Federal budget 2023: Universities to train 4000 students for nuclear AUKUS submarines

Universities will be given $127m to enrol an extra 4000 students and train them to build, maintain and operate Australia’s nuclear submarine fleet.

Universities and other higher education providers will get funding for 4000 students to be trained in skills to build, maintain and operate nuclear submarines.

Universities are getting a stake in Australia’s nuclear submarine program with $127m promised in the federal budget to enrol an extra 4000 students to learn the high level skills needed to build, maintain and operate the vessels.

South Australian universities, located where the eight AUKUS class submarines will be built, are guaranteed at least 800 of the student places, with the rest to be allocated through a competitive process to universities and other higher education providers.

The first students are likely to begin studying next year, with $11.5m budgeted in 2023-24 for the new student places, an amount which steadily rises each year to an extra $50.7m in 2026-27. The funding is likely to continue beyond that date because students will need to be funded through to the end of their degrees and the need for technical and management skills to support the submarine project will continue to grow as construction begins in the 2030s.

The budget papers say the funding will support 4000 student places in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines, as well as in management studies.

Non-university higher education providers, which generally do not get government funding for their courses, will be heartened by the fact that they will be eligible to compete against universities for the remainder of the subsidised student places which are not allocated to SA universities.

The budget also assigns other resources for building nuclear submarine skills. The Employment and Workplace Relations Department gets $3.9m and the Education Department gets $1.1m to support the development of education, skills and training for the submarines.

Aside from money for submarine-related skills, there are very few changes in existing policies and funding programs for tertiary education in the budget.

With the federal government’s Universities Accord review of higher education well under way, and due to deliver an interim report in June, any major changes to tertiary education appear to have been put on hold.

But both universities, and the science and research community, will be disappointed that there is little in the budget to boost research funding, apart from in highly specific areas such quantum technologies and AI.

Universities can hope to benefit from $116m being spent over five years by the Industry, Science and Resources Department on critical technologies including quantum technologies and AI, and $15m being spent on developing technology and skills for batteries.

Australia currently spends 1.8 per cent of GDP on research and development, compared with an OECD average of 2.7 per cent. And Australia’s R&D spending is in decline. In 2008 it stood at 2.25 per cent of GDP.

HIGHER EDUCATION P40