Total Commonwealth Control Is Not The Answer To The Problems Facing Our Universities
20 Dec 2004
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) can see little evidence to support the need for a radical overhaul of Commonwealth, State and Territory powers over our university system.
“The Union’s initial reaction to the discussion paper released today by the Federal Education Minister, Dr Brendan Nelson, is that we can see little benefit and a number of substantial risks in a complete Commonwealth takeover of our university system,” said Andrew Nette, NTEU Policy and research Coordinator.
“State and Territory governments not only invest significant financial resources in our higher education system, they perform an important and complementary role to that of the Commonwealth in terms of overseeing university accreditation and ensuring proper financial regulation in relation to university’s use of tax payer funds.”
“State and Territory Government’s often have a more in-depth understanding of the challenges facing universities in their respective jurisdictions and lobby actively to meet these needs.”
“Taking the State and Territories out of the picture altogether runs the risk of reducing diversity and distancing our universities from the regions and communities they serve.”
“While the Union notes and supports the Minister’s comments about the need to reduce red tape for universities, we would note that most of this appears to be the result of recent reforms introduced by the Commonwealth Government, and it is unclear how giving the Commonwealth total complete control universities will result in any meaningful reduction in bureaucracy.”
“We are also concerned that centralising all State and Territory University enabling Acts under Commonwealth control will open this legislation up to significant changes, including further corporatising university governance arrangements and weakening universities’ objects and defining purposes.”
“The Commonwealth has already made it clear that it wants to lower the bar in terms of the criteria for the use of ‘university’ title for both domestic and overseas non-university providers.”
“Complete Commonwealth Government control over our higher education sector will further facilitate this process, a move which the NTEU believes will have negative consequences for quality and threatens the ability of current Australian universities to compete in the international university market,” said Nette.
“The NTEU looks forward to receiving further information about the Federal Government’s intentions in this area, and will take up these issues with State and Territory Government’s in early 2005.”
Information and Comment:
Andrew Nette, NTEU Policy and Research Coordinator: 0438
026 277