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What’ s keeping uni leaders up at night?
A new report reveals the many concerns of university leaders for the future of higher ed.
Gwilym Croucher interviewed by Loren Smith
Iam not at all confident that the university or anything like its current form will be here for even 20 years.”“ Australia has too many universities for its population.”“ So what is the biggest shaping force in Australian higher education? The fact that there is no policy.”
These are just a smattering of the sharp responses a survey of 117 anonymous Australian university and research institute leaders attracted.
Combined in a report by academics from the University of Melbourne and the University of California, Berkeley, Australian Universities at a
Crossroads, they reflect an industry in looming peril.
Their chief concerns revolve around internationalisation, student learning outcomes, meeting societal needs and strategic planning.
Secondary concerns include those relating to partnerships, research infrastructure, staffing and federal government funding. The issue of funding drew the most heated replies.“ Some leaders stated they believed the current process of funding research [ primarily via student fees ] was unsustainable and immoral,” the report said. Nevertheless, based on its findings, report co‐author Dr Gwilym Croucher, a senior lecturer in the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education and a principal policy adviser in the
University of Melbourne’ s Chancellery said:“ We are well placed to contend with a lot of the challenges that face higher education in Australia.”
Croucher sat down with Campus Review to discuss the results of the survey.
CR: On balance, what was the tenor of the responses to the survey that you conducted? GC: We were very gratified and thankful that the responses to the survey that was undertaken as part of this project really showed that VCs are thinking deeply about the future of higher education in Australia, as are all the other senior leaders in the sector and the other people we interviewed. It’ s quite a positive response to the questions, in terms of how the sector is going, but also in terms of how they’ re going to approach the future challenges that are facing higher education.
In terms of the balance between positive and negative concerns or points raised about the university sector, was there more negative than positive, or was it a mixed bag? There were certainly varying responses, but generally when we asked people what they thought the challenging issues were for the sector – things like ensuring better student outcomes and the challenge
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