By Nick Fredman
Australia's university, TAFE and secondary education sectors are underfunded, and the response of both ALP and Liberal governments is a push towards privatisation and "user pays".
TAFE has been radically overhauled by state governments. Courses that are not directly vocational have been scrapped and up-front fees introduced — currently $450 per year in NSW and projected to go up $100-150 next year.
The recent Finn Report into post-compulsory training pushed TAFE as a "national priority", which is likely to mean tying it more directly to the needs of big business. The contradiction between expanding TAFE numbers and reducing funds will result in an estimated 145,000 students missing out on places next year.
Secondary schools have also suffered. Victorian teachers held 11 half-day strikes in third term, and are planning more industrial action in the current term over the loss of 1250 teachers and cuts of $83 million by the Kirner government in breach of an agreement negotiated with the teachers' unions.
The crisis in "reform" of higher education was revealed earlier this when universities over-enrolled by 6.6% or nearly 20,000 students. There will be a shortfall of 20,000 academics by the end of the decade.
University restructuring, led by education minister John Dawkins since 1986, has produced enforced amalgamations, increased corporate involvement and funding, and gradually extended fees — overseas and many graduate students now pay large up-front fees, and undergraduates pay a deferred fee in the form of the HECS.
In the last budget, the federal government increased HECS $144 over inflation, and allocated a paltry $9 million to new student places. It has recently been announced that universities will be allowed to cut first year enrolments by 5%, despite one of the stated aims of the reforms being to increase student numbers.
Minister for employment and education services Peter Baldwin has announced a special $70 million allocation to "reward" universities for "performance" and "quality" — the measures of which are vaguely defined but probably have something to do with "efficiency", i.e. cost-cutting.
The Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee has largely supported the Dawkins-Baldwin agenda. Earlier this year the AVCC advocated up-front fees for undergraduates who missed out on funded places. But the AVCC has criticised the Coalition's voucher system, in which students would compete for the award of a voucher, and universities would compete to attract voucher-holding students, and also rejected the Coalition's plan for private institutions.
The Coalition wants to subject education completely to the tender mercies of the market, but university bureaucrats are more concerned n positions than about the unfair and irrational policies of both major parties.