Appalling class ratios an issue ripe for a revolt

ONE simple if costly way of improving teaching in this country is often forgotten in the complex debate over education policy: cutting tutorial sizes at universities.

The federal government likes to point out that higher education spending will jump from 0.82 per cent of gross domestic product in 2007-08 to 1 per cent in 2010-11.

But that increase needs to be seen in a particular context: one that highlights that the extra funds are doing nothing to alleviate overcrowding in classrooms.

Already government policy has seen publicly funded university places rise by 7.5 per cent since Labor was elected. That may suit Labor's ideological goal to make universities more accessible, but it affects teaching standards when funds aren't sufficient to keep class sizes down.

One of the government's stated aims is to increase the number of 25 to 34-year-olds who hold a bachelors degree to 40 per cent by 2025.

Again a noble goal, but one that, to be achieved without impinging on standards, must happen in conjunction with far greater funding allocations than are slated at present. And increased funding needs to be targeted or else it won't be used to improve the ratio of academics to students, a goal that too often slides down the order of priorities on the agenda of university administrators.

From when I studied as an undergraduate to my time teaching as a university professor (and we are talking about the passing of only a decade or so), class sizes have jumped significantly. Tutorials had 10 to 15 people when I first started at university.

Today, tutorial sizes often include 25 to 30 students. At my previous university I was told that classes with less than 20 students "weren't viable" and that surplus students needed to be parachuted into other already overcrowded tutorials.

There are two key aspects to old-fashioned university teaching: the large lecture, which is the backdrop to weekly reading requirements, and the smaller tutorials where questions can be answered and debates had.

If the latter is lost to the fiscal realities of tight university budgets, students we send into the real world won't be nearly as well-trained as those who went before them, despite the wonders of the new technological age.

In most university structures, lectures aren't compulsory while tutorials are, which means some students rarely turn up to lectures despite their importance to a basic understanding of the course.

I used to reverse this requirement, making lectures compulsory and tutorials optional (albeit strongly encouraged). This at least ensured all students compulsorily got the basic building blocks of the course via the lectures, and it helped keep class sizes below the numbers appearing on the official spreadsheets.

But relying on a transfer of student apathy from lectures to tutorials is hardly the making of good tertiary policy. It is a Band-Aid solution with no doubt unintended consequences.

It is difficult to get a room full of academics to agree on anything, but one thing they do agree on is that the ratio of staff to students is appalling. It's time something is done about it.

That's what revolutions are supposed to be there for.

Peter van Onselen is a Winthrop professor at the University of Western Australia.