[Muanet] Age editorial on unis

[Dion Giles]

[Anyone else find some relevant stuff to pass on? -- Dion Giles]

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Equity in education is not negotiable

Editorial, The Age, 25.08.03

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/24/1061663671559.html

Changes to higher education must give poor students more access and 
opportunities.

  The Howard Government is clearly determined to reorganise and recast the 
financial structure of Australia's higher education sector. In principle, 
it is a noble quest; the nation's future prosperity will rely upon it. A 
large country with a relatively small population, Australia needs to work 
smarter, faster and more productively than the countries with which it 
trades and competes. Expanding the proportion of Australians with 
post-secondary education qualifications is the surest way to bring this 
about. Injecting a new dynamism into the tertiary education sector will, if 
handled properly, play a big role in making this happen. It is a complex 
issue and the policy settings aimed at extending and reinvigorating the 
universities will be intricate.

  This is because universities, like the rest of the education sector, play 
a vital social, as well as an economic, role. For example, allowing 
universities to impose higher charges for their most in-demand courses 
would unquestionably be something of a financial bonanza for the most 
established tertiary institutions, the so-called sandstone universities. 
But it would, on its own, be anything but good news for students from less 
privileged backgrounds. Thus it was gratifying to see the vice-chancellors 
of Australia's leading universities - the Group of Eight, which includes 
The University of Melbourne and Monash University - acknowledge in a 
submission to a Senate inquiry the need for the reform process not to 
punish financially disadvantaged students. The Group of Eight has largely 
welcomed key elements of the Government's reform package, which allows 
increases in HECS fees of up to 30 per cent.

  But in its Senate submission, the Go8 expressed doubts about the equity 
of the reforms and suggested the Government consider allowing universities 
to charge students from poor backgrounds lower fees. It remains a great 
concern that the changes the Government wants to implement could well lead 
to a situation in which university qualifications will flow, to an even 
greater extent than they do now, to students with the ability to pay rather 
than, as the Go8 succinctly puts it, those with "the ability to succeed". 
While it remains the case that Australia's higher education sector would 
benefit from far-reaching reforms, it is not the case that reform would be 
desirable at any cost. The bedrock requirements of a reformed system should 
be that the financial burdens placed on students not be so onerous that 
graduates find themselves in near-penury almost to middle age and that the 
changes make higher education more accessible across the community. The 
submission from the Go8 is a reminder that the goal of the reform process 
is to unlock the potential of successive generations of Australians, 
regardless of their financial situation, and not to guarantee a university 
education to the dullest children of the rich at the expense of the 
smartest children of the poor.