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It comes on top of nine previous years as a dean and [ deputy vice-chancellor ] at Monash University.
I’ m looking forward to perhaps doing some teaching, getting back to some research, and those kinds of things. I’ m also pleased with the way the University of Canberra has gone.
Today, we’ ve moved up in world rankings significantly, and we’ ve caught up with universities that are a generation older than us. [ Also ], we’ ve got more than a billion dollars’ worth of [ campus ] developments that are all going through now.
So I kind of feel that I’ ve taken the university to a certain level, and it now needs someone with fresh energy to do it in her or his own way.
What achievements would you say have marked your term? Some of them were in the form of turnaround. When I arrived in 2007, there were some financial issues, and student numbers were low. We’ re now in a strong surplus. Our student numbers have grown 59 per cent since 2007. Our research is much stronger. We entered the QS World University Rankings three years ago, and now we’ ve moved up into clearly the world’ s top 5 per cent of universities. That places us now 25th in Australia. One of the smallest universities, but now 25th out of about 40 institutions. So that, on top of the more local community engagement things, I’ ve found satisfying. I think that will be my list of achievements.
This announcement, as you’ ve mentioned, coincides with the release of QS rankings that show UC is in the top 5 per cent of universities in the world. What do you see as the best future direction for UC? I think we’ re going to continue going in these directions. I think the best is yet to come for UC. Our next goal is to reach the top 100 universities under the age of 50, and I think we’ re well on track with that.
We’ re also reinventing ourselves as a new model university for the community, so the campus development plans will bring members of the public onto campus to live here.
There’ s going to be a health cluster – a public hospital, a private hospital, and innovation park. And I hope that, in years to come, people will look at the UC campus and say,“ Yes, this is what universities need to do to reinvent themselves, and make themselves relevant in an era when the lecture is moving into the cloud, and the book is moving into the app”.
You have long opposed the deregulation reform that is still on the government’ s agenda. What do you believe policy priority should be for higher education? I think the Australian taxpayer needs to invest sufficiently in Australia’ s public universities. We invest a much lower percentage of GDP than is the average for developed OECD countries. I think there needs to be an honest conversation with the electorate and the taxpayer [ about how ] surely we can put in the average that the OECD puts in. That would, I think, generate a significant boost to our finances. And I think we should wind back the role of market forces. There has to be an element [ of that ] in higher education, but higher education is a right. It’ s not a product. You can’ t have a pure market in rights.
Why do you think the government hasn’ t invested the OECD average into higher education? I think the fractious state of Australian politics. The fact that, for years, there hasn’ t been an honest conversation with the Australian taxpayer about the changing nature of society – the ageing population, the technological and global challenges. The fact that there hasn’ t been that kind of mature conversation means that the electorate probably votes down parties that want to raise taxes and parties just don’ t want to talk about it. But we have to look at this.
There are countries like Germany that have percentages of individual taxation similar to Australia, but they have gone to a fee-free environment. There are no university fees for domestic students in Germany. They can also take more refugees than Australia can. So I think this is about a public debate. It’ s about our public culture. And it’ s about getting higher education in the right place in people’ s consciousness.
Can you give us an outline of what the short- and long-term policy priorities should be for higher education? I think the short-term priority should be some funding boost to relieve some of the cost pressures.
I think there needs to be a proper first principles review of what we want from tertiary education – not just higher education, but vocational education as well. How can an advanced and clever country properly plan a tertiary education system, rather than thrashing around with new policies that come as a surprise to people and are breaches of election promises, and then just sort of hope the market forces will sort something out? We have to move away from that to a proper debate, and a return to first principles. What do we want for modern Australia?
You’ ve mentioned market forces a lot. Would you say competitiveness is good for universities? I think an element of competition is definitely good. In all walks of life, it spurs improvement and innovation. It keeps people thinking, and it reduces a sense of comfort or complacency or entitlement.
So, competition is OK in its place, and there has always been competition for the best students, for example, in some of the symbolic goods such as reputation.
But price competition in a public good such as education, particularly with a HECS loan scheme fuelling it is like spraying lighter fuel to make it flame. All it would do is afflict a generation with debt. We need to get back to a proper debate, with expert opinion, about the impact of a HECS loan scheme, and then work out the right balance between competition, market forces and public support.
It seems to be quite hard to get back to this rational debate. How do you suggest this happens? I think [ we need ] a fresh approach, a time period, the right review panel, chaired by someone about whom there could be no perception of a conflict of interest or bias. Then come up with some proposals. Then the electorate would know what a government policy might be, and then the electorate decides.
Could anything be any different under new PM Malcolm Turnbull? It’ s not for me to say, and I’ m not a political pundit.
If Malcolm Turnbull honoured what was said before the last election, then there would be no cuts to education, and there’ d be no change to university funding arrangements in this term of government. So, all he’ s got to do is comply with what they said. ■
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