Labor’s main election promise for higher education is to restore the demand-driven system of funding, also known as scrapping the “cap” on government funding. Here’s why that would be a good policy.
Jan Feld, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Nicolás Salamanca, The University of Melbourne, dan Ulf Zoelitz, University of Zurich
As students return to campuses this week, new research shows universities could save money by not asking professors to teach tutorials because they are no more effective than student instructors.
Tensions between the government and the university sector ran high in 2018, with the government cutting funding to student places and research and a big push back from universities.
Most universities do, in fact, mention academic freedom in several policy documents, such as enterprise bargaining agreements and other codes of conduct.
Australian higher education policy debates focus primarily on how and by whom universities are funded. This diminishes understanding of universities’ democratic purpose and wider social mission.
Despite the Federal Government’s teacher education reforms and the push for evidence-based teaching, less than 2% of ARC research funding is directed to educational research.
The freeze on university funding not only limits opportunities for students, it puts limitations on the communities unis serve, the economy, and business interested in forming collaborations.
Vice-chancellors often benchmark their salaries against comparable positions in other corporate sectors, a symptom of the trend towards the corporatisation of universities in Australia.
New analysis of education expenditure shows spending on the vocational education and training sector has declined while other sectors have experienced growth.
The fact that a university has a surplus doesn’t mean it has a profit to be either reinvested or returned to shareholders. Grants, for example, should be spent on the projects they’re intended for.
The government is seeking savings of $2.8 billion from higher education over the budget period, in another attempt at a major shake-up of Australia’s university sector.