Jason Clare’s vision offers aspiration to all, but much can go wrong

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Jason Clare is an education minister focused on Australians who lack the advantages. Whether, like him, they grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney or some other less privileged area, or whether through accident of birth or circumstance they lack opportunity, he wants to make it up to them.

On Wednesday Clare will release the entirety of his big plan for Australian tertiary education, and its key theme will be how to assist those without advantage into tertiary education so they have the skills to thrive in the modern economy.

When he speaks to the National Press Club he will say the only way to do this is to “significantly increase the number of university students from the outer suburbs and the regions. Students from poor backgrounds, students with a disability, Indigenous students.”

He expects that the number of commonwealth-supported students at university will double from about 900,000 today to 1.8 million by 2050.

“Thirty-six per cent of the workforce has a uni degree today,” he will tell the press club. “The report I am releasing today estimates that that could jump to 55 per cent by the middle of this century.”

His vision has the compelling quality of offering aspiration to all. But there is also much that can go wrong. Last time the number of university students was quickly expanded, in response to Labor’s Bradley review of higher education in 2008, the downside was larger proportions of students dropping out of courses and incurring a HECS debt without ever getting a degree.

Whenever the proportion of the population that goes to university grows larger, inevitably it means that more students are less academically prepared for their course.

Clare eloquently makes the case for more university students, pointing out the unfairness that prevails today. While nearly half of all Australians in their late 20s have a degree, the proportion falls to 18 per cent of young people who live in the regions, and 15 per cent of young people from poor families.

Clare is right that it’s a waste of talent and an abrogation of the fair go.

But it also won’t work just to give these young people a place at university without spending the money it will take to adequately prepare them for it and give them sufficient academic support while they are studying.

Clare also needs to make sure that the people who go to university under his expanded system do degrees that are designed for the new economy jobs that are available.

He also must not neglect the forgotten sector of tertiary learning, vocational education. As he will also say in his press club speech, “almost every new job that’s created in the years ahead will require a TAFE qualification or a university degree”.

So at least he is thinking about TAFE and vocational education. It’s important to give vocational courses their due, because they are much better suited to getting some students into good careers than university courses.

Clare just needs to make sure that the incentives to get a vocational qualification are as good as those that are enjoyed by students going to university.

Currently students can enrol at university without worrying about what it costs in the immediate future, because its covered by HECS. That’s not usually the case with vocational courses, where fee arrangements vary widely and often involve paying upfront.

One of the terms of reference for the review is to ensure that the vocational and higher education sectors are more engaged and aligned. Clare needs to make sure that happens.