'KNOWLEDGE NATION' a map to the future - but who's going to take us there?
2 July 2001
The Report of the Knowledge Nation Taskforce provides a map to the future - but only if our political leaders have the strength and will to take us there.
NTEU President Carolyn Allport said that meeting the challenges outlined in the Report would require a huge re-investment of public dollars in education, research and public infrastructure.
`This is a visionary document, but its usefulness really depends on Mr Beazley picking up the ball and running with it,\' she said.
`This Report identifies some key priorities for fixing the funding crisis in universities - building linkages, plugging the brain drain, ensuring top quality teachers and researchers and strengthening the core disciplines. Their success relies on one key recommendation: rebuilding universities\' core funding.\'
`The Howard Government\'s strategy of slashing public funding while diverting increasing funds into private schools, and relying on the market to fund our future has proven to be an abject failure. Investment in R&D has fallen by 15% as a proportion of GDP since 1995, and funding per student in our universities is also falling. The balance of funding in universities has shifted away from teaching and research and towards marketing and other income-generating activities. At the same time, we have slowing rates of participation and soaring student costs,\'
`We cannot rely on the private sector to come in and plug the gap. We need some original ideas about how to increase both public and private support for our universities; instead of tired old arguments about hiking up student fees which are unfair and unworkable.\'
`The Report doesn\'t tell us where the money will come from - but clearly, it needs to be found. Education remains top of the polls, and the community is looking for a future government to have the political courage to stake a real claim on our future by endorsing these recommendations