Introduction
NTEU campaign for a better higher education system
NTEU will campaign during 2008 to reinvigorate Australia’s universities under the banner of Our Universities Matter – Investing in People and Society. The campaign’s aims include:
- Achieving higher levels of government funding and better funding mechanisms.
- The protection of university independence and freedom of inquiry.
- Controls on excessive workloads, better job security and a competitive pay rise for university staff.
- A better deal for students around affordability and improved student services.
All 39 Australian public universities will negotiate new Collective Agreements during 2008–09, which will set salary levels and employment conditions for staff for the next three years.
The campaign will link our Collective Bargaining directly with the broader public discussions about the higher education sector’s future.
- Our key policy initiatives
- Our key Bargaining Claims
- Why our universities matter
- Making our universities better
- Resources
- Discussion Forums
Our key policy initiatives
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A Charter for University Renewal, the centrepiece of a national alliance for increases in public funding and protection of intellectual freedom.
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Our Collective Bargaining Log of Claims (see Key Bargaining Claims)
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A discrete Universities' Act that provides a separate legislative framework for universities.
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A Statement on Academic Freedom and University Independence that provides a mechanism for senior university staff, organisations and prominent individuals to support the Charter.
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A National Petition that is an opportunity for all university staff – and all Australians – to show their support for the Charter.
Our key Bargaining Claims
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A competitive salary increase.
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Improved job security through restoration of employment conditions lost through the previous Federal Government’s legislation and requirements.
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Clear and substantive workload regulation for academic and general staff.
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Fair and objective classification procedures for general staff.
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Increased Indigenous employment.
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Improvements in pay, job security, career paths and superannuation for casual academic staff.
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Better job security and employment conditions for contract research staff.
Why our universities matter
Universities are important civic and educational institutions. While they differ in their character, operations and governing structures, it is by their commonalities that they are internationally recognised as universities – institutions that encompass teaching and research activities, that create new knowledge and disseminate it to all parts of society. This is why higher education is defined as a ‘public good’.
A key feature which distinguishes universities from other higher education institutions is their role in research and research education – particularly, the education of postgraduate research students at Masters and PhD levels. This is critical in the creation of new knowledge as well as new scholars.
Universities are important because they educate undergraduate and postgraduate students, produce high quality research and scholarship, create skilled graduates for our professions, engage with communities, business, governments and other organisations to disseminate knowledge, provide services, and generate social and economic benefits. They maintain freedom of enquiry through informed and critical commentary, in both the scholarly world and in public debate.
Making our universities better
Over the last 11 years, universities have battled against inadequate funding, excessive federal government interference, increasing privatisation and corporatisation, and undermining of the principles of freedom of inquiry and expression.
The advent of a new federal Labor Government that has publicly committed itself to fixing some of the problems in higher education caused by its predecessor, coinciding with a full round of Collective Bargaining, presents us with a unique opportunity to harness the public policy debates about the future of the sector and relate them directly to the issues we want dealt with in bargaining.
The Rudd Government has announced major reviews over the next 12 months into the higher education sector’s future directions, research quality assurance and funding mechanisms, and research training.
The ‘Review of Australian Higher Education’ will report on the sector’s future direction, its capacity to meet the needs of the Australian community and economy, and the options available for ongoing reform. This will include improving the sector’s funding arrangements and developing funding ‘compacts’ between the Government and institutions.
The reviews into research will look at a replacement for the discredited Research Quality Framework (RQF) and developing the next generation of researchers.
NTEU will seek the support of staff, universities and the community in campaigning for real improvements for the sector from the outcomes of these reviews.
Resources
Click here for our full range of campaign materials, all of which are available online.
Please feel free to download any of these materials to support our campaign in your workplace!
Flyers, postcards and posters in PDF format, plus a JPEG image for your email signature.
Discussion Forums
Want to have your say on this campaign? Simply log in to any of our discussion forums on the full range of topics covered by this campaign.
Forums are open to NTEU members only.