A plan to reshape Australia's higher education system, deregulate universities, vastly increase their enrolments, provide students with vouchers to study at the university of their choice and extend government funding to a bigger group of providers are among 46 wide-ranging recommendations being considered by the federal government.

Estimated to cost more than A$6 billion (US$4.3 billion) if implemented, the recommendations are contained in a 270-page report by a committee set up last year by the then new Labor government to review the future of Australian higher education.

In its report, the committee calls for a big increase in university funding, more money for research, an expanded quality assurance system and an almost doubling in the proportion of Australians with at least one degree - from the current 22% of 25 to 34-year-olds to 40% over the next 10 years. It urges far more money be allocated to assist students and says the proportion from low-income and disadvantaged backgrounds needs to be raised from 15% of the student population to 20% by 2020.

"Australia faces a critical moment in the history of higher education. There is an international consensus that the reach, quality and performance of a nation's higher education system will be key determinants of its economic and social progress," the report declares at the beginning. "If we are to maintain our high standard of living, underpinned by a robust democracy and a civil and just society, we need an outstanding, internationally competitive higher education system."

In the pages that follow, the committee sets out its arguments why the current university system is no longer able to the meet the nation's future needs and why it should be massively reformed. It deplores the way Australia is falling behind other OECD countries in the amount it spends on its universities and the proportion of the population who hold degrees.

"Developed and developing countries alike accept there are strong links between their productivity and the proportion of the population with high-level skills," the report states. "These countries have concluded that they must invest not only to encourage a major increase in the numbers of the population with degree-level qualifications but also to improve the quality of graduates. [But] Australia is losing ground."

The review was established to report on whether the national system of universities was adequately structured, organised and financed "to position Australia to compete effectively in the new globalised economy". The committee of four was headed by a former vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia, Professor Denise Bradley, and included a businessman (and university chancellor), a vocational education consultant and a leading businesswoman.

As part of its efforts to make the system more flexible, the committee says all qualified Australians should have "an entitlement" to undertake an undergraduate qualification unlimited in duration or value. It says this is consistent with the need to broaden the base of higher education qualifications in the population and the need for skills upgrading over the life cycle.

"Such a system allows institutions flexibility to decide the courses they will offer and the number of students they will admit. This, combined with an entitlement for all qualified students, is the most responsive and appropriate policy option in circumstances where we must raise participation urgently and do so from among groups which have traditionally failed to participate."

The Labor Party has long been opposed to the idea of vouchers and whether the government would even consider such an option is doubtful. In any event, queues already form outside the gates of the top universities and it is unlikely they could accept even more students on to their already crowded campuses.

Education Minister Julia Gillard said the government would carefully consider each of the recommendations and announce its response early in 2009. But although the government came to office promising an "education revolution" in the schools and post-secondary education sectors, the global financial crisis is likely to limit the extent it can meet its own goals or the calls of the Bradley committee.

* Professor Simon Marginson has prepared a detailed analysis of the report and its implications for this week's Research and Commentary section.

geoff.maslen@uw-news.com


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