The mystery of the minister’s speech

It’s a mystery for the ages. Where did Dan Tehan’s speech go?

Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan

In today’s Higher Ed Daily Brief: enduring mystery, too much amour

Off the cuff decision

Delegates to the Universities Australia annual conference in Canberra were puzzled yesterday when federal Education Minister Dan Tehan arrived to speak and proceeded to tell them about his farming experiences and how that related to his subsequent time as a university student. It was even more puzzling when it emerged that the speech Mr Tehan gave to the event, which universities regard as their most important annual gathering, was not the one which had been prepared and approved for the occasion.

It bore little resemblance to the version which had been circulated to media the night before and offered for publication in the morning’s newspapers. And it fell way short of the allotted time.

What happened? Did he put the real speech in the wrong coat pocket that morning and arrive at the conference without it? The minister’s office responded today that Mr Tehan decided to speak off the cuff after going to the conference dinner the night before and being inspired by the two guest speakers and their experience of regional education.

But the contrast between the minister’s speech, and the one that followed it by Labor education shadow minister Tanya Plibersek — which was jammed full of policy promises — was stark.

Endless love

Will Australian universities’ love affair with France ever end? This week not only did French Higher Education Minister Frederique Vidal give the keynote at the UA conference, but the Group of Eight universities inked a bunch of agreements with French defence companies and the Australian National University signed three research agreements with French institutions.

It turns out that’s not all. The University of Adelaide has announced a double masters degree in partnership with the French engineering school, Ecole Centrale de Lyon. Students will do two semesters at each institution and graduate with two degrees — a master in mechanical engineering from Adelaide and a master of science in acoustics from Lyon.

No doubt it gave the University of Adelaide’s deputy vice chancellor (academic) Pascale Quester much pleasure to announce the partnership with an institution from her home country.

It’s amazing how much love is generated by 12 new war fighting submarines.