NEWS
campusreview.com.au
Admission
system
confusing:
Birmingham
Education minister again
calls for more transparency
in higher education.
T
he effectiveness of the ATAR
system for qualifying for
university places is again
in the spotlight after the release
of the 82 submissions to the
Higher Education Standards
Panel, many of which called for
an overhaul of the system.
Federal education minister
Simon Birmingham is using
these submissions to again
issue a clarion call for greater
accountability and transparency
from the nation’s tertiary
education sector.
“What we want and need
from the higher education
system is autonomy
for the various
institutions across
the country but
much greater accountability
of entry standards and
course information,”
Birmingham said.” The
Turnbull Government wants to
shine a light on the practices
and habits that may be keeping
students in the dark.
“I regularly hear from students
who are confused by how higher
education institutions pick their
students and from students who
find it near-impossible to get a
clear understanding of the study
options available to them.
“The process we’re working through
is bringing policymakers, education
experts and higher education
institutions together to act on the
consensus view that the current
system isn’t working in the best
interests of students.” ■
Propaganda
hurts VET:
Barilaro
Sector’s neglect a result of
‘telling young kids to go to
university’, skills minister says.
ARC funds ride gravitational wave
Council pours $31.3 million into
Centre of Excellence for study of
recently confirmed phenomenon.
F
ollowing two sightings of Albert
Einstein’s fabled gravitational waves
this year, the Australian Research
Council has allocated $31.3 million for new
projects in this field.
The ARC Centre of Excellence for
Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGRav)
will be hosted by Swinburne University
of Technology.
“Through this centre, Australian scientists
and students will have the opportunity to
participate fully in the birth of gravitational
wave astronomy,” OzGRav director
professor Matthew Bailes said. “It will enable
us to develop some amazing technologies
like quantum squeezing to further enhance
the detectors, supercomputers and
advanced algorithms to find the waves,
and these will lead to a revolution in our
understanding of the universe.”
The centre is one of nine new ARC
Centres of Excellence.
“The researchers in these new Centres
of Excellence have set their sights high
with what they want to achieve; from
coping with Australia’s changing population
demographics to increasing the processing
power of computers, protecting our unique
plants and animals, developing products
that use less energy and electricity and
even trying to discover the origin of matter,”
the federal education minister, Simon
Birmingham, said. ■
N
ew South Wales skills minister
John Barilaro has said declining
VET enrolments and its so-called
middle child status in education is “the
price of, for decades, telling young kids to
go to university”.
Barilaro said NSW should have been
building its skills workforce a decade ago.
“We’re playing catch-up,” he said. A recent
Council for the Economic Development
of Australia report deemed VET to be the
“forgotten middle child” of education, arguing
for the sector to be reviewed and overhauled.
Barilaro agreed, saying the prestige
attached to a university degree has led to
the sector being neglected for far too long.
“I’m the son of migrant parents who
wanted all their children to go to university,”
he told the forum. “I recall my parents
always talking about university, and we
know of prime ministers, parents and career
advisers telling kids the only way for a great
job, a great career, and a great lifestyle is
university, and today we’re paying the price.”
NSW VET enrolment plummeted by
86,300 last year. ■
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