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Transcripts
Doorstop Interview - Parliament House Canberra
22nd January 2002
BRENDAN NELSON:
Firstly thanks very much for coming out to speak
with me, I really appreciate that. Today the students who have applied
for places in higher education in Victoria are increasingly becoming
aware of whether or not they have been successful and the Commonwealth
Government has been criticized by the Victorian Government for allegedly
not meeting the expectations and needs of Victorian Students. There are
a number of points that need to be made. The first is that this year we
have had, pleasingly, an increase in demand for higher education places
in Victoria and, indeed across Australia. Most pleasingly, there has
been an increase in demand for places in teaching, in humanities and
arts, and in Victoria especially increasing demand for nursing. For
those students who are not successful in the first round of offer in
succeeding in getting their choice of institution and of course, please
remember there will be a second round offer the first week of February
and you need also to ask yourself whether or not there is a place in a
TAFE or a Vocational Education and Training position which might meet
your needs and then 1, 2 or 3 years into that course you may find
yourself able to reapply for a University place and get credit for the
training that you have done in a TAFE or other Vocational Education and
Training provider. Some students will also go into adult learning, and
some students, of course, will make the decision to change their choice
and take up a position in a course which has not been completely filled,
whether it be in the state of Victoria or indeed in another institution
throughout Australia. The Commonwealth Government has also made
available over the last 6 years, almost $2billion more for Australian
Universities. There are at least 35,000 more places for undergraduates
in Australian Universities today than there were 5 and a half years ago,
and in the state of Victoria, this year the Commonwealth Government will
fund another 860 places that are fully funded in Victorian higher
education institutions and another 765 in the 2 years beyond that.
Universities are autonomous, they are independent institutions, they
manage their own affairs and a number of institutions this year have
chosen to reduce the number of places that they are offering at the same
time that the number of students who are applying to University have
increased. We also ought to remind ourselves as Australians that, 10
years ago there were 100,000 students in this country who had applied
for a place at University who were not successful. Last year it was less
than 20,000 and of those who were not offered a place in the first round
of offers, more than half were successful in the second round and of
course of those who were ultimately not successful a number chose to go
back and do their Victorian Certificate of Education or their Year 12 to
varying degrees in some institutions, and others of course chose a place
in a TAFE or Vocational Education and Training Institution.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) take a step back, the reports this morning about many
students who are not finishing Year 12. Do you see that as a problem
these days if students don’t get to the end of their secondary education
or they reach University?
BRENDAN NELSON:
The most important thing that we need to do as a nation is to see that
every Australian, every young Australian especially, is able to find and
achieve his or her own potential – whatever that is. We want to create a
culture where every student is encouraged and is able to complete his or
her Year 12, but equally we want to make sure that students who feel
that they are not equipped to complete Year 12, see options in New
Apprenticeships, in Training and Vocational Education and Training as
being equally legitimate to choices in higher education. There is
nothing worse for any human being and for a young Australian growing up
in this modern country to feel that you are being forced. To feel that
in some way you are being pressured to study things which in your heart,
you feel you are not equipped. There are many young Australians,
unfortunately, whether they be in Universities or whether they be in
other institutions of learning who feel a great sense of unease about
what they are doing. The most important thing that we need to do is to
see that young people be the best that they can be and that we do
everything we can to help them to find who they are and achieve their
own level in life.
JOURNALIST:
You (inaudible) there’s greater demand than actual places filled in
Victoria you’re really telling in this case the Victorian Government –
there may be the demand but it’s not up to the Federal Government to
create (inaudible) University places.
BRENDAN NELSON:
Well there are 2 issues here. The first is that I have said to the
Vice-Chancellors of Australian Universities and others who have a deep
interest in and commitment to Universities that the status quo will be
difficult to sustain if we want Australian Universities to maintain
their standards of excellence and also to serve the economic and social
expectations of the Australian community. I will be spending much of
this year in consultation with the higher education sector, the business
community and those Australians whose taxes underwrite the $6.15billion
that will go to Universities this year to develop a reform package which
will take Australian Universities well into the 21st Century. The
second thing is that all states and the Victorian Government included
have the discretion available to them, and I note a surplus that is
available to the Victorian Government in this regard to make more funds
available to Universities to offer more places if that is the decision
of the Victorian Government. When Mr Kennett was the Premier of Victoria
he made more places available in Victorian Universities, and funded
those places. Equally, the Universities themselves, if they choose to,
can fund more places and make them available. I notice the University of
Melbourne is offering in total over $16million worth of scholarships to
the elite of the elite students, as it has every right to do so. But
equally it and other institutions, if they chose to could fund and offer
more places and use a variety of mechanisms to do so. I received a
report last week which found that between 35-40% of students who
commence a University degree do not ultimately complete that course, for
a variety of reasons. They might change institutions, they might find a
job, they might decide that they’re going to change courses or be it for
a complex variety of personal and family and economic reasons they
decide not to complete the course. But there is a considerable
investment in higher education by Australians and Australian taxpayers
and I simply also say to those young people who are being made offers
today for University places, please make sure that in your heart this is
something that you want to do. That you are committed to doing it, and
you have done everything you can to understand the complexity and the
difficulty of what lies ahead in the University course, because if you
aren’t fully committed to doing it – please reconsider because your
place might be taken up by somebody who’s missed out in the first round
of offer.
JOURNALIST:
What other options are there for people who have perhaps (inaudible) and
don’t want to go to University (inaudible)?
BRENDAN NELSON:
Well there are a number of things, one of the most difficult choices you
face as a young person is deciding in which direction you’ll take your
life, in terms of education and training and ultimately your career
prospects. Today young Australians in their mid-teens who have
approached the first 25 years of the 21st century face a future in which
they can and will change their career up to around 7 times before they
ultimately retire. The choices that are available to young people are
firstly, to do everything you can to see that you are able to educate
yourself to the best of your own potential. To see that not only
University and higher education courses but TAFE, Vocational Education
and Training and new Apprenticeships currently undertaken by (inaudible)
that these are the choices that are available to you and one of the
proud records of the Howard Government, of course is to substantially
increase, in fact double the amount of people in new Apprenticeships
over the last 5 years. We don’t want to encourage, in any sense a
culture of mediocrity in this country, we are competing with the rest of
the world, but at the same time, as Professor Ken Nunn said some young
people are salmon and they want to get to the top of the waterfall, but
there are many young people who want to find a quiet pond in the world
and they should not have additional pressures placed upon them. On
Friday afternoon I spent 2 or 3 hours with a group of disengaged,
disillusioned young people in Cabramatta in outer-western Sydney, and
for them, they’re desperately with the help of social support agencies
and Open Family trying to re-engage society and having outreach learning
provided by a TAFE. We’ve got to see, and I said to them, that they are
as important to us as Australians as are the elite of the elite who’ve
scored a perfect score in their Year 12 and will go on to Universities.
We just want to make sure that there’s a place for every young person in
terms of finding their potential, we don’t want to say to any one person
that they have (inaudible) than anybody else.
JOURNALIST:
But for years the states have being trying to increase retention rates,
do you think you’re comments about Year 12 study undermine that
process.
BRENDAN NELSON:
It’s absolutely critical that we do everything we can to increase, and
certainly sustain Year 12 retention rates, and no more so is that
challenge more pressing than for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Australians. But at the same time that we’re trying to do the best we
can to encourage our children to complete their Year 12, let’s not
create an environment that says to a Year 9 or a Year 10 student and
boys especially are feeling this at the moment, that if you don’t
complete Year 12, that if you don’t go onto University then in some way
that you and your life is less valuable than if you did. I want to make
sure that young people are able to make choices, that they are informed
in making those choices and that they don’t feel that in some way that
because they don’t decide to go onto University that they are of lesser
value than somebody that does. In fact many students who’ve chosen to do
TAFE courses and Vocational Education and Training have said to me that
they are pleased they made that choice and in modern society, modern
Australia you can actually make that choice and now and then later in
your life, in your late 20’s or your 30’s or your 40’s you can then
decide that you would like to apply for a University course, and in fact
the significant minority of those offers that are being made at the
moment are being made to mature age students who have done just that.
JOURNALIST:
Have we really reached an appropriate retention rate targeting
presently.
BRENDAN NELSON:
I think it’s very, it’s impossible to know or to set what you think is
an ideal target. Ideally of course we would like every Australian to
undertake and complete Year 12, but not all of us are equipped or
indeed, do we want to complete Year 12. There are some young people in
this country who are dealing the most horrendous of family and social
circumstances, for whom completion of Year 12 is to them a Utopian
dream, and then if we compound their problems by sending them signals
that say “if you don’t finish Year 12, you’re now not as important as
somebody that has”, then we’d have to ask ourselves whether we’re
actually making problems worse for them than we think. Today in the
Victorian Press for example, is a story about solvent and glue sniffing
by children as young as 11 or 12, I say to you if you say to those
children for example, that if you don’t finish Year 12 then in some way
you have failed yourself and you’ve failed modern Australia, are we
actually helping children in those circumstances? What we want to do is
say, we want you to be your best. We want to help you define what is
best for you, we want you to stay at school as long as you possibly can,
and in that regard the Government has established the Enterprise and
Career Education Foundation and a variety of programs which enable young
people, innovative programs, to stay at school, whilst at the same time
doing Vocational Education and Training, in my portfolio I’ll be
implementing the Government’s Election commitment for example to give
employers incentive to take on Apprentices whilst they are still at
school, and then incentives to keep those Apprentices once they’ve
finished school. We do everything we can to see that young people get as
much education as they possibly can, but let’s not in the process say to
those who feel in their hearts, and know in their hearts, that they are
not academically equipped to do so, let’s not send messages to them that
says they’re not as good as somebody else who does.
JOURNALIST:
What’s your reaction to those reports of glue sniffing in Victoria,
supervised glue sniffing and is there anything that the Federal
Government can do given (inaudible).
BRENDAN NELSON:
Well as the Minister for Education, Science and Training I need to be
careful about making unsolicited remarks about issues that are outside
my specific portfolio, but I think all of us need to remember, and I say
this as a person with some experience dealing with people affected by
drug use and abuse, that there is no safe level for solvent sniffing or
glue inhalation and I’m sure the authorities who are managing this
problem are aware of that. Certainly the inhalation of any kind of
solvent is not in any way going to improve or enhance the educational
capabilities of those who are undertaking it . The authorities are of
course dealing with an extremely complex and difficult issue and I think
it’s sometimes easy for those of us from some distance to pass a
judgement on what they’re doing. But (inaudible) I would want to be
reassured that they have very good and very sound scientific reasons for
the approach that they’re taking.
JOURNALIST:
Do you entirely support the treatment of asylum seekers at the Woomera
Detention Centre?
BRENDAN NELSON:
I think, I’m certainly satisfied that the Government and Minister
Ruddock in particular is doing everything that it possibly can to deal
with people who have arrived in Australia illegally to deal with them in
a humane and orderly manner, and I think Mr Ruddock is to be commended
for the way in which he is dealing with what is the one of the most
complex issues I think, the country has faced in its modern times.
[ends]
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