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Our Universities: Backing Australia's FutureMinister's MessageOur vision of education should be to see that every Australian is able to find and achieve his or her own potential. It should also be informed by the recognition that sweeping social and economic changes are being worked into Australian society, transforming entire communities. Education should not simply prepare young Australians for the future - it should equip them to create the kind of future they want. Resilience, both economic and human, is driven by education, and universities in particular. The kind of Australia, the standard of living enjoyed by its citizens and its values, will be largely driven by research, teaching and scholarship undertaken by Australian universities. Though Australian higher education enjoys a domestic and international reputation for excellence, we must take steps now to ensure its future is built on solid foundations. The case for reform of Australian universities can no longer be responsibly avoided. It rests on two incontrovertible facts. The first is that universities need longer-term access to more resources – both public and private. The second is that money is only half the problem. Increased funding without changes to administration, regulation and perverse incentives for institutional and individual behaviour will only compound the significant challenges facing the sector. Equally, the Government recognises that a substantial increased public investment is required to secure the future. Globalisation,
massification of higher education, a revolution in communications and the
need for lifelong learning, Reform is rarely easy. John Kenneth Gailbraith once observed that, given the choice of change or proving it unnecessary, most people start ‘working on the proof’. To their great credit, the numerous stakeholders in the higher education sector, from academics, unions, students, and vice chancellors through to industry and regional communities, engaged in the ‘Crossroads’ review constructively. Our Universities: Backing Australia’s Future presents the Government’s blueprint for reform. It proposes increased Commonwealth investment of $1.5 billion over four years linked to progressively introduced reforms in areas as diverse as teaching, workplace productivity, governance, student financing, research, cross sectoral collaboration and quality. This is an integrated package. It will be presented as such to the Australian Parliament. It will enable universities and students to make choices supported by new financing arrangements underpinned by public financing - increased funding, subsidised loans and scholarships. Under these proposals, students will contribute through an income contingent loan, on average approximately 27% of course costs. No student, including those who take up a full fee paying position, will be required to pay fees ‘up front’. Higher education is not now, nor should it become an unfettered free market. Similarly, there will not be a return to fully funded, government regulation of the sector. This package represents a balance of sound policy with the pragmatism required to deliver what Australia needs and the future demands. It also meets the reform priorities of Sustainability, Quality, Equity and Diversity. We must appreciate that these changes are driven by a world of higher education in which increasingly the only benchmarks that count are international ones. Australian universities are on a long-term collision course with mediocrity that can only be avoided by embracing change now. Australia can no longer expect its universities to compete with the world’s best, discharge responsibilities to regional communities and offer quality educational and research services in the ‘one size fits all’ funding and regulatory straightjacket. Winston Churchill famously observed in 1943 during a prescient address to Harvard University that ‘The empires of the future will be empires of the mind’. Australia’s place in the 21st century will rely entirely on the capacity of our universities to facilitate critical thinking, undertake world-class research and pass the soul of the nation from one generation to the next. This package of reforms will be the new foundation for our higher education sector.
The Honourable Brendan Nelson MP
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Any comments or
queries should be sent to:
highered@dest.gov.au
Department of Education, Science and Training
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