This submission is made by the New South Wales Division of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science an organisation founded in 1888 with the aims;
The association is deeply concerned with scientific teaching and research in universities. Many of its members are employed or have been employed in the tertiary education sector.
We believe that a strong, broadly based tertiary education system is essential for the well being of Australia and its peoples. Within the system, science and science-based disciplines provide the foundations for the nation's technology and contribute to the program of the humanities by investigating the nature of human beings and their relations to the world around them.
The inquiry has an opportunity to establish the importance of tertiary institutions as centres of education ,research and scholarship. We would hope that the inquiry will develop what it would see as the most appropriate model on intellectual grounds without being constrained by budgetary considerations. All too often structures are changed to fit a budget. In this case there should be a goal to which the budget is addressed rather than vice versa.
We found the terms of reference for the committee, especially as set out in the "Major Themes and Issues" of the guidelines to be very restrictive. Nearly all of what we want to convey comes under the first theme `the role of higher education in Australia's society and economy'. Only the first theme concerns what universities should do. The other four deal with how universities should operate.
We hope that this narrow focus on administrative mechanisms will not prevent the inquiry from developing a vision of what the mission of universities should be in Australia in the 21st century.
In a number of professional fields there are various forms of accreditation. In some cases membership of the appropriate professional body is a prerequisite for professional practice, in other cases it is desirable but not mandatory. Entry to professional bodies may require an approved tertiary qualification, passing a special examination or some combination of the two. Examples are engineering, medicine, architecture, landscape architecture, accountancy, law, and chemistry.
In some instances the benefits of accreditation to society are clear (for example, in medicine) ,in others, the role of accreditation may be less important. There are however pressures to expand the number of courses which require accreditation; for example, there are frequent calls that those involved in preparation of Environmental Impact Statements should be accredited.
We are not aware that any compilation of all the accreditation processes has ever been made. This would be an interesting exercise.
We believe that important questions for the current review are:
There should be a study of the long-term supply of skilled technicians such as plumbers, electrical and electronic technicians and laboratory technicians. There is a perception that the supply of these people is diminishing. There may be a case for increased funding of TAFEs and of trainees in fields where there may be future shortages.
This situation has been exacerbated by economic stringencies experienced by two of the major training organisations in Australia, namely Telstra and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In the past they have been major sources of skilled labour in the electronics and media industries. New mechanisms should be found to provide training in these industries.
There has been much discussion over whether some subjects are inappropriate for consideration at university level. Part of this discussion seems to be based on a false distinction between professional and other disciplines. Some of the disciplines identified as appropriate for universities such as medicine, law, and architecture are clearly professions.
It is difficult to make blanket statements as which subjects should be taught in universities. What is more important is the approach to teaching. University students should be encouraged to challenge and question current understanding. Any course which merely requires rote learning and regurgitation is not appropriate for a university.
In recent years there has been a proliferation of specialist degrees (niche marketing). Given that we cannot, with any certainty, predict the future we cannot anticipate future needs or the career paths that today's students will follow. While there is an immediate need for specialists, there must also be flexibility. Students need a firm background in the basic sciences and an understanding of the scientific method before specialisation.
One possible option is to move to a four year first degree. This would have major cost implications but could result in better equipped graduates with a broader basis for making future career changes.
Opportunities for updating knowledge and retraining need to be developed.
It is unrealistic to expect that all universities should be able to offer an identical range of subjects. However, we would have concerns if there were to be a distinction between teaching and research universities. While it is impossible to generalise about any relationship between teaching and research abilities there is interaction between teaching and research and one of the distinctions between universities and other institutions is that teaching at universities is influenced by the latest research findings and thinking.
Clearly there will be major concentrations of research in particular disciplines at particular institutions, but all undergraduates at all universities should have the opportunity of being exposed to active researchers. We also consider that every university should be able to offer research training, at least at Honours level, in all the major disciplines it teaches.
For institutions with a restricted range of subjects there are dangers in offering very specialised degrees. Basic training in the `home' discipline should be a prerequisite to specialisation. In some cases it may be appropriate to restrict entry to very specialised courses to 2nd or 3rd year undergraduates and to promote movement between institutions.
Rationalisation of specialisations should, in the first instance, be the responsibility of individual institutions but there needs to be oversight to ensure that no specialities are lost from the nation.
With regard to the current nature of society there is a case for suggesting that all degree courses should be required to have a formal component that discusses ethical issues.
In an increasingly technological world, there is a need for all educated people to have some basic understanding of science, a point made years ago in Britain by science bureaucrat C. P. Snow in his Two Cultures. It is still true that more scientists have some knowledge of literature, music and art than humanities graduates have of science. The Universities should address this issue.
The restrictions on university finances discourage the universities from providing courses and research facilities in specialised areas where the number of students is never going to be very large even though the disciplines themselves are vital to the welfare of the country. Mechanisms must be found to identify and support such disciplines and to enable institutions to co-operate in the interest of national goals. A case in point is the discipline of taxonomy which is essential for the maintenance of biodiversity in the unique Australian environment. It is also an underpinning to much of the genetic engineering essential to our welfare. Yet there are very few taxonomists in universities and their limited funding was severely cut in the 1996/7 budget.
As noted above, specialisation of institutions should be accompanied by increasing the freedom of students to move between institutions. Such movements may be between academic years or within the academic year. Australian students do not go from one university to another. They miss out on the specialisation and the variety of training available to students in North America and Europe.
Movements of students between institutions at the end of the year requires flexibility of accreditation. Such flexibility may be promoted if the funds available for teaching a course is closely linked to the number of students attending.
Movement of students between institutions within the academic year is desirable. It should be possible for students wanting to take specialised subjects to do so at institutions other than their `home' institution. The main obstacle to doing this is the extremely fragmented timetables found in most institutions. Subjects need to be taught in sufficiently long blocks to enable students to commute between institutions. Some overseas universities have managed to provide this flexibility. Harvard and Radcliffe come to mind as do the Dutch universities.
While greater flexibility in methods of entry to universities is to be encourage the basic criterion should be academic potential. It is in the national interest to ensure equitable access to higher education. Moves to restrict open access in favour of ability to pay will result in valuable talent being unfulfilled.
Education in science and technology disciplines must involve a practical component. With so much of the recurrent budget tied up in salaries, the opportunities to maintain teaching laboratories is limited. While many important principles can be illustrated relatively cheaply, the string and sealing wax approach to science is much over rated. In many cases students are taught using equipment several generations older than anything they will subsequently encounter in their careers. Employers can verify this. The situation varies between institutions and between schools within a particular institution but nationally there is a serious problem which will only get worse unless specific steps are taken to rectify it.
The ARC and other grant-giving bodies assume that the Universities provide the basic infrastructure required for research and teaching. This is, increasingly, not the case. Extra mechanisms are required to provide this support.
Industry should be invited to provide more help in maintaining the laboratories and equipment that are needed for the support of industry itself.
The position regarding libraries is equally serious. While technological advances may permit effective networking and sharing of resources the infrastructure to facilitate this cooperation will not be cheap. There is a need to improve the electronic and multimedia facilities at all institutions but classic paper based resources will continue to be needed. Library facilities at some institutions are barely adequate to support teaching let alone research.
The need for university libraries to act as permanent depositories of information is likely to expand and become more expensive in the age of digital processing.
Post-graduate students do much of the research carried out by Australian Universities. It is in the national interest to provide post-graduate scholarship holders with wages sufficient to live on. We are concerned that proposals to tax these scholarships may deter many bright people from pursuing research at Universities.
The increasing commercialisation of research has advantages in terms of making greater funds available to universities and in breaking down barriers between universities and industry. However, there are also dangers that it will alter the nature of institutions. It is inevitable and proper that research in all disciplines (not just science and technology) be driven in part by competition. However, historically this competitiveness has not impacted greatly on the collegiality of academic endeavour. With the need to maintain commercial confidences, the spirit of cooperation within and between institutions may come under threat with adverse consequences for both teaching and research. These considerations suggest that there is an optimum proportion of privately funded research and that this optimum must not be exceeded.
Dr R S Vickery
Secretary, ANZAAS(NSW)
School of Biological Science
UNSW
SYDNEY NSW 2052
phone +61 2 9369 2705
fax +61 2 9662 2913
email vickery@mpx.com.au