Regional universities reject push for a mega bush uni

Regional universities have rejected the push for them to merge into a mega institution.

Regional universities have rejected the push for them to merge into a mega institution.

Australia’s regional universities have come out against one of the signature ideas in the federal government’s higher education review which proposes to set up a multi-campus national university widely spread across rural areas.

In its latest submission to the Universities Accord review the Regional Universities Network said the national regional university idea outlined in the review panel’s interim report was prohibitive “due to the tremendously disruptive, overtly complex, drawn-out, and high-cost nature of the undertaking”.

RUN, which represents seven universities with home campuses in regional Australia, said that a national regional university was not compatible with maintaining a “healthy degree of competition” between Australia’s regional tertiary education providers.

The Accord review’s interim report said that establishing a second national university (in addition to the ANU) focused on regional Australia could “find academic synergies and operational efficiencies across existing institutions” and could boost research as well as attract more international students.

It said such a merged university could help deal with challenges faced by the universities currently operating in regional Australia due to thin student markets and difficulties in offering a comprehensive range of courses.

“The review considers there is merit taking this work forward, with the potential to establish a new National Regional University (NRU) which could have regional universities opt in to become part of the NRU,” the interim report said.

It offered the University of California system – in which the ten campuses are federated and have central governance, but each operate with a degree of autonomy – as a possible model.

In its submission RUN said it was difficult to see how merging into a single regional university would solve the problem of thin student markets and small uneconomic courses unless courses were consolidated and offered in fewer locations.

“This would irretrievably undermine the comprehensive nature of regional universities and therefore reduce their attractiveness to students and limit their benefit to regional communities,” RUN said.

The group said it would be better to support the current regional universities to collaborate on research and share student load in low demand locations.

“RUN would urge the Accord process to strongly consider how the objectives of a National Regional University might be more effectively met by alternative approaches,” it said.

RUN said its universities suffered financially from operating in the regions, which restricted their ability to invest in maintenance and new assets. It called for a special infrastructure funding to be targeted at universities in regional Australia to ensure regional students had equitable teaching and research facilities.

“Ultimately, if left unaddressed, a divergence of student experiences and outcomes within Australia’s higher education system will occur,” the RUN submission said.

The group said it supported a funding model like the Gonski schools model which offered a base amount for each student topped up with equity loadings.

RUN said it opposed the idea canvassed in the interim report of imposing a levy on international student fees, which would effectively tax rich universities to provide funds for the whole higher education sector.