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campusreview.com.au
Australian strategic policy analyst
Alex Joske. Picture: Gary Ramage
2019: the year that was
A review of the key higher
education issues of 2019.
By Wade Zaglas
O
ne controversy that kept rearing
its head in 2019 was the Ramsay
Centre’s Western civilisation
degree and its attendant negotiations with
the Universities of Wollongong, Sydney and
Queensland.
To date, only UOW has committed to
the Western civilisation program, with the
Ramsay Centre walking away from a deal
with USYD. The Ramsay degree also failed
to attract enough interest at UQ.
In some ways, the Western civilisation
degree played out as part of the culture
war between the left and right. Members
of UOW’s academic senate even initiated
legal action to stop the Ramsay deal, before
withdrawing it after considering the costs
involved.
Another important story this year
originated from ABC TV’s Four Corners.
In an episode titled ‘Cash Cows’, it was
alleged that some Australian universities
were waiving important English and other
prerequisite tests for international students
who did not have the necessary skills.
A coterie of Murdoch University
academics, frustrated by what they believed
was a clear case of putting profit before
quality, blew the whistle on the issues
occurring at their institution.
Another well-read and somewhat bizarre
story reported on a UTS academic who
allegedly sent herself threatening notes after
a Chinese medicine course was dropped
at her university. The professor spent over
$150,000 of UTS funds in security measures
to protect herself from perceived threats.
She pleaded not guilty to the charges and
has since been granted bail.
Considering higher education is our third
largest export market, it was disconcerting
to report on some of the horrendous
conditions that international students had
to endure to chase their university dreams
in Australia. Associate Professor Bassina
Farbenblum from UNSW said international
students looking for a place to live often
had to stumble through a “minefield of
problems”.
“Landlords exploit students because they
can,” she told AAP.
The students are far from home, they
don’t know their rights, and they need a
roof over their heads.
“We found exploitative practices like
a student’s rent being almost doubled
overnight during an exam period,” she said.
In terms of rankings, Australian
universities cemented their reputations
as some of the leading institutions in the
world, particularly in specific subjects. For
example, Australia is now ranked fifth in
science and social science worldwide.
Another important achievement for
Australia was a tripling in the number of its
highly cited researchers (HCRs) since 2014:
there were only 80 Australian HCRs named
in 2014, compared with 217 in 2019.
While Australia has been actively
recruiting HCRs from overseas since 2014,
there has also been a steep increase in the
number of homegrown HCRs.
Speech and language acquisition
researchers at Charles Sturt University
received the American Journal of Speech-
Language Pathology Editor’s Award for the
best paper published in a prestigious US
journal in 2018.
Sharynne McLeod, professor of speech
and language acquisition at the Charles
Sturt School of Teacher Education, and
colleague Dr Kate Crowe were conferred
the award for their article, ‘Children’s
Consonant Acquisition in 27 Languages:
A Cross-Linguistic Review’.
On a more troubling note, one issue
that came to light this year was foreign
interference at Australian universities, with
two substantial and successful hacks of
student data at ANU going back years.
Alex Joske, an analyst at the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute, said ANU was
targeted because it trains thousands of
individuals who will eventually work in the
national security community.
If ANU holds information that
compromises these people, such as a
history of plagiarism or sexual harassment
allegations, “then this is incredibly
concerning and could undermine our
national security”.
He, like other professionals working in
the national safety space, have also raised
serious concerns about “lucrative” research
partnerships between China and Australia.
“It’s clearly not in Australia’s interest to be
recklessly training scientists who will go on
to develop technologies that could be used
against our military and against our county,”
Joske said.
Another hot topic last year was what
constitutes academic cheating and how
should it be countered. Research revealed
that the practice was widespread, with
thousands of students admitting to using
third-party contract cheating services.
And finally, like their PISA results,
Singapore dominated the QS Asian
University Rankings for 2020, with the
National University of Singapore (NUS)
taking out the top spot for a second year
in row.
Nanyang International University,
Singapore, which held the top position
in 2018, was ranked second this year,
followed by the University of Hong
Kong (3), Tsinghua University (4) and Peking
University (5).
The rise of quality education in Asian
countries was a talking point last year, and
the trend looks set to continue. ■
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