Universities aren’t pizza joints; stop treating them that way
Policymakers must set aside the fiction that universities are just another industry that can generate its own funding and that academics can be turned into entrepreneurs.
Education Minister Jason Clare. Over the decades, higher education has been repurposed in ways that have not served the nation well. Bethany Rae
It is well past time for us to embrace a thorough rethink of what the purpose of higher education should be for Australia.
Our policymakers must be brave enough to argue that education is unequivocally and intrinsically a public good, vital to the interests of the nation, and therefore worth funding properly. They should set aside the convenient fiction that this is just another industry, that it can generate a large proportion of its own funding, that academics can be turned into entrepreneurs, and that there are substantial under-utilised financial resources available through the commercialisation of academic research outcomes.
