Uni funding should boost jobs

Consultations between the Morrison government and universities about Education Minister Dan Tehan’s proposed higher education reforms present a timely opportunity to allocate resources in the best interests of the sector and the economy, to the benefit of young adults facing years of serious employment challenges. Last week, we reported that Treasury head Steven Kennedy had warned business and union leaders that unemployment was set to remain significantly above its pre-­pandemic levels for four or five years. The “COVID generation” of young workers aged 20 to 29 were likely to be hardest hit. For many of them and for school-leavers, the outlook will reinforce the value of a university education.

In June, Mr Tehan announced significant changes to university fees to improve incentives for students to enrol in agriculture, maths, nursing, teaching and science courses and to raise the cost of humanities degrees. The proposals have drawn a cold response from universities, including the Group of Eight, which has branded them “inexplicable” and likely to “lead to perverse outcomes”.

Despite bleak job prospects, Australia continues to face skills shortages. The problem is not only a matter of inadequate numbers of graduates in fields such as engineering but also the skills graduates are learning, or not learning, in courses. In engineering, research compiled by the Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business last year showed employers had large pools of qualified applicants, 16 on average per vacancy, but 87 per cent of the qualified applications were unsuitable. The main problems were lack of experience in a particular specialisation, insufficient technical skills and poor application, interview or work history. The research also showed Australia was short of mining and electrical engineers. In other occupations, including nursing, accounting and agricultural science, employers reported that many qualified applicants lacked the skills to fill available jobs.

After the loss of billions of dollars in revenue from international students because of COVID-19, university leaders’ insistence on secure funding makes sense. The sector is facing about 21,000 job losses. In return for taxpayer funding, universities face an important role in better preparing students for the job opportunities that will emerge in a changing marketplace as Australia recovers. It makes sense that maths, science and engineering should be promoted to students as post-pandemic job creators. But it is odd, as Richard Ferguson reported on Tuesday, that universities would be paid $4758 less per student to teach science under the government’s funding proposals due to reductions in student fees and direct government funding. What makes more sense is the recognition in the proposed changes that many young people are better suited to skills and vocational training outside university. The Regional Universities Network is concerned that plans to remove HECS for students who fail to complete 50 per cent of their first-year university subjects is “too prescriptive”. But the objective of the measure is reasonable, as the RUN acknowledges. As the sector, Labor and crossbenchers debate and negotiate the proposals with the government, growth and the job needs of the COVID generation should be front and centre.