Invest to share in knowledge boom
The Age
Thursday March 31, 2011
GLYN Davis becomes Universities Australia chairman in May in the knowledge that the fight for funding has been a losing one for decades. Having pioneered the contentious Melbourne model, the Melbourne University vice-chancellor also isn't averse to change. Professor Davis intends to press the case for an increase in Commonwealth university funding and changes to HECS. The income-contingent loan scheme could be extended to TAFE, he says, and be adapted to help students with living costs, which have become an obstacle to study. He has a strong case, but so did his predecessors.Why should Julia Gillard's government be receptive now? For a start, the government agreed with the Bradley review on the need to lift tertiary study rates. Its goal is for 40 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds to hold tertiary qualifications by 2020, but the review also called for an urgent 10 per cent rise in base funding. As education minister, Ms Gillard readily pointed out that the Howard government "left a legacy of funding constraints" by almost halving funding per student, although the decline goes back further. While enrolments grew, public university funding fell 4 per cent from 1996 to 2004. The OECD average was a rise of 49 per cent. Australia was the only developed nation to cut funding per student, which, in 2008 prices, fell 5 per cent between 1990 and 2008. The economy grew by 42 per cent.Today, some leading economies invest twice as big a share of GDP in tertiary education as Australia. This has yielded the payoff of high value-added industries, the knowledge economy that Australia needs to balance its reliance on raw resources. Such funding is an essential investment. "It comes back in increased productivity, in better life experience," Professor Davis told The Age. "It comes back in skills available to the economy."Regrettably, Canberra's focus is on the political not economic imperative of swiftly restoring a budget surplus. Universities, though, have been exposed as overly dependent on foreign fee income, while most students compromise their studies by working part-time to make ends meet. Professor Davies is suggesting a way to supplement funding by extending HECS to cover TAFE and student living costs.A big increase in funding per student is still needed after decades of decline. Governments have made a political judgment that they can neglect universities, which lack public support and understanding of their value. Professor Davis understands the politics of this. It must be hoped that he and his colleagues find a way to persuade Australia's leaders to take a more far-sighted view.
© 2011 The Age
