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August 24, 2008
In 1988 John Dawkins transformed the university sector when he merged a multitude of colleges of advanced education with universities and introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme ending the notion of free university education in Australia by forcing students to pay back some of the costs of their degree.
Since then little changed, save for the Coalition allowing universities to charge students higher HECS fees for their degrees in order to top up their dwindling revenues. The current system seeks to fund all universities broadly at the expense of high-class research and specialisation and it underfunds the university sector. The quality of the sector as a whole continues to decline and the universities just ask for more money. Hence the Bradley Review.
 There have been suggestions for more market reform in the form of student-centred voucher funding especially for the vocational education and training sector. Something needs to be done to the largely neglected VET sector, if the ALP is to address the nation's skills crisis and provide opportunities for future blue-collar workers.
Some argue the assumption that everyone should get qualified is flawed because unless we are willing to dumb down standards not everyone can get qualified. Low ability students do not benefit from more education. They may gain nothing from the experience and may in fact be disadvantaged by it.
That may be true. But it is a hardly an argument against ensuring that students have the necessary qualifications to take advantage of the opportunities to participate in the knowledge economy, if they so desire.
All the signs are that university reform under the ALP will mean a more market-driven system. On the other hand, the ALP Labor is less inclined than the Coalition to shift more of the burden on to students, and so it is more likely to require structural reform and increased performance from institutions themselves in exchange for more taxpayer funds. Hopefully that will happen as the universities' do not see the need to reform themselves.
If so, then the firewall between TAFE and university needs to be broken down, since the universities also provide vocational education for white collar professionals, and they have done so since colonial times.The stark status distinction between the two sectors is unwarranted.
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An under resourced TAFE is pretty poor in terms of what it offers students. It is not very market orientated in meeting student demand.
They need to become more free standing institutions like universities. There is too much state ministerial control.