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“ Higher education policy is too important to be allowed to become a Frankenstein-ian by-product of pre-election political positioning,” she said.
Regional Universities Network executive director Dr Caroline Perkins said the failed legislation was especially disappointing for rural and regional Australia as the package would have paved the way to greater funding of much needed sub-bachelor courses.
“ Sub-bachelor placements [ and qualifications help provide ] pathways systems for less-prepared students and many students in regional Australia are lessprepared,” she told Campus Review.
“ So that is a great disappointment to us that any move to expand the demand driven system to include sub-bachelor places will be delayed – resolving this is a matter of some urgency and so we urge everyone to work together for the good of our nation, our universities and students to resolve this.”
University of Southern Queensland vice-chancellor professor Jan Thomas said the positive to come from what she described as“ chaos” had been a collective acceptance by all stakeholders that the status quo would not provide a sustainable future for the system.
“ Everyone knows that and I think the difference is just around what the mechanism around that is,” she told Campus Review.“ The question in every vice-chancellor’ s mind now is where the government is [ going to make the fiscal constraints ]. We won’ t know that until the May budget and so we’ ll be looking to that with much interest.”
University of Canberra vice-chancellor professor Stephen Parker – the only university chief to vocally rail against the government’ s legislation – reiterated his previous comments that while the process by which debate had been established was sub-optimal the Senate’ s actions meant a proper consultation on much needed reform could now take place.
“ Higher education had become a political football and now we have an opportunity at least to sit down and have a sensible debate that is not based on scaremongering and threats,” he told Campus Review.
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, pledged to push on with the government’ s higher-education reform agenda saying that anyone“ serious about higher education knows that the current situation for universities is unsustainable and that more strength is needed in the system”.
“ These reforms have huge benefits for students from all walks of life. They extend opportunity and ensure there are enough places for students who would otherwise not get into university,” Pyne said.
“ They are fair because they treat higher education students in TAFEs and colleges the same as university students. They keep our universities’ quality high, so they can offer students the best possible education.
“ We will therefore bring back the higher education reform package for the Parliament to consider. We will not give up. We will continue to work with Senators and others who wish to be part of a constructive discussion.”
However Labor and the Greens along with key cross-benchers such as the newly independent Senator Glenn Lazarus remain heavily opposed to an unregulated market.
Greens higher-education spokeswoman Senator Lee Rhiannon said the bill’ s defeat had been“ a tribute to community action” and placed doubt on Pyne’ s future in his portfolio.
“ It sends a strong signal to this cruel, out of touch Abbott Government,” Rhiannon said.“ Their elitist dreams for Australia do not have the support of the Senate or the people. This major defeat for the government raises more questions about the prime minister’ s leadership.
“ The minister ' s scare tactics to intimidate cross-benchers have not worked.”
Rhiannon agreed that the debate about the future of higher education was not over, saying that the Greens looked forward to participating in broad consultations with the higher education sector regarding future reforms.
“ The Greens are proud to have stood alongside the thousands of students and staff who have been campaigning for the past year against this damaging legislation,” she said.“ This bill would have destroyed public higher education in Australia and consigned students to huge debts that would have taken decades to pay off.” With expectation rising that Pyne may re-introduce a new version of the legislation possibly after the May budget, Rhiannon’ s sentiment has been echoed by students as well as the National Tertiary Education Union.
In a statement, NTEU national president Jeannie Rea accused the Coalition of“ abrogating its responsibility to fund our world-class public higher education system by persisting with unprincipled, unfair and unsustainable policies that shift the cost burden for university education onto the shoulders of students and their families”.“ Polling has continued to show that these policies are opposed by the majority of the public, with only one in five voters supporting deregulation. Both Senate votes on this bill have reflected this sentiment,” Rea said.“ In the OECD, only Japan has a lower level of public investment in tertiary education than Australia and fees to attend our public universities are already amongst the highest in the world.
“ Fee deregulation will result in some fees and HECS debts exceeding $ 100,000, which will act as a deterrent for others to take up the university places that they have earned on merit.
“ It is not a good economic or social investment to encourage students into university if those students are unable to complete their education because of a lack of income and other support while studying.”
Pyne’ s continued pursuit of reform has attracted strong support from the private education sector, however, with the Council of Private Higher Education( COPHE) imploring the minister not to give up in the face of a hostile Senate.
COPHE chief executive Adrian McComb said although the defeat of the bill was disappointing, Pyne was right“ for the sake of all Australian students” to press on with the government’ s agenda.
“ Reform is vital to ensuring Australia ' s higher education system is well placed to face the avalanche of change facing the sector globally,” McComb said.“ Maintaining the status quo takes us nowhere and frankly no one opposed has proposed any workable alternative.
“ We applaud Minister Pyne for his tenacity in declaring he will continue to pursue the reforms. The sector needs to overcome the misleading scare campaign around $ 100,000 degrees.
“ The CEOs of our member institutions have indicated that they would pass on Commonwealth support received to their students. That and the removal of the 25 per cent loan administration fee would make a big difference to non-university higher education students’ debt.”
McComb added that continuing with capped prices whilst universities’ costs increased would“ exacerbate decline in universities”, and argued that – provided there remained some form of independent oversight – deregulation could deliver a high-quality education system for providers and students. n
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