It's not too late to join the education race
14 June 2001
The National Tertiary Education Union, representing staff in Australian universities, has welcomed the publication of research that supports the Union\'s arguments about the importance of increasing public investment in Australian universities.
The Report, The Comparative Performance of Australia as a Knowledge Nation, released by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, shows that on all three of the OECD\'s indicators of investment in knowledge - education, research and development, and information technology - Australia\'s performance is poor compared with other OECD nations. According to the Report, this marks us as an `obsolete economy\', preoccupied with cost-cutting rather than investing in our future.
NTEU President Dr Carolyn Allport said that the Report reinforced what the Union already knew: that reduced public investment in tertiary education is causing a downturn in quality and accessibility.
` The public know this too - it\'s no accident that education was ranked the most important issue in the forthcoming election in a poll published this week. This research provides the figures to sit behind the reality of overcrowded classrooms, soaring student:staff ratios, and the high costs of getting an education.\' she said.
Dr Allport said that it was not too late for Australia to turn around its dismal performance in investing in knowledge, and called on all political parties to pledge themselves to restoring investment in education and research and development to average OECD levels at least.
`The problem is particularly acute in Australia\'s universities. \' she said. ` The Report shows that the total income per student from all sources has declined since 1995 - private funding is not filling the gap left by reduced public investment.\'
`At the same time, we know that the public provision of higher education has reached the limits of deregulation. To deregulate the activities of public universities further - particularly in relation to fee-paying and other forms of corporate activity - would be to destroy their identity as broadly accountable institutions serving the public good. Deregulation would also reduce access to higher education in an era when an educated population is the key to national prosperity.\'
`In the short term, we need a strong injection of public funding. In the medium to long-term, we need a turn-around in our thinking, to find ways that will support the engagement of all Australians in the creation of a `knowledge society\'.
`I welcome this report as providing the community - and our decision-makers - with valuable data to support this process. To ignore it would be to compromise our future\'