From the Chancellery
Peter Høj
Vice-Chancellor and President
A
new era in education
Over the past month, our Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has delivered a number of announcements in response to the Bradley Review of Higher Education, in advance of the full Government response being handed down with the Federal Budget in May. This has spawned intense and nuanced debate on the role of higher education in shaping the future of Australia.
Two major challenges lie before us.
The first is the need to increase the proportion of young Australians with an undergraduate qualification, and the second is to put Australia in the top group of OECD nations for investment in university research.
The Government has translated the first of these challenges into several ambitious targets, which will have significant impact on our university and the sector more generally.
Gillard has set a target for 40% of all 25-34 year old Australians to have a qualification at Bachelor level or above by 2025 (currently this figure stands at 32%). Additionally, all Australian universities will be funded on the basis of student demand from 2012. As a result, the Government may negotiate the provision of places in fields of national importance, which represents a significant shift in load-planning for UniSA, and creates both opportunities and threats in our competitive, global market.
Further, the Government has stipulated that all universities should have a 20% participation rate for students from low socio-economic backgrounds by 2020. Nationally this figure sits at 15%. UniSA has a proud record in this area with 25.1% of our students having come from such backgrounds. This figure has been upheld by the University for almost a decade, and goes to the heart of our founding values of social justice and equity in education.
The Government has also announced it will form a national regulatory body to oversee academic standards and how universities monitor performance in teaching and research. UniSA has already anticipated this and prepared an Academic Standards Framework which is under review by Academic Board.
The second major challenge, to make research a defining feature of a university, heralds the need for increased participation by universities in research.
This is essential if Australia is to grow a world-class university system, as opposed to a world-class university elite. UniSA has already shown remarkable growth in research capacity and is well-positioned for future benchmarks. During 2001-2007, UniSA’s research income increased by 138%, a rate which was well above the national average and South Australian growth rate of 115% and 79%, respectively.
The Bradley Review argues for a broader definition of what constitutes research and research performance, in contrast to the more narrow research quality rankings foreshadowed by the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) exercise.
While ERA may deliver new insights into the quality of Australian research, it does not, in my view, place the required value on engagement with external stakeholders or on knowledge transfer across disciplines. At a time when Australia ranks last in the OECD for research collaborations between industry and universities, UniSA will continue to pursue multidisciplinary research approaches with industry and the professions and fulfil our core values of engagement and relevance.
During these times of change, it is critical for UniSA to reaffirm its teaching and research mission to make a difference and to ensure our staff and students are encouraged to pursue both disciplinary excellence and community engagement. As a university we have a strong record of anticipating change and acting quickly to seize opportunities. We will embrace the full outcomes of the Bradley Review with the same openness we endeavour to instil in all of our graduates, and continue to maintain our focus on delivering innovation to a healthy, cohesive and educated Australia.