UWA, Sydney plan revamp as unis gear up for 2012 reform

THE University of Western Australia has defied tight funding and committed to a new curriculum for 2012.

THE University of Western Australia has defied tight funding and committed to a new curriculum for 2012 which, like Melbourne University's model, will streamline undergraduate courses and make professional degrees postgraduate.

The announcement came as University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence hosed down speculation of drastic cuts in undergraduate numbers but said he wanted to do something about the student-staff ratio. A green paper due late next month will offer a number of models for Sydney's future.

Universities are in the midst of working out practical responses to the Bradley reform which will lift the cap on student numbers in 2012. Parliament passed enabling legislation this week.

At UWA there is staff unease at the prospect of increased workloads as the model is brought in and old courses are wound down. But vice-chancellor Alan Robson told the HES the approach would be a more measured approach than Melbourne's, where high workloads caused by the transition, coupled with job shedding in the wake of the global financial crisis, have prompted a backlash.

"We aren't going quite as hard at it as Melbourne did," Professor Robson said. He said UWA had the finances to fund the three-year transition phase, costing at least $5million a year, and was seeking commonwealth structural adjustment funding to help with the transition.

"We believe we can set aside enough money to fund the transition for at least the first three years and get us up to the mark, and by then the world will be a different place," Professor Robson said.

UWA will reduce 70 undergraduate courses into five degrees.

Professor Robson said UWA had no intention of creating special breadth subjects, as Melbourne did, but students will have to take subjects already being taught within a different discipline.

There will be a choice of three-year bachelor degrees in arts, science, commerce, or design, and high-performing students will be offered places in a research-focused four-year honours degree badged a Bachelor of Philosophy.

More than 30percent of undergraduates at present take double degrees, combining a discipline and a professional degree. Professor Robson said the new structure of a three-year bachelors and a two-year professional masters will effectively deliver the same thing. "This is a better way to do (double degrees) in sequence," he said.

James O'Shea, national Tertiary Education Union president at UWA, said key staff concerns were about workloads and job security.

Professor Robson said he was not expecting any staff cuts: "This isn't about cost-cutting." He said a more streamlined course structure eventually would free up time for staff to pursue research.

Sydney's Dr Spence said he was concerned about the student-staff ratio and suggested it might be difficult to recruit quality staff in the numbers necessary to make a difference.

There are about 48,000 students at the moment and the staff to student ratio is 16.9 to one. The university's student representative council president Noah White said students were not in principle opposed to a reduction in the size of the student body; it depended on how and why it was done.

"The (vice-chancellor) has said to me he wants to cut student numbers. But we have not seen any of the detail yet," he said.

"I think it's a real worry because it has the potential to let the university use that as a guise to cut loss-making courses."