Spanning over 400 pages and 47 recommendations, the University Accord Final Report is the most significant review of the tertiary sector in at least 15 years. Led by Dr Mary O’Kane, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, the panel released an interim report in July last year before delivering their findings to the federal Education Minister Jason Clare in December.
The report comes at a time when there is a clear consensus that the future growth of the Australian economy depends on a massive increase in university and vocational skill attainment. The report argues the proportion of Australians with tertiary qualifications needs to rise from 60% to 80% by 2050, with 55% of people aged 25-34 needing to gain a university degree. That amounts to over 1.8 million Commonwealth Supported Places annually. Recognising its scale, the government has publicly analogised the plan with the staggering increase in high school attendance (40% to 80%) during the Hawke and Keating years.
While bold in its diagnosis of the issues facing Australian education and skills development, the report’s largely excellent recommendations will be quickly overshadowed by its cost, alongside the multiple levels of negotiations across federal and state governments required to legislate and implement any changes. The implementation of the Accord report requires the establishment of an Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) that would, in principle, function independent from government and oversee the reform. The ATEC is evidence that even the procedural elements of the Accord will take time to become a reality.
The purpose of the ATEC and the extent of its power is ambiguous. Following the interim report, The Australian published that the ATEC will “help protect universities from the political winds of the day,” highlighting the conservative narrative that the progressive politics surrounding universities are a threat. Others fear the oversight body’s interventionist powers will threaten institutional autonomy. Australian National University Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Andrew Norton warns that the ATEC may become a “monster” wrecking “overreach” over time. Norton believes that the Commission can step into waters of over-regulation, depending on who manages it. However, Norton explains that the detail provided on the ATEC in the recently released report calms some of his worries compared to the description provided in the interim report, to which he responded by calling the proposed ATEC “Job-ready Graduates 2.0”.
Coming into an election year, the government will likely begin acting on the report during the May budget in areas that align with its narrative on reducing cost of living. However, the fiscal ‘responsibility’ Albanese has modelled himself on will likely block further reform until after the election. Clare has already told the media this will take “multiple ministers and multiple governments.” Unfortunately, reviews almost never last that long.
The last review of higher education, the 2008 Bradley Review, also called on the government to increase income support to close the equity gaps in higher education, enhance funding for rural campuses, and develop pathways between higher education and vocational education. While the Accord uses stronger language and phrases the crisis in more urgent terms, the similarities with the Bradley Review highlights that governments can act in degrees.
While the 2009 budget did increase financial support and needs based funding for low-income and First Nations students, it was minimal because the Gillard government was focused on implementing the Gonski reforms. Overall, even though many recommendations were implemented, $2.3 billion of government funding towards universities was cut. The process of what goes into a budget is often a matter of optical priority. Strong action on the Accord depends on governments aligning recommendations with electability. However, as the current secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Glynn Davis pointed out when he was University of Melbourne Vice Chancellor “all recent governments have cut university funding per student in real terms. There is no evidence that any paid a political price for doing so.”
The Accord only recommends one funding mechanism, the Higher Education Future Fund (HEFF), outside of governments directly injecting money into the sector. The $10 billion fund would be primarily funded through levies on university income in areas like philanthropic donations and international student fees, with the bulk of the money coming from wealthy universities like USyd and the University of Melbourne. While regional universities, who would benefit most from the fund, have come out in support of the plan —University of Newcastle Vice Chancellor Alex Zelinsky called it “progressive” — larger universities are already lobbying hard against it. Mark Scott called the policy a “tax dressed up as a fund” and argued that because international student income is the primary way universities fund research due to government cuts, the levy would put further pressure on the sector.
There are also serious concerns about the reliability of the income. The government’s recent crackdown on migration has caused many international students to lose their visa, with thousands of potential students now being turned away. Disincentivising the attraction of students by taxing fees won’t create a sustainable base of funding. Further, as Clare himself conceded, it’s unclear why donations to individual universities would remain consistent if donors no longer had full control over where the money went. A similar $11 billion fund was set up after the Bradley Review but was dropped after only three investment rounds with the money being transferred to the NDIS.
Foreshadowing the USyd SRC’s response to the report, Harrison Brennan in his President’s report this week highlights that a direct GDP commitment from the government on the long term funding of the tertiary sector is crucially missing. Brennan also pointed out that the universities’ supposed not-for-profit model comes under little scrutiny in the report. While universities claim all profit is reinvested back into research and education, there are very limited guidelines on where within the university they can spend that money. The over $1 billion profit USyd recorded last financial year could have been reinvested in increasing casual wages or lowering the cost of student accommodation well below market rates. However, as this week’s article on prizes and bursaries shows, a lot of the money coming into the university goes into vague pools which are meant to be redistributed to students but where the money goes remains largely a mystery.
After spending weeks bombarding the public with their minor changes to the stage 3 tax cuts, any movement on the report in the budget will likely align with short term cost of living relief. Clare has signalled that the recommended changes to the HECS loan scheme are on his agenda. The Accord proposes the government index loan payments to wage growth rather than the Consumer Price Index and reduce upfront payments for those earning below a certain income threshold. Indexing increases to wage growth would prevent the 7.1% increase in HECS indexation students faced last year when inflation peaked. Reducing upfront payments could be the equivalent of saving around $1000 for those on incomes of around $75,000 a year — a wage common for first year carers, teachers and nurses.
Implementing these changes would also, in effect, repeal the Morrison-era Jobs Ready Graduate Program which increased the fees of some degree areas in order to encourage students to choose more ‘employable’ degrees. Since 2019, the increased fees have not shifted the demand for arts, law, or other degrees deemed less desirable. Both the National Union of Students (NUS) and National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) have publicly backed the repeal of the law. “It had terrible implications for the sector and didn’t work as it was intended,” NTEU president Alison Barnes said, citing the report as conclusive evidence the law had failed.
Other recommendations, such as an increase to youth allowance and more free vocational and tertiary preparatory places are easy for the government to act on for similar reasons. The government has already committed to another 300,000 fee free TAFE places this year and increased youth allowance in the last budget. Clare, in his own words, “made it clear my priority is helping more kids from the outer suburbs and the regions, more kids from poor backgrounds get a crack at university.” The 54% retention rate for education students has been flagged by the government as evidence that money needs to be targeted at selectively easing the cost of university. The amount poorer students will receive could be negligible in a cost of living crisis, but the government may count on the flip side of that, every dollar is worth more when you are under pressure.
The report also responds to student feedback in reducing unpaid work placements, which are often inherent features of university degrees such as teaching, nursing and social work. The push for paid placements reveals that reforms to tertiary education depend on fixing the structural inequality that plagues Australian high schools. Increased university attendance assumes a higher percentage of Australians are graduating high school when in reality graduation rates have been dropping for the past five years. The recent story that the top five private schools spend more on facilities than 3,300 public schools highlights the reality that, at best, public schools in Australia are only funded at 89% of the Gonski target set years ago. The students who fall behind in fundamental areas like literacy and numeracy are the very group the Accord wants to attend university. Teacher and facility shortages impact the regional and First Nations students the government wants to uplift more than any other demographic.
The federal government is currently negotiating a new school funding agreement with states. Western Australia has attained an in-principle agreement from the government that the 5% shortfall in funding will be fully covered by the Commonwealth. Other states, many in heavy debt, have every incentive to seek the same concessions. The cruel reality of these negotiations is that every dollar given to states to fund public schools is likely a dollar taken out of funding an Accord recommendation. Just like Gonski disrupted the implementation of the Bradley review in 2009, education can only make up so much of the budget announcements, even though both sectors need serious reform and there is a clear consensus on how deep the issues are.
Alongside improvements to the student experience, the Accord report aims to ameliorate the Australian research system, claiming Australia “does not currently use its full potential as a source of innovation”. Despite record profits for many Group of Eight (Go8) research-intensive universities since 2021, Australian universities fail to invest adequately in research, particularly supporting researchers — our university tutors. During USyd’s Enterprise Bargaining agreement, USyd management fiercely attempted to displace the 40/40/20 workload for academic staff (40% teaching, 40% research, 20% administration), envisioning a shift where fewer academic staff engage with research.
To ‘support’ research, USyd has taken a ‘top-down’ approach which concentrates its financial surplus in management and fails to buttress research projects among casual academics. In USyd’s 2022 Annual Report, one of USyd’s key policies to tackle declines in research output was the establishment of additional Pro-Vice-Chancellor positions. Though this may assist in systematic reform in USyd’s research sector, it fails to address funding gaps.
The Accord report focuses on governmental support for research, which although also beneficial, particularly for smaller universities, neglects the underlying problem that major Australian universities undervalue research, particularly in non-STEM industries. There are also no recommendations on job insecurity or issues facing university researchers themselves.
These recommendations regarding governmental financial support for research do respond to an epidemic of funding cuts to the research sector under the Coalition government; government investment in academic research only accounts for 0.17% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The report charts a pathway for the government to fully-fund university research, where universities charge, and governments pay, full market rates for commissioned and contract research and consulting. It also plans for the creation of a government-run “Solving Australian Challenges Strategic Fund”, which involves the allocation of funding to universities, based on factors such as a “portfolio assessment” and the “University’s mission”. This recommendation outright states, “Universities with exceptional performance should be rewarded at a higher level than others.” Placing access to funding on a competitive plane might bolster the worst elements of university management policies, encouraging image-conscious, PR-driven campaigns to secure it. It also raises the threat of smaller universities facing neglect as they have less resources to lobby their research to fit the very arbitrary “exceptional performance” metric.
Regional tertiary education has been singled out in the report for special attention. The regions face a number of challenges less applicable to metropolitan universities. The 2017 Halsey Review — the Independent Review into Regional, Rural and Remote Education — made eleven recommendations in this area, including the need to bolster support for students living away from home. This produced the Regional University Study Hubs program, which from 2018 saw $100 million committed to 32 Regional Hubs across Australia. These “hubs” are intended to provide study spaces, computer facilities, internet access and academic skills support. The report, along with the 2019 Napthine Review, culminated in the Coalition Government’s National Regional, Rural and Remote Education Strategy. This included an increase in funding for regional campuses, a new role entitled Regional Education Commissioner, bolstering regional research and a $5000 Tertiary Access Payment for regional students. This was not the first attempt to ameliorate the unique burdens placed upon students at regional universities. Over a decade ago, the Social Security Amendment (Student Income Support Reforms) Bill 2011 expanded the laxer youth allowance rules that applied to “Outer Regional, Remote and Very Remote areas” to students from “Inner Regional areas” and introduced a “Relocation Scholarship” to “eligible regional students.”
However, it is clear regional universities still face significant challenges, some of which previous attempts to bolster regional study failed to lighten. The Tertiary Access Payment in particular represents a problematic initiative. Firstly, the payment is not applied until after the census date, forcing students to pay any relocation costs from their own pocket before receiving reimbursement from the government. Another serious oversight derives from rules surrounding course commencement. Under the current model, the Tertiary Access Payment can only be taken if students attend tertiary education immediately after completing high school. This prevents prospective students from taking a gap year. Whilst this may appear at first glance to simply lock students out of a privilege not even afforded to many metropolitan students, a gap year is a necessity for many regional school leavers to access independent youth allowance. “Concessional criteria” that apply to regional students enable those aged 21 or below to negate the impact of their parents’ income on their youth allowance eligibility if they demonstrate financial independence by working at least 15 hours a week for more than two years. Preventing students from undertaking gap years adds another obstacle in place of the roadblock bulldozed by the Tertiary Access Payment.
These are not the only challenges faced by regional students. Whilst placement poverty is a noted issue for even metropolitan students, costs imposed by long-distance travel compound the issue for regional students. Additionally, existing inequalities in the primary and secondary education system — including teacher shortages and limited subject menus — can cause problems for regional school leavers who want to attend university. This is important because, according to the Regional Universities Network, “[regional universities] do the heavy lifting in attracting students from regional and remote backgrounds to higher education and graduating them.”
According to the report it is also regional universities themselves that face significant financial obstacles to providing quality education. Regional universities face a lack of “high-value investments, valuable infrastructure, established and diverse revenue profiles, and philanthropic support” when compared to high-profile metropolitan universities like USyd. Additionally, only 7% of Australia’s research funding finds its way to regional universities, while the geographic necessity of spread campuses means more courses must be run, and more facilities built, for less students.
These obstacles, both for students and the institutions that they study at, must be ameliorated. According to the Regional Universities Network, “students who go to university in regional Australia tend to remain in regional areas after graduation,” however “students who leave regional areas to study in an urban institution are unlikely to return.” Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world, a trend that has consistently increased since the colonial era. In 1901, around 33% of Australian workers found employment in regional resources industries. In 1906, 50% of Australia’s people lived in the Bush. Now the script has flipped, and Australia’s metropolitan centres take a lion’s share of the country’s economic potential. This has contributed to a series of socio-economic problems in regional Australia, including a much publicised regional skills shortage and high rates of economic disadvantage. Service shortages, particularly in areas of school education, early childhood education and healthcare, only compound disadvantages in regional areas. Educating more teachers, nurses and childcare practitioners in the regions will go a long way to ensure these services can be fulfilled.
The most ambitious attempt to reform regional education is the National Regional University (NRU). The idea was first raised in the Interim Report. The final report “acknowledged the serious sustainability issues faced by some regional universities” and “noted the need to consider new approaches to improve delivery of higher education in regional and remote Australia.” This led to the recommendation of “exploring the creation of a second national university — a National Regional University.” However, the report also notes “mixed feedback” for the idea: some regional stakeholders asserted that a NRU would only work if properly funded, while others “questioned how long it might take to establish and wanted to know what positive, negative and unintended consequences there might be for existing institutions and their communities.” ‘More detail required’ seems to be the consensus. Nevertheless, the report “sees value in further examining the potential creation of a National Regional University.”
This would not be the first time a National University was created by the federal government to fill a skills shortage and enable a more hands-on approach to a troubled tertiary education system. Canberra’s Australian National University (ANU) was established in 1946 by the Chifley government as a post-war reconstruction measure. If ANU is anything to go by, a National Regional University could be a huge success: ANU is now part of the Group of Eight, and represents one of Australia’s biggest tertiary education providers. History shows that direct government involvement can have spectacular results, but for a NRU to work, stability and consistent funding would be a necessity. Ultimately however, a NRU is still a long way off. Land was set aside for a University like ANU in Canberra in 1908 by Walter Burley Griffin himself, yet the institution wasn’t built for another four decades. Regional Tertiary Education needs creative and large scale solutions promptly to secure a better life for everyone in rural and regional Australia — a NRU cannot be left to stew in the ideas stage like ANU was.
Clare is already using this report within broader election rhetoric, “the election I fight next year will determine the future of public education in this country.” At this point in the government’s response, sweeping statements like this are uneared. The political stagnation that has dominated recent Australian politics will likely doom this report to largely gather dust on the Education Minister’s desk. Unless there is strong action in the May budget, the mandate for university reform will slip away when the other issues ranging from housing to immigration dominate the upcoming election cycle. The Labor government will only act if there are votes to lose — university students have an obligation to make their votes count.
