Submission to the Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy
Charles Sturt University
The principal issues that Charles Sturt University (CSU) seeks to highlight are:
1. If Australia is to meet the diverse and rapidly changing needs for higher education, it must have universities that are differentiated in focus and mix of functions, while operating within a national unified system. There should not be a return to a binary system.
2. The government must recognise that reasonable access to a university education is a right of all Australians, irrespective of whether they live in rural or metropolitan Australia.
3. The importance of regional universities to the educational, social, cultural and economic fabric of rural Australia must be recognised. In particular, the worsening shortage of professional people in paramedical and other areas in rural Australia is only likely to be reversed if courses are provided in these fields by regional universities.
4. In the information age, lifelong learning is a major factor influencing higher education. Universities must adapt curriculum, access, modes of learning, methods of delivery and academic calendars to meet the differing needs of the various cohorts of students.
5. The TAFE and University sectors should be maintained as separate but articulated sectors.
6. A national information and communications technology strategy is needed that:
7. There is no requirement for any substantial change in the present regulatory and administrative framework for higher education. In particular, the University opposes the re-emergence of either a State co-ordinating authority in NSW or a Federal co-ordinating authority, such as NBEET.
8. Significant problems will arise from an inflexible application of the competitive neutrality principle. In particular, the capacity of universities to provide a broad range of courses and affordable residential facilities will be threatened.
9. The present inequality in funding between universities needs to be addressed, possibly by a revised relative funding formula.
10. The redistribution of grant funded places is needed to off-set the loss of students from regional universities that will result from the admission of Australian students to undergraduate courses on a fee paying basis.
11. The introduction of a voucher system is strongly opposed as it will exacerbate the shift of enrolments from regional to metropolitan universities.
12. All universities should be funded for research. The major criterion for the allocation of funds should be demonstrated research performance.
13. There is an urgent need for an increase in total research funding to universities.
14. There needs to be major investment in the research infrastructure in universities and a special recognition of the relative under provision of such infrastructure in new universities.
15. The present regime of funding research through several agencies should be abandoned in favour of a more integrated system.
16. The present fields of research are out of date and inhibit integration, application and the emergence of new disciplines.
Charles Sturt University (CSU) is a regional university. While much of the University’s activities derive from a national and international focus, and embrace elements of educational philosophy common to most universities, CSU has particular regional obligations. Regionality defines and differentiates fundamental aspects of the CSU mission, requiring the University to address the social, economic and educational needs and challenges facing the University’s regional communities. Conversely, the intellectual and economic health and vigour of CSU directly impact on and are more important to the University’s regions than do those of metropolitan universities on their host cities. The regional community has a sense of pride in and ownership of the University, and expects it to be the generator, the guardian, and the focal point of a range of professional and social activities which would not otherwise be available, or available in a more limited form.
While this submission addresses national and international issues affecting higher education into the next century, it highlights matters of fundamental concern to regional Australia and regional universities.
1.1 The ‘Role of Universities - An Introduction
CSU believes that a university exists for the transmission, creation and utilisation of knowledge in an environment in which research, scholarly inquiry and teaching are compatible functions which draw strength from each other and where freedom of thought and inquiry are encouraged and protected. about the learning/teaching process. However, not all teachers need be researchers in their disciplines and universities need not conduct research in all the disciplines they teach.
CSU believes that a diverse university sector is crucially important to the well-being of the sector and to the nation. We suggest that the role CSU has adopted since its establishment is evidence of a university that has not sought to be like older universities, but has realistically assessed its academic development options and obligations and established a distinctive mission. As a result, CSU has developed a course profile on the basis of community need and not status, developing and offering courses ranging from innovative national cooperative educational courses in policing and pre-hospital care to courses in pharmacy, medical imaging and occupational therapy that are directed to meet the critical shortage of paramedical professionals in regional Australia. Further, the University has demonstrated its commitment to open learning through access, articulation and student support programs that recognise its students are drawn from diverse educational, social, ethnic and economic backgrounds. It has responsibly limited and focused its research and research training in areas relevant to rural and regional Australia - areas largely not addressed by other universities. Finally, it has greatly enriched the cultural, social and economic life of its regions. CSU fulfils an important and distinctive role in the Australian higher education system. A role that is nationally significant and regionally critical.
It is important that Australia does not adopt a vision and a role for its universities that is backward looking and/or a response to claims by particular institutions for exclusive rights to certain functions and funding. Such an outcome would leave Australia with a university sector that could not meet needs or demands made by the increasingly complex world.
1.2 Social, Economic and Technological Changes and the Implications for Higher Education
Some of the pressures on and opportunities for Australian society and Australian universities include:
1.2.1 The Transition From an Industrial Age to an Information Age
There is an accelerating shift in the economic drivers and wealth generators in the developed world from resources and mass production to knowledge and skills. The world is in transition from an "industrial age" to an "information age", an age in which:
These changes have significant implications for learning - ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how often’. Most people now need to regularly upgrade their knowledge and skills - to be life long learners. We believe that life long learning will be a fundamental factor influencing higher education in the future. The imperative of life long learning, when combined with multiple and distributed information sources and the rapid developments in information and communication technology, mean that a quantum shift must occur in higher education from an industrial age paradigm to an information age paradigm. This requires a recognition that to develop necessary skills and attitudes to learning, the formal educational experience will increasingly involve:
Individual higher education needs vary throughout life. Similarly, the capacity of students to meet the time and place restrictions of on-campus study varies across the spectrum of persons seeking access to higher education. Universities must adapt curriculum, access, modes of learning and methods of delivery, and academic calendars to meet the differing needs of the various cohorts of students.
1.2.2 Social and Economic Change
Australian society has undergone fundamental social and economic changes in the past 20 years and there are no signs that the pace of this change will abate in the next 20 years. Australia is an increasingly complex, pluralistic and diverse society. While these changes may enhance personal choices and freedoms they do increase the possibility of instability in our social relationships, particularly in difficult economic times. Social indicators including rates of unemployment, divorce, drug dependence, incarceration and suicide rates, particularly amongst those aged less than 25 years, suggest a society under increasing strain.
In the metropolitan conurbations, these problems are exacerbated by the stresses of over demand on services and infrastructure. In rural areas, paucity of services and infrastructure contribute to these problems. Benefits to both regions are possible by a managed approach to increased decentralisation. Compared with metropolitan centres, regional Australia, in general, has higher than national average unemployment rates and has rapidly rising rates for most of the social indicators listed above. In terms of quality of life, regional Australia suffers significant disadvantage, with chronic and escalating shortages of a wide range of medical, paramedical, counselling and other caring professionals. Educational disadvantage is shown in NSW by the relatively poorer performance of rural students at the Higher School Certificate and higher education participation rates of persons living in rural Australia that are substantially less than for metropolitan dwellers.
Australian universities need to respond to the social and economic challenges and opportunities facing Australia through the courses they offer and they way they offer them, the research they conduct and the community services they provide. An adequate response can only come from a diverse university sector. CSU’s response to these challenges nationally and regionally is evidence of diversity and of the benefits of diversity.
Response to Social and Economic Change
At a national level, CSU:
While CSU clearly has a vested interest in ensuring that government not only maintains, but enhances, distance education provision in Australia, the following evidence clearly demonstrates the large and rapidly growing demand for this mode of study.
Between 1991 and 1996 the number of students studying by distance education in Australia grew almost three times faster than the number studying full time on campus. In the same period, the rate of growth in the number of distance education students at CSU was six times that for full-time on-campus students.
Within this broad pattern it is important to note that nationally distance education is the preferred mode of the mature aged student with 82% of all distance education students aged over twenty five years. The largest group of distance education students is in the 30-39 year old cohort, with 36% of all distance education (DE) enrolments. These are students seeking to gain or enhance qualifications either to regain employment or to change or improve their career prospects. Distance education is the preferred study mode for women. In 1996, there were 48,155 females enrolled by distance education as compared with 36,933 men, with 36% of the female cohort being in the 30-39 year old age group. Between 1993 and 1996 the fastest growth in university enrolments was for females studying by the DE mode, growing by 34% as compared with a growth in all enrolments for the same period of only 10.2%.
It is illuminating to examine the mix of students admitted to study by distance education. In CSU in 1996, 37% of DE student admissions had a prior university qualification, another 12% had a partially completed university qualification, while 7% of students had a completed TAFE qualification. This provides clear evidence of the demand by people to upgrade or acquire new qualifications.
Distance education, its growth and the demographic characteristics of the students studying by this mode are testimony to the fact that life long learning is a reality and not rhetoric. As indicated above CSU believes that life long learning will be a fundamental factor influencing higher education in the future. The higher education sector over the next twenty year has a major obligation to meet this need.
At a regional level, CSU:
- is addressing the widespread shortage of professional personnel in rural and regional Australia. The University believes that this shortage can best be addressed by giving the population of rural and regional Australia opportunities to gain university qualifications without being forced to move to metropolitan areas. There is substantial anecdotal evidence that students from rural areas who go to metropolitan universities to study do not normally return to practice their professions in the bush. Conversely, metropolitan students who study in regional institutions and do clinical and practical work during their course at regional hospitals, schools etc are keen to practice in these areas when they graduate. For example, 1995 GCCA data show that 58% of CSU graduates who had studied internally in the fields of education, nursing and other health (includes medical imaging and medical laboratory science) took up employment in non metropolitan areas. The comparable figure for graduates who had studied by the distance education mode was 56%, showing that CSU provides opportunities for people resident in non metropolitan areas to gain or upgrade their qualifications.
- has selectively supported areas of research strength with a focus on regional problems and issues. The first five University research centres established in 1990 were:
- Centre for Conservation Farming
- Centre for Grape and Wine Research
- Centre for Rural Social Research
- Johnstone Centre of Parks, Recreation and Heritage
- Centre for Image Analysis
In 1997 three new groups were awarded research development funds. They are the Regional Economic Research Unit, the Group for Research in Employment and Training, and the Group for Research into Teacher Education.
The Centres have been extremely successful, increasing their ARC Large and NCG Grants from $0.52 million in 1993 to $2.5 million in 1996.
- has established a major analytical laboratory. The University recently renewed its agreement with the Wagga Wagga City Council to provide analytical services, and also supports the region in providing specialist environmental advice and analysis.
- has conducted major consultancies. So far in 1997, these consultancies include an evaluation of the Rural Assistance Program for the Department of Primary Industries and Energy; an assessment of the economics of remnant native vegetation conservation on private property for the Land and Water R&D Corporation; and several projects for the Department of Health on support to rural communities and prevention of suicide in rural youth.
- has conducted a wide range of conferences including international conferences include ethics, anthropology and a range of topics in agriculture.
1.2.3 Diversity in the Student Population
The image of an Australian university student as an Anglo Saxon recent school leaver, studying full-time on campus ignores the reality that higher education is increasingly the province of the mature age, with growing numbers of international students studying on and off-shore. Educational needs vary at different stages throughout a person’s life. For example, the educational and developmental needs of an 18 year old school leaver are fundamentally different from those of a 35 year old person with an undergraduate qualification seeking to extend their specialist knowledge in their field.
There are also significant pressures in society and within universities that already militate against ‘liberalisation’ of the curricula of vocational undergraduate courses. With unemployment levels for those under 25 years of age exceeding 25% (and significantly higher in many regional areas) and increased job insecurity for all other ages, it is understandable that the overwhelming majority of students have a utilitarian view of higher education - namely, as a means to employment or to enhance career prospects. In an increasingly competitive higher education environment, universities are understandably sensitive to what prospective students are seeking. This utilitarian view of higher education is only likely to change if there were to be a major improvement in the employment market, or a common adoption of a liberal education foundation year for all undergraduate awards and/or employers were to send strong signals that they seek employees with a broader preparation for work and life.
In recent years, a further factor, narrowing the focus of courses has been the almost universal use of internal financing models that fund faculties on the basis of the student load actually taught by the faculties. These models encourage faculties to ensure that students enrolled in courses offered by their faculty study subjects that are all or almost all taught by the faculty. For example, Faculties of Arts that provided service teaching in subjects ranging from communication, history, politics and literature to students in, business and engineering courses have found their subjects replaced by subjects in business, engineering.
1.2.4 Internationalisation
Internationalisation will increasingly affect higher education in a variety of ways including:
1.3 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TAFE AND UNIVERSITY SECTORS
Increasing articulation between TAFE and university courses in recent years has blurred what was a clear distinction between the sectors. As a consequence, the question is posed, if students with TAFE qualifications are receiving advanced standing, what are the differences between university and TAFE courses? In reality, all university courses combine elements of foundation knowledge and skills through the development of high level analytical, critical, reflective, inquiry and communication skills. Further, a university course should ensure that a student graduates with an understanding of the epistemology of their major discipline/s and therefore an understanding of the theoretical basis of knowledge in the discipline. The course should also place the disciplines studied within a societal context by embedding in the subjects ethical, ideological, political and sociological issues.
There are fundamental and consequential differences in the governance, organisation administration, funding and staffing of TAFE as compared to Universities. TAFE is a highly centralised bureaucracy with respect to both curriculum and operational areas. It is model predicated on the need for uniformity and the requirement to ensure identical provision of programs across each state. By comparison, the independence of universities in terms of their curriculum and operation, while not totally unconstrained, is a necessary condition for ensuring diversity in the university sector.
The concept of articulation and advanced standing between educational sectors minimises the unproductive obligation on students to repeat studies at one level when they have already demonstrated proficiency at another level. Articulation is not simply an issue for TAFE and universities. It exists, or should exist, between schools and universities as well. For example, is it reasonable to ask a student with a good score in HSC 4 unit mathematics to sit through a basic mathematics subject when they enter university?
The articulation between TAFE and CSU courses provides provisional advanced standing, that is any credit for TAFE studies only holds if the student graduates from the university course. These articulation agreements recognise that students with TAFE qualifications have the foundation knowledge and skills in their area of study and should not be required to repeat these studies unnecessarily.