news
Universities need long-term vision
Vice-chancellors have called for consistent policy and bipartisan support for higher education to promote Australia’ s future development. By Dallas Bastian
Australia needs to develop a strategic higher education plan in order to remain internationally competitive, according to vice-chancellors who met in Sydney recently.
International rankings and reputation were high on the agenda when the Committee for Economic Development of Australia( CEDA) brought tertiary education leaders together to discuss future directions.
Vice-chancellor at the University of Sydney Michael Spence, who spoke at the event, said a long-term strategic vision for research and innovation was needed to ensure Australian universities did not drop further in the global rankings.
He said it was important to maintain support for university research and to provide institutions with the funding certainty needed to build critical mass and quality.
“ If we don’ t do that, then there’ s a real risk that the rankings of some of our best universities will continue to slide,” he said.
University of Newcastle vicechancellor Caroline McMillen said it was also important that we engaged with international partners in order to deliver innovation.
There was a policy disconnect between first class research and its translation into real world innovation, she said, but this was needed to ensure economic prosperity for the country.
A stop-start approach to the funding of industry engagement, innovation councils and transformation hubs and precincts was creating the policy disconnect, she told attendees.
“ We need some consistency to get a stable policy environment that will allow our research excellence to futureproof Australia’ s productivity through great innovation,” McMillen said.
Fred Hilmer, vice-chancellor of the University of NSW, put forward conditions to ensure good policy for the sector. He said universities have failed to create a stable environment and now need to focus on ensuring the community understands what a good university system can provide.
“ By and large if we were better understood and if we were better appreciated, we wouldn’ t be the easy mark every time there’ s a budget problem,” he said.
A commitment in the community to achieve the perceived benefits universities can bring about is also a requirement, he said, and this needs to be bipartisan due to the long time frame universities need to develop new projects and initiatives.
Hilmer suggests a unified front between universities and peak bodies is needed to reach common goals.“ From my point of view I would much prefer to see [ Universities Australia ] as a federation, where the heads of the different groups... could meet and sort out common positions.”
Conference attendees also discussed the state of the HECS system.
Bruce Chapman, director of policy impact at Australian National University’ s Crawford School, made the point that the economics of HECS is different from normal markets because of the nature of income-contingent loans.
He said the system should not be changed to allow for price competition, saying it was an uninformed way to think about tuition charges.
“ You can’ t use this system in price competition,” he said.“ Once you have such a system, you can’ t have any pricing at all.”
There was a strong case for governments to keep a price cap on the system or students could end up paying more, he said. ■
8 | campusreview. com. au