campusreview. com. au policy & reform behind HELP cost calculations to give an estimate of spending, but the savings on HELP will not be enough to offset extra expenditure on the Commonwealth Grant Scheme.
Whilst universities will be glad that Commonwealth contributions per student will not be cut, this is a costly victory. It has forced the government to seek more harmful savings that do not need Senate approval. Cuts to the Sustainable Research Excellence program are an example of this. A freeze in per university Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding, which could be done via funding agreements from 2017, might be next.
Robbing SRE to pay NCRIS
Vicki Thomson, Go8 chief executive The Go8 is obviously delighted that the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy( NCRIS) has been saved. That was an essential component of the budget for us and we are pleased the government listened to the research community and the Go8’ s persistent lobbying. However, just as obviously, we are concerned that the Sustainable Research Excellence fund( SRE) has been cut by $ 262 million over three years to pay for the survival of NCRIS.
NCRIS had to be saved. That was critical. But robbing Peter to pay Paul leads only to more research funding issues. The difficult result of the budget cut is that the very research NCRIS supports will be affected.
As Australia’ s collection of leading research universities – the group that receives about 73 per cent of such funding – the Go8 is going to feel this pain most. We don’ t want important research to be affected, and in every one of our universities, lifesaving medical research has to be funded, or Australians and Australia’ s economy will suffer.
None of us wants research such as that into severe depression, malaria prevention, babies’ cardiovascular and respiratory risk to be compromised. As I have said a number of times since the budget, we must better explain to politicians and the Australian taxpayer why the proper funding of university research is so essential.
Australia relies more on its university sector to carry out research than most other Western nations. However, since just 2012, more than $ 1 billion has been cut from research funding programs by both the former Labor government and the current government. It is a worrying trend.
University research saves lives, changes lives, improves productivity and helps revitalise economies. Compromising what it can achieve is short-sighted.
Still no real answers
Michael Spence, University of Sydney vice-chancellor The 2015 – 16 federal Budget confirmed there is still no viable solution for the problems that threaten the quality and competitiveness of Australia’ s higher education sector. It is profoundly disappointing that successive governments on both sides of politics have failed to find a path forward to developing the‘ clever country’ so critical to our future.
The federal government remains committed to the higher education reforms it proposed last year, whilst the opposition continues to resist those reforms but as yet has put forward only piecemeal proposals.
Although the budget included a renewed commitment to the Medical Research Future Fund – this time decoupled from the Medicare co-payment proposal – the overall picture for research and innovation funding remains challenging. The Medical Research Future Fund is to be funded predominantly from savings proposed in a wide range of health programs – cuts that still require legislative approval in the Senate. It’ s disappointing that funding for non-health research in the budget is projected to fall by 6.8 per cent in this budget year, and by 10.1 per cent in real terms across the forward estimates.
Flaws in the current funding system have increased the tension between research and teaching in our universities. This particularly affects the large metropolitan universities that have both a large research enterprise and the whole suite of significantly underfunded subjects.
Recent funding cuts and policy uncertainty threaten the international competitiveness of our best universities and put our teaching at risk.
I have written to staff and students at the University of Sydney to encourage them to engage with their local members to communicate the importance of a properly funded higher education sector. It is imperative that higher education remains part of the national political conversation in the run-up to the next federal election.
New year, same disappointment
Jeannie Rea, NTEU national president It looks like back to the future for higher education. I opened Budget Paper One and there it said,“ full deregulation of university fees and a 20 per cent cut to the commonwealth supported places funding from the government”.
Terribly disappointing when you consider that it has been voted down twice in the Senate. Polls keep being done and polls keep saying that three-quarters of all Australians oppose fee deregulation of higher education and the cutting of funding for higher education.
People just seem to keep saying – and I am not at all surprised – that the cost of going to university isn’ t something that should be unfairly borne by students; it’ s a community responsibility and it is something government should be funding.
It is quite reasonable for ordinary Australians to think their kids could go to university. If they do a good job at school and get a good entry score, they should be able to go to the course and the university [ of their choice ] where they will be able to do a degree and go on to contribute to their community. This government hasn’ t got that message at all.
Added to that, the government continues to say it will cut public funding – undermining our public universities by handing over subsidies to private providers. This is something staff, students and the public overwhelmingly reject. Yet the government is arrogantly pushing ahead.
People will generally react with total disappointment to the higher education part of the budget. The education minister, Christopher Pyne’ s, surprise fix has turned out not to be a surprise at all, with the NCRIS funded through $ 150 million in cuts to the Sustainable Research Excellence initiative. Basically, the deal is we will take away one group of researchers’ jobs to pay for another group of researchers jobs.
Same thing is going on in the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies – an important national institution. It’ s going to get $ 5 million to keep it going, but that money will come from money for helping support those students coming from underrepresented cohorts in higher education, which of course includes many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
So to me it’ s the same sort of mean-spirited budget that we saw last year. n
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