Universities Australia blasts proposal to overhaul funding

The top university body has slammed a new report that advocates major reforms to tertiary education.

Universities Australia chief Catriona Jackson: ‘You want to be careful making radical and untested change’

The top university body has slammed a report that advocates major reforms to tertiary education, warning that it risks the ­future of Australia’s “world-class university system”.

Universities Australia, which represents the 39 comprehensive universities, said the recommendation from former University of Canberra vice-chancellor Stephen Parker to integrate higher education and TAFE-level vocational education into the same funding system would “be a grave mistake”.

“You want to be careful making radical and untested change to a system that’s working very well,” said Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson.

The group also fears that another recommendation to extend the government’s HELP scheme, which provides income-contingent loans to students, to the ­vocational education sector will lead to a repeat of the VET FEE-HELP debacle in which some unscrupulous private colleges exploited the poor design of the scheme for their gain.

“The last time that was attempted, it created a $1.2 billion disaster … with dodgy providers swooping in to help themselves to public money,” Ms Jackson said.

Not all university represen­tatives are as negative as Universities Australia about the report, Reimagining Tertiary Education.

Conor King, executive director of the seven-member Innovative Research Universities grouping, said the report was “interesting” and the ideas it contained needed to be explored.

Mr King said he wasn’t endorsing the report but “in terms of the overall framework, it gives you something to think about”.

He shared Ms Jackson’s concern that an integrated funding system that upped the ­resources for funding-starved ­vocational education could see universities lose out.

“I’d be with UA in saying we are not going to do it unless there's a serious expansion (in funding) to come with it,” Mr King said.

However the vocational education sector is enthusiastic about the report which was written by Professor Parker (now KPMG’s lead education partner), former education bureaucrat Mark Warburton and former ministerial adviser and university executive Andrew Dempster.

Rod Camm, chief executive of the Australian Council of Private Education and Training which represents private vocational education providers, urged government to accept Professor Parker’s recommendation that higher education and vocational education should be funded in an integrated system.

“The notion that there’s a visible separation between the sectors doesn’t make sense,” he said.

He said the opposition from Universities Australia was “disappointing”.

TAFE Directors Australia chief executive Craig Robertson said his group, which represents TAFE colleges, was “broadly supportive”.

However he raised a question about the report’s proposal for a gradual federal takeover of funding for the vocational education sector.

“We have to be a little bit careful that a national government in Canberra has capacity to deal with local labour markets,” Mr Robertson said.

He said that TAFE colleges needed more flexibility to offer courses which were in demand in their local area. They would benefit from having the same ability as universities to “self-accredit” courses, he said.

Mr Robertson backed the call in Professor Parker’s report for private colleges to receive government subsidies as part of an integrated tertiary education funding system. But he said TAFE would need to be funded adequately for meeting training needs that private providers did not address in “bespoke industries or regional areas”.