Online teaching helps University of Sydney cut losses
The University of Sydney has improved its financial position by nearly $300m after making a major effort to keep international students enrolled in online classes.
The University of Sydney has improved its financial position this year by nearly $300m after making a major effort to keep international students, caught overseas by the COVID-19 travel ban, enrolled in online classes.
The university told staff on Thursday that the $470m revenue loss which had been expected in April had now been reduced to $184m for 2020.
But vice-chancellor Michael Spence warned that significant revenue hits from COVID-19 would continue for the next three to four years, and said formal consultations had begun on a voluntary redundancy scheme to cut jobs next year.
“We cannot feasibly continue to operate in the type of austerity environment that we have been subject to in 2020,” he told staff in an email.
Because of the “pipeline” effect on student numbers — a student who doesn’t enrol this year is also not enrolled for the following years of their multi-year course — the revenue hit on the university budget from absent international students is expected to grow.
This year, revenue is down $117m compared to the original budget. But in 2021, it is expected to be down $217m — and then down $183m in 2022.
Dr Spence justified the job losses by saying that the pandemic would continue to affect the university’s budget until 2025. He also said tough savings measures imposed this year “cannot be sustained at anywhere near their current levels for the next three to four years”.
“The (voluntary redundancy) program is proposed as a prudent step to help the university manage the financial uncertainty that lies ahead,” he said.
The university has not set a target for the number of voluntary redundancies, but Dr Spence said “we hope it will be the only staff measure required”.
According to data collected by the National Tertiary Education Union, 17 universities have now indicated the number of permanent jobs they intend to cut — amounting to about 5000 positions — and many more universities are still to announce their planned job losses.
The union also found that nearly 600 fixed-term positions had disappeared so far, and up to 6000 casual positions are known to have gone.
The union believes there are also many fixed-term and casual job losses of which it is unaware.
According to the Group of Eight universities, the contracts of more than 4000 researchers in its universities will expire over the summer and it is unclear whether they will be renewed.
The University of Sydney now expects it will not be able to bring international students back to Australia until the second semester next year.
In a draft change proposal also sent to staff on Thursday, the university said it expected to achieve 65 per cent of its planned international student fee revenue in the first semester of 2021, rising to 80 per cent by the second semester of 2021.
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