Bradley Review Prompts Changes to University Funding

The Age, 5 March 2009; The Australian, 5 March 2009; Australian Financial Review, 5 March 2009

The Australian Government Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Ms Julia Gillard, has announced significant changes to government funding for universities in an effort to ‘stop Australia’s higher education system from falling behind’.

Following the recommendations of the recent Bradley review of higher education, Ms Gillard announced that the Australian Government intended to set a target of 40 per cent of young people aged between 25 and 34 holding at least a bachelor degree by 2025.

In order to achieve this target, Ms Gillard announced that existing funding caps, in which the government determined the number of government funded places that universities could offer in different courses, would be phased out and would be scrapped by 2012.

Instead, university funding would be determined largely by student demand. Ms Gillard insisted that the model was not a voucher system and that individual students would not receive a dollar entitlement. Instead, she indicated that the Australian Government would provide universities with funding based on the number of students.

In addition, Minister Gillard indicated that a new regulatory body would be established to accredit universities, establish performance standards and to monitor those standards. She claimed that Australia had ‘lost touch’ with international competitors in higher education. She expressed concerns that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were under-represented in higher education and that tertiary completion rates were too low.

Ms Gillard stated that ‘we can address these problems, regain touch with the top-ranked nations or watch our prosperity decline...Funding that meets the demands made by students, coupled with exacting targets, rigorous quality assurance, full transparency and an emphasis on equity, is the only way Australia can meet the knowledge and skills challenges confronting us.

 

 

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