Page 350 - Week 03 - Thursday, 1 June 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
down. The old distinction between universities and the CAEs was clearly no longer valid. Following those consultations undertaken on the basis of a green paper, the Commonwealth Government in July 1988 issued a white paper on higher education.
This policy included as a cornerstone the concept of a unified national system of higher education which replaced the former binary division into universities and CAEs. The new policy also included changes in funding arrangements and research policy. The Commonwealth's policy provides a framework for a considerable expansion of higher education so that the opportunity for higher education would play a larger role in the economic and social progress of this action. Growth and access were the cornerstones of this policy. This Government supports these objectives and will take account of them in considering options for the future ACT arrangements.
In order to fund this expansion of higher education, the Commonwealth identified a number of supporting actions that needed to be taken. One was to achieve greater efficiency in the management of the very considerable public funds made available for higher education. This requires changes in the management practices and habits of institutions. Mr Wood has referred to the very substantial sums of money that are involved in higher education.
A further supporting policy was to advocate the amalgamation of smaller institutions into larger ones. It is important to recognise that this amalgamation policy was argued on both educational and financial grounds. The educational arguments have to do with widening choices for students in larger institutions and providing more opportunities for staff, in both teaching and research, in such an environment. The financial arguments relate to more efficient use of scarce resources in larger institutions.
These policies have radically changed the landscape of Australian higher education. Colleges of advanced education are disappearing around the country as they are absorbed in university amalgamations or converted into universities. Amalgamations are currently under discussion, or have been achieved, in all States. The current wave of amalgamations has created some very large institutions. The University of Sydney, for example, has grown to a student load of 22,000 equivalent full-time student units and Monash University has 21,000 student units. By comparison, the ANU has a student load of 5,614 student units, the CCAE has 4,836, and the Institute of the Arts has 513.
These are very small institutions in the new context of Australian higher education which is emerging. This smallness will have significant, and perhaps even serious, implications for the variety and availability of higher education courses in the ACT based institutions, as recent
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .