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POLICY & REFORM many corners had to be cut to make ends meet in that part of the sector. So when you look at the data outlining what they’ ve achieved, it’ s pretty spectacular. It does show an incredible amount of resilience. That was one thing.
The other single statistic I was impressed by was the number of Australians in the workforce with a HASS degree. You get used to humanities arts and social sciences being talked about as just a personal development activity rather than creating employable people for the workforce. Sixty per cent of Australians with tertiary education, tertiary qualifications, have a HASS degree.
That doesn’ t mean they’ re all in the workforce, but that must mean you’ re looking at probably the majority of the Australians in the workforce [ that have tertiary education ] have a HASS degree. So to argue that you’ re not producing good employment outcomes is just simply ludicrous.
You mentioned at the launch you have not yet been able to discuss these issues directly with Christopher Pyne. Do you feel that the education minister adequately acknowledges the importance of HASS? It’ s always difficult to get time with ministers. Often there’ s got to be something in it for them. We would hope to present this report to the minister and discuss it with him or his advisers. His department now knows about it.
In the past I don’ t think we had anything strong to take to him. In my experience, you need to have something strong to take if you’ re going to take up the minister’ s time. I’ m not drawing any implications from the fact we haven’ t talked to him. I do hope we can present this report to him and have a discussion about it and what it suggests.
You mention in the report that many of the sector’ s problems, such as ballooning teacher-student ratios, an ageing workforce and lack of funding, could largely be solved within existing funding frameworks if universities had the will to explore alternatives. What effect would the planned reforms have on universities’ ability to solve the HASS sector’ s problems? Not necessarily any. The kind of thing we’ re talking about is the universities making slightly different decisions about their strategic expenditure. So at the present they’ re sinking a lot of money into biomedical and hard sciences in research for instance – but they’ re putting almost nothing into HASS. There are a few, like the University of Western Sydney, that put a lot of money into it. They’ ve achieved great results as a consequence.
I think that often what we’ re looking at is a decision made at the university level, about how they spend the money that’ s been given to them, that goes to where they think the greatest benefit will come from in terms of commercialisation or co-funding. [ HASS ] doesn’ t compete well on that, so we have lost ground.
I think the value of HASS needs to be restated so there’ s a greater commitment to investing in it at the university level within current funding arrangements or in those of the future. I think it’ s still possible to re-invest in these areas and build them up.
You mentioned biomedical research as an area that finds it easier to attract funding. Is it a case of HASS outcomes being less tangible than a new cancer treatment, for example? It’ s hard because the argument looks like it’ s a no-brainer. What are your going to spend money on, Australian history or curing cancer? My response is that they are not mutually exclusive. The money you spend on this isn’ t necessarily going to go to curing cancer.
If you’ re looking at a big comprehensive university system, you have to be spending money on [ HASS ] disciplines as well. They’ re fundamental to the modern university. To have a modern system that doesn’ t have a vibrant HASS sector would be to render yourself internationally uncompetitive. Also, you forego all the benefits that come to the society from that body of disciplines. It’ s often presented to us as an either-or choice. In reality, it’ s not.
The other thing is that you’ re looking at small amounts of money to re-invest in HASS. You could build a whole research centre for HASS with a fraction of the cost that it takes to put one up in biomedical. And the benefits might be fantastically significant.
The report indicated that just 16 per cent of the nation’ s research funding went into HASS over the past decade, yet it is responsible for 34 per cent of output from universities. We’ re cheap – but if you’ re cheap you often don’ t get respect. Sometimes I think we’ d be better off if we were much more expensive.
I work in the humanities and my feeling there is that, too often, the mode of dealing with universities has been one of complaint and entitlement rather than saying:“ This is a really good idea you should invest in – give us some money.”
As the report indicates, the sector overall is showing amazing resilience. How sustainable is that? The workforce information raises a question about that – an ageing workforce, poor patterns of replenishment, disenchantment of the younger staff who can’ t get continuing positions, the consequent effect on research productivity. I would think the current situation, if it were allowed to continue, would be quite deleterious. This is not a new issue – particularly the ageing academic workforce.
Because the Baby Boomers are retiring? That’ s right. There are all kinds of interesting little points that show up in the data. For instance, the amount of work that’ s being published by people who are emeritus professors like myself and aren’ t employed anymore. They’ re still churning out the work compared [ with ] the level‘ A’ s and‘ B’ s, who are teaching themselves to extinction. We have a system of production that is not, in the long term, going to serve us well.
How do we then balance the teaching needs of the universities whilst getting a pipeline going of people with enough experience to tackle senior academic and administrative roles? I think it’ s a question of will. I think they’ ve got to have the commitment to invest in these areas rather than think they can make short-term, band-aid solutions.
It’ s not like universities are going broke. Sure, they have difficult budgets to balance – but nonetheless, there is money there.
So this idea of saying [ you’ re ] not making continuing appointments – anyone who knows how the universities work knows that’ s a bad short-term decision. You’ d be better off making good long-term continuing appointments that will build for the future. What they’ re doing now is getting through the next budget cycle.
That’ s one of the reasons I suspect the universities have opted for deregulation. They see that as regaining control over their budgets in a way that will render them a little bit more flexible in the future. I don’ t share their support for deregulation, but I can see why they would be attracted to that notion. ■
To listen to the full interview, please go to: bit. ly / 1wUpLml.
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