So you want to fix the system? Here’s the plan

Reimagining Higher Education lays out the groundwork to fix the tertiary education system.

Artist: Sturt Krygsman

Reimagining Higher Education, the report out today from Stephen Parker, Andrew Dempster and Mark Warburton, is something that should be taken very seriously. It lays out plainly what needs to be done to repair Australia’s tertiary education system which, while not at the point of failure, soon will be if nothing is done to fix it.

To some extent the report repeats what many others have said.

For example, Peter Noonan at the Mitchell Institute has drawn attention to the desperate plight of the vocational education sector and the need to extend HELP ­income-contingent loans to all tertiary students.

The Business Council of Australia has urged more integration between higher education and ­vocational education.

Outgoing University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis has long urged an independent tertiary education commission to apportion funding.

The Labor Party says it will instigate a major review of tertiary education, should it win office, to put higher education and vocational education on equal footing.

And federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham, while eschewing root-and-branch higher education reform, is prodding at the edges with a review of the Australian Qualifications Framework and talk of freeing up the restrictive rules that prevent universities from focusing on teaching only.

But Parker, Dempster and Warburton, after extensive consultation with many in the tertiary sector, bring these together into a radical but sensible whole that is, nevertheless, leavened with their own thinking.

The report has KPMG branding because that is where Parker now works as the lead education partner. But don’t mistake it for other consulting firm papers that reflect a client’s world view. This one’s not like that. It’s a real contribution to thought leadership, as they say in the trade.

It reflects a clarity of thinking of which we don’t see enough. Don’t forget Parker, when he was vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra, was the sole university leader to reject the Abbott government’s plan for deregulated student fees. If implemented, it would have driven up the cost of higher education, allowed education providers to help themselves to government subsidies, and would have probably sent the HELP student loan system broke.

Today there is broad agreement that something needs to be done, and what Parker, Dempster and Warburton propose will have substantial support.

Interestingly, it is universities that lead the opposition to integrating higher and vocational education, because they fear losing out. This is not a good long-term strategy.

It’s clear that there is less distinction than ever between the two sectors, and government policy will need to recognise this.