policy & reform
In the wash-up of the 2013 budget, treasurer Wayne Swan delivered relatively little to universities in the way of funding, and certainly nothing unexpected, following the wielding of the commonwealth scalpel in April.
To add to the woes of higher education institutions, the rhetoric from the coalition suggests there will be no reversal of these funding cuts if they win government later this year.
Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research, Dr Craig Emerson, had only been in the job for a couple of weeks before announcing an unwelcome revision to university funding.
In March, he was reiterating the government’ s goal to have 10 Australian universities in the world’ s top 100 by 2025.
By April, he had cut the funding that might facilitate that climb up the global rankings ladder – with a two per cent‘ efficiency dividend’ across most teaching and research grants and programs in 2014, and 1.25 per cent in 2015.
A spokesman for the minister said the government“ remains committed to a strong university system in Australia” and“ would have preferred not to have had to introduce the savings measures”.
“ The government is making tough decisions in order to fund the National Plan for School Improvement and ensure the fiscal sustainability of the budget over the long term. These include savings in the higher education sector, as well as tough savings decisions in other portfolios,” Campus Review was told.
The efficiency dividend will be applied across 19 programs including the Commonwealth Grants Scheme, Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, Indigenous and Disability Support Programs, Research Infrastructure Block Grants and more. It will save about $ 900 million.
Shadow minister for Universities and Research, senator Brett Mason said he welcomes all contributions to their ongoing policy development process.
He’ s familiar with Universities Australia’ s Policy Advice for an Incoming Government 2013-2016 which clearly calls for an increase in the level of base funding for universities and other targeted investment.
However, in a speech to the Universities Australia Higher Education Conference earlier this year, the leader of the opposition Tony Abbott gave every indication that increased funding was not likely.
“ In a constrained budget environment, to avoid further cuts rather than to win higher funding is often the best outcome that particular sectors can hope for,” he said.“ What was possible in an era of $ 20 billion a year surpluses is not possible following an era of $ 50 billion a year deficits.”
The authors of Raising the Stakes: Gambling with the Future of Universities probably couldn’ t have timed the launch of their new book better – 10 days after the funding cuts were announced.
www. campusreview. com. au May 2013 | 17