-serviced because of incessant budgetary cutbacks. There might be room for some efficiencies in some areas, but most of these changes will require more money to take advantage of newer (more expensive) technologies.
Dr Nelson increasingly talks as if universities are businesses. They are not. Nor should they be. Universities play a part in society that goes beyond the delivery of a service for a price.
University academics have two other major functions that would not be adequately provided for without a publicly funded system: research and public debate. Much university research has little immediate application. It is done to push out the frontiers of knowledge; not for immediate economic return, but it contributes to the well-being of society. A publicly funded university system also provides a group of people who can contribute to policy debates, once again for the general benefit. These roles must be recognised and not starved to death through inadequate public funding.
Last week’s paper can be a catalyst for doing things better paper, but must not be an excuse to cut university funding.
And another thing: Today, judges and barristers in the ACT Supreme Court will no longer wear wigs when appearing in civil cases. The quality of justice will not be affected in the slightest. The might of the rule of law does not need fancy dress. Wigs should be abandoned for criminal cases as well. If the security argument were real, judges would wear masks.