NEWS campusreview. com. au
Money flow: classroom to lab
A chunk of student fees and government cash goes to research, not teachers: Grattan.
The authors of a report indicating that Australian universities are using about $ 2 billion in teaching-related revenue to subsidise research have questioned the benefit to student learning or services.
The report, The Cash Nexus: how teaching funds research in Australian universities, by the Grattan Institute, has found that about one-fifth of all university research funding comes from surpluses generated through student fees and government funds, with revenue from international students a major contributor.
Grattan Institute higher education program director Andrew Norton said that while university research was important to Australia, the evidence that it improved teaching was less clear.
“ Direct spending on teaching, by contrast, is far more likely to ensure that universities offer the high-quality courses students want,” Norton said.
He said that with global university rankings geared towards rewarding quality research output, universities were under pressure to increase research funding. The report stated that such a drive had contributed to universities collectively earning up to $ 3.2 billion more from students than is spent on teaching.
“ Under the current system, there is no guarantee that any new investment in universities – whether from public or private sources – will benefit students,” Norton said.
The report called for greater transparency in universities’ public reporting of spending. Norton argued that only through such reforms would taxpayers and students be able to know“ they’ re getting what they pay for when they invest in university education”.
“ Any reform must grapple with the fact that universities co-produce teaching and research – the two activities have tensions as well as synergies,” the report concluded.“ The teaching-research cash nexus means students may not benefit directly from extra public investment in higher education, or from any additional fees … A new costing system is not about changing the teaching and research missions of universities, just ensuring that additional research spending doesn’ t come at the expense of students.” ■
Riordan: no funds to shonky VET
TAFE body cranks up pressure on private providers amid Unique scandal.
TAFE Directors Australia has called on the government to place an urgent freeze on funding to“ highrisk” vocational training providers, and ban others, amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the VET FEE-HELP scheme. In a statement, TDA chief executive
Martin Riordan urged the Coalition to“ use its policy levers over federal student loans and state and territory vocational education funding, to stop the rip-offs to students and taxpayers and the growing damage to the reputation of Australia’ s vocational education and training( VET) system”.
PM Malcolm Turnbull described the existing funding system as a“ shambles” and foreshadowed further legislative actions to prevent rorting of VET FEE-HELP.
“ We don’ t want to continue to subsidise what has turned out to be in many cases very speculative and poor-quality courses being offered,” Turnbull told News Ltd.
Just days earlier, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced it had initiated legal proceedings against VET provider Unique International College over allegations the company made“ false or misleading representations and engaged in misleading or deceptive and unconscionable conduct”.
“ Each day brings new revelations of the calculated efforts by a number of private training colleges whose business model seems built on fleecing taxpayers and leaving students with unconscionable levels of debt,” Riordan said.“ TDA has been urging action on this going back as far as 2011.
“ TDA is especially concerned about the effectiveness of the regulator.”
While agreeing with calls for urgent overhauls to VET funding models, ACPET chief executive Rod Camm, in a statement, called for caution against“ trashing the whole vocational education sector”.
“ While I will not accept any excuses for the poor behaviour of some providers and brokers, it is only a small number of providers that have taken advantage of flaws in VET FEE-HELP,” Camm said. ■
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