Workplace stress among academics has long been higher in Australia and New Zealand than overseas, and research suggests the flow-on impacts on students could fuel a vicious cycle of negative feedback.
When funding imperatives dominate universities’ strategies, higher education loses sight of the work it ought to be doing: developing graduates who can make a real difference in the world.
Richard Hil’s Selling Students Short: Why You Won’t Get the Education You Deserve is a timely exposé of the difficult conditions facing students at Australia’s increasingly corporatised universities.
While Four Corners shed some much-needed light on long-standing problems in higher education, these problems aren’t reserved for international students.
The recent furore about academic standards in Australian higher education – including Monday’s damning Four Corners expose – has the potential to bring not only desperately needed attention, but actual change, to the sector.
A new report from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption says Australian universities have become increasingly reliant on income from fee-paying international students, and is letting academic standards slide for the valuable income stream.