Overreach and technocratic control in Australian University reform
Jan 5, 2025
Announced by the incoming Labor government, the University Accord process and review is being touted as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine the role and funding of Australia’s 40-plus universities. With 1.5 million students enrolled, including 500,000 international students, and generating $35 billion in revenue, universities have been struggling in the wake of COVID-19.
Andrew Norton, Professor of Higher Education Policy and Practice at the Australian National University (ANU), discusses in-depth the recommendations of the review and steps towards their implementation. The review covers issues such as funding, international student caps, hard caps on domestic student enrolments, participation and equity, meeting labour market skills needs, research funding cuts, teaching standards, staff employment conditions, bureaucratisation, and governance structures.
Norton concludes that the move is clearly towards more interventionist, technocratic, and bureaucratic controls, which risk being ineffective or even counterproductive.
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Michael Lester is a public policy economist with a career in Commonwealth and State agencies, World Bank and OECD. His interests include innovation, environment, and governance. He presents programs on community radio.
Andrew Norton is Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy at the Centre for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University. He was previously the Higher Education Program Director at the Grattan Institute. He is the author or co-author of many articles, reports and other publications on higher education issues. These include The cash nexus: how teaching funds research in Australian universities and a reference report on higher education trends and policies, Mapping Australian higher education.
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