Higher Education Environment
There have been fundamental shifts in Higher Education policy in recent years with a significant new focus on nation building, job-readiness and the utility of the educational investment. Self-regulation and self-accreditation is being challenged by stronger community views about curriculum standards and the transparent oversight of outcomes. Increasingly, higher education is seen as part of the social inclusion policy armoury. An increased awareness of the importance of quality of learning, teaching and research by both students and academic staff has resulted in a higher education sector that is increasingly competitive, responsive, learner-centred and entrepreneurial.
Recent Federal Government policy aims for a student demand driven sector with widening accessibility, a greater contribution towards jobs growth and ‘nation building’, and for research to be clustered in large-scale, world-class groupings that have a real impact on society’s ‘wicked problems’. Industry is becoming increasingly specific in its labour market requirements, and professional accreditation bodies more directive in program structure and course content.
The government responses to both the Bradley ‘Review of Higher Education’ and Cutler’s review of innovation, ‘Venturous Australia’, have set the future of the operating environment for higher education across Australia. Recommendations of the Bradley Review indicate a shift to a more student-driven model of funding for universities and a greater focus on access for traditionally under-represented students, reinforcing the importance of the University’s ability to provide a high quality, equitable education. Of equal importance is the recognition by the Cutler Review that the nation must move towards the full funding of research, as the ‘cross-subsidisation of research from teaching profoundly undermines both activities, the former by short-changing it, with the upshot of leaving it subject to the uncertainties of international markets, and the latter by undermining its international competitiveness’.
The 2009-2010 Commonwealth Budget affirmed that the ‘reach, quality and performance of this nation’s higher education system is central to Australia’s economic and social progress’. The removal of institutional quotas on student places, the provision of funding for students from low socio-economic groups and increases to research support funding will provide a significant boost to the University’s ability to continue its growth path while providing a quality experience for its students.
