New hope for higher education
2 August 2000
The National Tertiary Education Union, representing 25,000 staff in Australian tertiary education institutions, has welcomed the ALP’s commitment to increasing investment in education and research to keep pace with leading world economies. The commitment was made in a resolution moved by Kim Beazley at the Labor Party’s National Conference in Hobart today.
\"University staff welcome the platform’s commitment to building public investment without deregulation,\" said NTEU President Carolyn Allport.
\"All the Coalition has offered Australians is a bigger bill for higher education. University fees have increased, libraries and infrastructure have run down and class sizes have ballooned. Australian families are being short-changed on their own investment in education.\"
\"It looks as if the ALP is ready to offer a genuine alternative, and we look forward to seeing strong, costed commitments in the policies taken to the next election.\"
Dr Allport said that the Union was particularly pleased to see commitments to increasing the number of postdoctoral fellowships and increasing public funding for university research.
\"These measures won’t allay the current crisis in higher education funding,\" she said. \"However, they represent some positive steps to halt the brain drain, which is seeing some of our best and brightest young people leaving Australia for countries where the value of higher education research is understood and properly supported,\" she said.
‘We also welcome the ALP’s commitment to funded staff development. The Coalition has cut staff development funding by more than half since it took office, and the effects are being felt in reduced quality and increasing staff stress. We look forward to more funded initiatives that will give effect to the platform’s commitment to assisting universities to recruit, retain and develop quality staff.\"
\"We can’t afford to take the low knowledge, low pay route into the twenty-first century. Australians’ future job opportunities depend on their access to quality tertiary education and a healthy research base, and these initiatives show that community concerns about higher education are beginning to be heard.\"