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We are really turning a fresh page here in terms of where next for universities .
In-between days
Rethinking university traditions , practices and beliefs during a time of upheaval .
Andrew Jaspan interviewed by Wade Zaglas
The COVID-19 pandemic tore a hole in the Australian university sector , highlighting just how dependent many of our institutions have become on international student revenue . Now , roughly a year later , the sector is still adjusting to challenging conditions and many experts have questioned how universities will need to operate in the future to remain viable , trusted and valuable institutions .
To discuss these issues Campus Review caught up with Professor Andrew Jaspan , director and editor of The Global Academy ( hosted at Monash University ) and founder of The Conversation .
Jaspan explains that , while some recovery is underway , universities around the country are rethinking their approaches and beliefs towards everything from courses , delivery modes , future student markets and the qualifications , skills and qualities they are looking for in people taking up leadership positions .
One thing is for sure , though . No university is absolutely certain about how it will be moving forward in a short-term future replete with uncertainty .
CR : We know the pandemic has had a devastating effect on the Australian university sector . Do you think it will recover any time soon ? AJ : I ’ m not on the side of the university that looks at how the revenues are rebuilding . The one thing I do know is what ’ s in the public domain , which is that universities have lost this year about 10 billion in international student revenue . Now , some of that is being recouped because universities are offering discounts on fees if they enrol for this year , remain in their country and do it online .
So there is some recovery from international student income , and also , as we become better at dealing with quarantine issues , there are increasing bubbles being formed to allow students to actually come to Australia .
Universities are pivoting somewhat towards other countries to supply students or enrol students , but also there ’ s a rethinking of the way that universities can serve a domestic audience or domestic users of their services . So in addition , for example , to the traditional three or four year degree , there is the introduction of many more short courses .
There ’ s also what Education Minister Alan Tudge has been urging universities to do , which is to develop new revenue streams , such as the commercialisation of research . Now , typically this can take many years , both in terms of developing the research and then actually earning revenue from it .
There ’ s been a very large loss of staff right across Australia through largely voluntary redundancy schemes , which has reduced the overall costs of what is probably the most expensive bit of any university , which is staffing numbers .
I still think we ’ re in what might be called an in-between stage . I think we ’ re going to have to learn to live with COVID . I think the worst is probably over , although there was a prediction that this coming year could be as bad if not worse .
Do you think Australian universities became too reliant on international markets to the detriment of domestic students ? It really is not my area of expertise , but I would recast your question somewhat insofar as public universities , which is the majority of universities in this country , 39 of them , were founded on the basis largely of being funded by the public through taxpayers . And as government funding of universities came under increased pressure , both political parties were increasingly looking at how to trim back on the support they provided the public universities .
This forced the universities to look for new revenue sources , and one of them was obviously commercialisation and the other was international students .
It became the option that most universities went towards because it was easy and it was good money , but also there was a plus side to it , which is it meant that the universities were less monocultural in so far as it wasn ’ t just full of Australians , but there was a really big mix .
I mean , I ’ ve taught some of these classes and it ’ s , at times , more like a United Nations University when you sit in a class with students from India , China , Singapore and
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