Adelaide University’s radical six-month degree plan
The number of South Australians with degrees must rise to at least 50 per cent, Adelaide University boss Peter Rathjen says — this is his radical blueprint to get there.
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A radical plan for much shorter “tailored” degrees that could take as little as six months or two years of study is being drawn up by the University of Adelaide.
Vice-Chancellor Peter Rathjen said the aim would be to boost the South Australian economy and upskill workers throughout their careers, allowing them to meet the changing demands of an evolving economy.
The proportion of Adelaide adults with degrees – now 26 per cent – needed to rise to at least 50 per cent to ensure the economy could evolve and thrive, he said.
To boost those numbers, Mr Rathjen said the university needed to innovate with new educational paths including more online and shorter degrees that “don’t require people to stop work and come to university full time for three years as a teenager”.
In a wide-ranging interview with SAWeekend, Mr Rathjen also said he had not given up on a merger with the University of South Australia despite the collapse of talks.
He said the federal government’s “failure” to properly fund research meant Australian universities needed to be big to compete internationally, and flagged increasing the size of the university from 28,000 students to more than 40,000 over the next decade – half of whom would be foreign, compared to less than a third now.
Arguing the university was central to creating innovative new industries and skills vital to the state’s economic future, Mr Rathjen said online learning programs and shorter degrees were essential to add to the existing traditional degrees.
“The conversation is very live at the university at the moment and we’re even talking to TAFE about whether there might be a partnership there,” he told today’s SAWeekend magazine.
“I’m not just talking about two year degrees. I think we’re going to have to go to much shorter degrees.”
He said the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which would disrupt almost everyone’s job in the next 10 to 20 years, was an opportunity to employ shorter degree courses. Winemaking was another example, he said, where shorter courses had already led to new businesses.
“We need one week courses, six month courses, things like that [so] that people can come into the university and maintain the skills they need,” Mr Rathjen said.
When Mr Rathjen was Vice Chancellor of the University of Tasmania, it introduced ‘associate’ degrees which were more skills based and lasted two years – but his new plans seem to be more wide-ranging.
However, he insisted the university wasn’t planning to move into the TAFE space.
“You are drawing on a wonderful intellectual tradition which is quite different to being competency based, where you teach someone to do something and tick it off,” he said.
“We’re still teaching thought, creativity, how you accumulate knowledge and apply it to problems, in the way universities always have. We’re just doing it in tailored packages rather than the broader three year degree.
“Those tailored packages will often be attractive to people who might be a little bit older and not willing to give up three years to sit around and be an undergraduate.”
The plans are among a range Mr Rathjen outlined as he argued a world class university was vital to driving a more successful SA.
“From the state’s point of view, it seems to be we’ve got two options. We either help people to get into education or we accept that we’re going to have to pay welfare. Because that’s the way the workforce is turning out,” he said.
“And whatever semi-skilled jobs have been lost, more are going to be lost as we go forward.”
Mr Rathjen said education and innovation were the keys to the state’s future and more South Australians needed to have tertiary degrees. Currently, according to the latest census figures, just 22 per cent of adults in Adelaide have degrees compared with Melbourne and Sydney with about 28 per cent.
Yet he warned the federal government’s new university funding model could block SA from increasing that proportion since it locked the numbers of South Australian students going through university to 2017 levels.