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November 26, 2008
The Go8 group of universities want to concentrate research investment in their hands and so shift away from an egalitarian model to an elite model of research funding. Their argument is intensified global competition requires Australia to provide more resources to proven performers, most of whom work within the Go8. This would enable Australia to remain competitive in research, since if Australia does not have world class -research intensive universities, it won't be able to participate fully int he international research system.
And so we have the dynamics of globalization working themselves out in higher education. As Rupert Murdoch observed in his Boyer Lectures education is now a global currency. So what would happen to the rest of the universities on the Go8 model? The bottom tier ones can become community colleges where 2 year degrees are in vocational training, and they act as a pathway into the undergraduate universities as a second tier, with a Group of 8 university concentrating on research and postgraduate work at the top tier.
This model, which is the Californian system of a community college network with its three distinct tiers, has been suggested by Glyn Davis, and it is an argument for a division between teaching and research institutions.
It looks appealing but, as things stand now, it would probably relegate universities in regional areas to a second -class status of teaching only universities, since all the Go8 universities are in the capital cities. The implication is that the Go8 model would nourish a handful of historically privileged universities.
Another body of universities--- the Innovative Research Universities Australia representing James Cook, Flinders, Griffith, La Trobe, Murdoch and Newcastle universities ---make another point out. Since the Go8 universities already attract 74 per cent of competitive grants, so the deliberate concentration of research funding in a selected few institutions based on past performance will weaken competition, restrict diversity, inhibit the emergence of new fields of research and stifle innovation.
Thirdly, what happens to the non-aligned universities---- Charles Darwin, Central Queensland, Southern Queensland, Sunshine Coast, Southern Cross, Deakin, Victoria, Ballarat, Swinburne, Western Sydney, Edith Cowan, New England and Canberra universities, as well as the Catholic University, who had 23 per cent of Australian doctoral students last year?
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There is a storm brewing. The response by those living in regional and rural Australia would be that they needed to be served by a real university, just like the metropolitan areas. They would not be fobbed off with anything second rate such as community colleges.