PwC
Background Media for this event was generated through contact with various journalists, as
well as a media partnership with The Australian.
Outcomes
Press: Media Partner
1. Last Hurrah for the Uni Lecture, Stefanie Balogh
The Australian, 17 August 2016, page 19
2. Forum Considers Ways of Investing in Learning, Stefanie Balogh
The Australian, 17 August 2016, page 19
3. Degrees are for Life, Not Just a Single Job, Julie Hare
The Australian, 17 August 2016, page 19
4. Teacher Quality is Priority: BCA Chief Jennifer Westacott, Stefanie Balogh
The Australian, 12 August 2016, page 6 and online:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/teacher-quality-ispriority-bca-chief-jennifer-westacott/newsstory/ec0bb9875cb8c95c348d9d04f22688d1
5. Birmingham Targets Oversubscribed University Courses, Julie Hare
The Australian, 12 August 2016:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/birmingham-targetsoversubscribed-courses/news-story/776bc3b2e35fdb81fefcbe1ae4d4b380
6. To Demand or Not to Demand – High Wired
The Australian, 12 August 2016:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/high-wired/to-demand-ornot-to-demand/news-story/f36ef8f76aa094e5dc91addaccf50e1b
7. Birmingham Slams Universities Over Subsidy Exploitation, Julie Hare
The Australian, 12 August 2016:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/simon-birmingham-slamsuniverities-over-subsidy-exploitation/newsstory/957705eba16de77d269c93aa5cb6e1f3
8. Degrees are for Life, Not Just a Single Job, says Monash VC Margaret
Gardner, Julie Hare
The Australian, 12 August 2016:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/degrees-are-for-life-notjust-a-single-job-says-monash-vc-margaret-gardner/newsstory/eb2782c557b1e79b3382096ad90e0dc9
9. Learner Accounts, Research Loans on Davos Connection Menu,
Stefanie Balogh
The Australian, 12 August 2016:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/learner-accountsresearch-loans-on-davos-connection-menu/newsstory/c9b815e65dcb7bfd1bf1544ea3887802
3
Outcomes
Press: Other
1. Simon Birmingham: universities need to stop acting like ‘petulant toddlers’
and accept change, Matthew Knott
Sydney Morning Herald, 12 August 2016:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/simon-birminghamuniversities-need-to-stop-acting-like-petulant-toddlers-and-accept-change20160812-gqraln.html
2. Simon Birmingham: universities need to stop acting like ‘petulant toddlers’
and accept change, Matthew Knott
The Age, 12 August 2016:
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/simon-birminghamuniversities-need-to-stop-acting-like-petulant-toddlers-and-accept-change20160812-gqraln.html
3. Riveting education policy, stimulating debate and chocolate for toddlers: A
breakdown of the ADC Education Forum, Travis Jones
Education HQ Australia, 15 August 2016:
http://au.educationhq.com/news/35621/riveting-education-policy-stimulatingdebate-and-chocolate-for-toddlers-a-breakdown-of-the-adc-education-forum/
Outcomes
Radio
1. ABC Radio 774 interview with Professor James Flynn, 11 August 2016
Outcomes
Websites
1. The Future of Education - Australian Davos Connection Forum
Address by Jennifer Westacott, accessed 12 August 2016:
http://www.bca.com.au/media/the-future-of-education---australian-davosconnection-forum-address-by-jennifer-westacott
2. Mounting Calls for Australian Universities to Slash Enrolments,
Oscar Grenfell
World Socialist Web Site, accessed 23 August 2016:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/23/aust-a23.html
Outcomes
Social Media
Outcomes
Interviews
ADC Forum filmed Interviews during the Summit with:
Jonathan Barlow
Phil D’Adamo
Sophie Fenton
Prof James Flynn
Adam Jacoby
Mark McCoach
Ben Nelson
Tim Patston
Mark Rose
Derek Scott
Michael Staton
Dr Ian Watt AO
4
5
6
7
8
EDUCATION
Teacher quality is priority: BCA chief
Jennifer Westacott
BCA chief Jennifer Westacott in Melbourne. Picture Stuart McEvoy
The Australian
12:00AM August 12, 2016
STEFANIE BALOGH
Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott has called for a
cultural change in education towards improving teacher quality as a priority, warning
that the nation has spent “far too long talking about class sizes’’.
Ms Westacott, who grew up in public housing and credits education for her
opportunities, also wants to push for a broader range of learning types in schools,
including inquiry-based techniques in which students focus on the ability to find and
use information, not just remember and repeat.
A week after the latest National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy test
scores revealed flatlining results despite the Gonski reforms, Ms Westacott told the
Australian Davos Connection Forum dinner in Melbourne that “in a system of mass
education, with diverse learning styles and diverse learners, the quality of the teacher
will make all the difference’’.
“We’ve spent far too long talking about class sizes, when an initiative on teacher quality
should be at the top of COAG’s (the Council of Australian Government’s) agenda,’’ said
Ms Westacott, a former head of Victoria’s Education Department.
9
The results of the NAPLAN tests, which measure basic English and maths skills,
showed no significant gains in any subject areas or state, with the exception of Year 3
reading in South Australia. High school writing test scores have been declining since
2011.
Federal government figures show total federal education spending has risen by $3
billion to $16.05bn over the past four years.
Ms Westacott said true needs-based funding should mean school funding started with
the number of learners and their needs, not what a school had received in public funds
the previous year. “That means, over time, some schools will get more money and
some will get less … We can’t go into another election with this false perception that
there is a funding shortfall preventing us from implementing a needs-based approach.’’
Ms Westacott said the commonwealth should urgently phase out all the Gonski sidedeals done with the states “to keep in place the promise that no school would be worse
off’’.
Schools would need time to transition to the new arrangements. She also said the
states needed to be given productivity-style incentive payments, and education “growth
money, beyond the needs-based funding, should be devoted to improving outcomes,
based on evidence of what works’’.
Ms Westacott suggested that demand-driven funding for higher learning be scrapped
and replaced by virtual learning accounts. That would allow students to choose
education providers and the funding would follow them around. Students would get a
government subsidy and access to an income-contingent loan, and the rate of
government support would be based on the learner’s potential private benefit.
In the speech ahead of today’s ADC Forum education summit, sponsored by The
Australian, Ms Westacott also called for an end to the “university is the pinnacle of
success’’ idea, because it drove some people into tertiary education who didn’t benefit
from it.
10
HIGHER EDUCATION
Birmingham targets oversubscribed
university courses
The Australian
10:44AM August 12, 2016
JULIE HARE
Education Minister Simon Birmingham has flagged that the government will stick with
the so-called demand-driven system of university enrolments, but radically change
funding arrangements in an attempt to arrest over-enrolments in cheap-to-teach
courses such as law, business and economics.
Senator Birmingham said there needed to “be greater accountability that sits upon the
universities’ shoulders when thinking about how many students they take on”.
Speaking at the Australian Davos Connection education forum in Melbourne this
morning, Senator Birmingham singled out law degrees, saying they were lucrative
money earners for most universities, with too many graduates being produced.
He said while universities were simply responding to government policies and funding
incentives they needed to be more sensitive to employment outcomes of graduates.
“Nobody wants to be on the front page of the newspaper as having unemployed or
underemployed graduates,” Senator Birmingham said. “But we have to look at the
financial incentives the government has in place and how it drives behaviour in
universities in their decisions in how many people they enrol in different disciplines.”
Senator Birmingham said “that won’t be an easy part of the reform” of the higher
education sector”.
“It means that the (funding) support in some courses needs to go up, while the support
in others needs to go down. But if we are actually to change some of those enrolment
practices without it going back to a model driven by a bunch of officials sitting around a
table in Canberra randomly allocating the number of places that go to each university,
then we need to find a method that drives an outcome that is more in tune with
employment market demands.”
Currently, the government contributes $1994 a year for each law student, while
students pay $10,440.
Senator Birmingham said he expected a report into university entry practices to be
released very soon, and that it would also force universities to be more thoughtful
about how many students they enrolled in various courses. Universities have been
under mounting criticism in recent years for enrolling too many underprepared students
and for not being truthful about the entry standards needed to get into their courses.
In May, he released a discussion paper designed to inform the future of higher
education policy, which has been in a hiatus following Christopher Pyne’s failed
attempt to deregulate university fees in 2014. It is also expected the government will
make changes to the Higher Education Loans Program by reducing the repayment
threshold.
11
12
HIGH WIRED
To demand or not to demand
The Australian
11:30AM August 12, 2016
In today’s High Wired we contemplate the pros and cons of the demand-driven system,
then find out it’s all academic anyway.
Power to the speaker
Monash University’s Margaret Gardner and the Business Council of
Australia’sJennifer Westacott book ended the Australian Davos Connection dinner
in Melbourne last night. Both delivered impassioned and powerful speeches; both
pointing to an excess of politics in education policy over recent years and a heartfelt
hope for a more evidence-informed and thoughtful future. For a few moments it
seemed that Westacott had been reading off the Go8’s page, calling for an end to the
demand-driven system but replacing it with individual virtual learning accounts.
Westacott also bemoaned the parlous state of vocational education, saying
governments had a responsibility to fully fund and nurture the public provider. They
both also drolly noted there was very little, if any VET, representation at the
conference.
Manning the barricades
Gardner was taking questions when she got hit with an angry lecture from a table up
the back about responsibility for running regional campuses. The person in question
was not happy about Monash’s departure from its Gippsland and Berwickcampuses.
Dignified and regal, Gardner listened to the barrage of accusations, before pointing out
there were more Berwick locals who drove straight past the Berwick campus to get
to Caulfield than enrolled locally. Point made. Point not taken.
Go8 and hairstyles
Put a bunch of vice-chancellors together in a room while an American election is on.
Especially if they’re from different factions, some aligned, some not. Particularly
especially if one of them is Australian Catholic University boss Greg Graven. Stand
back and watch the sparks fly. “I always like hearing about the Group of Eight talk
about equity,” Craven told a Committee for Economic Development of
Australia forum yesterday. “It’s like hearing Donald Trump talking about quality
hairstyles.”
Cheap white trash
What started as a chat about equity broadened to a discussion about the demanddriven system, which has had its time, according to the Go8. Craven put up a spirited
defence. “It’s an equity debate, it’s a social debate and it’s a deeply economic debate,”
he told the CEDA forum, in Sydney. “We have to develop a workforce that is
increasingly skilled. In this type of world we’re in, Australia has no future as a cheap
exporter of white labour into Asia.”
13
Poacher gamekeeper
Frances Shannon, acting boss of the University of Canberra, said fearmongering
that the DDS would bankrupt the country was overblown. Higher education will reach a
new equilibrium, she insisted. A “natural top-out” would emerge. “That’s true if you trust
greedy vice-chancellors,” retorted University of Sydney’s Michael Spence. “(But)
given that we don’t trust greedy vice-chancellors in relation to fee deregulation, there’s
no reason to trust greedy vice-chancellors in relation to demand-driven.”
Input fetishes
University of Newcastle’s Caroline McMillen said terminology was part of the
problem. The term demand-driven naturally conjures the view that “if you demand to do
something, it will happen”, she said. Another problem was a tendency to “fetishise
inputs”, with governments focusing on things like ATARs as proxies for standards.
Spence agreed, saying discussions around ATARs and completion rates were “bad
proxies” for the real issue — “an honest conversation about the DDS, which is an
argument about how the government should spend its limited higher education dollar”.
Olive branches all around, even from Craven: “Michael, you’re sort of the reasonable
face of the Go8 on this.”
Academic debate
Debates over the merits or otherwise of the DDS now seem academic, after Education
Minister Simon Birmingham this morning flagged that the government will retain the
system. But Birmingham wants to radically change funding arrangements to curtail
burgeoning enrolments in areas which are cheap to teach, but where graduates
struggle to find jobs. Law, journalism and business come to mind. One can of worms
closes; another opens.
Two sides
The new can of worms has already played out this week in the pages of theAustralian
Financial Review. In a Monday op-ed, Macquarie University law lecturer Frank
Carrigan blasted legal academics all and sundry for selling graduates down the river.
“Towering overproduction is a reality in the Australian legal education market,” he
thundered. “If the quip about ‘make crime pay, become a lawyer’ is true, Australia is set
for a massive crime wave.” Melbourne Law School’s Carolyn Evans hit
back yesterday, pointing out that graduates from law had better than average
employment rates and starting salaries. This would make the idea of capping places in
disciplines like law, which Birmingham seems to be contemplating, a hard political sell.
14
HIGHER EDUCATION
Simon Birmingham slams universities
over subsidy exploitation
Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham. Picture: Renee Nowytarger
The Australian
12:00AM August 13, 2016
JULIE HARE
Simon Birmingham will crack down on universities over-enrolling students in such
cheap-to-teach courses as law and business despite many graduates being unable to
find work.
The federal Education Minister has warned that universities could lose financial
incentives if they are not responsive to the jobs market. In return for giving universities
a blank cheque to enrol as many students as they want, Senator Birmingham has
vowed to overhaul current funding arrangements that provide ill-targeted incentives for
too many students in lucrative courses, such as law, business and science.
The government move comes as new figures show that Australia’s 35 law schools
produce 14,000 law graduates for about 4000 jobs every year.
Law enrolments increased by 32 per cent between 2007 and 2014 after the
government removed the caps on university places.
At the same time, full-time job rates, after four months, fell from 92 per cent to 75 per
cent.
The government contributes $1994 a year for each law and business student, while
students pay $10,440.
15
Graduate Careers Australia statistics reveal that only 50.6 per cent of law graduates
consider their degree vital to their career while only 17.2 per cent of social science
graduates, 28.6 of business studies graduates and 32.4 per cent of chemistry
graduates say their degree is an important requirement for their job.
Senator Birmingham, speaking at the Australian Davos Connection education forum in
Melbourne, slammed some vice-chancellors for begging for government handouts
despite the pressing realities of a constrained federal budget.
“There are some, perhaps, who seem to have adopted all the subtlety of a five-year-old
pleading for more chocolate, who don’t appear to realise that budgets may have
reached their limits,” he said.
Current policy settings provided incentives for universities to enrol students in courses
completely at odds with available jobs.
“If we are to ensure we actually get universities thinking about the numbers of students
they enrol and the disciplines they enrol in, we need to make sure they are driven in
their thinking by what is in the best interests of the student and the need of the national
economy,” he said.
Senator Birmingham said he wanted students to think more clearly about their future
careers and factor TAFE and apprenticeships into their deliberations, instead of
assuming university was the only option.
Universities also needed to accept greater accountability when enrolling students,
“because nobody wants to be on the front page of the newspaper as having a lot of
unemployed or underemployed graduates out there”, the minister said.
“We have to have a look at how financial incentives the government has in place
actually drive behaviour by the universities in their decision in how many people to
enrol in different disciplines,” he said.
Senator Birmingham said universities could expect to see subsidies for some courses
reduced while others might be increased, particularly in areas such as veterinary
science and dentistry.
16
HIGHER EDUCATION
Degrees are for life, not just a single job,
says Monash VC Margaret Gardner
Margaret Gardner promotes flexibility in education. Picture: David Geraghty
The Australian
12:00AM August 17, 2016
JULIE HARE
The brouhaha over the demand-driven system and desirability of linking enrolments to job
outcomes does not detract from the fact a university degree will only increase in value as we
march into the unknowable future.
During an impassioned speech to the Australian Davos Connection forum dinner, Monash
University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner said a university education was in many ways the
collateral young people had to help them negotiate an unpredictable future jobs market.
“It is important to be reminded of the general benefits of education because a narrow
perspective about its utility in employment frames so much of our discussion of tertiary
education,” Professor Gardner said.
She said while employability was undeniably important, the reasons people learned would be
less to do with specific vocational outcomes than preparing graduates for a changing economy.
“We must explore this future and ensure that learning prepares students for the unseen and
inexplicable, and nurtures a life and an identity not too inextricably linked to a profession or
degree that they first chose,” Professor Gardner said.
“It is the quality of learning that is as paramount as preparation, for high-quality learning produces and supports independence, flexibility, curiosity, creativity and problem-solving as the
embedded benefits of completing a degree.”
17
While not all new jobs would require degrees, she said, three of the top five employing
industries in Australia presently had workforces made up of about one-third degree holders.
“It is important to keep this demand in mind when concerns about short-term employment
prospects for graduates threaten to distract us from future needs or from the clear data that
show the low levels of unemployment of graduates.
“There is no medium-term future that will need less graduates — or less people with tertiary
qualifications.
“It is clear … that we cannot clearly see the shapes of the professions of the future; and all this
raises questions about capabilities to be built by our graduates.
“One thing is sure, these changes require a more flexible, sophisticated future.”
As illustration, Professor Gardner used two examples from Monash University.
One was from the faculty of pharmacy and pharmaceutical science that had nested an honours
bachelor degree into a master of pharmacy with a new pedagogy that used digital or virtual
simulations of dispensing and the Monash-developed Pharmatopia and two significant periods
embedded in industry.
“This changed curriculum reflects the need to allow graduates to learn and to build their
capabilities in a more flexible, differentiated and problem-solving environment,” she said.
But, she said, the degree program alone was too narrow a focus and Monash had introduced
an online platform for all students, undergraduate to PhD, that hosted 1000 co-curricular
programs and activities and allowed student to “track their activities and to reflect on their
development, build a profile of their capabilities and be able to present this to others”.
“It is voluntary, it is flexible, it shows how broadly learning occurs. Most importantly, it is
reflective, building self-awareness. It is, as Socrates would tell us, learning for the right
reasons.
“Learning and education that embrace the future, that allow the individual the room to choose
and reflect, to experiment as well as to copy, this is learning for the right reasons and will
ensure the greatest benefit to the individual and therefore to all of us.”
18
HIGHER EDUCATION
Learner accounts, research loans on
Davos Connection menu
Ian Young: ‘If you make a lot of money out of this, you’ll repay it and you’ll repay
it with interest.’
The Australian
12:00AM August 17, 2016
STEFANIE BALOGH
The introduction of profit-contingent loans to encourage the risk-averse corporate sector to fund
vital research and development could strengthen the bridge between universities and industry.
The suggestion on how to find a new way to bankroll innovation was one of the “big ideas” to
flow from the Australian Davos Connection education forum in Melbourne last week.
Also put forward was the concept of virtual learner accounts attached to individual students,
and the need for a cultural shift to ensure teaching is valued as a profession. Establishing a
regional international education strategy, providing commercialisation training as part of PhD
studies, and setting up a virtual learning hub to pool resources across institutions and sectors
were also suggested.
While many ideas are difficult to implement because of institutional and financial barriers, they
would be high impact and could revolutionise the sector.
Former Australian National University vice-chancellor Ian Young said: “We hear lots and lots of
publicity about the failure of university and industry collaboration and it’s very true, it’s the core
of some of our innovation problems.”
But the problem was complex, he said. While boardrooms were “far, far too risk-averse’’,
Professor Young said one way to reduce the risks would be to create a fund that would provide
investment loans.
19
But rather than income-contingent loans, the funding could be profit-contingent. “If you make a
lot of money out of this, you’ll repay it and you’ll repay it with interest,’’ he said.
Virtual learner accounts were also discussed and backed by Business Council of Australia chief
executive Jennifer Westacott as well as the Australian Industry Group’s head of workforce
development Megan Lilly.
Ms Lilly said the virtual learner accounts would be attached to an individual and would “support
their working and learning journey through life”.
Ms Westacott said funding needed to be about the learner, and the nation should think about
replacing all demand-driven funding models with something like the virtual learning account.
“The learner would choose their provider, and the funding would follow them,” she said. The
account would be available to learners at all stages of their lives but would have a cap.
“They would get a government subsidy and access to an income-contingent loan. And the rate
of government support would be based on the potential private benefit a learner would receive,”
she said.
The summit’s “sector integration” working group recommended the accounts be organised
around students and tracked public and private funding throughout their education and training,
and be based on unique student identifiers.
“All school-age children upon entry into the system receive a USI that remains the same
throughout their life,” the working group’s report says. “Funding can be set according to need
and return on targeted intervention would be traced over time, contributing to an evidence
base.”
The summit also backed a call for a professional and cultural shift in how teachers were viewed
and valued.
Ian Watt, a former secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, said the
importance of high-quality teaching was one of the constants of the summit.
“We’re not going to have a better education system without thinking a lot about the teachers
who are in it, that’s for sure, and what we can do to help them,” Dr Watt said.
20
The Sydney Morning Herald
Federal Politics
Simon Birmingham: universities need to
stop acting like 'petulant toddlers' and
accept change
Matthew Knott
AUGUST 12 2016
Education Minister Simon Birmingham says he wants to overhaul higher education
funding to stop universities churning out graduates in fields where they will struggle to
get a job.
Senator Birmingham, who is consulting on higher education reform, said a "key part" of
his thinking was how to remove incentives for universities to enrol an excessive
number of students in profitable courses such as law.
Education Minister Simon Birmingham says government funding is not
bottomless. Photo: Louise Kennerley
He also compared universities calling for more government funding to "petulant
toddlers" demanding more chocolate from their parents.
Senator Birmingham said vice-chancellors had told him privately that they use courses
such as law - which have high fees but are popular and relatively cheap to teach - as
"profit centres" for their universities.
21
Profits from these degrees are used to subsidise research or to teach more expensive
courses such as veterinary science and dentistry.
"We have to have a look at how the financial incentives the government has in place
actually drive behaviour by the universities in their decision in how many people to
enrol in different disciplines," Senator Birmingham told an education conference in
Melbourne on Friday.
"And that won't be an easy part of the reform discussion and it's not easy from our
perspective either because it means that, perhaps, support in some courses needs to
go up, while support in others needs to go down.
"But if we were to actually change some of those enrolment practices - without it going
back to a model driven by a bunch of officials sitting around a table in Canberra
randomly allocating a number of places for each university - then we need to find a
method that drives an outcome that frankly is more attuned with what the employment
market demands."
Universities have to be driven by "what is in the best interests of the student and the
need of the national economy" when deciding how many students to enrol in each
discipline, he said.
Frank Carrigan, a senior lecturer in the Law School at Macquarie University, this week
argued that universities were selling law students down the river through their
"untrammelled recruitment" practices. The Grattan Institute also released a report
saying universities were putting graduates at risk by enrolling too many students in
science degrees.
Universities across the sector have called for a review of how fees and funding rates
are set for different courses, with the current system widely seen as outdated, overlycomplicated and riddled with anomalies.
Senator Birmingham said the university sector's contribution to the reform process had
been "mixed" with some adopting "all the subtlety of a five-year-old pleading for more
chocolate who don't appear to realise that budgets may have reached their limits
already".
Government funding is not "bottomless", so simply asking for more money is not good
enough, he said.
"We would be doing a disservice to those generations of students we have been
speaking about today to not do something about ensuring financial sustainability in our
higher education structures and policies as well as education and excellence," he said.
The government still has $3.2 billion worth of university funding cuts baked into the
budget despite being twice unable to pass them through the Senate.
22
The Age
Federal Politics
Simon Birmingham: universities need to
stop acting like 'petulant toddlers' and
accept change
Matthew Knott
AUGUST 12 2016
Education Minister Simon Birmingham says he wants to overhaul higher education
funding to stop universities churning out graduates in fields where they will struggle to
get a job.
Senator Birmingham, who is consulting on higher education reform, said a "key part" of
his thinking was how to remove incentives for universities to enrol an excessive
number of students in profitable courses such as law.
Education Minister Simon Birmingham says government funding is not
bottomless. Photo: Louise Kennerley
He also compared universities calling for more government funding to "petulant
toddlers" demanding more chocolate from their parents.
Senator Birmingham said vice-chancellors had told him privately that they use courses
such as law - which have high fees but are popular and relatively cheap to teach - as
"profit centres" for their universities.
Profits from these degrees are used to subsidise research or to teach more expensive
courses such as veterinary science and dentistry.
"We have to have a look at how the financial incentives the government has in place
actually drive behaviour by the universities in their decision in how many people to
enrol in different disciplines," Senator Birmingham told an education conference in
Melbourne on Friday.
"And that won't be an easy part of the reform discussion and it's not easy from our
perspective either because it means that, perhaps, support in some courses needs to
go up, while support in others needs to go down.
"But if we were to actually change some of those enrolment practices - without it going
back to a model driven by a bunch of officials sitting around a table in Canberra
randomly allocating a number of places for each university - then we need to find a
method that drives an outcome that frankly is more attuned with what the employment
market demands."
Universities have to be driven by "what is in the best interests of the student and the
need of the national economy" when deciding how many students to enrol in each
discipline, he said.
23
Frank Carrigan, a senior lecturer in the Law School at Macquarie University, this week
argued that universities were selling law students down the river through their
"untrammelled recruitment" practices. The Grattan Institute also released a report
saying universities were putting graduates at risk by enrolling too many students in
science degrees.
Universities across the sector have called for a review of how fees and funding rates
are set for different courses, with the current system widely seen as outdated, overlycomplicated and riddled with anomalies.
Senator Birmingham said the university sector's contribution to the reform process had
been "mixed" with some adopting "all the subtlety of a five-year-old pleading for more
chocolate who don't appear to realise that budgets may have reached their limits
already".
Government funding is not "bottomless", so simply asking for more money is not good
enough, he said.
"We would be doing a disservice to those generations of students we have been
speaking about today to not do something about ensuring financial sustainability in our
higher education structures and policies as well as education and excellence," he said.
The government still has $3.2 billion worth of university funding cuts baked into the
budget despite being twice unable to pass them through the Senate.
24
Riveting education policy, stimulating
debate and chocolate for toddlers: A
breakdown of the ADC Education Forum
By Travis Jones
Published August 15, 2016
Last Friday’s Education for the Future Summit featured prolific academics, dynamic industry
experts, steadfast politicians and an open discussion about the future of Australian education in
increasingly turbulent times. Hosted by ADC Forum at the Melbourne Arts Centre, the summit
covered a broad spectrum of education issues including funding, curriculum content and
teacher quality.
Delivering an address amidst flattening NAPLAN results and a contentious funding debate,
Education and Training minister Simon Birmingham stressed the need for quality education as
vital to Australia’s future economy.
“We will rely upon some of those young people to be the innovators and entrepreneurs of the
future,” he said.
“In these cases their education doesn’t just need to skill them to get a job, but also needs to
provide them with the skills to create jobs for others.”
Calling for evidence-based funding initiatives and plans to improve teacher quality, Birmingham
roused a distinct murmur from the audience when he likened proponents of carte blanche
education funding to “a 5-year-old pleading for more chocolate”.
When rebuked by Drama Victoria’s Emily Atkins, Birmingham further lambasted supporters of
limitless funding as “petulant toddlers”.
“Nothing can be perpetually bottomless,” Birmingham said.
“We need to keep in mind the challenging fiscal situation Australia finds itself in.”
Atkins later told EducationHQ that she wasn’t satisfied with the minister’s response, calling it
“reductive and insulting” and that it “really trivialised the issue”.
“I felt that it didn’t really get to the core of the issue that I was trying to raise which was, ‘how
can you put a price on the development of young people in our nation?’
“I know that ultimately things have a cost but what I was trying to get at really was that there
should effectively be an attitude that whatever you can do for education should be done and I
don’t think that he responded to that at all.”
Highlighting the summit was an enthralling speech from Professor Emeritus James Flynn from
the University of Otago, wielding a learned academic prestige to call for higher paid, better
qualified teachers, and a broader revolution to tertiary education.
Arguing the cure to current disenfranchisement in teaching, and education in general was an
expansion of critical thinking as a requisite discipline.
“I would like to see no-one get a university degree who hasn’t had a course in certain basic
tools you need to make your way through the modern world.”
25
Flynn, famous for his work researching human intelligence, also argued a viable path to
changing public opinion was to adopt more stringent educational standards in selecting
teachers, effectively “upgrading teaching to a profession” rather than mired in low standards of
entry.
He argued this would raise the esteem of the profession similar to that of Finland, regarded by
many as the best education system in the world, which requires any educator teaching a
subject above Grade 6 to hold a masters degree.
Proceedings were complemented with input from Michael Staton, a partner at Learn Capital,
who addressed the dynamic shift in education from conventional schooling to technology and
application-based learning.
He said this shift would also ease the transition towards an economy facing a profound shift
towards automation and the redundancy of traditional jobs.
“This critical problem is happening faster than any of us realise, and conversations like this
allow us to get out in front of that.”
Staton also addressed the burgeoning market for education in South East Asia, a lucrative
recruiting ground for Australian universities, with potential students who may come to favour
tech-based education start-ups that can tailor to their specific needs.
The next speaker, Ben Nelson, is at the helm of such a start-up in his role as Founder and
CEO of Minerva.
Declaring that “the core of what higher education does is suspect,” Nelson argued that the
nature of tertiary education is on a precipice, and may soon undergo seismic shift should
consumers grow indignant with conventional, lecture-style courses.
Representatives from Japan, Korea and Germany discussed their own touted education
systems, finding commonality in the esteem with which teachers are held, and the higher
qualifications needed to teach in their countries.
Proceedings were also punctuated by group sessions, in which the audience divided into
sections devoted to pressing education issues, and worked together towards a solution.
Atkins said whilst she felt this was the “most beneficial” of the day’s events, time constraints
limited discussions in what was otherwise an “interesting exercise”.
With NAPLAN results stalling and global standards slipping, Australia finds itself at an impasse
regarding how to invigorate the sector.
To solve these problems quickly and efficiently, competing institutions and points of view will
ultimately have to come together to find commonality in the prevailing good that education
brings.
In being a means for rigorous exploration, debate and solutions to the pressing issues in
Australian education, this ADC Forum, and the many discussions that will follow are of critical
importance.
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Professor James Flynn, 11 August 2016
Monica Attard:
Right now, we have somebody in the studio who has devoted much of his working
life to the study of human IQ, and in fact, revealed a fascinating discovery, that
each generation has a significantly higher IQ score then the previous one. James
Flynn, is the emeritus professor of political studies, at the University of Otago, in
New Zealand. He's in the studio with me now, as he's in Melbourne for a
conference. Good morning, James, and thanks for joining us.
James Flynn:
Happy to.
Monica Attard:
Tell us ... First of all, a little bit about your work on human IQ, and what you argue
now, that we may have plateaued in this increase that we've seen until now.
James Flynn:
Yes, over the twentieth century, there have been huge IQ gains. If you normed
people in 1900 against people today, the average person would have an IQ of 70,
which would be the cutting line for mental retardation. That doesn't mean they
were all mentally retarded, it just means they lived in a simpler world that gave
them less cognitive exercise. The brain is like a muscle, and when you exercise it, it
responds. For example, London cab drivers, who have to map, the portion of the
brain that has to do with mapping, the hippocampus, is enlarged, just as your
muscles would be enlarged as a weightlifter. In 1900, they didn't have to deal with
cognitively complex jobs, most of them were subsistence farmers, or undemanding
factory work. So it's not a matter that their brains were wired differently than ours,
they just had much less cognitive exercise than we do.
Monica Attard:
So it is that simple, that it's a muscle, it's like any other part of the body, if you use
it, it will develop and what you have tracked, and your research is renowned for, is
that this has happened everywhere.
James Flynn:
It's happened in all advanced industrial nations. There are many, of course,
developing nations where modernity is relatively absent. If you look at the Sudan,
you find, interestingly enough, that they've made IQ gains on visual and audio
things, but they haven't made the IQ gains that you would associate with modern
schooling. The test profile is interesting, they haven't made real gains in vocabulary
and things of that sort, but they've been exposed to the modern visual world. They
must have television, and things of that sort. Of course, modernity doesn't do it by
magic, a lot of things kick in.
Smaller families, if you have parents, and six children, children set the vocabulary
level of the home. If you have two parents, and two children, then the parents set
the vocabulary level of the home. Family size is important. And demanding work
roles. The sort of work you're doing today, is probably a long way away from what
your grandparents were doing. They may have been making change in a shop if
they were lucky, but, of course, this is running out. There's another trend, of solo
parenthood, isn't there? That would mean, there would be fewer parents
compared to children, in the home. Automation is creating more and more jobs
that are more simple service jobs, so the demands of the workplace on mental
exercise, are becoming less.
Monica Attard:
Is that the most important thing, or is it as much about how we spend our time
now? Sitting in front of iPads, or ...
James Flynn:
Well, this is a tragic thing. Here, we have all these highly intelligent young people,
who are capable of using their minds in complicated ways, but we're not
27
capitalizing on IQ gains. I don't think IQ gains will persist in this century, in the
advanced countries.
Monica Attard:
Could they go backwards?
James Flynn:
They might go backwards a little, but that depends on government policy. The ADC
Forum here, has me here testifying on this. For example, as more and more
Australian's become service workers, if they're underpaid, if they're segregated by
neighborhood, if they're removed from the larger society, they'll have a less
stimulating cognitive environment. It all depends on what programs we introduce
to counteract these trends. I don't see any way of pushing them much forward. I
mean, the family size is now down to the point where we wouldn't be reproducing
ourselves if we went much further, and there's probably a limit to how complex
work will be. It depends on what occurs. I don't think they should recede much, but
the important thing is to capitalize on them through education.
The American Humanities portion of the US government, found that thanks to how
kids spend their leisure today, fewer and fewer are reading, and can read serious
material. You can be pretty bright, and if you're totally ignorant, you can't become
a good citizen, or a good critic of government. I've often thought, that if American
policy makers had read even one book, Howard Fisk's, The Great Crusade for
Western Civilization, they would've seen the folly of the Iraq war. Let me pose a
question, in Europe, between 1600-1630, there was the thirty years war that killed
half the population of Germany, because Catholics and Protestants were at each
others throats.
Imagine some enlightened sultan said, "We will send in a Turkish army, and we will
resolve these religious differences, and we will teach these people not to kill each
other, and we will set up viable states. We will nation build.", we would all consider
that insane. We would say, "Turkish army, running around Germany, killing people
and taking sides.", and yet, we have no compunction about going into an area
which is politically unstable, tribal, divided by religious groups, and having western
armies, blundering around adding to the killing. So you need people who read
history, who read novels, and know that this area is very different than their own
backyard.
Monica Attard:
Reading is the key, you argue.
James Flynn:
It's very important. It's not just the key, but it's ...
Monica Attard:
The other thing is teacher quality, that you write about the standard of teaching. In
fact, you argue that teaching degrees should only be offered in the top tier of
universities in every country.
James Flynn:
Most people are looking to Finland, which is the main non eastern country, which
heads the educational statistics. You can't import Finnish culture. Fin's love
teaching. Fin's put it ahead of law and medicine as a status profession. When they
recruit for the schools, they're just flooded with applicants, and you're considered
very privileged to be accepted as a teacher. They require a master's degree for
everyone who teaches a subject discipline above the sixth grade level. Australia
could do a lot of things.
First, it could make teaching into a profession.
By making teaching into a profession, you'd have to do a number of things. For
example, half of New Zealand teachers quit within the first six years. They find it
just too tough. You would have to set up more teachers, you would have to have
them properly trained, it would be wonderful if they all had to have a master's
28
degree to teach above the sixth grade. I think that to upgrade the quality of
teachers below the sixth grade, they should have a degree, other than education,
as a quality device to introduce them. To get these teachers, you would have to
make sure that after you've been teaching for ten years, your salary was the
equivalent of university graduates of that age. You'd have to give them a
sabbatical, like you give academics, every seven years, so they could get a
refresher.
Monica Attard:
James, can I just stop you for a moment.
James Flynn:
Sure.
Monica Attard:
We're going to go to the last seconds of this basketball game, between the US and
Australia.
James Flynn:
That's right, see how it goes.
Monica Attard:
Right now.
James Flynn:
I'm interested too.
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30
The Future of Education - Australian Davos
Connection Forum Address by Jennifer Westacott
11 August 2016
This speech was delivered by Business Council Chief Executive Jennifer Westacott at the
Australian Davos Connection Forum in Melbourne on 11 August 2016.
Distinguished guests. Ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we are gathered, the Wurundjeri people of
the Kulin Nation, and pay my respect to their Elders—past and present. I would also like to thank the Australian
Davos Connection Forum for inviting me to speak tonight.
Education is something I’m passionate about, and I’m thrilled to talk to you tonight about the future of education.
Education is dear to my heart because it changed my life. I grew up in public housing and my grandmother believed
education was my opportunity. She was right. Education was the game-changer for me, as well as my siblings.
My education is why I’m standing here tonight and why I have had remarkable opportunities throughout my life.
Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of hard work along the way, and I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t worked hard. But
there are many people who spend their lives working 10 hours a day, sometimes in back-breaking labour, who don’t
get the same opportunities I’ve had. My grandmother taught me that education was the key to my future. It’s the key
to our children’s future. It’s the key to every working Australian’s future. And it’s the key to our country’s future. But,
if education is truly the key to our future, what do we need from education?
To answer that question, there are four main topics I’d like to cover tonight.

First, going back to basics on what we want from education.

Second, why we educate, and why government invests in education.

Third, I want to reflect on the future of work, and the future of social interaction, and what they mean for
education.

And finally I’d like to conclude on what needs to be changed in our education systems.
What we want from education
So to my first topic, what is it that we want from education? As someone who once ran the Education Department
here in Victoria, I find that most people have an opinion about education. They also care a lot about education. For
themselves, their families, and the community. We saw that play out in our recent election campaign. We heard
about the Gonski funding model. We heard about TAFEs failing. And we heard about 100, 000 dollar degrees. But
what we didn’t hear, and what we didn’t talk about, is what we want from education. We’ve known for a long time
that education is important for a good and decent society.
Aristotle believed that education’s primary mission was to produce good and virtuous citizens. Eleanor Roosevelt
argued that the first objective of education is informed and intelligent citizens. Martin Luther King Jr said the goal of
true education is intelligence plus haracter.
I agree with them all. We educate to give people the capacity to think as well as absorb knowledge. We educate to
provide community wide values. The values of citizenship – honesty, compassion, respect, responsibility, and
courage. And to transfer the knowledge we should have as good citizens. To know our history, and our place in the
world. We also educate so that people are equipped for work. After all, work is what we spend most of our lives
doing. And we’re going to be working longer. Work is how we put food on our tables, pay for our homes, and pay for
the interests in our lives. People working is also what drives the economy. It creates the revenue that allows us to reinvest in a better and stronger society.
But make no mistake, we don’t educate only for people to work. We also educate so people are enlightened and can
get satisfaction from their lives.
Why mass education
So we know what we want our education system to deliver, but why does government fund it?
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I believe the greatest achievement of education reform in this country, is that we have bipartisan and community
support for education for all. As a result, Australia has a mass education system. Between them, governments in
Australia invest over 67 billion dollars each year in education. Why?
Because a mass education system can deliver four key things. First, education is the great equaliser. In my view,
education and all the things that flow from it, creates the single biggest platform to reduce inequality. Second,
education helps people to adapt and is a form of protection in times of change. When people fall out of society
through family violence, job loss, homelessness, or illness, they often can’t find a way to get back in. Education is
the way back in.
Education gives everyone the opportunity, at all stages of their lives, to adapt and change. Third, education can be
catalytic for society. Some of the greatest advances in science, maths, and philosophy come from the simple
statement: I do not know. And seeking that answer can propel societies into a new era of progress and prosperity.
And finally, education is how we build cohesive societies.
Knowledge replaces superstitions, ignorance, and prejudice. It helps us deal with the fear of the unknown, and the
fear of change. Malala, one of the great modern inspirations on the importance of education has talked about her
father’s belief in education. He taught her that ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to
be re-elected. Fundamentally then, we invest in education because it builds a better and more decent society.
The future of education
That then leads me to the key issue tonight of the future of education. How do we get the best value from a mass
education system in the face of rapid change? We know that our economy and our society are facing significant
disruption.
Let’s start with the world of work. We are seeing report after report saying that somewhere between 20 and 60
percent of jobs will be replaced by robots. Some traditional industries are in decline, and traditional business models
are transforming.
Our businesses and workers are having to compete on a global stage. Jobs that people trained for 20 years ago
have been offshored. A global marketplace also means greater opportunities for specialisation.

Final products will no longer be made in one country.

Production will be increasingly reliant on skills, not cheap labour.

And this means skills and capabilities become the tradeable commodities.
The nature of the employment relationship is also changing.

People are quickly signing up to new business models like Uber where they can be masters of their own
destinies.
If I turn to social interaction, and the way we communicate. This has also fundamentally altered. We have world
leaders communicating via apps on smart phones, and our kids have an intuitive understanding of technology. There
are fast becoming no jobs in our economy, and no interactions in our society that don’t demand a grouping of skills.
The skills of literacy, numeracy, technology, communication, customer service.

And perhaps most importantly the ability to adapt and work as part of a team.
The thing we need to remember is that we’ve had big disruptions in our society before. But this time, for the first time
in our history, we have a tool to achieve progress for all. A tool that smooths out the bumps of the transition. That
tool is our mass education system. Which is why it is imperative we get our education system right.
What getting it right look like
So, what does getting it right look like?
To begin with, I’d like to make some observations about the need for an overall culture change in our education
systems. And then I want to talk about some specific ideas for VET and higher education, and finish with schools.
Culture change
In my opinion, if education is to be the game changer for our nation we need a culture change. We often overlook
how crucial culture change is, and then wonder why reform fails. Culture change creates a new environment.

One that makes it easier for subsequent reforms to succeed.
So, I think we need to see eight fundamental changes. First, we need to shift from a provider–centred education
system to a learner–centred one. Second, consistent with being more learner–centred, we need to embrace multiple
styles of learning, not limit ourselves to an academic style of learning. And by that, I mean moving beyond a teacher
standing up in a classroom and imparting their knowledge. We need to embrace other methods of learning like
coaching, design thinking, and inquiry based learning. Third, we need to stop the culture where kids are told they are
not smart unless they are academically successful. Practical, creative and emotional intelligence need to be equally
valued alongside academic intelligence.
This is particularly true in schools, where we need to be clear that success is not limited to people who excel
academically.
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Fourth, we need to stop thinking that university is the pinnacle of success. This drives people into university who
don’t always benefit from it. It also drives the fifth cultural issue that VET is a second–rate option behind universities.
The place for the so called less intelligent people. This is despite the fact that our VET graduates, including our
tradespeople, are big economic contributors.
They are the people who start small businesses, take risks, employ people, and are often the backbone of regional
communities. The sixth cultural shift we need to make is to once and for all give up on creeping credentialism. By
that I mean making a degree an entry requirement for a job, so the job becomes more prestigious.
Instead of valuing the qualification that leads to the job, we should value the role. And most importantly, value the
attributes a person needs to do the job well. For example, childcare and aged-care are important roles and ones we
should value as a society. But that doesn’t mean those workers should have to complete a university qualification.
The seventh change we need is to allow multiple pathways within qualifications, and not limit them to a single
occupation.
After all, very few people have one occupation across their working life. The final culture change is to move away
from the idea that our main domain for learning is an institutional setting. By the age of 21, most kids today have
spent 17 years of their lives in formal learning in an institution. And with the rise of double degrees and graduate
entry courses, we’ve got people still studying when they’re 23 and 24. Or young people moving into Masters level
courses without ever having worked. We need to give people more avenues to work and learn at the same time, and
an option to do so at an earlier stage. Otherwise, by the time they graduate the world will have moved passed them.
These eight culture changes will allow us to start heading towards a fundamentally different system. If we skip this
step of culture change, and have a narrow focus on technical reforms only, we will continue to waste time and
money.
VET and higher education changes
So turning to the specific reforms, I’d like to start with VET and higher education.
Let’s start with what’s common for both sectors, and then I’ll move to VET. The most important thing we need to do
is to place the learner at the centre of VET and higher education. Let’s begin by giving them information so they can
make informed choices.

And by information I mean telling them about where jobs will be.

The potential earning capacity they will have.

How long it will take for them to pay off their HELP debt.
Next, we need to get demand-driven funding models right. Funding has to be about the learner, and the model has
to incentivise the right behaviours by learners and providers. So let’s think about replacing all the demand–driven
funding models with something like a Virtual Learning Account for everyone.

The learner would choose their provider, and the funding would follow them.

The Learning Account would be available to them at all stages of their lives, but would have a cap.

They would get a government subsidy and access to an income-contingent loan.

And the rate of government support would be based on the potential private benefit a learner would
receive.
A Virtual Learning Account or something like it, is the best way to operationalise an education market. And it’s far
preferable to returning to a world of capped places.
Finally, we need to build our qualifications and skill sets around the needs of learners and the needs of industry. We
need Training Packages and higher education qualifications to do the same thing. They need to be more modular.
They should let people build on a base qualification throughout their working lives.

They need to develop the whole person. Their technical, functional, cognitive, and behavioural skills.

They need to keep pace with labour market changes.

And they need to deliver graduates who are work-ready. Ones that have a core set of values, behaviours
and skills that employers need.

And whether its Training Packages or qualifications, we need a permanent and continuous process of
broad industry engagement.
VET
Margaret will spend some time talking about higher education later, so I’d like to focus on VET.
I talk a lot about VET, and I’m passionate about it, and people often ask why. It’s because I believe VET will be the
place where most workers will be prepared for the new world of work. But to do that, our VET sector needs much
greater attention from governments.
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The most urgent thing we need to do, is to repair the damage done to the reputation of the sector. We do this by
removing the small group of providers who have acted irresponsibly. They are rorting the system. And they are
preying on the most vulnerable.
We need to withdraw all government funding from these providers. And we need to shut them down. We also need
to redesign VET FEE-HELP.
The Business Council recently put in a submission to the government and proposed the following:

All learners remain eligible for VET FEE-HELP

A lifetime loan cap is applied

Government funding is restricted for courses with poor employment outcomes, and

Contract management is strengthened, including requiring providers to publish market information.
Dealing with the reputational issue, and fixing VET FEE-HELP are essential to underpin more fundamental reform of
VET. We can pursue other reforms simultaneously, but the VET sector will not survive without these fixes. The other
top priority in VET is the role of TAFE. Starting with a proposition that there is no role for TAFE is a nonsense. We
cannot allow TAFE to die a death of a thousand cuts. It cannot become a residual provider. TAFEs are often the
lifeblood of regional communities, and are often the only pathway for disadvantaged people.
State governments need to be clear about the role they want TAFEs to play, and fund them appropriately. But
TAFEs themselves must improve their business models. They need to ensure the taxpayer is getting value for
money from their investment. I believe there is a big appetite amongst the Premiers to fix VET. Over the next 12
months and before the National Partnership expires, the Commonwealth and States need to sit down together and
map out a plan for VET.
We also need a long term reform agenda for the apprenticeship system. But that is a speech in and of itself, and I
want to turn now to schools.
Schools
I’m concluding with schools because they are so important.
I’d like to see 4 key actions in schools covering our approach to learning, teacher quality, curriculum, and funding
models.
I’ve already talked about the need for a culture change to embrace all styles of learning, and I want to push for a
broader take-up of inquiry based learning. In simple terms, that means a focus on being able to find and use
information, not just remember and repeat it. Inquiry-based learning is widely acknowledged to be an effective
teaching method for maths, an area where we have gone backwards. The Khan Academy is a great example of
teaching maths in a different way.
But inquiry-based learning is relatively new and under-utilised in Australian schools. Now I’m not advocating for one
style of teaching only. Improvement won’t come from one style. A combination of approaches is needed. But, in
moving beyond a traditional model, the role of the teacher becomes paramount.
It has always been important, but never more so than today. In a system of mass education, with diverse learning
styles and diverse learners, the quality of the teacher will make all the difference. This is confirmed by the OECD.
They have said inquiry, design, and coaching approaches to learning are highly dependent on the knowledge and
skills of the teacher. We’ve spent far too long talking about class sizes, when an initiative on teacher quality should
be at the top of COAG’s agenda.
But we also need to look at the curriculum we’re offering, not just how we teach it. We have numerous reports that
tell us students find maths difficult, and irrelevant to real life. And no matter how good the teacher standing in front of
them is, those kids will not be engaged if the teacher is limited by boring curriculum.
The final area that needs a national focus is the schools funding model. Recently, we’ve had a very confused debate
in Australia about my friend and colleague David Gonski’s funding model for schools.
I think it’s clear that David’s basic model was right. He advocated for a needs-based funding model, and that’s what
we should have in this country. But let’s define what needs-based funding means. It means that a dollar amount is
assigned to a learner, based on their disadvantage. The dollar amount follows the learner, it is not assigned to a
specific school. So a school’s funding starts with the number of learners and their needs. Not the funding the school
got last year.
That means, over time some schools will get more money and some will get less. That is what a true needs based
funding model would do. David’s terms of reference did not allow for that. They required no school be worse off.
And in requiring that no school be worse off, a false perception of a so-called shortfall was created. We can’t go into
another election with this false perception that there is a funding shortfall preventing us from implementing a needsbased approach.
Now is the time to properly implement David’s model. And we can do that by the Commonwealth urgently phasing
out all the side deals that were done to keep in place the promise that no school would be worse off. Transition will
of course be important, but it can be done more quickly. Schools need to plan and can’t have their funding changed
without notice and time to adjust. But the transition needs to start now. We also need for States to be given
34
incentives, through productivity style payments, to adopt a true needs based funding model quickly. And growth
money, beyond the needs based funding, should be devoted to improving outcomes, based on evidence of what
works.

As Minister Birmingham has started to do with his school reforms.
Starting this process will finally allow us to put this issue to bed so we can get on with teacher quality, new
approaches to learning, and a more engaging curriculum.
Conclusion
To conclude, our education system will be the most important tool to equip us as a society and an economy. But it
won’t be fit for purpose without purposeful policy change. And it won’t be paid for without a robust, growing
economy. We talk a lot about fairness in education. And I don’t think it’s fair to allow education policy and debate to
be driven by ideology and not evidence. By politics and not good policy. And the greatest unfairness is to embrace a
mass education system for all, but not deliver one. So deliver one, we must. Because education is the great force for
enlightenment.
It is the great enabler. The great force for civilisation. And education should never be the domain of the elites. It
should be available for all Australians to fulfil their potential. So like me, all Australians get the opportunity my
grandmother knew would change my life.
Thank you.
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Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)
Mounting calls for Australian universities to slash enrolments
By Oscar Grenfell
23 August 2016
Over the past weeks, there have been repeated calls, including from the Liberal-National
government, for a new overhaul of tertiary education in Australia, including a dramatic reduction
in the number of university enrolments. The campaign is a continuation of the bipartisan assault
on higher education carried out by successive governments, Coalition and Labor, and is aimed
at entrenching universities as elite institutions responsive to the needs of the market and
accessible to only a wealthy few.
Earlier this month, Education Minister Simon Birmingham spelt out the federal government’s
agenda at the “Australian Davos Connection Education Summit.” The forum, “brings together
leaders from business [and] government” to discuss public policy.
In his speech, Birmingham flagged financial measures to cut student numbers. He said the
government would, “look at how the financial incentives the government has in place actually
drive behaviour by the universities in their decision in how many people to enrol in different
disciplines.”
Birmingham also indicated steps to direct resources to areas that would have a direct benefit to
business. “We need to find a method that drives an outcome which is frankly more attuned with
what the employment market demands,” he declared. The minister contemptuously told
students to consider the prospects of finding work in a particular field before beginning their
studies.
The speech followed a string of commentaries in the financial press complaining about the high
numbers of students enrolled in courses such as law and teaching, compared to fields such as
IT, which are central to the “innovation economy” being touted by the government.
An Australian editorial last week, for instance, declared that the government “would do
students, universities and the national interest a major service by reforming a system in which
too many students with low tertiary entrance scores, who may not finish their degrees, are
being drawn to courses with poor job prospects.” The newspaper repeated its call for the
government to “direct resources to increasing places in fields with the most pressing skills
shortages.”
The editorial made clear that any conception of education as a social right aimed at the allrounded cultural and intellectual development of individuals is a thing of the past as far as the
corporate elite is concerned.
The heads of various university institutions have voiced similar conclusions. On August 17,
Vicki Thomson, head of the Group of Eight wealthiest “sandstone universities,” called for an
end to uncapped student enrolments. She called for a “new model,” to ensure “access and
equity for all who are eligible to the program most suited for them but not at the expense of
quality.”
In an earlier speech, Thomson said: “Why are we all so reticent about stating the obvious—that
university isn’t for everyone. It was never intended for everyone.”
In 2012, the previous Labor government uncapped the number of places universities could
offer to students, while making their funding dependent on how many they enrolled. The move
was aimed at opening higher education up to the demands of the market and driving evergreater competition between universities for enrolments, particularly in the most lucrative
business-related degrees.
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At the same time, the Labor government, under both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, slashed a
total of $6.6 billion from higher education and research between 2011 and 2013. This only
intensified the fight between universities to attract both domestic students and full fee-paying
international students, while cutting costs, thus driving up class sizes and reliance on lowerwage casual staff.
Both the Coalition and Labor opposition are committed to further cuts. The government is
seeking to slash $3.2 billion from the sector. Birmingham earlier this month likened universities
to “five-year-olds pleading for more chocolate who don’t appear to realise that budgets may
have reached their limits already.”
The government has also advanced plans for higher student fees for “flagship courses.” In
2014, the government sought to deregulate all fees, which could have seen the average threeyear bachelor’s degree priced at $100,000. That plan stalled in the Senate. The latest proposal
to partially deregulate fees is aimed at developing a two-tier system, with the most sought-after
degrees accessible only to the wealthiest students.
For its part, during the campaign for the July 2 federal election, Labor announced at least $320
million in university funding cuts. Labor’s measures included lowering the repayment threshold
for student fees and loans, so that students would be forced to pay back their debts when they
begin earning $50,000, rather than the current $54,000. Labor also called for the abolition of
concessional fees for students in numbers of fields, including early childhood education.
Already, there is a stepped-up assault on the jobs and conditions of staff and academics at
universities. Last December, the University of Sydney (USYD) adopted plans to slash
undergraduate degrees from 122 to just 20, and to amalgamate 16 faculties and schools into
six faculties and three schools. The restructure is based on a model previously implemented at
the University of Melbourne, including the destruction of hundreds of jobs. USYD’s move
includes the relocation of its visual design school, the Sydney College of the Arts, and the axing
of 50 of its staff, or some 60 percent of the workforce.
Flinders University in Adelaide is similarly planning to merge its 14 schools and four faculties
into six colleges, sparking fears of jobs cuts. Adelaide University is planning a restructure, while
the University of Western Australia began the destruction of 300 jobs in June.
In addition, as a result of Labor’s restructuring of university funding, rates of casualisation
across the sector have soared. Casual and sessional academics, most of whom earn less than
$500 per week while teaching, now do half the teaching and research in Australian universities.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which covers most academics and university
staff, has played the central role in enforcing the ongoing restructure of universities. The union
has done everything it can to politically subordinate the widespread hostility among staff and
students to the process to its chief architect, the Labor Party, as well as the Greens, who kept
the last minority Labor government in office. At the same time, the NTEU has worked hand-inhand with university authorities to force through redundancies, faculty mergers and other probusiness moves.
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