2009: The year that was

It’s been a big year in tertiary education. Or has it? We asked the experts to highlight the highlights. By John Ross. How will educational historians judge 2009? The Year of the Seamless Sector? The Year of Social Inclusion? The International Education Horror Year? The Year Students Claimed the Driver’s Seat? Or the Year of the Pregnant Pause, as the sector awaited the fallout from the Bradley review? No, says the reviewer herself, it was the Year the Bean Counters Came On Board. “The one thing that has changed most profoundly over the past year is that there is now a strong consensus, even among the driest economists, that the wealth of the nation is the skills of its people,” Denise Bradley told an equity practitioners’ conference at UNSW last week. “Countries need to increase the tertiary credentials among the population. That is now accepted internationally. It was the foundation of the Bradley review, and is now accepted very broadly across the country. It would not have been the view in Treasury two or three years ago.” Don’t forget Bradley’s own efforts, says Swinburne vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young. “The most significant changes in higher education, certainly in my lifetime, are currently rolling out across Australia. They’re changes largely driven by the Bradley review, and to some extent the parallel review by Cutler,” he told a Sydney higher education conference last week. But it was still a lousy year, says Dr Leesa Wheelahan, senior lecturer in adult and vocational education at Griffith University. “The financial crisis has knocked everyone around – students, institutions and governments. It has reduced the money available for reforms. And the crisis in international education hasn’t been good for anyone. “It’s been an odd year – we’re in the space between policy development and implementation. Big reforms take a long time to implement. The devil is in the detail. We won’t find out what a lot of the policies mean, except through the process of implementation. On the positive side, there is a new openness in policy debates about tertiary education. We’re having conversations on issues that haven’t really been addressed for years, particularly on student equity and social inclusion.” Professor Richard James, director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne, agrees. “The sector has embraced the call to arms on equity. Equity is now on the senior executive agenda like never before.” No arguments from Professor Trevor Gale, director of the UniSA-based National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education. “The whole of 2009 could be characterised as ‘equity frenzy’,” he says. But perceptions of openness largely depend on who’s winning the argument, says Conor King, principal consultant with PhillipsKPA. “There’s a difference between being listened to and someone doing what you say.” Nevertheless, it’s been a healthy year for ideas, he says. “Julia Gillard didn’t have any strong presuppositions about how things should be done. Most ideas have had a chance to stand or fall on their merits as useful, or not, to government direction.” King says he was impressed by the government’s “willingness to grasp and go with” a student-centred funding system. “It all looks so straightforward now we’re at the end of it, but it was still a big decision.” Andrew Norton, research fellow with the Centre for Independent Studies, agrees the demand-driven system was one of the year’s key developments. “However, I don’t think it marks any philosophical shift. It was more a case of wanting to expand the system, but not having any clear idea how else to do it.” The “articulation of a labour market outcomes focus” for higher education was another key development, says the chair in higher education research at Deakin University, Professor Marcia Devlin, “and the subsequent strengthening of the intention to blur the boundaries between vocational and higher education”. “That’s been one of the big fallouts from the Bradley review – maybe an unexpected fallout, given where it started,” says Martin Riordan, executive director of TAFE Directors Australia. And it means people are looking at TAFEs in a new light, he adds. “We are challenged by that, but we stand tall looking at the opportunities.” But Dr Gavin Moodie, principal policy adviser at Griffith University, said the main fallout was a feeling of unfinished business. “It was the year that the tertiary education sector had one big realisation, but still awaits another,” he says. “In 2009 the sector realised that the government with the strongest commitment to education in a decade would make only modest improvements to it – and those would be introduced gradually over a long period. The big issue left unresolved in 2009 is the government’s position on institutional stratification, which will be seen in its equity targets and research funding.” But at least one thing hasn’t changed. Debate is alive and well. Targets Professor Ian Young “The 40 per cent target is a challenging one, but it’s one the sector will be able to achieve. The more challenging one is 20 per cent low-SES delivery. Currently, across Australia, the proportion is about 13 per cent. It has been 13 per cent for the last 12 to 15 years. “The question is how institutions are going to do it. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of drivers this brings into the system. I can imagine institutions lined up outside the low-SES schools touting for business, stealing low-SES students from each other. “Of course, the real key to this is how you change the aspirations of students very early on in their school life. These are things that can be influenced by universities, but require much more involvement from schools and the whole fabric of our society.” Martin Riordan “From the Go8 to the regional institutes, there’s been a tremendous take-up of interest in social inclusion and how we can all get involved with better outreach to our students.” Professor Marcia Devlin “There has been little public resistance to the equity targets, although there is disquiet in some pockets about the alleged threat to standards that – it is erroneously assumed – comes with allowing a broader range of students into university. “There is a significant issue around the lack of additional funding to help universities fund the increased costs of meeting targets, and adapting to new realities. Long-term financial arrangements need to be put in place and honoured by successive governments. This is a big ask, and may not be politically realistic.” Dr Gavin Moodie “Will the government expect most of the increase in participation of students from low-SES background to be achieved by the universities which already have a high proportion of low-SES students, thus establishing a class of equity universities? “Or will it expect most progress in increasing low-SES participation to be made by the institutions which have most room for improvement, thus ensuring that low-SES students have a reasonable chance of enrolling in high-status programs and institutions?” Regulation Andrew Norton “Though the government is trying to minimise concerns about academic autonomy, TEQSA is a substantial move away from the academic freedoms long bound up with self-accreditation. The federal government will no longer take it on trust that what universities teach meets ‘academic standards’. “While third-party accreditation is desirable, universities should be nervous about what it means in the long term. In the Bradley report, there was a suggestion to embed Indigenous knowledge in the university curriculum for all students. Once one thing is put in university curriculum for political rather than academic reasons, there will be no end to the suggestions for more.” One tertiary sector Dr Leesa Wheelahan “There seems to have been a willingness to look at some intractable issues around student pathways between VET and higher education, relations between the sectors, and the quality of provision in VET. But will the new higher education and VET regulators have anything in common prior to being merged in 2013? This will make a big difference to how tertiary education develops.” Martin Riordan “There has been a refocusing by the sector on how TAFE can engage. Combined with the very sobering issues of the private college collapses, one of the lessons of the year is that the positioning of TAFE has never been more important – both for what it provides to students, and where it’s going to be part of the whole qualifications mix for Australia.” Conor King “Intersecting, or going off on tangents? The parallel development between VET and higher education – that’s probably where the most interesting policy settings will come next year. “Will they work up something that pushes the two into some sort of broad common direction? Or will intransigent points of difference remain? That’s next year’s big challenge for Gillard.” Universal university Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley “Even though we are quite a well-skilled country, we are falling behind some of the European countries – indeed, some Asian countries – in growth in tertiary skills. “The thing to remember is that the government made a major commitment, different to the commitment by the previous government. This government is interested in the best higher education system, not the best university or the best small number of universities.” Professor Marcia Devlin “The blueprint for Australian tertiary education of the future, put forward by the federal government, incorporates a conceptual shift along the continuum from elite, through mass, and towards universal access to higher education. “The 20/40 targets set the scene for a fundamental change in the provision of higher education. If the blueprint can be matched with resourcing, we will be able to address some of the areas in which we lag behind other OECD countries. Key developments of 2009 include the understanding shown by the Labor government that the growth of higher education is a fundamental requirement for the future of Australia. This is a relief after more than a decade of profound misunderstanding by the previous government.” International education Professor Marcia Devlin “We are yet to see the full impact of both the collapse of lower-end colleges and the perceptions of safety, in Indian enrolments and perhaps enrolments from other countries. The government’s anticipation of the issues was woeful and the response to collapses, and the impacts on stranded students, have been inadequate. “Given the significant injection to the economy provided by international students, will any federal government ever adequately fund higher education? The current government has shown no intention of rocking this economic boat.” Andrew Norton “It’s yet to be seen how much harm has been done by negative incidents and associated publicity concerning international students. But this has highlighted the fact that as the Rudd government has done nothing to improve recurrent funding for Australian students – there will be significant real cuts in their first term – the sector remains highly reliant on international students.” Funding Professor Ian Young “The element of the budget announcements that most people applauded most strongly was the move to indexation. Of course, it was slightly muted, for a couple of reasons. It won’t kick in until 2012, so we’ve got the best part of three years of decline before it comes in. And it won’t be full indexation. “Indexation keeps you where you are. And it’s only going to be partial.” Dr Gavin Moodie “While a reasonable start has been made implementing the government’s policy, ‘Transforming Australia’s higher education system’, neither the policy nor the accompanying funding will be implemented fully until 2013. But this is as good as it will get for the sector over the next decade.” Professor Marcia Devlin Matters yet to be addressed include financial support for the new directions – income support, student loans, the increasing cost burden on students and their families, real scholarships to support tertiary study (as opposed to bribes offered to well-off students to choose one university over another). Standards Professor Marcia Devlin “Standards is one area we need to move forward on. There has been a lack of leadership of this discussion to date. The Australian Learning and Teaching Council might now be able to start that much-needed conversation within disciplines.” Student-centred funding Andrew Norton “A demand-driven system is a break from Commonwealth micro-managing. However, the expanded system of performance funding shows that the desire to control and direct is still there. “There are major weaknesses in the demand-driven system as it stands. They have excluded TAFEs and private providers, and thereby kept out institutions well-placed to tackle the problems of educating relatively unprepared students. “Unless there is a successful outcome from the base funding review, we will lack a key element of successful demand-driven systems: prices high enough to give incentives to suppliers. There is a risk that suppliers may shrink rather than grow their enrolments.” Conor King “It’s set in train a change, but one that will have an incremental impact rather than a startling one. Gillard’s riding the tide, in some ways. There’s been less criticism and screeching than you might have expected. As we get closer, maybe it will increase. “They haven’t touched the allocation of CGS grants. To make a demand system work, the rough edges – the funding levels and the incentives they create – need to be worked on.” Professor Marcia Devlin “There are questions about whether – and if so, to what extent – this will work. Questions around how we will build infrastructure and academic workforce capacity quickly enough to meet market demand in any real sense. Higher education is not a business that can be expanded quickly without loss of quality.” Research Dr Gavin Moodie “The issue is whether the government will fund excellent research in all the schools and centres which the Excellence in Research for Australia assessment is likely to find in all universities, including non research-intensive universities. “Or will it follow British Labour, which ignored the results of its 2008 research assessment exercise to further concentrate research funding in its research-intensive universities? This is what the Canadian biologist David Currie, in a recent letter to Nature, called the Sheriff of Nottingham policy: robbing the poor to pay the rich. “Minister Carr and his department are clearly closer to the Sheriff of Nottingham than to Robin Hood. But it is not clear whether this preference is shared by Gillard.” Professor Ian Young “Research has taken a bit of a back seat to some of the recommendations of Bradley, but I think the changes around research are just as fundamental.” Professor Marcia Devlin “The labour market focus and the insufficient funding of research indicate a fundamental philosophy that does not value knowledge for knowledge’s sake, but only for its utilitarian ends. “This is a dangerous direction for any modern government to take, but the effects will not be evident for some time. It is up to educated individuals and groups to challenge this philosophy, and the assumptions that go with it, so that higher education does not become simply a training ground for employment.” Conor King “Work around what’s good research, and how to measure it, has been going on for a decade. It’s still an open question whether they’ve cracked it. We’ve got rid of the RQF, but do we have a new ERA? Or are vast amounts of work being done to prove the obvious? “Governments will say they fund the best research – a beautiful motherhood statement that allows it to tend towards being concentrated, unless they actively promote and support development of research in a broader range of institutions.”