Yesterday Education Minister Julia Gillard announced a major review of higher education policy, to report by the end of the year. The terms of reference are sensible enough. But I hope we will get over the bout of OECDitis on display in the Minister’s speech to the AFR higher ed conference.

As I noted last year, OECDitis is the modern-day version of the cultural cringe, except that now it’s not England that sets the benchmark for Australia, it is the OECD average. Whether or not other OECD countries are actually getting good outcomes, or if they are whether doing the same thing would work in Australian conditions, is all irrelevant. We must at least be the same as the OECD average.

So according to Gillard:
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