VC’ s corner
Grow up,
Australia
It’ s time Australia quit its unhealthy obsession with high- ATAR cut offs and started‘ massifying’ education in the interests of true nation building. By Jan Thomas
34 | April 2013
Tertiary entrance scores are officially‘ on the nose’.
Rather than labelling some institutions as“ second rate” for welcoming those who, through ATAR or circumstance, would traditionally end their studies in high school, should be applauding such universities for transforming the educationally disadvantaged into highly-skilled professionals.
In fact, folks fortunate to already be educated should stop looking down their noses at universities who believe in the transformative power of education, and be thankful to those who are providing a“ fair go” for all through access to education.
Although, there seems to be something vaguely familiar about this argument, a broken record even, as one vice-chancellor after another beats their chest over the nation’ s unhealthy obsession with student entry standards, rather than graduate exit standards.
A quick look at Australia’ s tertiary sector and it appears disproportionately elitist – 20 per cent of the country’ s 39 universities are sandstone, compared to just 0.3 per cent in America.
With more than 2700 accredited four-year colleges and universities in the States, just eight are Ivy League, yet in Australia, one out of five are restrictive, selective and exclusive.
Of course, sandstone universities do an excellent job in preparing the rock stars of research – the future Nobel Prize winners – but those superstars needn’ t, these days, come from privileged homes whose family dynasties are enshrined at Ivy League Universities.
In fact, as Australia transitions from an elite education system to a mass education system in response to the Bradley targets, there is a changing of the guard with the tertiary sector needing to accommodate and educate a wider range of people from a variety of backgrounds, not just those whose mothers are doctors and fathers are lawyers.
And perhaps like a silver-spooned child who can’ t get its way, it would seem many parts of society are‘ stomping their feet’, continuing to obsess over student entrance scores.
Maybe there’ s some self-preservation and egos at play rather than national interest.
It would seem some educators are more concerned with the knowledge of power and the self-perpetuation of the social strata: training, preening, educating the elite to fill civic leadership roles at the exclusion of the remaining talent pool; than with creating a knowledge economy.
There is no doubt that our academics, like traditional students, are amongst some of the brightest and the best of their disciplines and professions; most educated during a time where universities were only for the top few elite.
So are we instinctively benchmarking students in a mass education system against the old guard, the product of an elite system, to protect and preserve our disciplinary and intellectual reputations?
Perhaps traditional academics subconsciously view students as potential successors and have a culture and expectation to deliver future academics, rather than preparing them for the diverse array of opportunities facing graduates?
With increasing attainment, clearly not all graduates will become civic and professional leaders.
Is there then a failure to acknowledge the sheer significance of knowledge for knowledge’ s sake? That an increasingly educated citizenry is necessary for a mature democracy in a knowledge economy, which can only happen when sufficient Australians avail themselves of a higher education?
The truth is, high performing students do well no matter where they go, regardless of what support mechanisms are in place, simply because they are bright and self-motivated. And like birds of a feather, where the bright students go, inevitably more, even brighter students follow and the cycle continues.