The current state of Higher Education

Sarah Henderson outlines the challenges confronting Australia’s universities in a speech to a higher education summit.

To our university leaders, teachers, researchers and administrators, thank you for the critical work you do to educate more than 1.5 million students in the advancement of our nation, every year.

Universities really matter.

As Professor Bell said a short time ago, `You create critical thinkers and critical doers’.

But the challenges you face are considerable.

Domestic enrolments are slowing, fuelled by a tight employment market and workforce shortages – 815,700 people were enrolled in Bachelor degrees in 2022, compared with 934,700 in 2016.

The cost-of-living crisis is hitting young Australians hard, particularly for those in the regions and others who need to leave home to study. Paying the rent and putting food on the table is arguably now the biggest barrier.

Driven by Labor’s home-grown inflation, student debt is skyrocketing – even with the government’s proposed changes, HELP indexation is still up 11 per cent since June 2022.

An over-reliance on online learning has drained much life from university campuses, leaving many students disconnected and disengaged.

For months, in the face of the protest encampments, the classroom invasions, building occupations, the hate and incitement, campus safety particularly for Jewish students and staff has dominated the headlines. The Coalition says “never again” which is why we need a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at Australian universities.

The quality of teaching has also been in the headlines with Harry, a first-year commerce student from the University of Melbourne, telling ABC radio he was walking away because his tutorials were spoken mainly in Mandarin. And I’m sure this happens at a range of universities.

Regressive new laws which restrict the employment of casuals – some 20 per cent of your workforce across the sector – start next Monday, hampering the ability of universities to engage sessional experts – practising surgeons to teach medical students, barristers to lecture law students, and so on.

As Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has announced, these are job-destroying laws we will reverse, giving certainty and flexibility to every workplace across our country.

Some of the government’s reforms are more politics than substance. Control over the majority of ARC funding is, in fact, retained by the minister. So, his characterisation of what you heard this morning, is in fact, not correct.

There are other major challenges: The declining standards in our schools – another year of disastrous NAPLAN results.

While some schools are still producing some exceptional results, turning this ship around with explicit instruction and other evidence-based teaching methods in every classroom, in every corner of our country, is critical to the success of Australian universities. The data makes it clear the biggest disadvantage a student faces is not their postcode or family or ethnic background, but not learning to read and write and be numerate.

And to the elephant in the room. In a case of careful what you wish for, Minister Clare’s establishment of a University Accord to “drive lasting reform into the Australian higher education sector”, as he declared on 16 November 2022, has ended in many short-term political fixes, unprecedented uncertainty, and considerable policy chaos.

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Last month, the new vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University, Professor George Williams, cut to the chase.

He said: “Any industry where you have commonly a third or more of students saying they’re dissatisfied with their education, shows there is something wrong that needs to be fixed.”

Prof. Williams did not pull his punches. He urged universities to get back to fundamentals and remain focused on the fact they are public institutions serving a public good.

In Western Sydney’s case, he said this means focusing on the students, on the western Sydney community and on the impact of the university’s research.

In the wake of the Covid years, I recognise the significant efforts universities are making to enhance the student experience and learning engagement which is integral to combating declining completion rates.

But to succeed in that mission, it is vital to go back to basics – face-to-face learning, vibrant campuses, and an uncompromising focus on teaching quality.

Getting back to basics means putting students first – a more accountable and transparent university sector which is measured according to student outcomes, not enrolments, and the delivery of high value degrees – fit for purpose, closely aligned to the needs of industry and underpinned by an absolute commitment to excellence.

That’s why we led the charge, calling for an independent student ombudsman.

That’s why we back an Australian Universities Performance Index, so every aspect of a provider’s offering can be assessed without fear or favour. We think this is a really important initiative to put students first.

As Henry Ford said in 1934, “A man’s college and university degrees mean nothing to me until I see what he is able to do with them.” (If he said that today, he would say `she’ as well.)

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Our international student sector is one of Australia’s most important exports.

It is now at the crossroads – and the situation is dire.

In just two years, the number of international students more than doubled. Then came Ministerial Direction 107 – which resulted in blatant discrimination against regional and smaller universities and private higher education providers, at an estimated cost, very conservatively, of more than half a billion dollars.

Months after the Prime Minister and Minister Clare committed to deepen the Australia-India education partnership, Indian students were being banned at some universities, through no fault of the universities themselves because they were managing their risk – headlines which of course threatened Australia’s international reputation.

Let’s be under no illusions – while integrity and quality are of paramount importance, the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill currently before the parliament is not principally about integrity and quality, but fixing Labor’s immigration mess.

Nothing Minister Clare has said this morning can undo the enormous economic harm the Albanese government has inflicted on regional and smaller universities. As I am advised, the situation is so serious that some risk collapse in the next few years, if there are not dramatic changes.

The Coalition’s position is clear – we are committed to reducing excessive numbers of foreign students studying at metropolitan universities to relieve stress on rental markets in our major cities, exacerbated by universities providing insufficient purpose-built student accommodation.

While international students deliver rivers of gold for Australia’s most prestigious universities – which more often than not is put to very good use in the exceptional research that our universities do – I understand that foreign students now make up half of the undergraduate students at the University of Sydney.

As Deakin vice-chancellor Iain Martin contests, these numbers put at risk the social licence which every university needs to educate international students.

Your social license is important. We want to ensure that your crucial work to educate international students, both here and overseas, remains core business and remains strong.

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Now, we were expecting a very different speech from the minister this morning. It appears that his announcement – and my understanding is he was planning to announce the overarching international student cap, but with little detail …. I was advised the government was still working out what to do.

I think it’s fair to say – I, as the shadow minister, am struggling with the government’s reform agenda as much as you are. But it now appears this announcement has been pulled, perhaps by someone further up the chain than the minister himself.

The government apparently knows the number that it wants to reach, and it is disappointing you don’t have more certainty.

As the Financial Review revealed today, we are deeply concerned that Treasury has not modelled international student caps and we got an indication of this in the last Senate public hearing when we asked the Department of Home Affairs about immigration modelling, and they referred us to Treasury, and so we have only just called Treasury to another public hearing next Monday.

So, there is enormous uncertainty, and I really do feel very much for you and the position you’re in.

It is a wild ride.

As a sector, you deserve better than this.

Our regional and smaller universities, which have worked so hard to support their communities and punch above their weight, deserve better.

Across our vast continent, every young Australian deserves the same opportunity to go to university, no matter where they live.

That is the fundamental obligation of every government.

An obligation the Coalition takes very seriously.

Thank you.

Sarah Henderson is the Shadow Minister for Education and Senator for Victoria. This is an edited extract of an address she gave to the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Summit in Sydney this week.