Universities, Business Council disagree on reform

Universities Australia has pushed back against the latest business proposal for reform of post-school education.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott. Picture Kym Smith

The Business Council of Australia and Universities Australia have failed to resolve their differences over education reform, with the university peak body pushing back against the latest business proposal for sweeping reform of post-school education.

In a new version of its reform blueprint released yesterday, the BCA calls for expanded lifelong support for learning and an end to the disparate funding systems for higher education and vocational education.

The BCA says Australia has a cultural problem of vocational education being a “second-class citizen” to higher education. It has welcomed federal Labor’s commitment to a major review of post-school education if it wins government at the next election.

Launching the report, titled Future-proof: Australia’s Future Post-secondary Education and Skills System, BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott said Australia’s education and skills system was at risk and needed significant changes to address technological disruption and global economic change.

“Failure of our post-secondary education and skills system will lead to greater need for skilled ­migration and more jobs leaving Australian shores. It will leave Australians today and future generations ill equipped for the ­future,” she said.

Ms Westacott said the blueprint was a “comprehensive reform plan”. Since the original version, released last year, the BCA has made changes following submissions from stakeholders, including universities.

In the new version the BCA has sought to ease university concerns that the distinction between higher education and vocational education is in danger of being erased.

It has added expanded definitions of the two sectors to the ­Future-proof paper. It now says that vocational education “offers foundation studies for adults with little or no education and an essential second chance at education for Australians who have had their skill development disrupted, as well as qualifications that prepare people from low-skilled to highly skilled workers for the labour market.”

And it adds to its description of higher education that it “has a broader remit that includes learning for the sake of learning, academic inquiry and research”.

However the BCA continues to argue that Australia must move away from the “current siloed approach” to funding tertiary education and “end the perverse incentives” which currently skew funding against vocational education. It urges a “single, sector-neutral funding model” to encompass both vocational and higher education.

It also recommends a new funding system for courses which applies the same methodology to both higher and vocational ­education, with a commitment to transparency so the amount of government subsidy is visible.

Governments would also be required to commit to long-term funding of at least 10 years so that money could not be redirected to other uses, as state governments have done with vocational education, starving it of funds.

Universities Australia said the revised report did not sufficiently address university concerns.

“The BCA has not established a rationale for a radical overhaul of the policy and funding settings that deliver a world-class university system,” said Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson said.

Universities have previously pointed to the VET FEE-HELP scandal, in which at least $1 billion was rorted by some private colleges, to argue that they should not be part of the same funding system as vocational education.

They also argue that universities are responsible for most of the $32bn in export revenue earned from international education and rely on international student fees to fund their budgets.

Ms Jackson’s comments reflected this thinking. She said the BCA’s reform plan posed “significant risk to our globally competitive university sector and to national prosperity”.

“We need a flourishing post-school education system, with both universities and vocational education doing their distinct but complementary jobs at their best,” Ms Jackson said.

Another feature of the BCA plan is a lifelong skills account for each Australian that would give them a predetermined level of learning subsidy, as well as income-contingent loans for study, over the course of their life. The proposal is intended to support continuous learning.