Subjects: Higher education reform; University flagship courses; vocational education reform
EO&E………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
TOM TILLEY:
Simon Birmingham, thanks for joining us on Hack.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
G’day Tom, great to be with you.
TILLEY:
Let’s talk about universities first, why would people trust you to run the university sector when your government surprised the electorate with cuts and deregulation plans in 2014 and then backed away creating years of uncertainty?
BIRMINGHAM:
Well Tom, Malcolm Turnbull and I have gone through now, are going through, a very transparent process with relation to the future of higher education where we’ve released – at the time of the Budget – a position paper that outlines the forward Budget projections that demonstrates and shows quite honestly, that there are savings that need to be made in higher education where we’ve seen growth in costs at twice the rate of the economy since 2009 so we’ve been very open and honest about the need to restrain that growth. We’ve equally made clear [indistinct] though that equity is a driving factor for us, that we want to make sure that we do expand access in terms of the pathways into university for Associate Degrees and Diplomas, that we guarantee the ‘no upfront fees’ under the HELP scheme will continue and the generosity of that world-leading scheme. But we’ve outlined some of the ways in which we think savings might be achieved in the future so that we are very transparent with the electorate and also identifies that we will not proceed with full-fee deregulation – that at least 80 per cent of future students can be absolutely guaranteed of attending university under a fixed price regime but we’ve been open by saying there should be some room for innovation in our universities, for them to pursue areas of excellence – of world-class excellence. An example I use is if a university wants to be the world’s best in robotics, shouldn’t we enable them to be able to pursue that rather than force them to operate under a fixed price regime for that particular area that they want to pursue excellence in? That’s key to driving the type of innovation that we need in our economy and cutting-edge technological development.
TILLEY:
Okay so you’re talking about partial deregulation of flagship courses there, could that mean that elite degrees at elite universities are way more expensive therefore less appealing to people from poorer backgrounds, and therefore entrenching inequality in our society?
BIRMINGHAM:
No Tom because we’ve been crystal clear that every single university – whether it considers itself to be an elite university or any other university will still have to ensure that more than 80 per cent of the students they enrol are enrolled under fixed-price, government-regulated courses. So we’ve been very clear there that you’ll still be able to access every single university in the country without paying a dollar up front under the type of fixed-price regime that people access today.
TILLEY:
Sure, but for those flagship courses they could be a lot more expensive – and I take your point that you get supported, you get lent the money from the Government up front so there’s no up front fees – but for people from poorer backgrounds, the idea of taking on a loan of forty, fifty, eighty, hundred thousand dollars is a lot more scary than for people from richer backgrounds.
BIRMINGHAM:
Well I think what we’ve seen over the years of the HELP scheme or HECS as it was back when I was at uni, is that it has not been a disincentive to participation…
TILLEY:
[Talking over]…but they’re much lower amounts of money. These could be much bigger amounts of money so that research doesn’t really hold true to this set of circumstances.
BIRMINGHAM:
Fees have gone up over the years Tom and we’ve seen increased participation regardless of where fees have gone. But most importantly, the flagship course option we’ve proposed is one that focuses in on having to be a course with designated excellence or innovation behind it. For universities to be able to offer this would have to be demonstrating the excellence and innovation that [indistinct] part of that course. There may well be, as we’ve outlined in the policy paper, opportunities for us to have really tight regulatory control to make sure that nobody is price gouging there. What we want to make sure is that if unis are taking up this opportunity, it is because they are pursuing the type of innovation that can take our universities to another whole level. We’ve got great universities in Australia, really strong, equitable access to our universities, what we want to guarantee as a government is that we maintain that equity of access but also give the opportunity for our universities to move to the next level of being world leaders in areas where they can specialise.
TILLEY:
Okay so why don’t you want to keep the same level of funding? In the Budget you outlined proposals to cut 20 per cent of funding for university students. Why are you taking that money away when you talk about, at the same time, transitioning us to an agile, innovative, knowledge-based economy? It seems to go against that idea.
BIRMINGHAM:
Well funding going into our universities across teaching and learning and research continues to grow under our Budget projections but as I said right at the outset – we have seen, in relation to particularly teaching and learning grants, a doubling of costs, in fact close to 60 per cent growth since 2009 running twice the rate of economic growth. So we’ve gone from $4.1 billion in support under the Commonwealth Grants Scheme in 2009…
TILLEY:
[Talking over]…Okay we understand it’s become more expensive but it seems like a contradiction to want to fund an innovative, knowledge-based economy but reducing the funding that you’re putting towards student fees.
BIRMINGHAM:
Well, no, because funding into universities continues to go up and we will make sure that our universities have that level of support…
TILLEY:
[Interrupting]…but the bulk of the funding is for student fees that you support through the HELP system.
BIRMINGHAM:
But Tom we also have to – I’m talking the totality of funding there. Student support, research support, all of those areas which [indistinct] continue growth every year of the Budget forward projections even with the savings we’re looking to make. So we still see growth across support into our universities but importantly we have to make sure that businesses are encouraged to invest in Australia, to collaborate with universities to create the jobs that we expect graduates to go out and get and Australia has to maintain some control over the Federal Budget. We can’t afford the type of higher taxes and higher debt that the Labor Party is talking about because frankly that means today’s university students won’t find jobs tomorrow because they just won’t be there.
TILLEY:
All right, you’re listening to Simon Birmingham, he’s the Government’s Education Minister. He is trying to win your vote for this Saturday, we’re drilling him on some policy detail, we’ve been talking about universities. We’ll get into the vocational sector in just a moment. Few texts coming through though. “Upping fees isn’t innovation. Education leads to innovation. Kate from Brisbane”, somebody else says, “I’ve been contacted by one of these private colleges with the incentive of a free iPad, they got my details when I applied for a job online. Totally didn’t realise the gravity of the issues with these colleges.” Yeah, lots of people texting in on that one Simon Birmingham. We talked about the billions of dollars that’s gone to waste in that sector before, Kim Carr from Labor accused your government of taking your eyes off the road, taking your hands off the wheel when it comes to the vocational sector – that you didn’t keep a close enough eye on these dodgy providers, is that fair enough given the amount of money that’s gone to waste?
BIRMINGHAM:
Well no it’s not Tom and you and I have of course spoken about this before and our government did take strong action to increase regulation in this space, to ban certain practices, to clamp down on providers…
TILLEY:
[Talking over]…is it too little too late though?
BIRMINGHAM:
[Continuing]…now been prosecuted. As you rightly questioned Kim Carr on, this was a scheme the Labor Government put in place, they opened up the market in this way. We have been trying to get under control over the last couple of years. We’ve acknowledged there’s absolutely more to be done which is why we’ve put out a paper that outlines the different areas of reform that need to be undertaken, the types of barriers to entry that should be there for all providers, the limitations potentially on the types of courses that you could offer this for, the type of price restraints you might want to put in there. Now Labor, for purely political reasons in relation to this election campaign, have proposed this $8,000 cap. It’s a figure that TAFE Directors Australia has acknowledged pretty much comes out of nowhere. It would mean if you were studying [indistinct] at Hunter Valley TAFE or website development at TAFE Queensland or building and construction at Chisholm TAFE in Victoria, that you would have to pay upfront fees to be able to keep doing that. Now that of course is not an acceptable reform. We’ve committed to have a new system for VET FEE-HELP in place by next year. We have this paper out for consultation now so that we can design something that ensures probity, ensures students actually get what they’re paying for in terms of quality training…
TILLEY:
Yeah it sounds like we certainly need a new system there. All right Simon Birmingham, we’re running out of time, great to speak to you essentially on election eve. Thanks so much for making time for us.
BIRMINGHAM:
A pleasure Tom, look forward to chatting afterwards as well.
[ends]