Category: Higher education

Avoiding the OECD cringe

~ Andrew Norton ~ 6 Comments

The Age this morning published my response to Simon Marginson’s earlier op-ed arguing that OECD comparisons show that we are ‘falling off the pace in education’.

My basic points are that:

* despite cuts to government funding, by the (limited) available output indicators things improved during the period that per student funding was declining; and
* differences in funding levels across the OECD reflect different ways of organising higher education finance, not necessarily better or worse ways.

It is an ‘OECD cringe’ to think that the OECD sets benchmarks that we should follow.

A couple of paragraphs were cut out, so I have copied the original in below the fold. Continue reading “Avoiding the OECD cringe” →

Banning degrees

~ Andrew Norton ~ 14 Comments

In recent years ‘Juris Doctor’ (JD) programs have proliferated around the country (eg U of M, UNSW, Monash, Sydney). JDs are initial professional entry qualifications for legal practice, but in theory at least taught at Masters level.

But now a team from the Australian Qualifications Framework Council – led by the great crusher of educational diversity, John Dawkins – has effectively recommended prohibiting the JD terminology. A report to education ministers issued late last week recommends that all qualifications taught at the various levels set out in the report be exclusively known by the names provided in the AQF. So all JDs would have to be renamed ‘Master of [Legal Something]’.

To date, degree titles have been a matter of self-regulation for universities. The current qualifications framework describes higher education qualifications, but does not prescribe them for self-accrediting institutions.

This system of self-regulation seems to have worked pretty well. The main criticism has been that some masters degrees are too light – really just undergraduate subjects, or too short, or both. Intellectually, some honours bachelor degrees are superior to some masters degrees. But there is little evidence that this has caused significant ‘real world’ problems. Employers know what is what. Continue reading “Banning degrees” →

Are student unions anachronisms?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 6 Comments

The bill to re-introduce compulsory amenities fees isn’t pleasing even National Union of Students President Carla Drakeford.

In an Age op-ed she complains that

there would be no legislative measure that forces universities to direct funds from the complusory $250 fee to independent student organisations … student associations need autonomy to represent the views of their students.

My view is that the role of student unions is at minimum much diminished compared to the past. When student unions started their universities had within-state monopolies and few formal means of tracking student views. Student unions were a counter-balance to university staff and administrations that had weak mechanisms for feedback and no real incentive to act on it.

Things are very different now. Students are asked their views on the university’s peformance so often that ‘survey fatigue’ is a major issue. Every university depends for its survival on the fees of highly mobile international students. Though I had my doubts about whether the demand-driven system for Australian students would work, the mad rush to enrol more students suggests that universities will compete strongly in this market too. Continue reading “Are student unions anachronisms?” →

The wrong way of financing student amenities

~ Andrew Norton ~ 11 Comments

As expected, the government is trying again to restore compulsory amenities fees. I will do a detailed analysis of the bill tomorrow, but on an initial examination it is the same as the 2009 version that was rejected by the Senate.

I support unis being able to provide whatever services they like at whatever fee they determine. Let the market decide. But this amenities fee legislation should be rejected. These are my reasons:

1) It will force universities to provide non-academic services and student representation specified by the government. Universities should be able to make their own decisions about the right mix of services. We are yet to see draft guidelines which set out which services will be on the list, but the 2009 version had absurdly complex distinctions between what had to be funded from university money and what could be funded from student money. One factor that has changed since then is that the government’s guidelines could be disallowed by the House of Representatives.

2) The new obligations on the universities are unfunded – unless per student grants are increased they will have to come out of money formerly allocated to teaching. Continue reading “The wrong way of financing student amenities” →

Out-of-control Vice-Chancellors?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 5 Comments

The final 2009-10 budget outcome released today shows that exenditure on higher education blew out $200 million more than expected at the time of the May 2010 Budget. And even then they were forecasting a big increase on spending on top of what had been anticipated in May 2009.

What’s driving these financial blow-outs is a massive rush to enrol students before the 2012 lifting of caps on funded enrolment (which has not been legislated).

An article in the AFR a couple of weeks ago reported data showing 17 universities appear to be enrolled above the current 10% above-target funding cap.* Six are 17-19% above their original target number of funded students. For the additional students above the 10% cap universities get the student contribution amount (commonly called the HECS payment), but no Commonwealth subsidy.

This means that for unis the financial attractivness of over-enrolment varies a lot depending on discipline. For law and business courses where the Commonwealth subsidy is low anyway little is lost by over-enrolling. But in courses where the subsidy is high – 80% of revenue for science, for example – a lot is sacrificed. Continue reading “Out-of-control Vice-Chancellors?” →

The no-longer-acceptable idea of a university

~ Andrew Norton ~ 14 Comments

In this morning’s Australian my friend Simon Caterson writes about the Catholic Church’s beatification of John Henry Newman.

Outside Catholic circles (if not within them), Newman is most famous for his 1852 book The Idea of a University. It is perhaps the most cited book ever on higher education.

Ironically, an institution fulfulling Newman’s idea of university devoted to teaching and the development of character, with research and vocational training done elsewhere, would not be allowed to call itself a university in Australia. The protocols on recognition of higher education institutions agreed by all governments in Australia require a ‘university’ to conduct research.

John Henry Newman’s idea of a university, RIP.

Uni equity policy misses the target

~ Andrew Norton ~ 13 Comments

Earlier in the year I argued that the governments university equity policy focused on the lowest 25% of people by sociecononomic status was fundamentally flawed.

Using NAPLAN and Victorian Year 12 data I had found that the academic results of the lowest SES 25% (by occupation and postcode respectively) were little different from the second quartile. Consequently, the first quartile was too narrow a focus for policy.

An excellent new paper by University of Melbourne economist Mick Coelli, using higher education participation data from the census and the HILDA survey, puts this conclusion beyond reasonable doubt. Whichever way we look at SES: income, education, occupation or postcode the result is the same – the second quartile is very similar to and perhaps even worse off than the first quartile for their kids getting into university. Continue reading “Uni equity policy misses the target” →

Gillard disrespects higher education

~ Andrew Norton ~ 11 Comments

Update 11.30am 14/9: ‘Tertiary education’ to be added to Chris Evans’ ministerial title. Who is responsible for postgraduate coursework remains unclear, to me at least.

Update 9.30pm 14/9: The Coalition gets it right, with a shadow minister for education, Christopher Pyne, and a shadow minister for universities and research, Senator Brett Mason. The government has now clarified what Chris Evans will be responsible for postgraduate coursework. He is off to a shambolic start.

University lobby groups aren’t happy that there is no longer a minister for education, the portfolio being split between the minister for schools, early childhood and youth (Peter Garrett), the minister for jobs, skills and workplace relations (Chris Evans) and the minister for innovation, industry and science (Kim Carr).

The disappearance of higher education is most striking. I thought Evans might be the minister, but on Saturday afternoon I could not confirm it from the published list of new ministers. Gillard clarified the matter on Insiders on Sunday morning.

The atmospherics of this are really bad. John Dawkins is the Great Satan of traditional knowledge-for-its-own sake academics, but his policy documents always had a nod to the humanities and there was no significant steering of the system away from generalist degrees. Whatever he thought about arts academics or academics in general, he respected their self-conception as being about more than the service of the economy or whatever other goals the government of the day had.

By contrast Gillard as minister did not even bother with lip service support of the arts. Continue reading “Gillard disrespects higher education” →

Should the government change migration laws to suit universities?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 9 Comments

Australia’s universities are in a bit of a panic. With international student applications down, and much bigger drops in the ‘feeder’ colleges, the next few years are looking particularly grim.

While issues such as the high dollar, student safety and more intense competition for even-more broke universities in the UK and US are affecting the international student market, changes to skilled migration rules are also causing grief.

Most university courses that were being used as backdoor routes to permanent migration are still on the skilled occupations list used by the immigration department (the vocational education sector has not been so lucky), but the number of visas available in this category has dropped significantly. The emphasis has shifted to employer-sponsored migrants. So international students now need to find an employer to support them, creating much more uncertainty.

Yesterday the Group of Eight lobby group joined other university groups in calling on the government to ‘fix’ the problems. Continue reading “Should the government change migration laws to suit universities?” →