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campusreview . com . au
New learning economy
Key lessons for higher education leaders .
By Emilie Lauer
A new book , The New Learning Economy : Thriving Beyond Higher Education , has investigated the changing landscape of Australia ’ s tertiary economic model and commitments to lifelong learning .
Book co-authors , HEDx co-founder Emeritus Professor Martin Betts and Queensland University of Technology Professor Michael Rosemann , said the current tertiary funding model won ’ t be able to satisfy Australia ’ s interest in lifelong learning .
“ Universities right now might continue to be able to proceed with the processes and operating models , but they probably will largely miss out on what we envisage being a growing economy by lifelong learning ,” Professor Rosemann said .
“ To build revenue resilience , future universities can ’ t just look on the cost side but need to develop more proficiency , eloquence and capability around the revenue side .”
Martin Betts and Michael Rosemann joined Campus Review to discuss how university leaders can help drive their institutions into the new learning economy .
CR : What does the current learning economy look like in higher education ? MB : We think of different stages of education through primary , secondary and tertiary or higher education .
And they are incredibly staged in the way that they ’ re set up at the moment . And not only for here in Australia , but the similarities we have between how it ’ s organised in the developed and Western world , and in Asia , and in the East , in the Americas , and in Africa .
There there ’ s an incredibly common pattern to the way that we have assumed that we ’ ll develop competence and knowledge in all people at early ages and allow that to lead to some specialism in our universities .
It ’ s why our universities around the world are remarkably similar .
They have very common missions . They are somewhat similar in size , the way that they ’ re organised . We are starting to see that the emergence of more private institutions is giving some greater diversity in that . And maybe the biggest area of differentiation in the way that universities and the current learning economy is organised around the world is the extent to which different groups and different rates with which people participate in that economy .
In some parts of the world , it ’ s 50 per cent are continuing to be actively engaged in learning beyond secondary education . In other parts of the world , in other parts of society , it ’ s a much smaller number than that .
What are some the biggest limitations of the educational models we use today ? MR : Martin and I looked at the current environment , and we realised in the
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