Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small
Business and Education Committee
Peter J. Dowling
10 Richards Avenue
East Launceston
Tasmania 7250
Email: Peter.Dowling@utas.edu.au
16 February, 2001
Submission to Senate Inquiry on Higher Education
I am writing to offer some policy suggestions which may be of interest
to the Senate Inquiry. These suggestions are not comprehensive across
all of the issues in higher education. They simply represent my work experience,
interests and prejudices. In the interests of your time and mine, my views
are expressed in a brief format to cover key points.
Key issues to consider
• Review the current differential HECS prices. There are serious
disincentives to studying Science and Engineering; Commerce/Business is
fully priced and overall, the middle and top HECS rates make Australian
public universities relatively expensive compared to state universities
in the US and Europe.
• The cuts to operating grants are bad but much worse is the refusal
to fund salary increases. Universities can generate some additional income,
but they cannot survive without some form of regular salary supplementation
like any other public sector employer.
• There is a growing problem with Commerce and Law students who
do not on average receive back what they pay – ie. their departments
do not on average receive back from their university funding to the value
of what students have paid. Students in these disciplines are being treated
as the cash cows of the system and they do not like it. This is particularly
the case with Law students who pay the top level of HECS. I am not aware
of any Law school which receives over $5500 EFTSU funding. Students are
becoming aware that there is a problem and some Law students are talking
about a class action suit against DETYA for breach of contract. Part of
the problem here is the outdated relative funding model used by universities
to internally distribute money.
• Remuneration in Australian universities suffers from two core
rigidities. First, there is an assumption that geography does not really
count. There is rigid pattern bargaining across Australia with national
rates of pay. This practice does not acknowledge the obvious fact that
academics in the large cities are faced with higher levels of housing
debt than in the regions – ie. they are in different geographic labour
markets. Second, there is an assumption that across the 40+ departments/disciplines
in a medium-size university, all these labour markets are the same and
that a system of uniform national rates of pay is still viable.
This "paid rates" approach is a legacy of the past. A refusal
to recognise the problems inherent in this approach will only accentuate
what is obvious – many institutions which wish to remain competitive
and retain good staff are motivated to find ways around the current system
with various forms of special allowances and privatisation.
Some specific suggestions
• Consider moving to the US system of a 4-year undergraduate
degree for Arts, Commerce and Science with most of the first year
devoted to general education. The current British 3-year degree is based
on the notion of a relatively low participation rate and well prepared
students from secondary school. With an explosion of participation rates
the old assumptions do not apply. You cannot move from a participation
rate of about 18% to over 40% and assume things have not changed. Many
students are poorly prepared and find it difficult to cope with the demands
of adjusting to the university environment, gaining basic numeracy and
literacy skills and completing two majors in only six semesters.
An additional year should be devoted to a set requirement of taking subjects
in writing and communication; statistics (or some other numeracy area)
and civics/history/politics plus perhaps one subject from a nominated
major. This suggestion would be a disaster if it simply added further
free choice – specific skill sets must be acquired to justify
additional funding.
• Encourage the movement of students across state borders and out
of home capital cities by funding a national student registration centre
to operate in the same way as current state-based systems but on a national
basis. Unfortunately, in Australia we do not have the US or European tradition
of "going away to college" – students tend to stay in the
same city. Students who are interested in going to university outside
of their state find that the onus is on them to do everything and this
contrasts poorly with the quite efficient state-focussed tertiary education
centres. This could be a real boost for regional universities and of course
the national centre could be in a region rather than in Canberra.
• Further encourage enrolment in the regions by offering discounted
HECS rates for all students studying outside of a capital city. In suggesting
this I recognise that a special case for exemption could perhaps be made
for capital cities in states such as Tasmania and South Australia which
are struggling even with a national economy which has been growing. This
would be very popular in the regions as it is well understood (even by
the National Party which understood the negative job impact of the VSU
crusade) that healthy higher education institutions are vital to the local
economy of a region.