COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Official Committee Hansard · 2001. 7. 2. · PRIEST, Professor Graham, Chair of Council, Australasian Association of Philosophy.....153 REID, Mr Russell

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

Official Committee Hansard

SENATEEMPLOYMENT, WORKPLACE RELATIONS, SMALL BUSINESS

AND EDUCATION REFERENCES COMMITTEE

Reference: Australia’s higher education needs

THURSDAY, 26 APRIL 2001

H O B A R T

BY AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE

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SENATE

EMPLOYMENT, WORKPLACE RELATIONS, SMALL BUSINESS

AND EDUCATION REFERENCES COMMITTEE

Thursday, 26 April 2001

Members: Senator Jacinta Collins (Chair), Senator Tierney (Deputy Chair), Senators Brandis, Carr, Crossinand Stott Despoja

Participating members: Senators Abetz, Allison, Boswell, Brown, Buckland, Calvert, George Campbell,Chapman, Coonan, Crane, Crowley, Eggleston, Faulkner, Ferguson, Ferris, Gibbs, Gibson, Harradine, Harris,Hutchins, Knowles, Lightfoot, Mackay, Mason, McGauran, O’Brien, Payne and Watson

Senators in attendance: Senators Brandis, Carr, Jacinta Collins, Crossin and Tierney

Terms of reference for the inquiry:To inquire into and report on the capacity of public universities to meet Australia’s higher education needs, withparticular reference to:

(a) the adequacy of current funding arrangements with respect to:

i. the capacity of universities to manage and serve increasing demand,

ii. institutional autonomy and flexibility, and

iii. the quality and diversity of teaching and research;

(b) the effect of increasing reliance on private funding and market behaviour on the sector’s ability to meetAustralia’s education, training and research needs, including its effect on:

i. the quality and diversity of education,

ii. the production of sufficient numbers of appropriately-qualified graduates to meet industry demand,

iii. the adequacy of campus infrastructure and resources,

iv. the maintenance and extension of Australia’s long-term capacity in both basic and applied research across thediversity of fields of knowledge, and

v. the operations and effect of universities’ commercialised research and development structures;

(c) public liability consequences of private, commercial activities of universities;

(d) the equality of opportunity to participate in higher education, including:

i. the levels of access among social groups under-represented in higher education,

ii. the effects of the introduction of differential Higher Education Contribution Schemes and other fees and chargesand changes in funding provision on the affordability and accessibility of higher education,

iii. the adequacy of current student income support measures, and

iv. the growth rates in participation by level of course and field of study relative to comparable nations;

(e) the factors affecting the ability of Australian public universities to attract and retain staff in the context ofcompetitive local and global markets and the intellectual culture of universities;

(f) the capacity of public universities to contribute to economic growth:

i. in communities and regions,

ii. as an export industry, and

iii. through research and development, both via the immediate economic contribution of universities and throughsustaining national research capacity in the longer term;

(g) the regulation of the higher education sector in the global environment, including:

i. accreditation regimes and quality assurance,

ii. external mechanisms to undertake ongoing review of the capacity of the sector to meet Australia’s education,training, research, social and economic needs, and

iii. university governance reporting requirements, structures and practices; and

(h) the nature and sufficiency of independent advice to government on higher education matters, particularly havingregard to the abolition of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training.

WITNESSES

ABBOTT-CHAPMAN, Associate Professor Joan, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Education, Universityof Tasmania ................................................................................................................................................... 180

BLEATHMAN, Mr Rodney Charles, Deputy Secretary, Department of State Development,Tasmanian Government............................................................................................................................... 187

DOE, Dr Peter, Past President, Institution of Engineers (Tasmania Division) ....................................... 144

EVENHUIS, Mr Mark Timothy, President, University of Tasmania Student Union............................ 125

FLUTSCH, Dr Maria, Chair, Board of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts,University of Tasmania ................................................................................................................................ 169

FORREST, Dr Martyn Anthony Earl, Secretary (CEO), Department of Education, TasmanianGovernment................................................................................................................................................... 187

GLENN, Professor Andrew, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), University of Tasmania ....................... 210

JAENSCH, Mr Roger Charles, Executive Chairman, Cradle Coast Authority ..................................... 201

JOHNSTON, Professor Sue, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning), University ofTasmania ....................................................................................................................................................... 210

MALPAS, Professor Jeffery Edward, Head, School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania................ 169

MALPAS, Professor Jeffery Edward, Member of Council, Australasian Association ofPhilosophy (special responsibility for Public Affairs) ............................................................................... 153

McNICOL, Professor Donald, Vice-Chancellor, University of Tasmania............................................... 210

PAKULSKI, Professor Jan, Acting Dean of Arts, Faculty of Arts, University of Tasmania................. 169

PRIEST, Professor Graham, Chair of Council, Australasian Association of Philosophy...................... 153

REID, Mr Russell Balfour, Chief Executive Officer, Business North...................................................... 201

ROSIER, Miss Angela Louise, President, Postgraduate Council, University of Tasmania StudentUnion.............................................................................................................................................................. 125

STEVENS, Mr Michael Bernard, Deputy Secretary, VET Strategies, Department of Education,Tasmanian Government............................................................................................................................... 187

Thursday, 26 April 2001 SENATE—References EWRSBE 125

EMPLOYMENT, WORKPLACE RELATIONS, SMALL BUSINESS & EDUCATION

Committee met at 8.57 a.m.

EVENHUIS, Mr Mark Timothy, President, University of Tasmania Student Union

ROSIER, Miss Angela Louise, President, Postgraduate Council, University of TasmaniaStudent Union

CHAIR—I declare open this public hearing of the Senate Employment, WorkplaceRelations, Small Business and Education References Committee. On 12 October last year thecommittee was asked by the Senate to inquire into the capacity of public universities to meetAustralia’s higher educational needs. Over the past 15 years, there have been a number ofimportant policy changes affecting the higher education sector. Most obvious has been theincreasing dependence of universities on revenue from non-government sources and from theHigher Education Contributions Scheme.

The committee’s inquiry will focus on the capacities of universities to offer high-standardundergraduate and postgraduate education, particularly at a time when the academic professionis under increased pressure to handle higher teaching workloads and when the quality andstandards of courses are being questioned in some quarters. The committee notes that variousaccounts of unethical practice have been reported in the press and in submissions to this inquiryand it will make an assessment as to whether such alleged practices may result in part from thepressures faced by universities under current funding arrangements and stringencies.

The issue of research funding will also be examined, in particular the extent to whichuniversities are maintaining their capacity to conduct basic and independent research andwhether or not resources are being diverted from such areas of research in response tocommercial pressures. The committee will also look at the evolving academic culture ofuniversities and the effect of commercial pressures upon them. It will also consider governanceissues and the internal accountability arrangements of university administrations.

Before we commence taking evidence today, I wish to state for the record that all witnessesappearing before the committee are protected by parliamentary privilege with respect to theevidence provided. Parliamentary privilege refers to special rights and immunities attached tothe parliament or its members and others necessary for the discharge of the parliamentaryfunctions without obstruction or fear of prosecution. Any act by any person which operates tothe disadvantage of a witness on account of evidence given before the Senate or any of itscommittees is treated as a breach of privilege. I welcome all observers to today’s hearing. Doyou have any comments to make on the capacity in which you appear?

Mr Evenhuis—The University of Tasmania Student Union represents all students studying inHobart or studying externally to Hobart.

Miss Rosier—The Postgraduate Council is a subsidiary of the TUU and represents theinterests of honour students and postgraduate students.

CHAIR—The committee has before it submission No. 173. Are there any changes you wishto make to that submission?

EWRSBE 126 SENATE—References Thursday, 26 April 2001


Mr Evenhuis—Yes, page 8 of the submission, the paragraph starting ‘On top of compulsoryservice and amenities fees’. We would like to delete part of the second line. We want to replacethe words ‘Often these fees are illegal and are’ with ‘In some universities such fees have beenimposed illegally by underfunded schools’.

CHAIR—The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public, although we willconsider any request for all or part of your evidence to be given in camera—in private session;although I point out that such evidence may subsequently be made public by order of theSenate. I now invite you to make a brief opening statement, and then we will move to questions.

Mr Evenhuis—Fundamentally, as the union—and I guess we share this aim with theuniversity—we believe that a university exists to encourage debate, innovation and culture. Thewithdrawal of funding from the University of Tasmania has affected the university’s ability tomeet those goals. In the last five years, funding of our university has been reduced by six percent. It is easy to throw figures around, but I thought it would be good if, as a union, we pointedout what these cuts have meant to students at this university. They have meant the loss of 123staff—which is equivalent to all the staff that fill our arts faculty in Hobart.

Staff numbers have decreased, and we are moving towards a student-staff ratio of 25 FC perfull-time staff member. Cuts in funding from the federal government have led to: the closure ofour classics department; the rationalisation of library services following a $400,000 cut; theclosure of our Italian department, leading to uproar in the Italian community in Tasmania; andthe biomedical library being combined with the science and technology library. These cuts havemeant that campus accommodation is no longer available on the Launceston campus. They havemeant that business management and human resource management majors are no longeravailable at the Burnie campus and that we are unable to service students in that relativelyisolated community. They have also led to the loss of the applied sciences in Launceston.

At least on this campus, the arts have been under greatest attack. The arts school has lost upto 60 student places in the year 2000. In 1999, there were 436 applications for 173 first-yearplaces. Over the last 10 years, we have gone from a staff of 29 to one of 19. We are findingsimilar difficulties in the conservatorium. There is a lack of practice rooms, the staff areoverworked, there is minimal access to computers in the building, and there have been severeattacks on the provision of courses in contemporary music. The arts have definitely suffered themost in this university.

Our submission is basically saying that, at the same time that funding to arts is being cut, theuniversity is moving towards the commercialisation of its operations. We understand that theuniversity needs to seek capital from the private sector in order to compensate for reductions infunding. We also understand the need for our university to lead the way in innovation inindustry, as the increased employment that flows from it should be for the public good.However, the liberal and creative arts will continue to be de-prioritised as long as the federalgovernment does not give adequate funding to universities. The arts will never be able to gainthe same financial support from industry as other disciplines. It cannot compete on the sameplaying field.

Our state government has committed itself to our arts and literary community as part ofTasmania moving forward. We have just had our Ten Days on the Island festival and we have



just celebrated our cultural diversity and creativity as a state. What is fundamentally importantabout being a Tasmanian is that we live in a creative community and our creativity is one of ourgreatest commodities.

It might sound like a trite and cliched argument, but we risk losing the questioning andcreative element of our culture. Essentially, our argument is that reduced funding has been at theexpense of the arts, and an over-reliance on private funds risks undermining the independenceof the universities as institutions for the public good and not for the benefit of privateinstitutions. The students of Tasmania are fundamentally opposed to up-front fees because oftheir obvious effect on the access to education. To put it bluntly, students at this campus do notwant our university turned into a business, although we do see the need to support industry inthe state.

It would be wrong not to mention issues of student welfare. I read with astonishmentuniversity statistics on the number of students at this campus who work. I commend theuniversity on bringing the statistics forward. Off the top of my head, from the survey carried outin 1998, I think 50 per cent of the students who filled out the survey had been in work a weekprior to the survey being filled out and about 76 per cent of these students said that the moneythey got from the work was either important or essential to the continuation of their studies. Ibelieve that is an indictment of our current welfare system for students. We need to moveforward in terms of having welfare benefits that would give students access to education on anequal footing. I do not see why it is fair that students with less money should have to competewith students who are better off and do not have to take time out of their studies.

Fundamentally, it needs to be said that the students and the university administration areunited in what they want—namely, increased funding to the sector. I commend the universityfor its submission’s focus on participation in higher education and its call for increased placesso that increased access may be met. The students of the university wish the university all thebest at this time.

CHAIR—Miss Rosier, did you have any comments?

Miss Rosier—No, but I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.

CHAIR—Thank you. Mr Evenhuis, your submission and that of the University of Tasmaniarefer to an 18 per cent mobility rate. Can you put that into a context of time? Has it increasedsignificantly since 1996 or has it always been high?

Mr Evenhuis—I am not aware of the statistics over time, but it is worrying that the rate inTasmania is double that of any other state. As a student in Tasmania, I understand where a lot ofthe people are coming from. It is not just that students are not satisfied with the servicesprovided by the university; obviously the university is saying that only 25 per cent of thestudents who are leaving are doing courses which are not on offer here. People refer to it asescaping the island. Tasmania is a creative community, but it is also a small community. I havepersonally lost a lot of friends to Melbourne and Sydney because of the fascination of living in abig city and wanting to move on to bigger things. I guess studying in a larger metropolitancentre is seen as a stepping stone to other employment opportunities.



Miss Rosier—A mistake the university made in the past was that, when the institution wentcross-campus and amalgamated with the TSIT in Launceston, it was thought that spreadingofferings across the state would mean that students from Hobart would inevitably have noproblem in moving to Launceston to study. I do not think that that is the case. Often students inHobart find it easier, almost, to move to Melbourne than to move to Launceston, and that isleading to a high mobility rate.

Mr Evenhuis—I agree with Angela in terms of our art school. The university has justcommitted to spending $9 million on an art school in Inveresk. Our art school here has aninternational reputation. To my mind, it does not make much sense to decentralise or split up theart school.

CHAIR—So are some of the humanities courses available only in Launceston?

Miss Rosier—That is right.

Mr Evenhuis—And some students need to travel between the two. If they are in their lastyear of sociology, for six months they need to be in Launceston for one day a week. That putsan additional stress on single parents; how are they supposed to bring their kids with them ifthey are studying? It puts stress on people who cannot afford accommodation or travel costs forthat time which are not subsidised by the university.

Miss Rosier—I would add to that that a staff member was seriously injured last yeartravelling to teach at the Launceston campus. A lot of staff were going up and down thehighway a lot, despite the increase in video link teaching.

CHAIR—In humanities courses are you able to give us an indication of the average tutorialsize?

Miss Rosier—I have been taking tutorials at this university for six years and I have seen itincrease. When I first started we had a minimum class size of 18. If your class numbers spilledover from 18 then another tutorial was run. That started off being a maximum, which meant thatanother class would be run if there were over 18 students, but now it is a minimum: they wouldnot pay a tutor unless there are 18 students. That figure of 18 usually blows out to the lowtwenties.

CHAIR—What happens with respect to tutorials if there are less than 18?

Miss Rosier—They are added on to that class.

CHAIR—So there is at least one tutorial with minimum size?

Miss Rosier—Yes.

Senator TIERNEY—Mr Evenhuis, you indicated that there had been a six per cent cut infederal government funding. I am not too sure over what period you were referring to, but over



whatever period you were referring to could you just tell me what happened with the totalfunding at the University of Tasmania?

Mr Evenhuis—The total funding that we were receiving?

Senator TIERNEY—The university as a whole. I assume you were referring to governmentfunding when you were talking about six per cent.

Mr Evenhuis—Yes, the government funding. Those figures are taken from the universitystatistics.

Senator TIERNEY—Sure, but what happened to the total university funding over the sameperiod?

Mr Evenhuis—Across the board in terms of the operating grant?

Senator TIERNEY—No, I am talking about total government funding from all sources:overseas students, cooperative arrangements with universities, fees—the total University ofTasmania money. What happened over the same period?

Mr Evenhuis—Obviously I do not have those figures in front of me. If it is appropriate, I cangive them to you at a later date.

Senator TIERNEY—The whole premise of your argument was that there has been a six percent cut and therefore all these things were flowing from that. But what has happened touniversities is that total funding has actually gone up because money from other sources hasgone up.

Mr Evenhuis—Of course. With respect, that really is not an issue. What we are saying in oursubmission is that this funding is going into the commercialisation of the university. Thatfunding—not having it in front of me—would reflect the investment of industry into theuniversity. That is all well and good, but that money is not going into the areas of the arts thatare being cut. And because the arts cannot compete on the same level as industry, funding mightincrease by double for this university but in the same period arts would not be able to see any ofthat funding.

Senator TIERNEY—Are you saying that, of the increases in money the university has gotfrom cooperative arrangements with business, from overseas students and from fees for courses,the university is giving it all to one part of the university and not giving any to the arts? Is thatwhat you are saying?

Mr Evenhuis—I would expect that there would be some flow-on to the arts.

Senator TIERNEY—So would I.

Mr Evenhuis—But if IT incubator industries are investing in IT, I cannot see how thatmoney would flow on into arts.



Senator TIERNEY—You would not see that, because the university is getting a greater poolof money from outside, that can then enhance libraries, computing systems and other supportmechanisms in the university that are actually crucial to underpinning the study of the arts?

Mr Evenhuis—That sounds like a really great thing, but it has not been happening at thisuniversity.

Senator TIERNEY—Libraries have not got any more money from this extra fundingcommitment outside?

Mr Evenhuis—No, we have less money. We have had a $400,000 cut.

Senator TIERNEY—Has IT not got any more money?

Mr Evenhuis—IT would have more money because of the investment of the industry.

Senator TIERNEY—All I am saying is that funding tends to flow right across the university.You also seem to have a problem with students having to do work. You seem to be indicatingthis is a new thing. Do you really think it is a post-Howard government thing that students haveto work?

Mr Evenhuis—I can answer this in terms of the union as a service provider. In statistics thatwe have collated, in terms of when services are used on campus, we have found that more andmore students are not on campus because they are actually off doing work and then studying athome. There has been a paradigm shift in our university culture. Basically from talking to manypeople that have been involved in this community for a long time—I understand this evidence isnot in facts and figures—our university is moving more and more off campus where peoplesupport their study with work.

Senator TIERNEY—When was the golden age when this was not so?

Mr Evenhuis—The golden age in education, I guess, was when we did not have a GST.

Senator TIERNEY—They have all started work since the GST?

Mr Evenhuis—The golden age in universities was when we had more staff, when student-staff ratios were lower. It was when people felt as though they were getting more money fromthe government. It is a societal factor as well. With society being further divided, people arefurther out of home.

Senator TIERNEY—I started lecturing in universities 30 years ago. I cannot remember thisgolden age you are referring to. We were always short of staff and resources and, as you wentthrough the various problems, I was thinking to myself that that was the case in the 1980s, itwas the case in the 1970s and it was the case in the 1960s. A lot of these things that you aretrying to show us are new problems, I put to you, are not new problems.



Mr Evenhuis—If I could speak to that. My father was a lecturer at this university for the last40 years. He retired five years ago because it got too bad. In the arts faculty people have beenleaving this university and staff have been leaving this university. They feel that, if they stayedon, it would kill them. My father was at the front line. He taught languages and he was a goodteacher. Basically every year it got worse. There were fewer resources available to him. Theywere juggling more and more funds in the department and trying to meet the needs of more andmore students needing more resources.

Senator TIERNEY—When did that decline period start?

Mr Evenhuis—The decline was at its worst in the mid-1990s, about 1995. Funnily enough,when the Liberal Party came into government, when a lot of those cuts were going through, itbecame the worst.

Senator TIERNEY—That is strange. I remember in the early 1990s people saying exactlythe same. I can show you all the Hansard transcripts, all those problems.

Mr Evenhuis—I am not saying that I am in favour of what the Labour Party has done toeducation, either.

Senator TIERNEY—You do not think there is a bit of political bias in what you are sayingthere?

Mr Evenhuis—There has been a decline.

Senator TIERNEY—Let us get it in balance.

Mr Evenhuis—Let us talk about the golden age, when we had adequate staff in our artsschool, when we had 123 more staff at this university. We had an arts faculty that was meetingthe cultural needs of this community. That is the golden age. There was a better time. It mightnot have been a golden age, but we have been better off at this university.

Senator TIERNEY—What years were those?

Mr Evenhuis—I can hand you some figures about what has happened to our arts school.

Senator TIERNEY—I am asking when that period was.

Mr Evenhuis—In 1990 our arts school, for instance, had 28 staff.

Senator TIERNEY—This is when 50,000 students were bashing at the gates of universitiesto get in, because there were not enough resources. Is that the period you are talking about?

Mr Evenhuis—Yes.

Senator TIERNEY—I think you might have to go back a lot further than that.



Senator BRANDIS—I wanted to pursue this question of how you test this. The expression‘golden age’ is my colleague Senator Tierney’s expression. For the sake of argument, let meadopt it, too. Surely if you are determining whether universities are doing well or poorly, one ofthe key criteria is going to be the excellence of student outcomes—not that the students or staffmight not be working harder, but the excellence of educational outcomes. From my ownexperience as a teacher at the University of Queensland over the years, since I was a student tomore recent times when I have been a lecturer, the trend in the excellence of outcomes in thefaculty in which I have taught, which is the law faculty, has been uniformly upward.

More students are graduating, in my experience—and to a certain extent your evidence hasbeen anecdotal so let me meet you with a counter anecdote—with more excellent academicresults progressively as the years have gone by. Perhaps they have been working harder. Moreresearch publications by the staff have been internationally referenced than was the case 20years ago. That trend has been uniformly upward. Perhaps, as I say, the students and staff do nothave as easy a life. Perhaps they may have a less contemplative life. But my experience is thatthe outcomes in terms of intellectual excellence are improving. Would you like to comment onthat?

Mr Evenhuis—Would you like to comment?

Miss Rosier—With respect, I would hope that the trend upwards, as you say, in excellencedoes not indicate a fall in quality assurance or in a lowering of standards at universities as well.

Senator BRANDIS—That is the problem. You say there is a lowering of standards.

Miss Rosier—No, I did not. I am just saying that I hope that is not the indication.

Senator BRANDIS—All right. If one can identify empirically an enhancement of standards,both undergraduate and research standards, over a period of years, surely that is the mostpowerful indication that the mode of delivery of educational services is working well?

Miss Rosier—In a sense, yes, I agree with you, but I am not sure that that is what we havebeen asked to do today. We have been asked to look into Australia’s universities’ capacity tomeet Australia’s higher education needs. In trying to assess what those needs are, we need totake regional factors that affect this university into account.

Senator BRANDIS—I do not dispute that. I was really meeting Mr Evenhuis’s rathergloomy and pessimistic view with a few hard facts. I cannot tell you whether the level ofintellectual excellence of undergraduates or of research scholars at this university has beenuniformly up, but I suspect it has been because that has been the national trend. Mr Evenhuis,what is wrong with that, if those are the outcomes that are being produced?

Mr Evenhuis—If I could respond to that, I would say that your argument is not supported bydirect evidence. What I am saying to you is not gloomy and pessimistic; it is saying that ourstaff numbers have been cut and that is not good enough to meet student demands. As well, it isnot a matter of a contemplative life for academics, it is a matter of academics having time toactually do research away from teaching students. It is dangerous, in terms of the downturn of a



university’s productivity, if our senior academics, who you would hope are doing research, areconstantly bogged down in teaching. I think the NTEU would totally agree with me on that.

Senator BRANDIS—I think the point I was putting to you is a little different, and that is thatthe mere fact that students or staff are working harder does not necessarily mean that that is abad thing.

Mr Evenhuis—It does not necessarily mean that it is a reflection of the service that theuniversity is providing. The economic climate that students have found themselves in throughthe time of recession of what is now last decade has meant that people on this campus are verymuch focused towards future careers in employment. To coin an expression, people are workingtheir butts off because they are scared of being unemployed.

Senator BRANDIS—What is wrong with people working harder in order to secure morecertain career outcomes for themselves?

Mr Evenhuis—I think that is great, but I do not think it is necessarily a reflection of theeducation that the university is providing.

Senator TIERNEY—I have another question following on from what you said about themulticampus nature of the university. You seem to be critical of the university decentralisingfrom Hobart. I am curious about that, given that the regions of Tasmania could perhaps do withsupport in terms of students travelling closer to campuses and the economic development ofplaces like Launceston and Burnie. It would perhaps be useful to have some decentralisation oncampus. It is happening right across Australia. I am just curious as to why you think we shouldcentralise everything in Hobart.

Miss Rosier—That is not something that I was trying to say, and I do agree with you: theneed for decentralisation in Tasmania is quite clear. What we do have a problem with is that theplanning that has gone into that sort of decentralisation has not been consistent or standardised.For example, education was taught in the north of the state initially because the site of theuniversity at the moment was actually a teachers college. Education moved to Hobart; it is nowmoving back to Launceston, which makes it very difficult for students, and the university planseems to have no continuity or range of forward thinking, I suppose. This we find a problembecause it is disruptive to people.

Mr Evenhuis—I agree with what Angela is saying.

Miss Rosier—I would also say that some of the infrastructure that has been put into videoteaching across the state has not kept up with demand. Staff are continually finding that videolinks drop out halfway through class; sound drops out. This is still happening here. You mightask, ‘Who do you blame for that?’ I am not sure but I do think that, from a student’s point ofview, it is unsatisfactory.

Mr Evenhuis—I agree totally with what Angela is saying. Obviously, we are pro access toeducation in this state. Obviously, I am not in the best position to say in what direction auniversity should move. But from the little that I have seen, I think we would be better offmoving towards a specialisation of subjects in particular areas and offering introductory courses



in the rest. To split up courses and ask students to travel on a regular basis, I do not think is anadequate response to the need of access to higher education in this state.

Senator TIERNEY—So you would suggest more of a community college type model whereyou would do first year and maybe second year at Burnie and then perhaps come into theHobart campus for senior years?

Mr Evenhuis—Perhaps that is one alternative rather than what has been happening insociology. People actually having to travel up and down in their final year for one day of studyis not really good.

Miss Rosier—In my experience, it is very difficult for staff who are trying to teach in cross-campus faculties. But I am sure this is not a problem that is unique to this university.

CHAIR—Senator Brandis, is your question a related issue or should I come back to youlater?

Senator BRANDIS—It is on another aspect of Mr Evenhuis’s submissions.

CHAIR—Perhaps I should come back to you. Senator Carr.

Senator CARR—Could I draw your attention back to your submissions, although I do notwant you to feel inhibited in any way about responding to some of the propositions that havebeen put to you previously. In the first part of your submission you talk of the question of theimpact of a market approach to higher education having an effect on questions of institutionalautonomy and integrity. You go on to say what you think of the commercialisation of researchand that is that research that is privately funded ‘inevitably fails to enter the public domain’.Could you enlarge on what you mean by those expressions and give any examples?

Further, I would ask you to comment on this: this is taken from an editorial in the MelbourneAge in January this year. Commenting upon the Australia Institute’s research into the decline inacademic standards and questions of academic impropriety, the Age says that the allegations, ifproved true:

... are cause for dismay, for they throw into question the integrity of the universities involved. Further, the claims appearto corroborate a view many academics have been putting for several years: that inadequate funding and an increase incommercial culture represent a grave risk to intellectual integrity and independence. Last year saw the release of a book,Why Universities Matter, in which several academics argued that it would be an understatement to say that Australianuniversities were in turmoil. A respected educationalist, Peter Karmel, last year released a paper claiming that educationalstandards in Australia have been compromised by overcrowded classes, too few staff and a funding cut of 6 per centbetween 1997 and 2000.

Could you comment on those sentiments in that editorial in relation to the point that you makein your submission?

Miss Rosier—Where to start? The comments that we made in the initial stages of thesubmission to do with integrity, in my view anyway, were not so much to do with a decline instandards, or an alleged decline in standards, as a result of, say, up-front fees for courseworkstudents, but more to do with the way in which research funding and scholarship allocations aredone at this university. I know that students around the country continue to say that academic



standards have fallen as a result of people paying fees for their degrees. I am talking about thepostgraduate level—coursework up-front fees. I have seen no evidence of that, but then suchevidence is very hard to come by.

What we meant when we spoke about integrity was perhaps that, as we say in oursubmission, this university focuses its funding arrangements on four main theme areas. Thosetheme areas are tied to state industry and state government funding as well. When you askedabout institutional autonomy and flexibility, I took that to mean the capacity of the university toprovide courses and to research areas that people want to research—I guess that is what Imeant—and I am not really sure that that is always happening here. I know that that is definitelythe case with postgraduate research, and perhaps even staff research in some areas. Whatcourses are being offered and what is being researched are motivated by the allocation offunding. To me, that compromises intellectual integrity.

Senator CARR—You say that academic freedom is affected—

Miss Rosier—Yes.

Senator CARR—and that the research profile of the university has changed. Is that the pointthat you were making?

Miss Rosier—I would say so, yes.

Mr Evenhuis—It might sound a little anti-corporation but, while we have had no significantcrisis in terms of institutional autonomy, in terms of what will happen in future if weincreasingly rely on industry funding research, there will be inherent dangers in terms ofwhether the research will be released if it is in contradiction with the needs of an industry. Willresearch be shared with the greater community if it is more beneficial to a private company tokeep it to itself? Will it mean that the greater community’s need to have a university at its heartwill be de-prioritised in terms of solely the need of profit making organisations which can investin universities? Those are dangers that I see for the future. It is too late to start dealing withthose dangers when they happen; we have to start dealing with them now.

Miss Rosier—We do not want to give the impression, either, that, in a sense, we want todowngrade what the university is doing in the theme areas, because obviously the scholarshipand research being done are of the highest quality. Of course, being a centre for Antarcticstudies makes sense, given our geographical location.

Senator CARR—It is always difficult to criticise a university in which you are a student—Iappreciate that point; we are not all complete innocents in this regard—particularly when yourresults are not in!

I would just ask you to comment on this, though, because it does raise the issue about theconflict of interest that does arise. I take, for instance, a highly controversial question—the issueof forestry. This is a university that contributes substantially to forestry research, which Ipresume is heavily subsidised by economic interests, be they public or private, that have avested interest in the forestry industry. People like Simon Marginson and Stuart Macintyre inMelbourne in a publication which I have referred to already, Why universities matter, argue:



... the transformation of higher education into a market-oriented, user-pays business providing service to industry andgenerating foreign income has seriously eroded the capacity of the university to carry out its traditional civic functions topreserve and advance knowledge, to prepare students for their professional careers in a broad intellectual setting designedto foster inquiry, and to reflect on public issues. They suggest that the most striking feature of the present situation is theloss of confidence in the academic mission; academics have been reluctant to affirm the values of intellectual inquiry andthe pursuit of truth, and to communicate with the public about what is happening within university, especially the threatto academic freedom and the degradation of standards.

Could you comment on those principles? It may not be that you are able to comment on thedevelopments within this university specifically, but in general can you comment?

Mr Evenhuis—Those principles personally I heartily agree with. I agree that universitiesneed to remain institutions of autonomy and integrity. If we kill off our culture of inquiry andour culture of the questioning of society simply because we need to rely on corporate funding,and we are unable to comment because of the conflicts with industry, then I think that is a hugedanger in society. It sounds like a stupid example, but if we had Phillip Morris in our universityencouraging inquiry into the effects of cigarettes—I guess as an idea it would probably neverhappen—in terms of a hypothetical argument, it does show the dangers of our ability to criticisethe greater community and our ability to criticise governments and our awareness of where weare going as a culture. Those things sound fairly cerebral in a way, and I guess to many peoplemay sound unimportant, but when they are lost we will see the difference in our society, I amsure.

Miss Rosier—It seems to be me that the whole national education system is facing thisquestion. When government funding or industry funding enters into the university scene, weneed to ask: what is the job of the university and what is it supposed to be doing? Is it supposedto be doing research for industry or for government, or is it supposed to be teaching the nation’syouth? I am not sure, and the answer seems to be at the moment a bit of both, and I am not sureif that is really what we want to do.

Senator CARR—What happens if there is a conflict between those two objectives?

Miss Rosier—Exactly.

Mr Evenhuis—At the end of the day, if there is conflict where is the university going to getthe money from? I would expect that, as any institution that has any sense of pragmatism, theywould side with the funding that came from the corporate sector because, if it is a choicebetween the university existing or not, I would imagine that the university would follow the lineof industry, like any other university across Australia.

Senator CARR—It has been put to us in a submission to this inquiry—submission No. 10—by a former associate professor of anatomy and physiology at this university that the number ofstaff in that particular department has declined dramatically from 11 when he first started therein the 1970s to 2.5 permanent staff when he departed the university—I understand last year; thatthe subject hours, contact hours, had been reduced from 240 to 120; that anatomy now carriesonly half the total mark value and has been incorporated with human biology into what hereferred to as a ‘dumbed down’ subject called Integrated Structure and Function; and that in thecourse the students spend six minutes at a station on an eye. He implies in the document I havehere that that has been a substantial decline in the amount of time spent in the study of the



anatomy of the eye and that a student with a 20 per cent grade in anatomy can nevertheless passbecause of a combined mark with human biology, which no-one has ever failed.

He also goes on to point out that there have been examples in which the averaging of studentmarks with the bell curve application by senior academics within the university has meant thatthe normalisation of marks has actually reduced standards at this university. Are you aware ofclaims such as this?

Miss Rosier—Yes.

Senator CARR—Are you aware that they occurred within this university?

Miss Rosier—As I said before on this point, it is very difficult for people to come forward totheir student union and say that this is happening to them. And staff rarely say what this personhas said.

Senator BRANDIS—Does your answer mean that you are not aware of claims within thisuniversity?

Miss Rosier—I am aware of claims, but not of direct names and figures.

Senator BRANDIS—You are not aware of any particular case?

Miss Rosier—No.

Senator BRANDIS—You are just aware of talk?

Miss Rosier—That is right.

Senator CARR—Could I ask you to have a look at submission No. 10. You could ask thecommittee secretary to provide it to you and then provide us with any comment you may have.You may be able to contact people within this particular department and see whether or not youare able to verify the claims that are being made. I am concerned because, in an area such asanatomy and the training of doctors, this community ought to have some interest in whether ornot these claims are true. They are not just issues of academic interest. The question of thetraining of our medical practitioners involves issues of life and death. So I ask you to have alook at those claims and see whether or not you are able to verify them. How do you respond tothese sorts of claims? Do you believe it is possible that there has been a reduction in coursehours in a program such as anatomy at this university?

Miss Rosier—Yes. I believe it is entirely possible.

Senator CARR—Would a 50 per cent reduction be possible?

Miss Rosier—Quite possible.



Senator CARR—Do you think that this reduction would be brought about because ofeconomic reasons? Would that be possible?

Miss Rosier—If what has been said is right, then it has been brought about by cuts in staffnumbers, it seems, which is definitely economic.

Mr Evenhuis—The only figure that I am aware of at the medical school is that they aremoving towards a student-staff ratio of 20 FC per student, I think. The university would be ableto verify that. I am unaware of other ratios around Australia, but I would expect in a medicalschool—where teaching, you would hope, would be very intensive—that a student-staff ratiowould actually be a bit better than that.

Miss Rosier—We must also remember that disciplines like engineering, medicine andpsychology, for example, are under external accreditation regimes as well and are continuing tobe accredited—sometimes only just, mind you—externally. And with these things, surely theproof of the pudding is in the employment rate of graduates afterwards. If somebody is a baddoctor they are just not going to work in the sector. But this puzzles me—

Senator CARR—I saw in yesterday’s press that a doctor was sued for very substantial sumsof money for making diagnoses that were incorrect. It is not impossible to have doctors that areregistered and acting improperly. My point is: irrespective of whether or not the doctors comingfrom this university are fully qualified, is this claim correct? If so, is it not disturbing—

Miss Rosier—Extremely.

Senator CARR—that the anatomy program can be reduced from 240 hours to 120 hours?

Mr Evenhuis—I think it is very dangerous too for the small and regional communities thatare found in Tasmania. Obviously, if our medical school is not meeting their needs, then it is anindictment of a government that is not adequately meeting the needs of smaller regionalcommunities in terms of the provision of doctors.

CHAIR—The committee is asking you to look at the submission and see if you can verifythose comments. Unfortunately, the professor concerned is now working in the United Statesand is not available himself to appear before us.

Senator CARR—We might be able to hear from him through some other means.

Mr Evenhuis—We would certainly do that.

Miss Rosier—We would be happy to do that.

Senator BRANDIS—I want to ask Mr Evenhuis a couple of questions about the humanitiesbut, before I do, I will just pick up on a remark you made in answer to Senator Carr a couple ofquestions ago when you said, ‘Surely the proof of the pudding is in the employment rate forgraduates.’



Miss Rosier—Partly.

Senator BRANDIS—You did not qualify it then. It seems to me that that cuts across theentire theme of Mr Evenhuis’s submission that the proof of the pudding ought not to becommercial outcomes as seen in particular in the employment market.

Miss Rosier—Senator Carr was expressing concern at the decline in standards here inanatomy and physiology. I was trying to also profess my own worries about standards ofaccreditation regimes as well in this country.

Senator BRANDIS—You want to retreat from the unqualified proposition that the proof ofthe pudding is employment?

Miss Rosier—No. I mean that, if it is true and standards are declining in, say, medicine, it isstill a fact that these people are becoming doctors, which means that it is not just a worry interms of academic standards declining but also maybe accreditation standards generallydeclining.

Mr Evenhuis—With the greatest respect, I never stated that commercial outcomes were notof importance. I said that they might not necessarily be connected to a university in our currenteconomic climate.

Senator BRANDIS—I accept that. Can I explore with you what I understood you to besaying about the decline of the liberal arts. I completely agree with your disposition that thedecline in liberal arts or humanities education is one of the great problems in Australianuniversities at the moment. I am not sure to what extent that is a function of industry based fundsourcing for universities, as I understood you were suggesting that it was. To what do youascribe the decline in liberal arts courses specifically?

Mr Evenhuis—Our line is basically that our funding from the Commonwealth is reducing.Although we may be getting more money from industry and we may have more money oncampus, this money is going towards subject matters that are related to the concerns of industry.A philosopher will never get funding from a forestry company to sit down and think about trees.

Senator BRANDIS—That might be right. I can readily understand why the industry basedfunding will be directed to areas of interest to that particular industry, and that probably is notgoing to be the general humanities. Why should that observation apply to funding from studentfees or overseas students? Surely, in the end it is the students who decide the courses andfaculties that are of interest to them, and that more than faculty specific industry funding is themain reason why some of the more general humanities courses are in decline.

Miss Rosier—No, I do not think so. I would maintain that quite often staffing numbers andcourse offerings at this university and at many universities are not decided by student demand.

Senator BRANDIS—Would you elaborate?

Miss Rosier—Rather than being decided by student demand, what students often actually dowant to study, it is very often driven by economic factors.



Senator BRANDIS—Mr Evenhuis, you gave the example before of the classics departmentthat had closed. I do not know the facts of that particular case. I am sad to hear that that is so. Ibet you that, if there had been a great and increasing level of student demand or even a constantlevel of student demand for classics courses, it would not have closed. Is that right?

Mr Evenhuis—Could I put to you a concrete example?

Senator BRANDIS—We will have to get you on the record Miss Rosier. Is that true?

Miss Rosier—I do agree that increased enrolment numbers and high student load could havemade a difference to the school of classics here, although I do think that the general trend awayfrom humanities and, as you say, a certain disrespect for it, has led to that decline.

Senator BRANDIS—What do we do about the decline in respect of the humanities?

Mr Evenhuis—Can I make a case in point please? In 1999, a year of unprecedented cuts inthe arts school, we had 436 students applying for 173 first-year arts places. If this is not anexample of an underfunded part of this university which is related to arts not being givenenough staff to support student demand, I do not know what is.

Senator BRANDIS—You are generalising from a particular case. Is that your best evidence?

Mr Evenhuis—No; I am giving an example of a particular case.

Senator BRANDIS—So is that your best evidence?

Mr Evenhuis—Okay, what about our law school? In this university, we have 700 peopledoing intro to law. The vast majority of those people will apply to go to the law school, and onlyabout 200 of those people will actually gain entry. In their first year at the law school, about halfof those people will be culled.

Senator BRANDIS—When you say ‘culled’, you mean they fail, don’t you?

Mr Evenhuis—Because of the standards the university is asked to impose to exclude studentnumbers because they cannot meet the demand.

Senator BRANDIS—You cannot complain if the university is imposing higher standards—

Mr Evenhuis—Higher standards to get rid of students so they do not have to teach them.They get enough students at least for their first year so they can cover them and get the fundingfrom them.

Senator BRANDIS—I must say I cannot feel any sympathy for an argument—in particularin view of the gravamen of the rest of your evidence—that the imposition of higher standards isa bad thing.



Mr Evenhuis—The imposition of higher standards is a fine thing if it is trying to get a goodoutcome from universities. But if the imposition—

Senator BRANDIS—Surely it is an absolute—

Mr Evenhuis—Could you let me finish please? If the imposition of standards is simply to cutnumbers and is simply another way of getting rid of students—because, for instance, in the firstyear they want the funding from those students—that is not good. For instance, intro to law atthis university has 700 people paying top band HECS. That is a million bucks for the university,or a lot of money from the Commonwealth. The basic imposition of standards can be for twofactors: one, to maintain academic integrity and, two, to basically cull people off. I am sayingthat there is too much of the second.

Senator BRANDIS—But do you have any evidence for that?

Mr Evenhuis—I do not have evidence in front of me.

Senator BRANDIS—Is that just your surmise?

Mr Evenhuis—I think we heard your surmise from your experience of being a teacher in thesystem, and that was adequate for the views of the inquiry.

Senator BRANDIS—I was just giving you an example from my own case, and you havegiven me examples from yours. Now you are surmising, as I understand your evidence, that theimposition of particularly high standards at the second year law school level is for the nefariouspurpose of getting rid of students rather than for the intellectually respectable purpose ofdemanding high standards. That is a big claim.

Mr Evenhuis—I am not saying that is only the case. I am saying that there are two factorsand there is an involvement of a second factor.

Senator BRANDIS—How do you know that?

Mr Evenhuis—Well, why in every year—

CHAIR—Sorry, I am going to have to cut this discussion short at this stage. Senator Crossinhas been sitting politely waiting for an opportunity to question for some time now. I will go toSenator Crossin.

Senator CROSSIN—You refer in your submission to the recent loss of the so-called gapplaces. Can you expand on what impact that has had in respect of the evidence you have giventoday?

Miss Rosier—I will preface this by saying that I do find this issue quite difficult to come togrips with. Of the 3,500 gap places across this country, I take it that not that many are actuallyheld at the University of Tasmania.



Senator CROSSIN—You don’t have exact figures on that, do you?

Miss Rosier—No, but I think it is a few hundred, perhaps not even that many.

Senator CROSSIN—What impact do those few numbers have on the operations?

Miss Rosier—That will depend on what the university intends to do with those students whoactually fall into gap places when they complete. At this time, I am not aware of what theuniversity intends to do. If the university intends to trade in those gap places, if you like, oncompletion for increased undergraduate load, which they may, I hope that funding for staffingincreases accordingly, but I bet it will not. So at this time, I am unaware of what the universityplans to do, but I do think the university has been given very little choice in this matter.

Senator CROSSIN—In respect of the university being classified as a regional university, isit the expectation of student demand and the community that this university will provide a broadrange of essential areas and faculties, or is there an expectation that they may specialise in fourparticular areas and have world-class research and development in those four areas?

Miss Rosier—I think that is an extremely good question. I would start by saying that whatthe community wants out of its universities is extremely hard to judge but, along with that, itdoes not matter. In my view, if the university does choose to pursue this road of specialisation,which it seems that it will, that is all well and good, although broad offerings are still going toneed to be given here at this university. You cannot teach the specialised areas without teachingbasic applied science or basic mathematics, for example. These are exactly the areas that arebeing diminished here, not to mention liberalising humanities, which, although it may notappear so on first looking, are also very important to the basic grounding needed to study in thetheme areas as well. I would say that, even if the community does want the university to godown that theme study area road, we still need a general breadth of course offerings.

Mr Evenhuis—In terms of actually trying to keep people in Tasmania, and even in terms ofhaving teachers remain in this state who were taught in this state and who do have a more, Iguess, eclectic education, I do not think this university is going to only specialise in those keyareas. Obviously, those other areas, especially the humanities, are important, especially in termsof the teachers we have in the state.

Senator CROSSIN—Does the six per cent funding that you have presented to us in yoursubmission today assist in a debate about moving to specialised areas, or does it frustrate thedebate about having a broad range of offerings?

Miss Rosier—Can I clarify? Are you asking: if there is less of a pot, is it better to not spreadthat pot too thin?

Senator CROSSIN—That is right.

Miss Rosier—That is a good question. That is a question this university is facing at themoment. It seems to me that the trend is to decide that, if there is less of a pot, then lessdiversification is the best thing to do.



Senator CROSSIN—I put it to you that I think it is a question that a number of regionaluniversities are grappling with at this time. What is the view of the student union down hereabout that?

Miss Rosier—In our view, if that is the road that is chosen—the road to diminish the breadthof offerings—that is all well and good, as long as it is done well. If it is not done well—and as Isaid, with broad service teaching in the basic core disciplines—it will all have been for nought.

Senator CROSSIN—That is all I have.

CHAIR—That completes our questions. Thank you very much for appearing.



[9.59 a.m.]

DOE, Dr Peter, Past President, Institution of Engineers (Tasmania Division)

CHAIR—I welcome Dr Peter Doe. Do you have any comments to make in relation to thecapacity in which you appear?

Dr Doe—I am appearing on behalf of the Institution of Engineers (Tasmania Division) in thecapacity of past president but also because I am directly associated with engineering educationin this state as an associate professor at this university.

CHAIR—The committee has before it your submission No. 228. Are there any changes youwish to make to it?

Dr Doe—Apart from a couple of typographical errors that I picked up when I read it again,there is nothing of substance.

CHAIR—Thank you. The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public, although wewill consider any requests for all or part of evidence to be given in camera, which is in private. Ipoint out, however, that such evidence may subsequently be made public by order of the Senate.I now invite you to make a brief opening statement and then we will move to questions on yourstatement and your submission.

Dr Doe—I am representing the Institute of Engineers in this state, which has as its membersapproximately 1,000 professional engineers. I have made some points in my submission on thedemand for professional engineers in the community. I will not repeat those in my briefsubmission here, except to say that if Australia is to realise its potential as a clever country anddevelop its manufacturing capability, it will increasingly look towards professional engineers.As I said, I have been associated with engineering education at the University of Tasmania. Weare one of two providers of professional engineering education in this state, the other being theAustralian Maritime College, which is specifically directed towards naval architecture andocean engineering.

The University of Tasmania, for the past 70-odd years, has provided professional engineeringeducation in civil, mechanical and electrical engineering areas. I have seen a progressive changeover the years. I have been lecturing at this university since 1964 so I have a breadth ofexperience here. In the student-staff ratio, 15 to 20 years ago we were one of the best or worstinstitutions in Australia with respect to a student-staff ratio of about eight to one. That hasroughly doubled now and it is about 16 to one. What this has meant is increasing pressure onthe staff coupled with a reduction in staff. Over the past four years my part of the school has hadits full-time staff numbers reduced from about 11½ to eight, which is a quite substantialreduction, to the extent that we now have four full-time lecturers covering the whole of the areaof mechanical engineering and about 4½ covering all of civil engineering.

Part of my duties has been to accredit engineering departments of other universities. InOctober last I was part of a panel of five academics accrediting Sydney University. They would



have three or four professors of mechanical engineering. We are a very small school. The point Iam making is that we are catering for a demand in this state. Our student numbers have beenincreasing, but we are very vulnerable to the extent that we are desperately thin on teachingstaff. If someone got sick or somebody had a pressing case for overseas study, we would find itvery difficult to meet our program. We are also very dependent on international student income.Out of our 419 full-time students enrolled at present, 111 of those or about 26½ per cent areinternational students. That has risen from about 24 per cent three years ago.

What I am trying to show is that Australia needs a continuing supply of good engineers. TheUniversity of Tasmania is contributing to that, but its viability is dependent on the maintenanceof government funding. If there are any more decreases in funding to engineering education inthis state, we will have great difficulty in continuing.

CHAIR—Thank you. Given the demand for engineering places and the high demand fromfee-paying students, would it be reasonable to expect that additional resources might have beenchannelled towards engineering in this current climate?

Dr Doe—I am very sympathetic to the university’s need to make the best use of its funding.We are part of a faculty of science and engineering. We are given no particular advantageoustreatment compared with other departments in the faculty. We are expected to teach with astudent-staff ratio according to a formula. I do not see that we have been specificallydisadvantaged or advantaged in respect of the total amount of funds coming in.

CHAIR—What does the university do with the additional resources that come to theuniversity from fee-paying students in engineering?

Dr Doe—They withhold a capitation amount which is required by the federal government toprovide for capital works. They remit to the department and the school a same per capitaamount as we receive for the local students, and the balance goes to international services andmarketing.

CHAIR—So the balance goes to reinvestment in attracting overseas students?

Dr Doe—Partly, yes.

CHAIR—I think the university’s submission also indicated to us a difficulty with economiesof scale when you are operating only small fee-for-service programs—it is difficult to make asignificant profit, so to speak, from those students. Is that also the case in engineering?

Dr Doe—As I understand, we are paid at the same rate as for the local students, so we seemoney coming in for overseas students at the same rate as for locally attracted students cominginto the faculty.

CHAIR—Are you aware of how much the university takes on top of that amount that comesto the faculty?

Dr Doe—I do not have the specific amounts here. You would best direct that to theuniversity.



CHAIR—How has the reliance on overseas students of the school of engineers impacted onthe number of local students?

Dr Doe—It does not seem to have had any effect. We are still getting an increasing demandfrom local students.

CHAIR—The numbers have not decreased?

Dr Doe—No. We have never had to place a quota on local students.

Senator TIERNEY—Why do you think the future of the engineering faculty is dependent onthe maintenance of government funding? Obviously, a certain proportion of government fundsis needed but, from what you have said and what is said in your submission, I would havethought that your faculty is well placed in terms of additional funding. Overseas students arepossibilities. I am not too sure what is done with postgrad and postgraduate fees and thepossibilities of CRCs and other types of cooperative arrangements with industry to get researchmoney into the university. Surely there is the opportunity—and I do not know how much it isbeing realised—to expand funding for your faculty without necessarily relying too heavily onincreases from government.

Dr Doe—You might say that, but with 16½ staff in the school at present, with ourrequirements to travel overseas to maintain our recruiting programs offshore, with the little bitof research work that we do we are fortunately able to attract ARC grants and industry grants.There is very little time left for entrepreneurial fundraising activities. The only funding thatcomes in to support teaching is through scholarships provided by some industries.

Senator TIERNEY—Local industry in Tasmania?

Dr Doe—Yes.

Senator TIERNEY—You might want to do it separately, but could you provide a list ofscholarships to the committee and which companies are doing that.

Dr Doe—Yes, I will do that separately.

Senator TIERNEY—Thank you, that would be useful.

Senator CARR—What is the proportional balance in terms of funding for scholarshipsversus other forms of funding?

Dr Doe—There are about 14 scholarships available to our 400 students. Those scholarshipswould be worth between $1,500 and $3,000 a year, but that is paid to the students.

Senator CARR—What is the total amount of money provided for other forms of researchand support for the students?

Dr Doe—I think the school’s budget runs at something like $1.6 million.



Senator CARR—How much of that is from private sources?

Dr Doe—That is the government part of the budget.

Senator CARR—Are you able to tell us how much comes from private sources on top of that$1.6 million?

Dr Doe—No, I am not, I am afraid. I cannot give you that figure. I will write it to you if youwish.

Senator CARR—Thank you very much.

Senator TIERNEY—Turning to the issue of differential HECS, it has been claimed thatdifferential HECS charges in areas like science are leading to declines of enrolment.Engineering does not bear that out, does it? You have got differential charges for HECS but youdo not seem to have a problem with enrolments.

Dr Doe—We have had no problem attracting students at all.

Senator TIERNEY—Finally, on the issue of the relationship between VET and universitiesin the engineering area, we have tried increasingly across Australia to develop better articulationarrangements between TAFE and universities. I am wondering if you could describe brieflywhat happens in Tasmania in terms of engineering in TAFE and engineering in universities andthe articulation between the two.

Dr Doe—We have a system whereby students who have completed a TAFE or VET diplomacome into the engineering faculty with about 1½ years advance standing. They can eitherproceed to a professional engineering degree or they can proceed to a Bachelor of Technologydegree, which is a three-year bachelor’s degree. The demand is quite low. I think we have aboutfive students in the system taking this route. It is very similar to the level of advanced standingwe give to international students who have gone through a VET type course in their owncountry.

Senator TIERNEY—People who get a year and a half advance standing would have a tradecertificate in some engineering field?

Dr Doe—They would have more than a trade certificate; they would have what is known isan advanced diploma.

Senator TIERNEY—And you give them a year and a half out of four?

Dr Doe—Yes.

Senator TIERNEY—So then they have got 2½. That is a pretty attractive option. Why doyou think more do not take that up? Particularly as they have gone to an advanced diploma, whydon’t they move into a degree? What do you think the barriers are?



Dr Doe—I think the barriers are the perception of professional engineering as being adifficult discipline and the opportunities in the marketplace for people with the VETqualifications.

Senator TIERNEY—So they do pretty well out of that at that level?

Dr Doe—Yes. There are plenty of employment opportunities for what we call engineeringofficers—the associate diploma people.

Senator TIERNEY—Thank you.

Senator CARR—You say in your submission:

The dependence of the School on full fee paying international students is much too high and leaves the School with anover-exposure in this area.

Can you explain what you mean?

Dr Doe—I think at 26½ per cent, which is the year 2000 proportion of international students,it is probably on the high side throughout Australian engineering schools. The market is quitevolatile. We had a very unfortunate experience late last year where our recognition forSingapore graduates was withdrawn. That meant that the Singapore students—not very many,about 10 or 12 Singaporean students we usually get each year—went to zero. In Malaysia,where most of our international students come from, it would not take very much more of arecalcitrant episode for Mahathir to say, ‘No more students are to go to Australia.’ We arevulnerable to that extent.

Senator CARR—Why were the credentials for the accreditation in Singapore withdrawn?

Dr Doe—It was an oversight on the part of the school or faculty administration at a timewhen the university was undergoing substantial structural organisation not to keep theSingapore registration board aware of these changes.

Senator CARR—The Institute of Chartered Accountants and the CPA have madesubmissions to us saying they are concerned about the decline in standards occurring within theaccountancy profession. They say that the reputation of Australian universities abroad isaffected. They believe that it has threatened the employment opportunities for Australiansabroad. They are concerned that the profile of academic accountants has been lowered, becauseuniversities are unable to attract younger teaching talent, and that low academic salaries arecausing a decline in the standards of teaching available at universities. The private sectorfunding is not patient capital. The per capita funding disadvantaged accounting faculties,particularly those that are IT reliant. They said some teaching practices, including self-marking,are leading to the deterioration of standards. Given the events that occurred in Singapore, areyou concerned about similar patterns within engineering maybe not only at this university butacross Australia?

Dr Doe—I am concerned for the future; I am not concerned for the present. I believe we havebeen able to maintain our standards. I have no evidence to suggest that standards have fallen.



Being part of the institution’s accreditation team, I have the opportunity of seeing the product.Increasingly institutions are being assessed on the product rather than the process. I have noevidence that demand for Australian engineers or their quality has reduced. One of the reasons Iam sitting here today is that I would not like to see this happen.

Senator CARR—What is your concern for the future?

Dr Doe—My concern for the future is by extrapolation over the past three or four years. Ifthe trend on increasing enrolments and decreasing resources continues then we will not be ableto maintain these high standards.

Senator CARR—What sorts of impacts would that have should your fears be realised?

Dr Doe—It will possibly have some direct impact on the services available to the public inrespect of safety, infrastructure and the capacity of Australian industry to compete worldwide.We do need engineering expertise in a developed country to make it run.

Senator CARR—Absolutely. You have heard me refer to the attractiveness of engineeringteaching. Do you believe there is an issue here in regard to salaries? What is the currentsituation?

Dr Doe—I believe it is more an undersupply of experienced teachers. We have had a positionadvertised for 12 months and have not been able to fill it. I believe that is more to do with thesort of person we are looking for.

Senator CARR—If you were able to offer higher academic salaries, do you think moreapplicants would apply?

Dr Doe—That would certainly attract some better qualified people back from industry. Weare competing with industry for good engineers. While the salaries are high and they have gotinteresting work to do out in the industry they would be loath to come back to teaching.

Senator CARR—Is that one impact of declining funding for this area?

Dr Doe—In what respect?

Senator CARR—The question of lower academic salaries and the failure to providesupplementation, for instance. Is that one measure of the impact of declining public funding foruniversities?

Dr Doe—I do not follow your question.

Senator CARR—If there was more government money available, would you be able to offermore salaries? Clearly, that is the inference—

Dr Doe—I would have to agree with that, yes.



Senator CARR—But equally the failure to provide supplementation over recent years, it hasbeen argued, has led to reduction in salaries.

Dr Doe—It has not only led to the reduction in salaries; it has led to the staff numbers. Thathas had a more direct influence.

Senator CARR—If you are not able to attract appropriately qualified staff, and also youngerstaff—all of us are ageing—is that not a problem for the longer term in this sector as well?

Dr Doe—Certainly.

Senator CARR—Thank you very much.

Senator CROSSIN—What is the mix or interaction or combination between VET and thehigher education in your particular discipline at university?

Dr Doe—I do not have the figures. My impression is that there are probably about half asmany people doing VET engineering training as there are doing professional engineeringtraining, but that is just a guess on my part. I can get those figures for you, if you like.

Senator CROSSIN—Have there been any particular difficulties arising from thecombination or the lack of growth funds in VET as well as now a reduction in funding in highereducation?

Dr Doe—I would not be in a position to comment on that.

Senator CROSSIN—We are looking at the capacity of unmet demand for universities inrelation to higher education. Does the discipline of engineering have particular barriers toovercome in relation to funding because of the dual offerings within the area, because of themix of higher education and TAFE?

Dr Doe—I do not think so. As I said earlier, we have been able to meet demand inengineering. I do not see any evidence that there are any barriers to young people pursuing acareer in engineering.

Senator CROSSIN—Your submission to us is that you have met that demand despitereduction in staff numbers and a reduction in resources?

Dr Doe—Yes.

Senator CARR—I would like to come back to this issue of staffing. I have just had anotherlook over your submission. You say that the staff student ratio has blown out from 11:1 to 16:1.You are saying that salaries are taking up 80 per cent of recurrent expenditure?

Dr Doe—Yes.



Senator CARR—You are saying that there has been a policy at this university to encourageearly retirements to ease budgetary problems?

Dr Doe—Yes.

Senator CARR—You are saying that this policy has an additional adverse effect that seniorexperienced staff are being replaced by junior staff with little teaching experience?

Dr Doe—That is correct.

Senator CARR—You also say to us that here has been no decline in quality. Can you explainthe two?

Dr Doe—We work harder and we are expected to work more effectively. It has come, in mycase, at the expense of my research effort. To the extent that research feeds back into theteaching, then we are missing out in that area. It is a cogent argument and it is very difficult tocounter.

Senator CARR—Which one? Let us be clear about this.

Dr Doe—Your argument that we are having to do more with less. One of the things that wehave had to do, or we have been required to do, is reduce the teaching hours marginally, andthere has been a shift from the amount of hands-on laboratory work we do, all of which, I guessit could be argued, has reduced the quality of the system. But we are not seeing that—forwhatever reason I cannot really tell—in the quality of the output. The quality of the process hasbeen changed.

Senator CARR—Dr Doe, I might press you here: how do you know that there is no drop inthe output quality?

Dr Doe—We know from the feedback we get from the employers, and the fact that ourgraduates are being employed competitively internationally.

Senator CARR—That is right. But the Singaporean government withdraws its accreditationfrom your program.

Dr Doe—That is unfortunate, but that does not reflect on the quality of the graduates.

Senator CARR—So explain it to me again. You have quite a significant event occurring—the loss of accreditation of your program by a foreign government—and you are saying that thathas nothing to do with questions of quality.

Dr Doe—No, it has to do with the information that we were required to supply to theSingaporean Professional Engineers Registration Board. It is to do with the quality of ourbookkeeping, if you like. We are in the process of rectifying that problem. We sent our head ofschool up there very smartly with the necessary documentation.



Senator CARR—I bet you did!

Dr Doe—I think another measure is the extent to which our offshore programs are still quitesuccessful. We started the first offshore program in Vietnam. We have an offshore program inMalaysia and we are starting one in Thailand. These are continuing to attract students.

Senator CARR—I have done a fair bit of work in the international education area, and I putit to you that numbers are not necessarily a reflection of quality. It may well take a while forpeople to perceive measures of quality, be they up or down. How do you respond to that? Is itpossible that you are being a bit optimistic about the public perception of the questions aboutquality assurance at this university?

Dr Doe—Yes, it is possible, and I take your point. There are no absolute measures of qualityof graduates.

CHAIR—That concludes the questioning. Thank you very much, Dr Doe.

Dr Doe—Thank you very much.

Proceedings suspended from 10.27 a.m. to 11.02 a.m.



MALPAS, Professor Jeffery Edward, Member of Council, Australasian Association ofPhilosophy (special responsibility for Public Affairs)

PRIEST, Professor Graham, Chair of Council, Australasian Association of Philosophy

CHAIR—The committee has before it submission No. 18, although, if I recall, I think thatthere were a couple of others related to Professor Malpas: is that correct?

Prof. Malpas—Yes.

CHAIR—Are there any changes you wish to make to any of the submissions?

Prof. Malpas—No.

CHAIR—The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public, although we willconsider any request for all or part of evidence to be given in private, or in camera. I point out,however, that such evidence may subsequently be made public by order of the Senate. I nowinvite you to make a brief opening statement and then we will move to questions on yoursubmissions.

Prof. Priest—First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting us here. We are very pleasedto have this opportunity to talk to you. What I thought I would do in the next couple of minutesis just highlight what it seems to me are the central points of our submission. First of all, werepresent philosophy, as the professional body of philosophers in Australia. Although we speakfor philosophers, I think much of what we have to say applies to universities in general andhumanities in particular. Anyway, I will restrict the remarks to philosophy specifically.

Philosophy is, I think, very important for Australia, and has been historically, because theAustralian philosophical community has such a high profile; and there are some statistics anddata in the submission which tell you that. Yet the last 10 years have been very unkind forphilosophy, and the level of morale in the profession is incredibly low. That is reflected in thenumber of good philosophers who have left to take up jobs elsewhere. Again, we have givenyou names, and those names include three or four of Australia’s highest profile philosophersand public intellectuals.

So what is the problem? I think the problems are twofold. The prime business of universitiesis teaching and research. The quality of teaching in Australia has, I have no doubt, gone down inthe last 10 years. This is a direct product of the amount of money that is spent on fundinguniversities, because, if you decrease the amount of money in real terms per capita of thestudents that goes towards universities, then invariably class sizes increase; and the quality ofeducation is a direct index of the class size. The best education system is the one with thesmallest numbers. Look at Oxford and look at the small US liberal arts colleges. They all havevery low staff-student ratios. The fact that the staff-student ratio has gone up and there havebeen other infrastructural cuts, such as library depletions and so on, has meant that the qualityof education in our universities has gone down, undoubtedly. This will be further exacerbated ifthe government’s policy of not funding wage increases goes on because this will just mean that



more good people leave or again staff-student ratios will go up. That is the first point—thequality of teaching in our universities.

The second point concerns research—specifically the way that research money is apportionedto universities by the government. I am not talking about the ARC here; I am talking about theway that money comes through the block grant system. The method which is used to do thisstrikes me, and strikes most of my colleagues, as quite inappropriate. First of all, it does notreflect quality; it reflects quantity. In that way it is completely different from the RAE of theUK, for example, which makes a definite attempt to measure the quality of research. Not onlydoes it measure not quality but quantity, but also what it measures the quantity of is not researchoutput but largely research input in the form of external research grants. It is measuring thewrong thing. Not only that, but the measure is procrustean in that it is the same for everybody. Ifyou look at different disciplines, then it is clear that they work in terms of their research indifferent ways. For example, it takes longer to complete a PhD in the humanities because theresearch is not normally team research, and there are various other reasons which we can talkabout if you wish.

It is clear that, if you are going to get quality research, then you must take into accountdisciplinary differences. The policy of calling it a separation if a student does not complete infour years is going to markedly decrease the quality of research in philosophy, because teacherswill make sure that their students get through in a shorter time. That means that they will notthink as much and the quality will not be as good in the end. Not only that, but the currentfunding regime is discriminatory against women. Because often women have to suspend for ayear or two to have babies, they are more likely to be part time and so on. The current fundingarrangements are really problematic for women in higher degrees. Those are the two mainthings—teaching and research.

I will just finish with one observation. I think there is a general feeling amongst mycolleagues that in some sense Australia has lost the plot as far as higher education goes. When Itell my colleagues in the US, for example, some of the things that are happening in Australiathey just cannot believe their ears. Education is for preparing the next generation to find jobs,but also to live fulfilling lives and to contribute to society. The feeling is that Australia hasforgotten this and that all it is really interested in is training an output—not educating people buttraining an output which is going to plug into the economy. That is important, but it is just onefunction of education. This accounts partly for the low morale in the humanities and in theuniversities in general—that, compared with other countries, Australia is losing its way.

Senator CARR—I begin by asking both the witnesses if they could comment on the effectsof the government policy with regard to teaching of philosophy at a number of universities. Forinstance, on page 2 you say that the number of staff employed at La Trobe University hasdropped and that student ratios have increased, in fact, from 9.5 in 1982 to 20.9 in 1998. TheUniversity of Western Australia has a similar sort of pattern—14 to 22. What is the situation atMelbourne University, Professor Priest?

Prof. Priest—It always depends how you measure these things. The current staff-studentratio is around 25 to one. I have only been at that university for two months so I cannotcomment how that particular figure has changed. I came to Australia in 1976 and was teachingat the University of Western Australia in those days. The staff-student ratio I remember



distinctly was 12½ to one. I compared it with what the situation was in the UK where I camefrom. Now it is between 25 and 30. That is the general pattern.

Senator CARR—Professor Malpas, would you concur with that in terms of the University ofTasmania?

Prof. Malpas—The University of Tasmania has actually set staff-student ratios in humanitiesand social sciences at 25 to one. That is an increase on what it was last year. In my ownexperience, my first teaching institution was the University of New England. At that university,when I began, which was in about 1985, staff-student ratios were probably about 10 or 12 toone. We were starting to get worried when tutorial sizes went up from about eight to 12. Theview was that that was unteachable. We now standardly at this university have at least 20 toeach tutorial group.

Senator CARR—Why was it necessary to increase the ratio at this university? You aresaying this has occurred over the last year. Can you indicate to me in your experience how thatis justified?

Prof. Malpas—At the University of Tasmania it was part of an attempt to reallocateresources. An assessment was done of the staff-student ratios across the institution. It wasdiscovered that some areas, particularly law, had very high staff-student ratios even compared tohumanities and social sciences. Essentially staffing funds were redistributed away fromhumanities and social sciences in order to assist schools like law and various others. There weresome minor readjustments also in relation to some of the science disciplines. One of the odditiesabout this readjustment, however, was that it took only academic staff into account. One of thereasons law had a very high academic staff-student ratio was because law has the highestproportion of general staff in the university and it had chosen to allocate funding to its generalstaff rather than its academic staff. Humanities, because we are always so stretched, hasgenerally devoted almost all of its budget to academic staff. The result has been that law hasretained a high level of general staff. It now has increased academic staffing. It was essentiallypart of a package of measures. One was in relation to equalisation across the institution but itwas also tied in with the aggressive implementation of the government’s research fundingmechanism internally to the institution. Teaching and research funding were separated in a wayone might regard in some respects as arbitrary. They were separated and research funding wasdelivered directly to schools on the basis of the same calculation that the federal governmentuses in allocating research funding to universities. That has also had an indirect effect onteaching staff.

Senator CARR—What impact has this decline in the student-teacher ratio had in terms ofcompletion rates? Has there been any change in the completion rates in your experience inrecent years?

Prof. Priest—Of undergraduates?

Senator CARR—Of both. Perhaps you could cut it in two parts—on the question ofundergraduates and also in terms of research students, postgraduates?



Prof. Priest—As far as undergraduates go, I have no statistics. My guess is that it is probablyabout the same, certainly in the universities that I have worked in. It may be different indifferent universities. On the level of research students, there has been a smaller proportion ofcompletions. That is largely because a lot of universities in the 1990s increased their number ofresearch students to try to attract more funding.

Senator CARR—So the quantum has grown?

Prof. Priest—Not only the quantum. It has meant that less able people are doing the job.They may do quite a good job but they certainly will not do as good a job in the same time aspeople who traditionally did doctorates in universities.

Prof. Malpas—We do not really have any data on this. The picture is complicated by the factthat many schools of philosophy have had well developed postgraduate programs for probablyonly the last five to 10 years. That is not true of every institution, but it reflects a shift in theway in which philosophy has operated in the last 10 years particularly. Previous to that timemany smaller departments automatically assumed that their best students would go to Oxford,Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton, and that was where we sent them. They cannot afford to gothere anymore, and that is one of the reasons why there has been an increasing tendency forstudents to stay at home.

My guess is that it has not changed the undergraduate completion rate. That is partly becausethe quantum has grown. I think we have less able students very often coming in, but I thinkstandards have adjusted to that. At the level of postgraduates there is concern about what effectthis may be having on completions. You have got a higher quantum and it is hard to track whatis going on, but certainly one of the concerns I have is that we are in a position where we areincreasingly less able to provide the appropriate infrastructure and appropriate supervision forpostgraduates simply because the amount of money we are receiving for them is so much lessand the pressures on the institution also are so much greater, both at undergraduate andpostgraduate levels.

Senator CARR—DETYA was going to do an analysis of completions for research students.Has there been anything produced in recent times that you are aware of?

Prof. Malpas—Not that I am aware of. I am aware of a considerable amount of data in theUS—although it is hard to get—about postgraduates. Certainly the US postgraduate system isdifferent from ours. What can be tracked from the US data is the differences in disciplines.There are very significant differences in different disciplines in the US as to completion timesand withdrawal rates. We have data within this institution on withdrawal and completion rates.There are differences across disciplines and those differences are reflected too in the way inwhich the university has administered the Research Training Scheme.

The university has targeted a number of disciplines as disciplines that have high withdrawaland low completion rates and it has looked to remove RTS places from those disciplines. Thedisciplines of humanities and social sciences have lost the highest number of RTS places. In thesciences, geography and environmental science and psychology are the two areas that weretargeted in that faculty in terms of losing RTS positions. We also know that these are disciplinesthat have much higher numbers of mature age students and women.



Senator CARR—Could you provide us with that material?

Prof. Malpas—I would have to ask our research office. Professor Glenn and ProfessorMcNicol, whom you are going to meet this afternoon, ought to be able to provide you with thatsort of data. We do have a lot of data. The data on postgraduates is not completely reliablebecause, for instance, the transfers from PhD to masters have been counted as withdrawals fromPhD.

Senator CARR—You have argued that there has been a decline in the quality of teaching asa response to the funding regime that you are now being administered through. You also saidthat you are concerned about the impact of private investment, the suppression or themanipulation by the industry sector in order to advance commercial interests in terms ofresearch. You say that our universities are being publicly funded ‘precisely to ensure that theintegrity and objectivity of research is not compromised by commercial interests and thatknowledge is available to all’. Are you able to point to any examples where you think that thecontrary has occurred?

Prof. Malpas—I believe there is some evidence of cases in Australia where, for instance,industry partnerships have included clauses to the effect that the university will not participatein any competing areas of research. That has been an agreement that has been binding on theinstitution as a whole. Certainly that is inimical to the whole ethos of research within a publiclyfunded institution where, if you want to get the best research, essentially you want to open theopportunities for as much to go on as possible and you want as much public exchange ofinformation as possible. We have lots of data and there are a great many cases in the US whereexactly this sort of thing has been happening. There have been a number of discussions over thelast two to three years about the increasing concerns about exactly that sort of influence onobjectivity and the integrity of research in a number of cases.

I would direct you, for instance, to an article that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly—I thinklast year, probably April—called ‘The kept university,’ which really just detailed a whole list ofcases. In some cases, the research was on a new medical treatment where research seemed tohave been not exactly falsified but at least adverse results were simply suppressed by thecompany concerned. I think there is plenty of evidence that this is a real worry. It is happeningin the US. I do not know that we have a lot of data on that happening here yet. I think there areone or two examples here.

Senator CARR—My time is short so I just have to cut that and move to another area. Iquoted before from some statements that were made by contributors to a publication Whyuniversities matter? Were you here at the time?

Prof. Priest—No.

Prof. Malpas—No.

Senator CARR—Perhaps I will just go through that again with you. I would ask you tocomment on this. I put this to you:



... the transformation of higher education into a market-oriented, user-pays business providing service to industry andgenerating foreign income has seriously eroded the capacity of the university to carry out its traditional civic functions topreserve and advance knowledge, to prepare students for their professional careers in a broad intellectual setting designedto foster inquiry, and to reflect on public issues. They suggest that the most striking feature of the present situation is theloss of confidence in the academic mission; academics have been reluctant to affirm the values of intellectual inquiry andthe pursuit of truth, and to communicate with the public about what is happening within the university, especially thethreat to academic freedom and the degradation of standards.

Could you comment on those sentiments?

Prof. Priest—I think there is a lot of truth in that matter. I think most academics nowadaysfeel very insecure for many reasons. One is the abolition of tenure 10 years ago, which meansthat one can be fairly summarily dismissed, so one is less inclined to criticise the internalmanagement of the university, for example, for fear of reprisals. That is one feature.

Another feature is that, because teaching loads have gone up and because pressure is put onpeople to research, people apportion their time to those priorities and they have less time toengage in public debate, write letters to the press, attend public discussions and so on. So I thinkthat for that reason also the contribution of academics to those important areas of public life hasdecreased.

Senator BRANDIS—Professor Priest, why should academics more than motor mechanics orpeople from any other calling in the community have a particular obligation to contribute to thepublic life of the community? Isn’t that something that any good citizen may do if they chooseto but, to put it crudely, in their own time?

Prof. Priest—Yes, indeed. Of course, everybody should contribute. But I think philosophershave a particular obligation to do that because of the nature of their profession. It is part of ourprofession to think very carefully about social and political issues in a non-partisan way. We arenot members of any church or any government as a profession. We are neutral. We haveexpertise in the analysis of social, political and ethical issues. I think it behoves a good citizento bring these qualities to bear on these matters.

Prof. Malpas—I would like to add to that. I would hope that a motor mechanic might wellmake public comment particularly on things that he or she is familiar with. One does hear motormechanics sometimes making comments on areas where they do have some expertise. We alsomake comments—and I believe ought to be expected to make comments—on areas in which wehave expertise. One of the problems in relation to the corporatisation of the university as it isnow is that in many institutions that is actually prohibited. Many universities have codes inplace according to which staff are forbidden to speak to the press without that first being clearedthrough a central office.

Senator BRANDIS—Surely only in relation to the internal affairs of the university?

CHAIR—Please, Senator Brandis, allow the witness to finish.

Prof. Malpas—For instance, I was at Murdoch University two or three years ago and thiswas a standard policy. It was a policy that arose after a complaint from a TV station over acomment from somebody who had some expertise in a particular area in relation to the Thredbolandslide. Comments were made by a media lecturer that there was some ethical impropriety in



the way that the media coverage had been undertaken. A TV station rang the vice-chancellor tocomplain, the vice-chancellor reprimanded the staff member and, as a result, essentially, acorporate policy was introduced according to which staff were forbidden to speak to the pressunless it was first cleared through the central office, and they were only allowed to speak onareas where they had some direct area of expertise.

Senator CARR—I will go back to the point I was making about the civic responsibilities of apublic institution. It has been traditionally maintained that one of the key functions of auniversity is to actually provide comment and discussion on public issues and to reflect uponpublic issues. Are you saying then that the principle of academic freedom is being underminedby this current arrangement?

Prof. Priest—If you abolish tenure, then people will be less prepared to speak of course,because they are human and they are scared of reprisals.

Prof. Malpas—It is the case that there is a range of formal and informal measures in place inmost institutions that discourage academics from speaking publicly on a range of issues.

Senator CARR—It has been put to us that at the moment there is an atmosphere ofintimidation operating within Australian universities. Are you familiar with those sorts ofsentiments?

Prof. Priest—Can you explain exactly what you mean?

Senator CARR—A number of people have suggested to us in their various submissions thatthey have been severely criticised and threatened for making public comment about, forinstance, the issue of declining standards. I personally have received a number of letters fromacademics who are anxious that I do not name them for fear of retribution.

Prof. Malpas—If I can speak in relation to this institution, I might direct you to a vote of noconfidence that was taken last year directed, really generally, against the senior administrationbut also, more specifically, against the vice-chancellor in which the phrase ‘fear andintimidation’ was expressly used. It was said that one of the concerns was that an atmosphere offear and intimidation reigned within the institution. This was not in relation to issues aboutdisciplinary action being taken over marking or grading or whatever, it was more generally aconcern about the way in which the administration operated and a breakdown, if you like, inproper processes of consultation and communication between administration and staff.

Senator CARR—Was that a council resolution?

Prof. Malpas—This was a resolution of the staff union.

Senator CARR—Can we have a copy of that resolution?

Prof. Malpas—I can ask the union to supply that to you.

Senator CARR—I will take that on notice.



Senator CROSSIN—Professor Malpas, I just want to ask a follow-up question: in thiscurrent climate of reduction in funding to universities by the government, of staff being underpressure, and of the question about standards and students’ marks, are you suggesting thatanother end result of that is that academic freedom is also being severely limited?

Prof. Malpas—I do not think there is any doubt about that. I think if you ask most academicsyou will get exactly that response. I might add too that one of the concerns that one might havefrom both sides of politics is that, if anybody is going to be making public comment, isn’t itpreferable to have comment being made by academics who have, one would expect, anindependent standing, who have independently assessed credentials and who are part of a publicinstitution, rather than have comment made by people who have perhaps no well assessedcredentials and who are not from public institutions but from lobby groups who have aparticular point of view? One of the reasons that we have universities is so they can provideindependent, objective assessments of situations, and one of the things therefore that one mightexpect academics to do is to provide that independent and, hopefully, objective view.

Senator CARR—I will put another view to you: it is irrelevant whether it is independent; itis the capacity to put a view into the public arena which is then contested or otherwise. It is thecapacity to actually join in the public debate that is the critical factor.

Prof. Priest—This is important; the quality of the analysis is also important. Anybody couldhave a view, but that does not mean it is going to be well thought out and well informed.

Senator CARR—That is right. I am not arguing that citizens ought not as a matter of courseput views, but I would expect universities, however, to be the place where debate occurs.

Prof. Malpas—Yes, I would agree.

Prof. Priest—I agree, and they ought to be fostering such debate, but it also seems to me thatuniversities present you with one advantage in that, if you look at all the data on trust within thecommunity, for instance, the institutions that are most trusted are, amongst others, universities.They are trusted as having independent and objective advice and information, and it seems tome that one would probably prefer universities to make that comment, and to make more of itrather than less, if one wants a well-informed discussion of matters.

Senator TIERNEY—Turning to research funding, you are arguing that using completions asa basis for allocating funding for research disadvantages philosophy because of relatively highwithdrawal rates. Surely the answer to that would be a more rigorous assessment of those whoare coming into your course and screening processes, if you have higher drop-out rates?

Prof. Malpas—This depends on what you think is the cause of the high withdrawal rates. Ifthe cause is that you are simply letting in people who should not be doing it, sure, that might beone way of doing it. However, most of the reasons for withdrawal are not the inherent disabilityof the student. Most of the reasons for withdrawal, if you actually look at the statistics, are, veryoften, a change in personal circumstances, a woman who becomes pregnant or whose spousemoves interstate—

Senator TIERNEY—Why would philosophy be different from any other field?



Prof. Malpas—In humanities and social sciences generally there are much higher rates offemale postgraduates and mature age postgraduates.

Senator TIERNEY—But is philosophy financially different from other humanities in termsof this problem?

Prof. Malpas—No, it is a general problem across humanities and social sciences.

Senator TIERNEY—You are not putting it down to just philosophy?

Prof. Malpas—No. It is quite a general problem, and there is plenty of data to back that up.

Senator TIERNEY—You suggested an alternative: the UK model of intensive assessment. Iwould like you to comment on two aspects of that. Firstly, would it not be incredibly time-consuming in terms of labour to do that? Secondly, perhaps in terms of philosophy, there is alsothe thinness of the pool of assessors that you would have in Australia, given the size of facultiesand the academic community in that area.

Prof. Malpas—Firstly, remember that the RAE exercise in the UK is directed at theassessment of research excellence rather than at postgraduate achievement. That exercise hasbeen looked at by a number of reports, and models have been developed to meet some of theconcerns that you are expressing. Certainly, the RAE is an expensive exercise, but there havebeen at least two papers that I know of that have been developed and submitted to DETYA thatlook at ways in which that model could be implemented here without some of the drawbacksthat might accrue from trying to otherwise implement the whole of the UK model.

There is another concern as well, and that is that if you do want to measure researchperformance, it seems to me that it is pointless to measure it on a purely quantitative basis. Youmay as well allocate research funding on the basis of a lottery as on the basis of quantity. As Ihave said, there are ways in which the UK system could be modified to meet the Australiansituation, and there have been such proposals put to DETYA. I am not sure what its commenthas been on specific proposals, but certainly DETYA has tended simply to view an RAE styleexercise as impossible to carry out.

Senator TIERNEY—How would you overcome the problem in philosophy, though? You area pretty small club Australia-wide, and you would be intensively assessing each other. How doyou get around that? I can see how it could work in the UK but I cannot see how it could workhere.

Prof. Priest—The way the UK works is that you have a certain number of philosophers toread a certain input from all their colleagues. You would need fewer philosophers to do it here,just because there are fewer philosophers in Australia. The same amount of reading wouldrequire fewer people.

Senator TIERNEY—How do you overcome the objectivity problem, though, in such a smallgroup?

Prof. Malpas—It is a small group in the UK as well.



Senator TIERNEY—It must be much smaller here, though.

Prof. Malpas—Yes, but in each case you have got people who, very often, are readingmaterial in their own area of expertise. We do this sort of thing within our own departments andwithin our own universities, anyway, in terms of assessing reputations and capacities, so it iscertainly not impossible, and there are models that have been developed that would meet justthose sorts of objections.

Prof. Priest—It is not true that in the UK system all the members of the quality assuranceteam read all the submissions. They are parcelled out into professional areas and usually nomore than two people read any one submission or piece of research.

Prof. Malpas—In most cases, the research exercise is also parcelled out into regions, so veryoften people from a particular region will be assessing the work of people from that region.Objectivity is generally maintained within that kind of regime, not because there are lots ofpeople and not because you get people who do not know other people—philosophy worldwideis a small community—but because you get appropriate standards of socialisation within theacademic community in the first place. When someone assesses somebody else’s research, theirown reputation as a competent judge is on the line. There are many social factors that, in theend, ensure objectivity, but they do not do that in the direct fashion that one might sometimeslook for. If we compare a qualitative system with a quantitative system, the system we have atthe moment is purely quantitative. It does not measure research quality. It purely measuresresearch quantity. It promotes mediocrity in research. It is a system that DETYA has recognisedas not terribly good or accurate. That is why originally in the white paper the research quantumpublications index was removed from the funding mechanism.

Senator TIERNEY—Moving on to the ARC grants and the nature of what is provided underthem, you are arguing for more teaching relief as a component of that. Are you arguingspecifically for philosophy in that regard, or humanities-wide?

Prof. Priest—That is a feature of the humanities in general, especially those that do not go infor experimentation, number crunching and so on, where mostly you have to read and think andwhere the most valuable thing you have is time.

Senator TIERNEY—You comment on advice to government and claim that bodies such asyours could play a useful role in providing input to government. How do you see such amechanism of advice working?

Prof. Priest—I have not given this is a great deal of thought, but this is one way it mightwork: it might be appropriate, for example, for DETYA to establish a council comprising thechairs of the professional associations, or perhaps the chairs of the academies, which areconsulted on a regular basis for input. What they hear now is mainly input from the AVCC, butthey are not hearing input from the grassroots. That kind of arrangement might provide thatinput.

Senator TIERNEY—In terms of the role of philosophy in undergraduate training, manyemployers, particularly in a complex and rapidly changing economy, at undergraduate levelwould really be seeking more generalist thinking skills to which, perhaps, philosophy could



contribute. Is that catching on with students? What are your trends in terms of enrolments? Dopeople see philosophy as providing them with those sorts of skills? I assume that would bereflected in rising enrolments.

Prof. Priest—I do not think they are at the moment. Most students nowadays atundergraduate level hope that education will be a meal ticket. They think that, if they have adegree in law, economics or something with a clearly identified job market, that is what they aregoing to go for. Things that give you generic skills come fairly low down the list of priorities.That is one of the problems of having a system of education driven by student demand. To put itbluntly, they are not the best people to judge what is in their own interests and in the bestinterests of the community, long term and down the track when they have had more experienceof the world.

Prof. Malpas—Enrolments in philosophy have been steadily increasing at the University ofTasmania. In fact, we are a growing department and a growing school. It varies from state tostate and from institution to institution. There is also an issue about the effect on studentenrolments of government and university policies. In most cases, schools are looking at targetsthat are set by their institutions. A number of other factors affect the level of enrolments. I thinkyou are right; the sorts of skills that philosophers can provide are going to be increasinglyimportant as employers start to realise that simply training someone now in the latest piece ofsoftware, or in the latest business model, is not necessarily going to help them in even two orthree years. These sorts of generic skills are going to become more important. However, itmight take a little while for people to realise that.

Senator TIERNEY—You seem to be saying that students do not really know what is goodfor them. What is your association doing to actively promote the study of philosophy to studentsand make them see this point?

Prof. Malpas—A number of things, and perhaps one of the most important is thedevelopment of philosophy in schools programs, which have become very important in Victoriaand New South Wales and are developing here in Tasmania and in Western Australia. These areteaching philosophy at primary and secondary school level.

Senator TIERNEY—What proportion of students in schools would be studying philosophy?

Prof. Malpas—At the moment, not very many, because this is a very new development.South Australia and Victoria have only been introducing a philosophy curriculum into schoolsin the last year or so. There have been attempts to introduce it to schools previously, but thedifficulty has been that there has not been a great deal of support from state governmentsbecause of already tight education curricula. Very often it has depended, therefore, on thesupport of individual teachers. However, it is developing and there are more and more childreninterested in doing it at all levels. In fact, we teach philosophy from kindergarten up. There is alot of data on a great deal of success in teaching philosophy in a lot of institutions. So that is onething that is being done.

One of the things that many philosophers around the country have been doing is becomingmuch more involved in developing public debate not just on some of the more abstract issues ofphilosophy but on a wide range of issues. This evening, for instance, I will be running a



philosophy cafe down at Salamanca. It will be on ethics, and you are all invited if you have thetime. That cafe regularly attracts between 40 and 50 people. A similar one has been operatingfor a year in Western Australia and it attracts up to 100 people.

Senator BRANDIS—And in Brisbane.

Prof. Malpas—Yes, there is one in Brisbane. In the last year or so we have developed a videopresentation on what philosophy is and why it is important, and the association has beensending it to pretty much every school that we can get it into. We have a very active program ofgoing out into schools to talk to school children. I also operate—and this is a phenomenonevident elsewhere in Australia—a centre for applied philosophy and ethics which operatespublic forums. We have had one on the future of work and one on euthanasia. We have had anumber of those forums, and the centre is engaged in consultancy activities. We are currentlyworking with the state government on the State Services Act and developing ethical codeswithin the public service. We are also involved with the police service in Tasmania in a reviewof their teaching and of procedures and policies within the police service. This is a phenomenonof increasing public involvement by philosophers that is occurring here, but it is also occurringelsewhere.

Senator BRANDIS—I would like to pick up on an observation you made, Professor Priest,that students’ preferences are not necessarily the best determinants of the allocation ofresources. In a sense, isn’t it inevitable that the students’ preferences are going to be whatdetermines the allocation of resources? How else is the allocation to be determined other thanthe courses students want to take?

Prof. Priest—By people who know a little bit more about the real world and about whateducation is going to produce five years down the track, which the students do not know about.

Senator BRANDIS—In a practical way, how is that going to work? What method do yourecommend that will determine resource allocation otherwise than it is at the moment?

Prof. Priest—University staff are professional educators and they have an expertise inknowing what sorts of factors comprise a well-rounded education. The government, of course,has views on what sorts of things are necessary for the economy. Those two things obviouslyneed to be factored into what is available in student education. One of the things that happens atthe moment is that departments are often downsized or, indeed, closed down because of lack ofstudent demand. For example, at my last university, the University of Queensland, the physicsdepartment was closed down because there was insufficient demand. If that happens to a largenumber of departments in Australia you can just imagine the dire consequence for the future:there would be no physics research and teaching in Australia. It would be absolutely disastrous.

Senator BRANDIS—Please understand that I am completely in sympathy with the concernyou have both expressed about the decline of the humanities faculties. I think that is one of thegreat problems in Australian universities at the moment. But it is one thing to decry it and it isanother thing to work out what to do about it. What do either of you have to say about thepractice in some American universities, which I think is still the case, where students who wantto pursue vocational degrees like law or medicine, for instance, are obliged to first take ageneric degree?



Prof. Malpas—I think it is generally a good idea, but I think it also illustrates somethingelse—that is, what students want to do is not some sort of given that comes out of nowhere.What students want to do is a direct result of what governments, universities and other peopletell them they want and ought to do. One of the things they are being told at the moment is thatthey should not be doing generic degrees. Rather, they should be doing business degrees,applied degrees and things that will get them a job immediately. They want to do that becausethat is what they are told they ought to want to do.

Senator BRANDIS—Is that your experience? I would have thought—and this is from myown experience as a lawyer—that kind of obsession with vocationalism was perhaps somethingthat reached its peak in the 1990s and is now passing. For example, if you were a young lawstudent and you wanted to get a job with one of the elite law firms in Sydney and Melbourne,you would be more likely to be offered a place if you had a second class honours law degree butwere a university medallist in philosophy than if you had a first class honours law degree,because a wise employer would think, ‘This is a person with a very interesting mind.’

Prof. Malpas—I do not think that has filtered down to the students.

Senator BRANDIS—That is your fault. You have not been selling the virtues of the genericdegrees sufficiently.

Prof. Malpas—I think it is very difficult to sell the virtues of a generic degree when you aregrossly underfunded—when most of the messages that students receive are messages that say,‘You should do something vocational and applied; don’t waste your time on an arts-humanitiesdegree.’ We get that in the press. Somebody who was Dr Kemp’s own adviser—

Senator BRANDIS—Just because some ignorant journalist says that—

Prof. Malpas—It is not always a journalist. A certain Andrew Norton, a former governmentadviser, has been saying that for some time. But that is the message—

Senator BRANDIS—Everybody is entitled to their opinion, and you are entitled to advocateyours. But you seem to be losing the argument, which for you, as a professional philosopher,looks pretty bad.

CHAIR—Please keep it to questions, Senator Brandis.

Prof. Malpas—I am simply stating what my experience is. Firstly, my experience ofstudents—and I see students every day—is that they do not share this view. Secondly, it seemsto me that there is a very obvious reason why they do not, and that is because they are told byall sorts of sources—sometimes implicitly rather than explicitly—that this is not a good thing tobe doing. If you have a university where the central administration would be quite happy toclose down its faculty of arts—and in some cases faculties of arts are being, if not exactlyclosed down, radically reformed—what message does that give to students?

Senator BRANDIS—Professor Priest, what is your view on the idea of having a genericdegree, or at least a number of units towards a generic degree, as a prerequisite to a vocationaldegree?



Prof. Priest—I think that has a great deal to be said for it. Education is more than justproducing a meal ticket; education is producing our future citizens, who should be capable ofthinking things through carefully for themselves, understanding the history of the society inwhich they live and knowing about the culture in which they live, or the cultures in which theylive—because we have many. These are the things which are provided by a humanitiesdegree—in fact, more than humanities, these are the things provided by the traditional liberalarts-science degree. I think we would be producing a better generation of citizens if this werethe case. Of course, the economic pressures are against it, so this is a situation where you weighup the economic pay-offs on one hand and the desire for a general education on the other, andyou evaluate where you think it is appropriate to place the balance.

CHAIR—I have a few questions arising from some of your earlier answers on the materialyou provided us on the comings and goings in philosophy since 1998. Could you supplementthat by an indication of what has happened with respect to the vacancies as well?

Prof. Priest—Most of the senior people who have left have not been replaced.

Prof. Malpas—Particularly chairs that have either been lost or frozen. I think we mightactually mention here the number of senior positions that have in fact been lost.

CHAIR—So I can compare those.

Prof. Priest—I think there are about half a dozen chairs of philosophy which are currentlydead, frozen or defunct.

Prof. Malpas—It is worth noting that there are currently some nine chairs around the countrythat have been frozen or lost with the resignation or retirement of their incumbents. In a lot ofcases they are simply positions that have not been filled.

Senator BRANDIS—Have they not been filled because of the want of suitable applicants? Iknow that, in a couple of cases, there are chairs that are merely unfilled, not for want of fundingbut for want of suitable applicants.

Prof. Priest—In philosophy it never got to that stage. The university administration decidedthat they just could not afford to replace them.

Prof. Malpas—But even if it was for want of suitable applicants it seems to me that that justreinforces the sort of case we are making here, which is the difficulty in attracting andmaintaining good academic staff, particularly senior academic staff in this country, certainly inour discipline anyway.

Senator CARR—Is it possible that there would not be suitable applicants? You do not justemploy domestic applicants, do you?

Prof. Priest—No.

Senator CARR—It is an international—



Prof. Priest—This is true. The chair in philosophy in Australia pays about $100,000.Someone who gets a chair in Australia could get a senior job in the US and they will be makingprobably at least $US100,000. Just bear in mind the exchange rate at the moment. That is not anentirely accurate comparator of value, but no-one from the US is going to come here for thatsort of drop in salary.

Prof. Malpas—Quite aside from the drop in conditions. In the US, you actually get to doresearch; you do not have to just do it at the weekend.

CHAIR—I am also interested in your comment about Australian postgraduates no longertaking up international courses. For instance, in the past they would have gone to Oxford. Yousaid they cannot afford that now. What is the difference?

Prof. Malpas—In my case I came through the New Zealand system and I came throughlooking to go on to postgraduate study just at the time when the UK government introduced feesat Oxford, Cambridge and London. I was at the University of Auckland. Previously, you just didnot keep your postgraduates behind. I can remember my head of department saying, ‘Whybother applying to do a PhD here? There is no point. Go to Oxford or Stanford’, which is wherehe wanted me to go. At that time we just could not afford it. In order to get to any of thoseplaces the fees just were going to be too high and we could not afford the living expenses. Iended up at that stage going to the ANU. That was in the early 1980s. I think that that wasprobably the time when the ANU was starting to build up its postgraduate program inphilosophy. This university did not have a terribly strong postgraduate program probably untilthe early 1990s. Again, the pattern was the same. It was assumed that, if you wanted to do PhDwork, the best place to do it was Oxford, Cambridge or maybe Princeton or Harvard, and youautomatically sent people there.

I think it is partly a measure of changes within the Australian system that sees the position ofpostgraduate students as an indication of the fact that you can do research. Research has alwaysbeen done before but now you can only be a research department if you have the postgraduates.It was a reflection of changes in funding, changes in fee structures overseas and maybe also asort of growing maturity within the Australian academic environment such that we no longerthink that doing a PhD in Australia is second best, that it is somehow worse than—

CHAIR—So the affordability issue was not a change in our domestic system?

Prof. Priest—It was partly a change in the domestic system. In the 1980s it was being drivenby changes in the UK primarily. But then that was reinforced by some of the changes that camein, probably in the late 1980s, early 1990s, for some departments.

Senator CARR—I assume that you would be welcoming the fact that people were stayinghere.

Prof. Malpas—Yes, I think it is a major improvement. And it has enhanced research: it ismuch better to be able to do research when you have postgraduates doing it there as well. Thatis why I say it is also an indication of growing maturity in lots of ways. The irony of it is thatwe have been in this situation with a developing postgraduate community at exactly the timewhen we have had a reduction in our capacity to service that community.



Prof. Priest—Perhaps I could just add to that. It is still the case that many of the bestAustralian postgraduate students now go mainly to US universities, because they can fundthem—and they are not coming back; they are not coming back because there are not the jobsfor them and the conditions are so much better in the US.

CHAIR—I was aware of that for economics. This is occurring in philosophy as well, is it?

Prof. Priest—Yes.

CHAIR—US scholarships for Australian students?

Prof. Priest—Yes.

CHAIR—Following on from the discussion about promoting the generalist advantage ofphilosophy, my final question concerns IT. What is being done to promote philosophy,particularly logic, in the IT field?

Prof. Priest—At my own university we have a researcher, Dr Tim Van Gelder, who has beenproducing software to teach critical reasoning. I think there was an article on him in yesterday’sAge or Australian. He has been doing empirical research on different ways of teachingreasoning and the effects that they have. He has done comparative studies with, for example,traditional ways of teaching the subject and with ways using this program that he and his teamare developing, called Reason. The results are pretty striking. The sorts of results inimprovement of critical ability and critical reasoning skills that he is getting are very striking. Ithink that is the most spectacular example of the kind of thing that you are talking about.

Prof. Malpas—At this university we completed a PhD last year working on the developmentof new connectionist models and artificial intelligence. We have a researcher who is alsoworking on applying various logical and decision theoretic models to IT problems and also toproblems in environmental domains. So there is a huge amount of work that is going on at theintersection of philosophy, psychology and information technology that very often applieslogical tools directly to information technology problems that are involved in the developmentof new systems. Philosophers have been at the forefront of many of those developments fromthe beginning. Modern IT has its origins in the work of Turing and people like that.

CHAIR—I am more curious about what partnerships are developing with the IT sector as aconsequence of that basic relationship.

Prof. Malpas—Yes, there are some; yes, there are those partnerships developing.

CHAIR—In terms of commercial advantage for research and development for philosophy,that would have been one of the logical areas you probably would have tried to pin first up.

Prof. Priest—Yes.

CHAIR—I think that concludes our questions. Thank you very much.



[11.59 a.m.]

FLUTSCH, Dr Maria, Chair, Board of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts,University of Tasmania

MALPAS, Professor Jeffery Edward, Head, School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania

PAKULSKI, Professor Jan, Acting Dean of Arts, Faculty of Arts, University of Tasmania

CHAIR—Welcome. The committee has before it submissions Nos 25 and 36. Are there anychanges you wish to make to them?

Prof. Malpas—No.

CHAIR—The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public, although we willconsider any request for all or part of your evidence to be taken in private. I point out, however,that such evidence may subsequently be made public by order of the Senate. I now invite you tomake a brief opening statement, and we will move to questions on your submissions.

Prof. Malpas—I have been elected to make the brief opening statement. One of the thingsthat you will see in this submission is that there is a considerable amount of overlap in manyareas with the sorts of things that we were just speaking about in relation to philosophy. Theconcerns that we have as a Faculty of Arts are, of course, much broader than the concerns ofany one discipline. It is important to realise that the Faculty of Arts at the University ofTasmania includes not just the humanities and social sciences but also creative arts, includingmusic, the visual and performing arts. So it is quite a broad and diverse faculty.

The sorts of concerns that we have as a faculty, again, reflect many of the concerns that weexpressed to you in relation to the discipline of philosophy. One of the major areas of concernhas been the downturn in funding within the sector that has affected humanities and socialsciences in a particularly disastrous fashion. That has happened in this university oversuccessive years; funding has been gradually reduced. Probably the biggest hit was a few yearsago with the cuts that were introduced by Senator Vanstone. The recent introduction of theresearch funding mechanism has also resulted in some internal changes in the distribution offunding. The internalisation of that funding model has quite drastically affected our faculty.That is actually probably most evident in the case of my school, where this is the first year thatwe will actually be in deficit. We have not been in deficit until now. We will be in deficit thisyear purely because we no longer have the funds to cover our basic teaching—basic things likeprovision of desks for postgraduates, various minor works activities and so on.

We actually had a reduction in our operating budget of something like 30 per cent this yearcompared to last year. There is one very simple cause of this—that is, the internalisation of theresearch funding mechanism which now allocates funding directly to schools on the basis of thesame mechanism that the federal government uses in directing funding to institutions. Thesimple fact of the matter is that that mechanism effectively separates research needs,



infrastructure needs, from the delivery of funds. Because the measure is purely quantitative, youcan also see how that is going to introduce some problems.

One of the determinants of funding is how many articles we produce. In most of thedisciplines in the social sciences and humanities, the rates of publication are much lower thanthey are in many other disciplines, not because of less research activity but just because we donot simply do an experiment and then send off a two-page article with the results. Instead, veryoften a research article will take months, sometimes years, yet it accrues the same amount ofresearch support.

So there is a problem in terms of the overall funding within the system, but there is also aproblem in terms of the differential funding that goes to various disciplines. In that respect, evenincreasing the funding into the system at the general level would not necessarily solve theproblems that humanities and social science, and the Faculty of Arts generally, face. That is areflection of the fact that the funding mechanisms that we currently operate under simply do notreflect the differences between different disciplinary groups.

The second issue that I think is particularly important for the University of Tasmania is thatthis university is essentially a regional university, even though it is the only university in thestate and even though it has a location in a capital city, or at least one of its locations in a capitalcity. That brings with it a range of needs and demands on the university that are not faced, forinstance, by the metropolitan universities that mostly make up the group of eight. Thisuniversity maintains campuses, and the Faculty of Arts maintains campuses and operations, inthe north as well as in the south. I think almost all of the schools in the Faculty of Arts operateon both those campuses as well as operating in the north-west centre. We have staff at boththose campuses. In my case, I have three staff in Launceston and seven staff down here inHobart.

There are considerable costs for a university like ours in maintaining that sort of complexmulticampus and multiregion, because in Tasmania, as you will be aware, not only are we aregion, but we also have a number of very distinct regions that have their own peculiarities. Sothere are a range of problems that we face because of our regional and dispersed status thatplace additional pressures on the budget for the institution as a whole. But those regional needsfor the institution are certainly not reflected in any of the current funding formula. It is evenmore important I think in Tasmania because we are the only university in the state and we play aconsiderable role in the state’s economy and development, not just in terms of the directeducational contribution. I think I have heard the figure put that one EFTSU produces a joboutside. Certainly the university plays a very large economic role in this community. The sortsof cuts that the university has been facing—that are most dramatically felt in our faculty—arealso cuts to the Tasmanian community.

Those are probably the two main points that perhaps we ought to highlight in our submission:the detrimental effect on the faculty of some of the funding changes that have occurred over thepast 10 years, and in conjunction with that the detrimental effect of the overall reductions infunding on the university’s capacity to service the Tasmanian community effectively and thereally critical problems that that presents for Tasmania as a whole.



CHAIR—Thank you very much. With respect to some of the evidence we heard earlier thismorning—I think it was from the student union—and drawing on your comments, ProfessorMalpas, about the problems of regionalism and adequately meeting the region in Tasmania, canyou explain to the committee the rationale behind third-year sociology students needing totravel one day a week to Launceston?

Prof. Malpas—Perhaps Professor Pakulski should address that, since he is the head ofdiscipline.

Prof. Pakulski—It is a double burden coming from both extending education to themulticampus situation and also extending the range of tasks which are expected from theuniversity. We are expected to provide not only education but also, increasingly, training andcultural capital for many students who in the past were not reaching the tertiary level ofeducation. We are also expected to provide this range of activities—education, training andproviding cultural capital—over larger areas. That means we have to stretch ourselves muchwider, in spite of the fact that technology provides the ways of delivering education by distance.But, as you senators would be well aware, it typically works better in delivering training than indelivering education, and it does not work very well when you want to deliver also culturalcapital. That means that face to face contact with the students—which is essential in deliveringnot only training but also general education and cultural capital—has to be maintained to fulfilour brief obligation mission. That means more travelling. We try not to discriminate againststudents located in the north by extending our training as much as possible to the Launcestoncampus and north-east centre. That is combined with specialisation. At present, within thesingle school of sociology and social work, we offer sociology, social ecology, tourism andsocial work training education. The inevitable result of that is more pressure for travelling tomaintain face to face contact over a broad range of disciplines and non-disciplinary areas whichwe are teaching.

CHAIR—But what I cannot understand is why a sociology student enrolled in Hobart cannotcomplete their degree in Hobart. Why is it that third-year students are required to travel for partof their course to Launceston rather than, for instance, the lecturer being made available inHobart?

Prof. Pakulski—Because part of the division of labour involves offering certain units inLaunceston or Hobart only. For example, in the areas of social ecology and sociology there is acertain division of labour and specialisation which is inevitable if you have small staff numbers.

CHAIR—So you can study sociology in Launceston, but for part of your course you mustcome to Hobart as well?

Prof. Pakulski—That is right. There are some units which you cannot take in Launceston;you have to come to Hobart if you want to take those units. Basically you can take all of therequired sociology units in both Launceston and Hobart—sociology in particular, although notthe case in social work, and in tourism.

CHAIR—I am sorry, the evidence we had this morning led us to believe that to conclude adegree in sociology you were required in third year to attend Launceston. Is that not the case?



Prof. Pakulski—I am not aware of such a case.

Senator CARR—In the comments that are made towards the end of your submission—and Inote that the submission is supported by a very large number of people, so presumably it hasgeneral agreement from those who have signed off on it—you say:

The comparative disadvantage that seems to have accrued to Creative Arts, Social Science and Humanities disciplinesover the last decade ought to be seen as representing a serious problem for Australia’s future development. ... Withoutthese skills Australia is likely to become a nation that merely serves the creativity of others, rather than having anyinnovative capacity of its own. Without the knowledge that comes from disciplines like history and philosophy, literatureand sociology, Australia will lose the capacity to make decisions about the social and political context in which all otheractivities, including the commercial and entrepreneurial, take place; it will lose the capacity to reflect on its own cultureand identity; it will lose the capacity to make judgments properly informed by ethical and moral considerations.

My concern is about the impact of recent policy changes on the civic responsibilities ofuniversities. We heard earlier from witnesses from the philosophy association. Could youcomment on what you perceive to be the impact of recent changes on the civic responsibilitiesof universities?

Prof. Pakulski—Universities are crucial institutions which provide not only training for thelabour market but also training for citizenship. The shift in relative funding for different areas—reducing the capacity of humanities and social sciences to provide a broad range of offering—may indeed have a negative impact on our capacity to provide enlightened citizens with both theamount of knowledge necessary for making judgments as well as the intellectual capacities toengage the trends in the globalising world. That is, in my view, the crucial problem.

Senator CARR—As public institutions, do you believe that universities have a specialresponsibility in regard to making a contribution back to society rather than just back toindividual enterprises?

Prof. Pakulski—Absolutely. I believe that universities as public institutions have a crucialresponsibility to society at large rather than any specialised corporate bodies. This duty ofuniversities, this obligation, has to be discharged in the form of not only training but alsobroader civic education and providing what I call cultural accountability.

Senator CARR—Can I ask you about the case of music, because we have heard little in thisarea so far. We have heard about the impact of changes in policy on philosophy and the declinein standards of teaching. What changes have occurred within the music faculties?

Dr Flutsch—I first have to declare that I am the chair of the degree board of humanities andsocial sciences. There is another chair for music.

Senator CARR—My apologies. I thought you were from Music.

Dr Flutsch—No.

Prof. Malpas—Originally we were intending to bring Dr Anne-Marie Forbes from Music,but she was unable to be here.



Senator CARR—Can anyone comment on those creative areas?

Prof. Malpas—I can certainly comment on how that has affected some of those areas. Musicis in quite serious difficulties at this institution because it is quite radically underfunded in termsof what it needs to be able to do. Music, particularly the teaching of instrumental practice,requires very intensive one-to-one teaching. It is becoming increasingly difficult, if notimpossible, for the conservatorium here to actually do that. Within the Faculty of Arts, theconservatorium had a deficit last year of $100,000, and that is not an unusual deficit. Theuniversity does not seem to quite know yet how to handle the case of music. But the fact is that,under the current funding regime, it does not seem to be possible to fund a school of music or,indeed, a school of art at the level that would be required for the teaching that has to be done. Sothere have been successive cuts in staff in the School of Music and in the School of Art, andthere are ongoing problems. I would say it has seriously undermined the capacity of theconservatorium and of the School of Art in particular to carry out basic teaching and researchmissions.

Senator CARR—There is a comment about languages in your submission. What impacthave the recent funding changes had on languages?

Prof. Malpas—Maria can definitely answer that.

Dr Flutsch—Declaring my interest in that area, I am a teacher of Japanese, so I am in theSchool of Asian Languages and Studies. Previously, we were combined with the Europeanlanguages in the school of modern languages, and I was head of that for seven years before itsplit into European languages and Asian languages. So I have quite a long history of observingchanges—since 1975, in fact—and the effect of government policy on languages. Of course, Ican only reiterate what you have probably heard many times before, that the policies are quitedrastic and have drastic effects on languages throughout the country. Just focusing on theUniversity of Tasmania, because we are regional, if we do not provide or try to provide thelanguages then the students have nowhere else to go. Those students who can afford to goelsewhere will go, and have gone, but the vast majority of students are just not economically ina position to go and study a particular language on the mainland. That means they have noaccess, which puts them totally out of competition.

Senator CARR—Has there been a decline in the number of languages taught?

Dr Flutsch—Yes, the number of languages has been reduced.

Senator CARR—Can you tell me which languages have been lost?

Dr Flutsch—In one sense, we have been lucky because we have only lost one out of six. Asyou may know, we teach French, German, Indonesian, Japanese and Chinese. We have lostItalian—it is the only language we have lost. Under quite severe conditions, we have managedto keep the other languages going, but the staffing is at a minimal level.

Senator CARR—Have the ratios increased?

Dr Flutsch—The staff-student ratio?



Senator CARR—Yes.

Dr Flutsch—Very much so. In the mid-eighties, when we had our first review, our staff-student target was supposed to be 11 to one. Our target now is 20 to one.

Senator CARR—So they have doubled?

Dr Flutsch—Yes, they have virtually doubled. That is our target staff-student ratio, anddifferent languages are closer or further away from that target.

Senator CARR—Was there much community outcry about the loss of Italian?

Dr Flutsch—Yes, there was.

Senator CARR—I know that in Melbourne if you sought to remove a major communitylanguage like Italian or Greek there would be a significant political outcry.

Dr Flutsch—Yes.

Senator CARR—How was it reflected within the community here in Hobart?

Dr Flutsch—The outcry was very powerful, but it was not successful. And this was not thefirst time it has been mooted that languages, not only Italian but possibly German, be deleted.

Senator CARR—What is the reason for the reduction?

Dr Flutsch—It is financial. As far as we all believe, it was purely a budgetary case. I do notthink there was anything else.

Senator CARR—Was there a demand for the teaching of Italian, as a community language?

Dr Flutsch—There was a demand. One would have to admit that Italian had the smallestnumbers of all the languages, so, in that sense, it was the most vulnerable.

Prof. Malpas—Two years ago, I think, when the faculty was faced with the prospect of areally major cut in its funding, the faculty executive reached the point where we felt we did nothave any option but to look at drastically reducing staffing in the languages even further. Wewere told by the administration that we were not allowed to cut anything, because that wouldprovoke too much adverse public reaction. But in order to try to preserve some of our largerareas—such as history, philosophy and so on—given the constraints we were faced with, itlooked as if there was no other option but to make cuts to the languages. The whole budgetformula then got slightly revamped and we managed to preserve things slightly, only to be facedby a different set of problems later on. But languages are always under threat. Because thenumbers are generally small, they are very expensive to run and those expenses are not reflectedin the funding that languages get. So languages are probably the most vulnerable of thedisciplines we offer—not always, but often.



Senator CARR—We are being told then that we have a decline in teaching standards, adecline in the offerings that are being provided and a decline in the research effort, insofar asthe profile has changed. And you are saying that all of this is down to a new funding formula?Is that your submission?

Prof. Malpas—The funding formula is the most obvious point that affects us. The way inwhich that has affected us can be seen in a very striking way if you compare our situation withthat of some of the public high schools in Hobart. The university actually has a staff-studentratio that is considerably higher than any of those schools and we actually receive less fundingper student than those schools receive. I think that is quite striking.

But it is not just changes in funding. I think our submission also points to a number of otherfactors that are at work here. One is simply the increasing workloads that are imposed on staffas a result of funding changes, and also as a result of increasing administrative requirements—the imposition of quality assurance mechanisms without accompanying funding for thosemechanisms, the imposition of what are often regarded as new industrial reforms, that are veryoften ill suited to the university workplace, and the quite catastrophic breakdown inadministration within many institutions. I think most universities now are administrativelydysfunctional. There is a huge gulf between senior administration and staff.

And all of these things, of course, bring with them reductions in morale and increasingdifficulty in keeping staff here, particularly senior staff. So there are a range of different factors.Many of them are, I think, directly attributable to changes in funding—and not just the level offunding, but also the way the funding is directed and the new mechanisms that have come withnew models of funding. So there are a whole range of arrangements.

Senator CARR—If I am clear, you are saying that there is a range of factors that areaffecting the universities. Would you describe it as a crisis in the universities?

Prof. Malpas—Yes.

Senator CARR—You would say that the situation is a crisis?

Prof. Malpas—And we have said so in public.

Senator CARR—You paint a picture, essentially, of turmoil within this university.

Prof. Malpas—Yes.

Senator CARR—You are saying that there is a question of inadequate funding andincreasing commercial culture. They are the two factors that you are suggesting. You are sayingthat this actually risks the intellectual integrity of the university and the independence of theuniversity? Is that the proposition you are putting to us?

Prof. Pakulski—Yes.



Senator CARR—All of that is obviously supported by extensive evidence across thecountry, but when I ask the department in Canberra about the situation, they tell me that thingsare pretty good and that there is a new quality assurance regime and a new funding regime thatactually allows for 30 per cent of staff time to be spent on research. They tell me that theprofiles negotiations with individual universities will provide for a balance in the loads that arebeing offered. Are you saying that I have been misled?

Prof. Malpas—I would say that for the most part DETYA live in a different world—DETYAdreamland, if you like—that does not bear much resemblance to what actually happens in anyuniversity in the country.

Senator CARR—A DETYA dreamworld—I will have to ask them about that.

CHAIR—Save that one for estimates!

Prof. Malpas—They can probably tell you a lot about that world but if you want to actuallyknow about what is—

Senator CARR—Why don’t you tell me about that world? I would be interested to knowwhat you perceive that gulf to be. Why do we get such a division between the official view andthe view being expressed by practitioners actually on the job?

Prof. Pakulski—How many times would DETYA talk to people at the coalface who wouldsignal their concerns related to everyday tasks? I think that usually in bureaucratic organisationsmost of the information comes from official statistics, which do not include this picture of thecoalface experience. As Professor Malpas said, this coalface experience includes overburdenand a sense of isolation—a lack of cooperation, communication and consultation with theacademic staff—and that aggravates the effects of the financial side.

Senator CARR—So you are suggesting that one solution to this is for DETYA to actually getdown into the universities, rather than rely upon the official administrative chain of command?

Prof. Pakulski—Yes. Collect information also about the aspects of the everyday life of theacademics.

Prof. Malpas—A couple of other things, too: firstly, the statistics that we have are generallynot terribly reliable and there is a dearth of good statistics. There is an enormous amount ofcontention about what statistics show. Even to try and track staff-student ratio changes over thelast 10 to 20 years is difficult because there is no single formula that everybody uses. So, thereis an enormous unreliability even about the statistics. DETYA chooses to use one set but insome ways that is an ad hoc decision.

But there is another issue here as well and that is that I think there has been a breakdown interms of the values and real commitments that underlie university education. In many cases,university administration does not share the same values and commitments as its academic staff.That comes out in the oft repeated claim by senior management that academics live in an oldworld and have not realised what the modern world of academia is. The truth of that is that forthe most part academics see the basic values of teaching and research not being supported.



Senator CARR—What you are saying has quite serious implications for advice. Aspoliticians, we seek advice from our public officials and when in government presumably weseek the advice of the department. But you are saying that that advice to government is based ona number of assumptions which are not borne out by reality? That is the contention that you areputting to me, isn’t it? I have not misunderstood you? Is that the proposition?

Prof. Malpas—That is accurate.

Senator CARR—Do you believe there is a need for an independent source of advice togovernment, such as NBEET used to provide, that is an alternative source of advice togovernment that challenges some of the official assumptions?

Prof. Malpas—Most definitely.

Dr Flutsch—One of the problems with government advising itself is that its ideological slantwill be in both sectors: both the advisers and the advisees will have the same ideological slant. Ithink this is part of our problem, isn’t it?

Prof. Malpas—The other problem is that in many cases our senior administrators—our vice-chancellors—are people who are themselves products of the DETYA system. I think vice-chancellors have now seen that the tide has changed a little bit and are more inclined to speakout on behalf of their institutions. But probably for the last 10 years there has been no academicleadership from vice-chancellors that actually reflects what is really going on in theirinstitutions. Instead, it has reflected what vice-chancellors think DETYA wants to hear or whatthey think the overall political policy climate is. The only other source of advice has beenNTEU, and that is seen as a somewhat partial body itself. There has been very little avenue foracademics themselves to actually feed back advice on what is happening at the coalface, as itwere.

Senator CROSSIN—On page 3 of your submission you provide us with an outline of thenumber of academic staff. It is down the bottom of what I think is probably page 3; my pageshere are not numbered. You outline the fall in academic staff numbers within the faculty and theEFTSU that has increased slightly from 2,620 to 2,800, yet within that you talk about the dropin the operating grant of over 30 per cent. Is that just in the School of Philosophy?

Prof. Malpas—That is peculiar to the School of Philosophy. There have been changes in theoperating grants elsewhere. History also has been fairly seriously affected. Remember this is aone-year drop. The reason I think it has been most serious in the case of philosophy is that thesechanges have partly been driven by the implementation of the research funding mechanism.This university has probably one of the most successful research departments in the country inour discipline but philosophy does not produce high quantities of research. The averagepublication for philosophers in the UK when a survey was done some years ago in the mid-1990s was 0.8 of an article a year. If you compare that with some other disciplines it means thatthe quantity of research and philosophy—not the quality but the quantity—is very much lower,yet the funding that we receive is driven purely by quantity. All the investigation I have beenable to do suggests that the reason philosophy is looking so bad and has had such a big cut isbecause we do not produce the same quantity of research. My suspicion is that what ishappening to us is going to increasingly be seen across the faculty. Other schools are cushioned



to some extent at the moment by the fact that in some cases they have additional funding forspecial initiatives or because we were given a period of grace in some cases until the full forceof the cuts came in. But my guess is that we are probably looking at a considerable drop infunding across the faculty—maybe not quite of that order but certainly 10 per cent if the currentfunding models stay as they are—within the next two to three years.

Senator CROSSIN—You said before that the situation in the university at the moment is notonly the level of funding but the way in which the funding is directed.

Prof. Malpas—That is right.

Senator CROSSIN—Would you say it has been directed unfairly against the Faculty ofArts?

Prof. Malpas—It depends what your criterion for fairness is. The funding mechanisms are,as one might put it, ‘one size fits all’. It is a generic funding model. It is a funding model that isreally based on models taken from the sciences and applied areas. I do not know whether thisactually reflects the composition of DETYA itself, but it certainly reflects a common stereotypethat research is basically what they do in science and everybody probably does research in thesame way. The fact is that they do not. There are enormous differences in the character ofresearch from one sort of thing to another, and that is simply not reflected in any of the formulaethat we have. It is a generic model. If you think that it is unfair to distribute funding in a waythat does not reflect actual funding needs and that does not even reflect the quality of researchperformance, then it is a grossly unfair funding mechanism.

Senator CROSSIN—I come from the Northern Territory. The NT university—post-1996, ofcourse, when the change of funding under this government occurred—targeted their initialreorganisation of the university at the arts faculty. In particular the discipline of Englishdisappeared completely. You cannot complete a degree in a faculty of arts majoring in Englishin the Northern Territory now. You have no doubt had discussions with your colleagues in artsfaculties around the country. Is that an area that you believe has been targeted more so thansciences or education?

Prof. Malpas—Yes.

Prof. Pakulski—Perhaps I will say a few words on that. We do and we respond to variousreviews and consultations by trying to adjust what we offer to the demand from students andtherefore tap additional resources which may come from these additional initiatives. To giveyou an example, we have recently introduced journalism in areas like English, and journalismand media studies have been growing quite successfully. We have introduced a major in socialecology, which is also growing quite successfully. We created a stream of criminology and weintroduced police studies—all the non-disciplinary areas in which more vocation orientedtraining and education is provided. We are not passive victims, so to speak, of the cuts; we doour best to adjust and we try to use the new opportunities. However, there are inevitable costswhich were emphasised by Professor Malpas and Maria Flutsch. The loss of the ability to caterfor a broad range of subjects within the disciplinary mainstream is one of the inevitable costswhich we lament.



Prof. Malpas—On the one hand, we are forced by circumstances to develop these new areas,and that does give us some additional funding; but of course it also reduces our capacity toservice the core areas of our disciplines.

CHAIR—Thank you very much.

Proceedings suspended from 12.36 p.m. to 1.36 p.m.



ABBOTT-CHAPMAN, Associate Professor Joan, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Education,University of Tasmania

CHAIR—The committee has before it submission No. 132. Are there any changes you wishto make to that submission?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—No, thank you.

CHAIR—The committee prefers all evidence be given in public although we will considerany requests for all or part of evidence to be given in private. I now invite you to make a briefopening statement and we will deal with questions beyond that.

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—I welcome the opportunity to speak on behalf of the faculty to thecommittee. The faculty has very much welcomed this inquiry. By way of introduction, I havefour main points which, in brief, encapsulate many of the points made in our submission andwhich, I think, touch on other submissions. I would like to encapsulate these four points in somekey phrases which I hope will evoke the sort of response we are aiming for. When we aredealing with our students in the Faculty of Education we say that education policy embodiesvisions of alternative futures. Although much of the discussion in our paper and I think many ofthe other papers is about the resourcing of higher education in terms of financial and materialassistance, we are very keen to assert that what we are really talking about is visions ofalternative futures and the place that higher education has within society as a whole and the sortof society that Australia is aiming to be.

We point out in our submission that universities contribute so much more to society than justto the development of economic capacity within the region, within material and technologicalinnovation and so on. We believe they embody values which are important in a humane and justsociety, and we point to some work that has been done which highlights that universities have asymbolic power, not just in this society but in others, in encapsulating the values which are heldto be important in that society. In talking about preserving and enhancing the work of ouruniversities, that is the sort of context in which we make our remarks. We also note the work ofpeople like Professor Simon Marginson, who talks about the isomorphism, the sameness, that isencouraged in Australian universities by the marketisation and commercialisation of oureducation.

We believe that diversity within our higher education sector, which serves the very specificneeds of different regions and which can be seen within different contexts, is the importantaspect that we should be aiming for—and not just the sameness which is the product ofmarketisation and commercialisation—and that is particularly important within a regionaluniversity such as the University of Tasmania.

Secondly, I would like to point to the motto of this university: in Latin, it is ‘ingeniis patuitcampus’, which means ‘this field is open for talent’, and that has been the proud motto of theuniversity for over 100 years; that is, our brightest and best should be able to come to universityand gain the benefits of all that that offers, irrespective of social background or whether theylive in a rural or isolated area, or whether they are a member of any of the other equity target



groups. That is our continuing mission in this university, and we do believe that some of thefunding policies and the lack of adequate funding for our universities are impairing the abilityof the university to fulfil that mission, not only in terms of the capping of the funded places,which we believe has led to very deleterious effects within this university, but also not allowingit to grow in response to student demand. A number of submissions have mentioned increasingretention rates. We believe that they have not been taken account of in the government fundingpolicies. For instance, over the last 10 or 15 years, year 12 completions in this state have morethan doubled. We believe that there is a demand that we cannot adequately satisfy.

Also, there is the issue of student support and the fact that students are struggling to maintainthemselves within this university, as in others. More and more of them are taking on paidemployment, which of course competes with the demands of their studies. I am sure that youhave heard about that from other people. Again, under this question of equity, there is the placeof this university as a regional university—the only university in this state serving its regionwith a need for diversity of provisions. In the education faculty we supply all the teachers forthis state. Most of our graduates remain within the state, but some very successfully gointerstate and overseas. That is a very important aspect that has to be taken into account. Theequity issues, we believe, are very great. This university contributes greatly to this state, as Ithink has also been noted in other submissions.

We believe that teachers make a difference. This is what we tell our students. We believe thatthe education of teachers in this state is a very important enterprise, and the faculty of educationhas a very important role to play in this university. Our provision of teachers for this state andthe rest of Australia is an important part of our mission. More than that, as a teacher educationfaculty, we try to model good teaching practice, and so, as student to staff ratios have risen, wehave maintained a very high standard of teaching and learning. We have adapted to newpractices in terms of electronic delivery and so on, but it is increasingly difficult, given therestriction of resources. The demands upon our staff are increasingly great as we maintain avery high teaching profile and a high research profile, with all the other demands that thatmakes.

We have to take note of the reports of people like Craig McInnes and his team at the Centrefor Research into Higher Education in Melbourne and the report of the National TertiaryEducation Union, who have called their report on their nationwide survey Unhealthy places oflearning. The demands put upon university staff in terms of increasing workloads, longer hours,the increased intensification of their work in administration and the cutbacks, for instance, ongeneral staff and, again, the increasing student to staff ratios have all made very great demands.At the moment we are delivering very high-quality education for our students, but the questionis: how long can we do this, given the resources with which we are supplied by thegovernment?

Senator CARR—In your submission you say that you are concerned about the viability andfuture development of higher education in Australia, not just at this university. You say that thatconcern is deeply felt by the faculty. You also say that you believe that education is not acommodity and that:

The emphasis on market forces, competition for students and resources and privatisation implies a narrow interpretationof education which we strongly reject.



Is that view shared right across the faculty?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—I believe so and I think it relates to the values I referred to at thebeginning. As a faculty, we would say that those values emphasise education as a public goodrather than just a private benefit. Although the budget has to match up, and obviously we realisethat an expensive higher education has to be paid for somehow, we are not unrealistic in thatrespect. We believe that the underlying philosophy in terms of funding education, andparticularly higher education, should be that it is a public good rather than a private benefit.Although universities are being encouraged to follow alternative sources of funding, and indeedthey are doing that as we are in our faculty, we hold the view that public education shouldreceive adequate public funding rather than an increasing proportion of privately raised funding.

Senator CARR—We have heard today that philosophy students and arts students generally,but particularly those in music and languages and now in education, have been quite seriouslydisadvantaged by changes in policy in recent times. For example, student-teacher ratios haveincreased quite dramatically. It has been put to us that there has been a decline in standards atthis university. You are saying that that has not occurred yet in education. Clearly, the evidenceis that that has occurred in other faculties. We have also heard that the engineering faculty hadits courses de-accredited in Singapore last year. In your judgment, how well is the universitygoing at the moment?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—I think that the university is doing extremely well considering thepressures it faces and the cutback in funding it has experienced in recent years. In speaking forthe faculty of education, I believe that we are maintaining extremely high standards in the faceof very high student to staff ratios. In fact, as you probably know, we have some of the higheststudent to staff ratios in the university. This year, we are working on an equation of 25:1 whichmeans that you are talking about increased contact hours, marking, preparation, administrationand answering emails. Everything has a knock-on effect.

Senator CARR—If you have more students in your classes and you are doing all this extrawork, how can the same standards be maintained?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—They are being maintained at the expense of a loss of quality oflife for our staff. I know this because last year I was acting head of the School of EarlyChildhood and Primary Education. I had an intimate knowledge of how the staff were going,particularly in terms of occupational health and safety, where increasing numbers of cases werecoming to me. We are not just talking stress. People are managing very well because they arededicated teachers and researchers. We are talking about people with eye, back, neck and handproblems because they are virtually chained to their computers when they are not teaching as aresult of administrative and other duties. That also happens because of the demands made byelectronic teaching, which is not a panacea.

Returning to your question, I think the point is, ‘How long can this go on?’ We have tried notto teach large lectures. We do not believe that that model is good practice for our pre-serviceand in-service teachers who are going into the schools and who have been taught to haveinteractive teaching and to respond to diverse needs. We believe we should model that so westill have tutorial groups although they are getting larger. We break down some of our larger



groups. For example, the Bachelor of Teaching course has been broken into two groups of 50 or60 instead of a lecture theatre of 100-odd. That just means more and more work.

Senator CARR—Can you confirm for me that last year the academic senate at this universityagreed to change postgraduate course programs to shorter courses? Can you confirm that thatoccurred? Were the number of hours required to complete a postgraduate program reduced?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—I am not quite sure that I understand that. Certainly, within ourfaculty they have not been.

Senator CARR—It was put to me that that occurred in the Education course, in particular theMasters program.

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—That was a specific revision of a Masters, not just to reduce thenumber of hours. It was actually a restructuring of a particular Masters of Education course bycoursework, so there was not any reduction of quality.

Senator CARR—You can argue whether or not a reduction in hours is in fact a reduction inquality. It was put to me that one of the reasons given for that reduction was in fact so that theseprograms could be more competitive. Is that true or not?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—I think there is an element of that, and I think that there willincreasingly be an element of that, particularly when we are being asked to, for instance,internationalise to sell our educational products overseas, because one has to look at what willactually fit in with overseas demands and so on. There is an element of that, and I think thatruns through a number of different areas, because we have been asked to raise money. So thathas to be an element, but I think there would always be care to try and maintain standards.

Senator CARR—I have no doubt that academics would care to keep standards high; I haveno doubt that that is their intention. The question is whether or not it is possible, given thepressures that are placed on staff, to increase student-teacher ratios, to reduce the level ofresearch that is being undertaken by individual staff, to actually do more with less, to cutcorners and to maintain standards. It comes back to this point. Given this example that thisuniversity itself has undertaken, I ask you: do you think there is any pressure on this universityto allow the commercialisation of programs to actually drive standards?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—I do not think it is just this university. I can read of otheruniversities—

Senator CARR—Perhaps I will rephrase that—on universities?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—Yes, I think universities in general are definitely being pressuredto commercialise and marketise in order to make up the financial shortfall. So from a staff pointof view academics who were recruited as experts in their field or because they are dedicated andvery experienced teachers and lecturers are being asked to also be entrepreneurs, accountantsand so on. It is very stressful for them; that is not what they are trained for.

Senator CARR—Does commercialisation lead to an increase in standards?



Prof. Abbott-Chapman—I believe that at the moment we are holding our own, but in thelonger term it would have to contribute to an attack on standards. There is no way that standardscan be maintained at a high level with these various pressures being maintained. We have hadmeetings in our faculty where staff have said to me, ‘I don’t how long I can go on like this.’ Iam sure it is true across the university—I cannot speak for all faculties; I speak for education. Iknow we have an extremely dedicated staff. You only have to walk around this university on aweekend or on a public holiday, and you will see cars all over the place, because that is whenstaff are catching up in terms of their ‘own work’—their research, their scholarship, theirwriting. Yesterday was Anzac Day—I was in and so were most of my colleagues.

Senator TIERNEY—Turning to the research funding for your facility—and I note that youare getting external sources of funding as well—what recommendation would you make in theARC funding, particularly in areas of teaching relief, to give the younger academics a bettershot at this sort of research?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—With respect, I think it is actually more complex than that. Thecompetition for funding for ARC grants and other nationally competitive grants of that natureand the stress laid on, for instance, criteria like track record make it very difficult for a juniormember of staff to become part of a team anyway with or without the teaching relief becausethe higher the profile of the members of the team, the higher the track record. It is now up to 40per cent as part of the criteria for allocation. Clearly, people are going to seek very high levelpeople who already have good track records. It is extremely difficult.

We have tried in our faculty to encourage junior members of staff in two ways: firstly, byincluding them in teams particularly for the small ARC grants which have been allocated by theuniversity and, secondly, we have in times past—it has not always been the case—had a little bitof money coming back from the research quantum which we have utilised through our ResearchAdvisory Board and have had on occasion a special category for beginning researchers to try toencourage them. Teaching relief would help everybody, but it is actually a question of verystrong competition for scarce resources which results in certain decisions being made as to whois part of the team. I know because I have gone in for a number of ARC grants with colleagues.

Senator TIERNEY—It has always been the case though with ARC grants that the trackrecord is a key component as to whether someone is going to get their research up, hasn’t it? SoI suppose we are looking for—and have been for some time—better mechanisms of getting theyounger researchers into that higher level of research. You did suggest one or two ways.

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—There is another area which we have found very productive. Thisuniversity has had a very good record in terms of SPIRT grants, which are now called theLinkage grants. We have had one or two in our faculty. It seems to have been easier to get morejunior staff on those teams. Of course, they have the double benefit in that they also createpartnerships with industry, government departments and so on and contribute both to the regionand to the nation in an applied sort of way.

Senator TIERNEY—Does this university have any special and unique programs to helpyoung researchers get into the bigger league? Does it provide any resource support in any way?



Prof. Abbott-Chapman—Over the years there have been different attempts and differentsorts of moneys have been given to junior researchers. There have been programs through thenetworks that help women researchers and so on. I think of late probably funds have been sostretched that there have not been many of those sorts of programs around.

Senator TIERNEY—Your largest client would be the Tasmanian government in terms ofyour graduate output?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—Yes.

Senator TIERNEY—Has the Tasmanian government ever seen any need to support researchin your faculty, given that that would then flow back hopefully to an improvement in theeducation system in Tasmania? Do they support your research in any way?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—Yes.

Senator TIERNEY—What sorts of things have they done?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—Going back over the years it has not necessarily been just, say,funding support; there have been collaborative ventures of all kinds. I worked in the past withProfessor Phillip Hughes when he was the professor here on long-term retention studies whichboth informed the work of the Department of Education and also this university. We have donesimilar studies since then. We have also had people working in particular equity areas—forinstance, students with disabilities and so on. We work closely with the education department.We try to find out what their needs are so that our programs are shaped to their needs. Fromtime to time, they send around issues of current interest that some of our honour students mightbe interested in doing projects on, and some of them have been taken up. So constant dialogueis going on. We are certainly not an ivory tower in that respect. We try to respond to local needs.I think under the new partnership agreement that will become more and more evident.

Senator TIERNEY—Apart from those discussions and support in kind, how much of yourresearch budget will be provided from projects in the Department of Education?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—I am not able to answer that but I could take it on notice.

Senator TIERNEY—Okay.

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—In terms of current work, I mentioned SPIRT earlier and certainlythere are a couple of SPIRT projects where the education department is providing financialmatching money as well as support in kind. For instance, there is a large-scale study ofadolescent health which is headed up by Professor Hogan and I am an associate within thatteam. It is a multidisciplinary team working with the Department of Education and theDepartment of Health, and that looks as though it will be a very productive, collaborativeventure.

Senator TIERNEY—In your submission you refer to the need of the university to beinvolved in lifelong education. Can you describe briefly how the university is involved in that?



Prof. Abbott-Chapman—We have a number of programs which involve mature agestudents. With our first degrees, our BEd and B.HM degree, most of the students in that arestraight from school but there are also a lot of mature age students. Our B Teach degree, whichis our two-year postgraduate degree, similarly, has a large number of mature age students. Wealso have a Bachelor of Adult and Vocational Education, which is predominantly mature agestudents. Also, many of our higher degree research students are practising teachers. They cometo us to do a higher degree either a Masters or a PhD. Throughout the whole of our programs,we see education as a lifelong learning enterprise. We constantly make submissions to that end.

Senator TIERNEY—The programs you mentioned would only touch a tiny proportion ofthe teaching work force in Tasmania; what provision is there for what is obviously an ageingwork force, in terms of updating their skills as they move through life?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—Yes, I forgot to mention that and I should have mentioned itbecause I teach within it as well as some of the other programs. The Bachelor of Education inService has recruited teachers who have been in the work force a long time and who wish toupgrade their skills and qualifications. We consistently run courses both during the year and insummer school for teachers wishing to upgrade their qualifications.

Senator TIERNEY—How many would be involved in that each year?

Prof. Abbott-Chapman—Again, I’m not exactly sure. Rather than guess, I would prefer toprovide you with those figures.

Senator TIERNEY—Yes, you can take that on notice. Thank you.

CHAIR—Thank you for your appearance here today.



[2.07 p.m.]

BLEATHMAN, Mr Rodney Charles, Deputy Secretary, Department of State Development,Tasmanian Government

FORREST, Dr Martyn Anthony Earl, Secretary (CEO), Department of Education,Tasmanian Government

STEVENS, Mr Michael Bernard, Deputy Secretary, VET Strategies, Department ofEducation, Tasmanian Government

CHAIR—I welcome representatives from the Department of Education and the Departmentof State Development. The committee has before it submission No. 226. Are there any changesyou wish to make to that submission?

Dr Forrest—No.

CHAIR—The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public, although we willconsider any request for all or part of evidence to be given in camera. I now invite you to makea brief opening statement.

Dr Forrest—We make no request to be heard in camera. I would like to make a couple ofobservations to start the discussion. The first one is: why is the government of Tasmania makinga submission? The answer is fundamentally because the government believes that the recentpolicy and financing arrangements for Australia’s public universities are having quite adetrimental effect on the University of Tasmania and because of the significance of theUniversity of Tasmania to the economic, social and environmental development of the state.This is a matter of concern to the government. There is a significant and immediate linkagebetween the development and wellbeing of the university and the strategic development andwellbeing of the state. This important linkage has recently been recognised in a partnershipagreement put in place between the state government and the University of Tasmania. To myknowledge, it is the only agreement of this kind in Australia.

The partnership recognises, on one hand, the importance to the state of the work of theuniversity and, on the other, the importance to the university of state government support inmany different areas. It highlights many of the practical and financial ways in which the state isactively supporting the university and the ways in which the university is working through itspriorities, particularly through its teaching and research and its theme areas, to meet theidentified needs of the state. The partnership agreement is what I would call a living document,in that it provides the framework under which regular negotiation occurs and within whichadditional opportunities for cooperation can be identified and implemented.

A university, especially a single university in a small state, assumes more importance, wewould argue, than it would do in a situation where there are several such institutions within ajurisdiction. Looked at from the many dimensions, it is the only solution for a wide range ofclient groups, whether they are seeking, for example, an undergraduate education, professional



development or research in support of industry development. We expect a great deal of aregional university such as the University of Tasmania in terms of the breadth of its offerings,local availability of courses and facilities and excellence in a wide range of research subjects,leadership in continuing education in a number of different professional fields and contributionto the social, intellectual and cultural development of the state.

As I said, in a small jurisdiction like Tasmania with a single university, the impact of changesin Commonwealth policy is likely to be more keenly felt, I believe, than in a situation wherethere are several universities which may be differently affected or have different capacities torespond. I will give you a brief illustration. The policy which now allows Australian fee payingstudents at the undergraduate level and the policy which has seen a withdrawal of publicfunding support for students doing postgraduate course work will have a very particular effectin Tasmania. The socioeconomic profile of the Tasmanian population means that there are neverlikely to be many applications for fee paying students. The size of the state, the regional natureof its economy and the fact that Tasmania is the nation’s most decentralised state mean thatemployer funding of postgraduate course work is never likely to be widespread or, indeed, on apar with what it is in the capital cities. Postgraduate course work enrolments at the University ofTasmania have dropped 63 per cent over the last four years, and this compares with a figureswhich I saw in the paper yesterday suggesting the figure nationwide is 12 per cent. These aretwo examples of higher education policy decisions which we believe inadequately take intoaccount the particular needs and the particular circumstances of this state.

The state government is presently engaged in a long-term, community based planning payingprocess entitled Tasmania Together which will set the priorities for Tasmania’s statedevelopment for the next 20 years. In this context, as I have noted, the state is working veryclosely with and supporting the university, in financial and in other ways, to ensure that thegreatest possible benefit is derived by the people of Tasmania from this important institution.We would like to be confident that Commonwealth policy and funding were administered in away which complemented this process. The government’s concerns have been laid down in thesubmission forwarded to you by the Premier. I would like to conclude these opening remarks bydrawing the committee’s attention to the most pressing of these concerns, that is, the availabilityof undergraduate places. The significant cuts made in funded undergraduate places in recentyears fly in the face of both the demonstrable need for greater levels of skills to match achanging economy and the approach of our international competitors in the OECD andelsewhere. Whilst the University of Tasmania has been treated no differently from otheruniversities, the policy has exacerbated an already unsatisfactory situation.

In pursuit of the national goals of schooling, Tasmania has rigorously pursued a policy ofimproving school retention rates to year 12. Between 1996 and 2000 we have lifted thatretention rate from 54.2 per cent—very much behind the rest of Australia—to a figure of 71.6per cent, which puts us very much in the middle of the pack. Over the same period, we haveseen a drop of 530 EFTSU available at the University of Tasmania. These seem to me to be twonational policies quite in conflict. The situation at the moment is that with 2.41 per cent of thepopulation cohort between 15 and 64, Tasmania has 2.29 per cent of the funded places. If wetook the Australian Maritime College out of the equation—and we would argue that that is anational institution with a national focus rather than a Tasmanian one—Tasmania has only 2.18per cent of the funded places. So if population were the arbiter of places, approximately anadditional 1,000 places would be available to the university where we sit. The immediate



consequence of this shortfall is that very many students are being turned away from theUniversity of Tasmania and that many are enrolling at universities interstate.

While some such enrolment is inevitable in all jurisdictions to meet particular courserequirements and to meet personal preferences, the rate of enrolment of Tasmanian students atinterstate universities is twice the national average. The longer term implications of this areprofound, I believe, in terms of the state government’s plans to meet the skills development,skills attraction and skills retention needs of this state. Whilst the vocational education andtraining components of this policy are being met through steadily increasing VET participation,the situation with respect to higher education remains unsatisfactory and a matter ofconsiderable concern to the government. The government’s other concerns are expressed in itssubmission, and my colleagues and I will be happy to answer your questions about thatsubmission.

CHAIR—Thank you very much. Dr Forrest, you have given us very comprehensivecomparative figures here. There is just one area where I am curious about what the time seriesmight be, and that is the number of Tasmanian home residents studying interstate. The 1999figure is 18.7 per cent. Can you apprise the committee of how that has stood over time?

Dr Forrest—I am not sure that I am in a position to tell you how it has gone over time.Sometimes it is a difficult figure to work out—and the university employed David Phillips, Ithink, to do some work on that. My view would be that it is increasing, but we could certainlyprovide you with that as supplementary information. We have not dug it out.

CHAIR—I would appreciate that, thank you.

Senator TIERNEY—Dr Forrest, you emphasise the importance of partnerships and thecrucial role of the university in the Tasmanian economy. Apart from cooperative arrangements,how much in actual cold hard cash does the Tasmanian government put into the university invarious projects a year—in these cooperative arrangements?

Dr Forrest—I preface this by noting that the funding of universities is fundamentally aCommonwealth concern.

Senator TIERNEY—We understand that.

Dr Forrest—Many, if not most, jurisdictions are not supported by their state governments.Having said that, I would note that a number of institutions within the university are the subjectof the partnership agreement. The government recently gave the Menzies Centre $½ million andit funds the research institutes in dealing with agriculture and aquaculture to the figure ofseveral millions of dollars a year. I do not have the figures with me, but I can certainly providethose to you. It is also looking financially to support a law institute; it would expect, I believe,to make some financial contribution to that. In addition, it funds a number of undergraduate andresearch scholarships to the university—a significant number of those. My department funds1,400 students, over and above the allowances they get from the Commonwealth, to enablethem to travel to, and stay at, places where the university is represented. That costs about $1½million a year. In the size of the Tasmanian economy and the size of the Tasmaniangovernment’s expenditure, I think these figures are quite significant.



Senator TIERNEY—In terms of the initial question about the actual cold hard cash figures,could you possibly provide that to the committee on notice?

Dr Forrest—I will.

Senator TIERNEY—And could you give us what those figures have been over a number ofyears, if that is possible? Perhaps we may be able to see a trend in that. One of my great areas ofinterest is in the role of universities in empowering regional economies. We had some evidencefrom some of the students earlier today, and it rather surprised me in that they tended to bearguing for concentrating most of it in Hobart. What do you see as being the role of theuniversity in driving the regional economy of Tasmania, the areas to the north and the north-west in particular? Also, are there any government projects which are actively trying toencourage partnership between the university and the state government in that area? Perhaps MrBleathman might want to add to this as well.

Dr Forrest—I will just start off by saying, first of all, we regard Tasmania itself to be aregional economy. I am not seeking to be uncooperative in answering the question.

Senator TIERNEY—No, I understand that. I am from the Hunter Valley, and its economy isbigger than that of Tasmania.

Dr Forrest—Absolutely, and I think that is important for some of the other matters we mightdiscuss. Certainly then, after that, there are regional issues here. There has been a strongdebate—as I am sure has been drawn to your attention—about the relative sizes of the threecampuses of the university in this state. But I might ask Mr Bleathman to comment a little bit onthe economics and industry support issues.

Mr Bleathman—Thanks very much for the question. From an industry development point ofview, we in Tasmania are trying to identify our respective competitive advantages vis-a-visother states and overseas. There are several areas where we are focusing very heavily on tryingto stimulate those competitive advantages into a real economic driver. They relate to things suchas bioprospecting, biotechnology and genetic research, and they are areas in which Tasmaniahas significant advantages. By their very nature, they are very decentralised, that is, crop trialswith biotechnology can and do occur throughout the state through poppy fields and so forth.With bioprospecting, the plant and lichens throughout the state, even down as far as MacquarieIsland, are unique to the world, and there is a value in that in terms of driving economic activity.

CHAIR—Before you go on, could you explain ‘bioprospecting’ a little more for us?

Mr Bleathman—Simply put, bioprospecting is a way of deconstructing plant and animal lifeto look, I suppose, at the make-up of those to determine what the particular characteristics areand whether they have any adaptation to pharmaceuticals and other types of end products. It isjust prospecting through plants rather than prospecting geographically if are you looking for oil.The third one is genetic research. That, by definition, is also very decentralised. We are lookingat areas of Tasmania where there are high proportions of founder populations, low levels ofmigration. We can get to areas where there are five or six generations of people in the sameregional area.



Those sorts of things are very important for Tasmania—and the university is very importantin that process—as they are providing Tasmania with a competitive advantage over other states;other states do not have them in those specific areas. That is in addition to all the other regionalactivities. But they are the specific ones where Tasmania, I think, and the university go hand inglove.

Dr Forrest—Perhaps I could add to that. In terms of attraction of student places, one of theschedules of the partnership agreement deals particularly with getting more school leavers fromyear 12 in the north-west of the state into universities, and the scholarships scheme that I havetalked about is one way of doing that. With the establishment, obviously, of the Burnie campusand negotiations, there recently has been a report on the north-west campus of the university towhich there is going to be formal agreement between the university and the department abouthow to get more kids from that region into the university. The participation rates in Tasmania, asyou would know, go on a nice curve: they are almost at capital city levels down in Hobart; theyreduce as you go to the north of the state, particularly Launceston; and they reduce further whenyou go to the north-west of the state.

Senator TIERNEY—In relation to your comments about the retention of people in Tasmaniacoming to this university as opposed to going to the University of Melbourne or other areas,isn’t that almost inevitable, given that you do not have a choice in that you have only oneuniversity here? We have a similar problem in the Hunter Valley: there is only one university,and people will go to Sydney and others because of the sorts of courses that are there. Surelyisn’t that almost an inevitable outcome of the structure of the university system and the size ofthis state? Is there anything positive that you could suggest that would turn that around?

Dr Forrest—I am sorry, I missed the last part of your question.

Senator TIERNEY—Is there anything positive that you could suggest that would turn thataround, or is it just the inevitable result of the structure of the university system and the size ofthe state?

Dr Forrest—I think to a degree there is an inevitability about it. If you want to become adentist, you cannot do it in Tasmania, so you have to go to a mainland university. There are anumber of courses that clearly are not available here. Our estimation is though that, of thestudents who choose to go to the mainland, only about 25 per cent are in courses that areunavailable in Tasmania. So you have 75 per cent migrating for courses that are available here.

Senator TIERNEY—It could be a higher status school, another university.

Dr Forrest—I am not sure that I would necessarily agree with that, but it could be, yes.

Senator TIERNEY—If it is engineering, you might want to go to the second-best school inAustralia at Newcastle, for example.

Dr Forrest—Why am I surprised at that answer?

Senator BRANDIS—Or it could be a lifestyle choice, particularly for students of theyouthful age of undergraduate students.



Dr Forrest—I think some of that is inevitable. Particularly some of the kids who live on thenorth coast and the north-west coast will identify with Melbourne; some may have familyreasons to go there. The fact is that the national average of migration between the states is aboutnine per cent; our figure is a little more than 18 per cent.

Senator TIERNEY—How do you compare with a regional rate though?

Dr Forrest—I do not think figures are published. Having been a vice-chancellor of a regionaluniversity, I would think the figures are about those that are the national average—that you willget some kids who just want to get out of town irrespective; they want to go to the big smoke oranother place. But my concern is that there are twice the national average from here. I suspectand believe that that is a consequence, at least in part, of an inadequate number of places here:that kids would go here if the places were available.

Senator TIERNEY—I put it to you though that in regional Queensland or regional NewSouth Wales you might find the same sort of figure; it would be way under the national averageas well.

Dr Forrest—We have got a problem regionally then, not just in terms of Tasmania.

Senator TIERNEY—The VET higher education interface is another area of interest of mine.It would seem as though you have a unique opportunity in Tasmania in terms of developingsuch an interface effectively, because you only have one university to deal with—it is a littlemore difficult in places like New South Wales—and you also have a higher level of control overthe VET system, of course. Could you describe that interface as it exists in Tasmania and theprogress that has been made on articulation arrangements between TAFE and the universitysector?

Dr Forrest—This has been problematic in every jurisdiction, as you would know. Ourfigures at the moment from the graduate destination survey suggest that about six per cent ofVET students ultimately end up at university here. Apart from that, I would draw your attentionto a couple of initiatives that we are taking in this area. We believe that the way in which kidsend up at university is very much more complicated than is widely understood. So in 1995 wedid a tracking of where every year 10 student then went over the next four years.

Senator TIERNEY—Could you provide that to the committee?

Dr Forrest—We can provide summaries of it to you. We are embarking on the same exerciseagain today, because there is quite a lot of movement between the government andnon-government schools into TAFE and into the university, into the university and then intoTAFE. So there is not a simple answer to your question.

Between the deans of a number of faculties and TAFE Tasmania, arrangements are beingmade for either joint degrees or improved articulation arrangements. Probably one of the mostconspicuous examples is the Inveresk initiative in Launceston whereby the performing arts ofboth the university and TAFE will be taught in the same rooms in the same buildings on the oldInveresk rail yards. That will be opening I think in February 2002. There are other arrangementsbetween TAFE in relation to business, tourism and other things.



The second initiative is that the minister recently announced in part of Learning Together,which is the educational support document for Tasmania Together, the establishment of aqualifications authority in Tasmania, which will bring together the different qualificationsarrangements there are at the moment. So we have secondary education arrangements, VETarrangements and universities other than the University of Tasmania. We will be putting those intogether in a single body, with a view to making the kinds of qualifications andpre-accreditations you need to move from one sector to the other a great deal more simple. Ithink that will be an important initiative in removing barriers for kids moving from one sector toanother.

Senator TIERNEY—One of the greatest barriers there has often been the attitude ofuniversity staff to TAFE qualifications and the amount of advance standing they are prepared togive for earlier work. Has there been any progress in recent years with university being perhapsa little more reasonable about advance standing?

Dr Forrest—Yes, the university has committed itself to doing this in this partnershipagreement. Whilst I would make a few comments about this, I think it is very important in that Ithink it is recognition by the university that this is an issue and it is the university holisticallyand centrally saying that we have got to make progress in this area.

Senator CARR—I come back to your submission where you say:

According to the University of Tasmania, Commonwealth funding for the University of Tasmania for general operatingpurposes has been reduced by at least 6% in real terms since 1996. Funding has also declined by at least $700 per EFTSUsince 1996. This reduction in funding to the University of Tasmania has been conservatively estimated at more than $6million.

Do you stand by that?

Dr Forrest—Yes, I believe that can be shown from the university’s accounts.

Senator CARR—As a result of those sorts of reductions—$6 million in an economy of thissize and for a university of this size—what sort of impacts do you think would have been felt?

Dr Forrest—Clearly it has reduced the number of available undergraduate places. Theaccurate figure is 530 EFTSUs. Given the ratio between full-time and part-time students, thereare probably a little over 600 students who will now one way or another probably have not wonan undergraduate place over that period.

Senator CARR—So 600 fewer places now at this university?

Dr Forrest—It is 530 EFTSU, and depending on how you work that out into actual bodies, itis a little over 600 probably. That many fewer kids have been entitled to a place. It has clearlyhad an effect on the university, and I am sure the vice-chancellor will discuss with you thisafternoon the reductions in staff positions. That in itself, and the work of those people, isundoubtedly a contribution to the Tasmanian economy.

My concern would be, though, the longer term. It has reduced the number of people with thetypes of skills that Tasmania needs to move into the future. The government has undertaken a



fairly substantial skills development audit. It now has an industry development plan where it isquite clear about the kinds of skills and qualifications that Tasmania needs. There are someserious shortcomings in some of those areas which we believe probably could have beenaddressed had there been more undergraduate places available.

Senator CARR—What about research?

Dr Forrest—We have dealt overwhelmingly with undergraduate places, and that was therecurrent funding which dealt with them. Clearly a part of that funding is associated with theresearch quantum and so on. I cannot explicitly tell you, but I am sure, again, the vice-chancellor or Professor Glenn, who will be here this afternoon, could detail the specific impacton the state. Our concern is that, for a small state like this, the development of intellectualproperty in some of the areas that Mr Bleathman has talked about is quite crucial. To the extentthat money is not provided for those, the kinds of research and development are reduced. Isuspect that in some ways the government’s decision, for example, to fund the Menzies Centrewith an additional half a million dollars was premised on the need in this state to get acompetitive advantage in some of the biomedical areas, and it saw fit to put that money in.

Senator CARR—We have heard today from various witnesses that universities are in crisisand turmoil, there is a serious problem in regard to staff morale, there is a decline in standards,and serious detrimental effects of these cuts are being felt in the philosophy departments, in thearts generally, and in music, language and education. We have heard of an engineering facultybeing de-accredited by Singapore. We have heard of a whole range of quite serious problems.What responsibility do you think the state government has, given that the university operatesunder a state act of parliament on these questions?

Dr Forrest—Whilst the university acts under a state act of parliament—and that is palpablytrue—funding of universities is and has always been the responsibility of the Commonwealthgovernment. I think the Commonwealth government has got to address these concerns. Theresponse of the state government fundamentally has been—as I said at the start of mypresentation—that there are some areas where it is very clear that the university needs someassistance. The state government has been quite forthcoming financially, and in other forms ofsupport, in giving that assistance. I am here representing the government, and I do not think it ismy job to comment upon the particular internal workings of the university. But we would not behere unless we had some concerns that a continuation down this policy route would bedetrimental to the future of Tasmania.

Senator CARR—Dr Forrest, I appreciate that. Nonetheless, there are serious issues ofaccountability. I would like to put to you in a general policy sense that there is a discrepancy inthe current administrative arrangements in this country at large. The Commonwealth funds theuniversities, and no matter how you measure it, it is still the public institutions. Public fundingis in excess of 50 per cent; if you include HECS, it is still up around the 80 per cent mark.However, the line of authority is through the state governments through their various acts ofparliament.

The accountability of some universities is somewhat confused—if I might put it that way—interms of their relationship with the Commonwealth department of education. It is also arguablethat they are responsible through the state auditors-general and state parliaments. Do you think



there is a need for any reform in that area in terms of the dual lines of accountability foruniversities?

Dr Forrest—My view at the moment would be that I do not think the government has aposition on that. I would not be in a position to comment.

Senator CARR—That is an appropriate answer, as I would expect from a senior publicservant. But, with respect to the question about state auditors-general, have you had anycomplaints about the operations of the university?

Dr Forrest—The Auditor-General does his normal annual report. I think he does some of theuniversity reports in the sense that he picks on themes which he runs through stategovernments—he might look at purchasing or something like that. As far as I am aware, theuniversity audits have been what I would call clean except that at the moment there is veryclearly a dispute about a technical accounting issue as to how to handle grants in advance. Thisis not just an issue in Tasmania, it is an issue around the nation.

Senator CARR—It is indeed. In the case of Victoria, New South Wales and Queenslandinformation I have is that the number of complaints to auditors-general concerning the operationof universities has doubled over the last half a dozen years or so. Would a similar pattern beable to be detected here?

Dr Forrest—At the risk of being accused of being a senior public servant—again, I am notprivy to the complaints that are made to the Auditor-General. Unless he makes them public, Iwould be unaware of them. I would suggest that Dr McHugh would be the appropriate officer totalk to.

Senator CARR—The annual reports do not reveal any increased pattern of complaints?

Dr Forrest—Do you mean any reports from the Auditor-General?

Senator CARR—Yes.

Dr Forrest—As far as I am aware, they do not indicate an increased pattern of complaints.

Senator CARR—Surely it must be of concern to you that there would be questions raisedabout the administration of the university—the only university in the state. Would they bematters of concern to a state management authority such as yours?

Dr Forrest—Quite clearly, they would. As you may or may not be aware, the university hassubjected itself to a substantial review of its management, administration and policy-makingprocedures by an eminent panel including the head of the Scottish education authority, a retireddeputy vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne and two other people. I understand thatthe review is to be made public in about three or four weeks.

Senator CARR—Three or four weeks is where I am going, precisely. So we can expect tosee that in three or four weeks?



Dr Forrest—Again, it is not my report so you would be better to ask the vice-chancellorabout that, but that is my understanding.

Senator CARR—Thank you. What was the nature of the review, because I can see some ofmy colleagues are raising eyebrows with me as to what this is all about? Why was it necessaryto have a review?

Dr Forrest—Why does any organisation have a review? It is a mixture of things. It is healthyfor an organisation, periodically, to look at its management and other arrangements. Theexternal environment in which they operate periodically changes and that I think, again, issufficient stimulus for a review. It is important in terms of the changed funding policies, and theavailability of finances to the university, that the university makes better use of the money thatis available. All of these are contributors to a decision to have a review.

Senator CARR—It has been put to us by a range of sources concerning a number of theissues that have arisen as a result of this inquiry, namely, that the effects of commercialisationhave led to a decline in standards. There have been serious allegations that a poisonousatmosphere of mistrust, intimidation and unethical behaviour is being exhibited in some of ouruniversities. Is that evident in this state, do you think?

Dr Forrest—That is a very subjective set of words. Any organisation at any time will havepeople who are concerned about its administration, particularly if they have been losers infunding or other decisions. Certainly there have been concerns expressed about the universityadministration, and one of the responses of the council was to have this inquiry. It has beenquite open and has given anybody who would like to the opportunity to make a contribution toit. It was widely canvassed within the university prior to its establishment, and it has beenwidely publicised since. I think that is entirely appropriate.

Senator CARR—The local union branch here says that it is a climate of fear and mistrustthat prevents the necessary and useful public debate about the role and functioning of theuniversity.

Dr Forrest—From the government’s point of view, I do not think that is a matter ofimmediate concern. The university has an administration with the council, operating through thevice-chancellor. I think the government was supportive of the fact that an inquiry was beingheld.

Senator CARR—Dr Forrest, the reason I am asking these questions is that I come back tothis point about the lines of authority. Clearly, we have a Commonwealth government settingpolicies. We have a funding regime which is built around those policies and, based on theevidence we have heard, is having quite serious impacts. It is quite clearly accepted by a rangeof sources across this state and also in other states. Yet the lines of communication back fromthe university through to the system are effectively through to the state government level. So wehave this legal fiction that exists, and these are essentially state institutions when in fact they arenational. My question comes back to this point about what the responsibilities of the variouslevels of government are to some of the concerns, particularly where you are faced, as a stategovernment, with having to pick up the pieces as a result of Commonwealth governmentpolicies.



Dr Forrest—I am not sure what answer you are looking for there. I previously gave you theone that I am not in a position to give the government’s view about who should beadministering the universities. We are accepting that there is an extant set of legal and otherarrangements. The universities are accountable back to DETYA through a variety of procedures,not just to the state government. I would argue, possibly radically so, that there is anaccountability of the university to the general community as well, which is manifest in variousways, not just through the legal or financial accountabilities to which you refer.

Senator CARR—Do you think it would be helpful if you established an independent sourceof advice to the Commonwealth, given the experiences we have had over the last five or sixyears and since the abolition of NBEET?

Dr Forrest—Again, from the government’s point of view, I do not have a particular view onthat, except that the government is very supportive of arrangements which improvecommunications and increase the scope for consultation. Again, I think the partnershipagreement with the university is a manifestation of just one such desire to make sure that bothparties fully understand each other’s business and where they are going.

Senator CARR—Finally, I have a question about equity participation. Your submissionpoints to the state government’s concern to increase participation particularly fromdisadvantaged groups. What do you consider to be the main barriers to the participation in thisstate for those targeted equity groups?

Dr Forrest—I do not think there is one barrier to start with. There are a number of issuesthere. One quite important issue is a lack of tradition of going to university, which is caused bythe university not being nearby and a kind of workforce and economy in which you were notrequired to go to university. Again, if I could step aside wearing a former hat, I once went into ahigh school in Mackay and asked, ‘Whose parents have gone to university?’ and not a singlehand went up. That is a major barrier to encouraging people to go to university if their primaryreference point—to wit, the students’ parents—did not have that experience but experienced aneconomy with quite different skill and qualification requirements. That is one issue.

There are clearly financial issues, which the Tasmanian government has sought to amelioratethrough its scholarship and its accommodation allowances, to enable kids to get into university.I think an issue would be more flexible learning. Institutions need to be more flexible in howthey provide their lectures and the form, whether it is online or by other arrangements. I thinkmost universities could probably lift their game in making that available. We have found a lot ofissues about providing peer support for students to let them accommodate and cope with thedifferent environments between school and university. We are doing some work on that.

Clearly some subjects do not attract and some do. We have a problem at the moment, forexample, in attracting enough year 12 students to go into areas of information communicationstechnology, because it is seen as being a place for—dare I say it—‘propeller heads’ delving inthe backs of boxes. But the fact is that a lot of the careers in that area are in things like graphicarts, multimedia, editing and so on. Under the Intelligent Island program which the state has inplace, there is likely to be a substantial development program getting to kids as young as inprimary schools pointing out the career options and that, for example, ICT is not just a technicalcareer. So there are a whole range of issues like that, depending on the different equity groups



that you are looking at. But Tasmania’s decentralised nature means that a very significant aspectof that are rural and regional issues. Tasmanians would regard travel of a couple of hundredkilometres as quite a large distance, whereas a person living in Western Australia or Queenslandmight regard that quite differently.

Senator CARR—Dr Forrest, if you say that these policies being directed from Canberra arehaving such a detrimental effect on the state, would you say that those targeted equity groups—people from working class backgrounds, from migrant communities and in Aboriginalcommunities—would be having the hardest time of all?

Dr Forrest—I think it would be very difficult to generalise about that question. I think youhave to look at the individual circumstances.

Senator CARR—What information do you have about the level of participation—has it goneup, has it gone down—of these particular targeted groups?

Dr Forrest—I am advised that fundamentally it has stayed at about the same proportion—that is, particularly dealing with indigenous students.

Senator CARR—For indigenous students?

Dr Forrest—Yes.

Senator CARR—What about people from low socioeconomic backgrounds?

Dr Forrest—Again I am advised that it has remained at about the same. But, on the otherhand, you must remember that the number of places has in fact reduced over this period of time.

Senator CARR—The percentages have remained the same?

Dr Forrest—Yes. So it is unlikely that you would see the percentage of disadvantagedstudents increasing in the population as a whole.

CHAIR—What about women?

Dr Forrest—I think you would have to ask the university what the proportion is; they publishthe data. I just do not have in front of me the proportion of women who are at the university—Isuspect it is more than fifty per cent. There is data in our submission about most disabilitygroups, but not women.

CHAIR—I only ask because earlier evidence was suggesting that postgraduate arrangementswere particularly discriminatory against women.

Dr Forrest—I think that would be an appropriate question for the vice-chancellor.

Senator CROSSIN—Mr Stevens, are you aware of what percentage of the University ofTasmania’s offerings are VET?



Mr Stevens—A number of courses have fairly strong articulations with the university. Ourfigures show that, in terms of VET graduates who go on to study at university, it is about six percent. One of the questions in the graduate destination survey was how many go on to highereducation, and the answer there was about six per cent.

Senator CARR—How many is it the other way around?

Mr Stevens—Unfortunately I do not have those figures. We did the destination surveybasically from our TAFE graduates, not from the university graduates.

Senator CARR—Nationally the figures are 97,000, but there are only 22,000 who go backthe other way—that is, from university to TAFE. Would that be consistent with what youunderstand?

Mr Stevens—Anecdotally I think that probably would be consistent. We obviously havecases of people going back to hone particular technical skills in a TAFE—I guess that would bein a work-ready type role. Again we do not have the figures, but there is nothing that wouldsuggest we would be markedly different from the rest of the country.

Dr Forrest—Perhaps I could just add one thing to that. The teaching of the arts inLaunceston from next year will involve, to my knowledge, a common first year for studentsdoing the TAFE qualification and students doing the university qualification. They will partcompany after that, depending on their particular interests.

Senator CROSSIN—The university is not a cross-sectoral institution then?

Dr Forrest—No, it has not had that history, as has been the case, for example, in theNorthern Territory or something like that. It has not been the case here. TAFE and the universityhave been separate institutions. The university took over the teaching college, as was happeningto many at the time, and it is now working towards a better relationship with TAFE—but thathas not been in its background.

Senator CROSSIN—The Tasmanian government has done a skills development audit, youhave an industry development plan and you have spoken about the Intelligent Island project. DrForrest, you might be able to comment on this: do you see the University of Tasmania playing akey role in any of the recommendations that come out of this sort of planning and development?

Dr Forrest—Absolutely. It is a major source of qualified employees—to take it at its crudest.For example, my department employs in excess of 100 of the graduates every year, so it isimportant there is some degree of match between what the university is teaching, the nature ofits graduates and the employment opportunities in the state. One of the issues coming from theindustry skills audit has been negotiations between the university and the government over thenumbers, or the load, in different parts of the university. While there will never be a perfectmatch of those things, clearly issues such as the requirement for teachers, the requirement fordoctors and the requirement for nurses have to inform these kinds of discussions. Equally, thegovernment is proposing to set up a body to monitor the development and implementation ofTasmania Together. One position on the board of that body has been specifically reserved for amember of the university.



Mr Bleathman—In addition to skills development, the university is central to innovation.We have heard a lot about innovation over the years, but certainly if you see the university’srole as not just research and skills development but also innovation and intellectual property andideas, you can then harness those ideas. This is where the industry strategy comes into place.You harness those ideas. You capture them at source and bring private sector commercialisationskills to bear on those ideas to grow an economy. Part of the Intelligent Island initiative is todevelop a concept of incubation—that is, you incubate ideas and provide the nurturingenvironment to grow those ideas into commercial opportunities. We have the techno park atGlenorchy. There is one in the north and one in the north-west. There is also talk of one goingon-site here at the university to capture those ideas out of the university and create what isknown as ‘deal flow’. This is the big driver to, say, Silicon Valley in the connection with YaleUniversity. These public research institutes create deal flow. That is one of the strategies that weput in place with the university and we say it is crucial to the economic development ofTasmania.

Senator CROSSIN—You talk about a reduction in funding of up to six per cent—$6 million.In the context of the argument about the University of Tasmania having four main positions ofleadership, as opposed to the argument about having a broad cross-section of courses, how doesa reduction in funding from a Commonwealth government and a change in policy balance thosetwo needs of having specialised areas and a broad cross-section of courses for the widercommunity?

Dr Forrest—My fundamental answer to that would be that it makes for difficult decisionmaking. Clearly, there are fewer places to go around, so keeping up the numbers and keeping upthe breadth is an extremely difficult thing to do. One of the challenges for the universityadministration is to try and balance those two things. I think there is an obligation on auniversity in a place like Tasmania, as I have said to you before, to provide a whole range ofoccupational groups with their training. Nurses and teachers would be two of the best examples.I do not think anybody in Tasmania is at liberty to give away the provision of that kind of corecourse. When you have only one university, as opposed to maybe 10 in another capital city,your choices about specialisation are very much limited. You cannot get into partnerships with aneighbouring university. You cannot split the teaching of languages by saying, ‘We’ll doGerman and you’ll do French.’ I think there are some inhibitions. On the other hand, to attractgood postgraduate researchers, to attract good staff, you clearly need some substantialspecialisations to build up core bodies of researchers and so on. Through its theme areas, whichhave been discussed with the state, the university has arrived at a reasonable compromisebetween the two. If the university were expanding, decision making in this area would be a loteasier than it is now.

CHAIR—As there are no further questions, I thank you for your presence today and for yoursubmission.

Proceedings suspended from 2.55 p.m. to 3.20 p.m.



JAENSCH, Mr Roger Charles, Executive Chairman, Cradle Coast Authority

REID, Mr Russell Balfour, Chief Executive Officer, Business North

CHAIR—The committee has before it submissions Nos 227 and 216. Are there any changesyou wish to make to them?

Mr Jaensch—No.

Mr Reid—No.

CHAIR—The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public, although we willconsider any requests for all or part of your evidence to be given in camera or in private. I nowinvite you both to make an opening statement before we move to questions.

Mr Reid—Business North is a regional organisation representing the interests of businessparticularly but also the wider community in northern Tasmania. We have a goal of increasingwealth in the community and employment as a direct result of that. In Launceston the educationindustry is recognised as a key employer and contributor to the wellbeing of the community andof the region. Over the past two to three decades it has significantly replaced the decliningtextile industries and also the railway industry. Those industries have declined rapidly. Duringthat time education—with both the university’s Launceston campus and also the AustralianMaritime College—has provided a lot of balance, or substitution for the loss of those industries.

We see education as a vital part of the economy of northern Tasmania and particularly ofLaunceston itself. Business North fully supports the submission by the University of Tasmaniaand we do not intend to go through all the details. However, we would like to draw particularattention to two points. The first is that it would appear that Tasmania is underrepresented interms of funded positions, compared with the population across Australia. Secondly, apart fromthe Northern Territory, I think we have the highest proportion of students leaving the state fortheir tertiary education. Losing 19 or 20 per cent of young people out of the state for theireducation is a significant disadvantage for the whole community of Tasmania.

Our initial submission highlighted the concerns of the community in northern Tasmania at therecent loss of the applied science degree from the university’s northern Campus. This is ofconcern because it is a loss of scientific training and research potential for northern Tasmania.As stated in our submission, it has been a concern to a number of the businesses in the regionwhich find it difficult to attract graduates back to a regional area once they have left. I haveadditional information which I could make available in terms of a survey that we did, if that isdeemed necessary, but it would need to remain confidential because some of the businesses thathave responded did not want to be directly involved in a public way.

Our supplementary submission takes the more positive view of identifying an area where webelieve tertiary education can have a very positive effect on northern Tasmania. There is aperception that the university has pulled its scientific education and research efforts out ofnorthern Tasmania with that closure of the applied science school. If the proposal for a new



organisation or a collaborative organisation with the university for an information technologyinstitute were established it would have a strong effect on the perception by the population ofthat decline in services. The brochure that I have made available, which has been prepared as aresult of a search conference undertaken by the Launceston City Council, highlights the fact thatthe vision of Launceston that came from the community was ‘Launceston: our city of learningand innovation open to the world’. There is a section which covers some of the issues withregard to education as part of our lifelong learning process and highlights the importance of theUniversity of Tasmania, the Australian Maritime College, and of course TAFE Tasmania, and avery long-established tradition in education, both public and private, in the Launceston area. Iwould commend to senators the thought that, even if the standard process by which allocationsof funding to universities cannot be used to redress some of the issues that have been raised, thespecific proposal to build on the Institute of Information Technology might be an opportunitysimilar to the development of the Australian Maritime College some 20 years ago, which nowprovides a very strong input to the community in northern Tasmania. With that, I will refer youto the submissions.

Mr Jaensch—I have to preface this submission with a bit of an admission—that I do nothave a great big background in education policy, let alone higher education policy, so thecapacity that I represent here today is that of a user or a beneficiary of higher education atregional scale in one of the more isolated regions of regional Australia, the north-west and westcoasts of Tasmania. In the context of this inquiry, whilst Tasmania may be a region in itself,internally we also recognise our own very distinct regional issues. On that basis I would like toput forward to you, on behalf of my board and the councils that we represent, that the role ofuniversities or regional campuses of larger universities in regional areas like ours is as importantfor regional development as it is for education objectives alone. We have taken an opportunityhere to offer you some issues and some potential policy directions which could apply equally tohigher education policy or regional development policy.

I will start off with the need for there to be recognition of the creation of dedicated federalfunding opportunities for regional campuses of universities or full universities operating inareas of regional Australia, particularly those identified with economic development challenges.I make a distinction there between direct federal funding opportunities that might be accessibleby a regional campus and funding which is to be sourced through parent university institutionsfor regional campuses. An example is our Northwest Centre of the University of Tasmania inBurnie. Ideally, that outfit would be able to access a pool of funding made available specificallyfor campuses of its kind.

Some examples of types of issues that that would address are in point (b) from mysubmission. Increased reliance on private funding could create some competitive disadvantagefor universities or university campuses in regional areas where there is not a critical mass ofcommercial or industrial activity to provide that private input to university functions. That mustbe monitored, and provision should be made, such as safety nets, so that if that becomes anassumed part of the future economy of running universities then we do not have areas withoutcommercial activity suffering relative to those in more developed or metropolitan areas.

Under my point (d), which parallels one of your terms of reference points about equality ofopportunity to participate, I highlight that the north-west and west coast regions of Tasmania arestatistically among the two or three lowest participation rate areas in Australia at the moment.



We do have our regional campus, which is pursuing some fairly innovative participationprograms and reaching out to the schools and the wider community, but we point out also thatthere have been applicants coming through those programs who are well qualified but unable topick up positions in a university. Again, any dedicated funding for regional campuses ofuniversities for participation programs needs also to be linked to the provision of places for thestudents that those programs might create. You cannot have one without the other.

I also point you to a number of dot points about what we, as a regional developmentorganisation, understand to be roles that universities and higher education can contribute to inregional economic development. We put to you that regional universities should perhaps in theregional development context be viewed as some of the places where new opportunities foreconomic growth for Australia—but also for their own regions—can be discovered anddeveloped to a point where they are ready for private or public investment. What we arepitching for here is that in underdeveloped parts of Australia universities are facilities that canprospect for growth opportunities and perhaps do some of the groundwork that brings thoseopportunities to a point where the private sector and governments may seek to invest.

This is the sort of thing that our organisation is very keen on finding for our region. Webelieve that universities have a very strong role there, and we think that there is a fair case for usto partner with the universities. We would like to see an opportunity that might sit outside thenormal funding for universities or outside the normal regional solutions types of fundingpackages which are available to regions for seed funding for collaborative research work whichmight identify new opportunities with identified outcomes where you could bring incommercial players. These facilities, the research capacities and the professional services thatthey can offer are very important in regions like ours, where that research capacity in theprofessional staff is lacking because of our population and demographic. They are the keypoints that I wanted to bring to your attention.

CHAIR—Thank you. We heard from the Tasmanian government just before about theirefforts at state development in the Burnie region—the establishment of the campus there. Areyou in effect suggesting a larger-scale and federal version of what the state government hasbeen attempting to do in your region?

Mr Jaensch—No, I am suggesting that there needs to be an ability for campuses like that torespond to their regional demands—other than through only their parent institutions and theirbusiness plans—because in their role as parts of regional development there may beopportunities for those universities to expand into new roles which are not necessarily cateredfor in the business planning of parent institutions.

CHAIR—I appreciate that. But, if I recall, the partnership agreement between the Universityof Tasmania and the Tasmanian government had, as its objective, state development in theBurnie region quite separate and distinct from the University of Tasmania’s charter.

Mr Jaensch—Yes. Again, partnership agreements are something that we are all becomingfamiliar with here. They are very valuable things. At all times, though, there will be a need to beable to access greater pools of resources than can be secured through partnership agreementsfrom time to time. What could happen is that the partnership process could be very valuable foridentifying opportunities where there may be a state and a regional or a university component



which can then be built up as a comprehensive proposal to take it up to a federal level resourcefund opportunity to take it a step further.

Senator BRANDIS—The committee heard evidence from some witnesses today—inparticular, some witnesses from within the universities themselves—that implied or assertedthat collaborative research partnerships with the private sector might compromise academicfreedom or the integrity of universities and might divert the universities into an undesirablycommercial focus, if I could sum it up that way. What do you say about that point of view?

Mr Jaensch—I think that becomes an issue if you get to a point where private funding is asubstantial component of the core operations of a university or a university campus or faculty.In this paper, I have advocated that those sorts of partnerships are particularly valuable forregional development but they should not replace the core operations of universities. So you cansort of quarantine some aspects which relate to the academic integrity of an institution but at thesame time be able to operate projects which have serious commercial implications andpartnership opportunities in the regions.

Senator BRANDIS—Mr Reid, do you have any views about that?

Mr Reid—As Business North, we have had several discussions with representatives of theuniversity. That is one of the issues that have been raised. However, my understanding hasgenerally been that the university would encourage more involvement with industry. We alsohave feedback from industry that they would like to be more involved. Our perception is that wehave two groups of people who are not marketing or conveying the opportunities between eachother to the mutual benefit of both. We looked at all the research projects undertaken by theUniversity of Tasmania and a very small number of those appear to have any direct commercialapplication. We would like to see more of that. We know that the industry in the region wouldlike to see more of that and the university state that they would like to see more of that, butthere seems to be a lack of channels for that to happen at the moment.

Senator BRANDIS—We also heard some evidence from one of the student bodyrepresentatives this morning that the establishment in Launceston of campuses of this universityhad had a bad effect, as I understand, upon the operational cohesion of the university. Thatmight reflect domestic Tasmanian prejudices. I should give you the opportunity to comment onthat. How beneficial has it been?

Mr Reid—I am a graduate of the university when it was only in Hobart—that was a fairwhile ago now. I can understand that if you have everything centred in one place it is theeconomic rationalist viewpoint. From a student organisation viewpoint it might also be easier ifit were centralised.

Senator BRANDIS—It sounded to me to be more of a comfort zone viewpoint.

Mr Reid—That is right. But I would like to support the view that Roger has also stated, thatthe university has a greater impact in rural and regional areas than it does in larger metropolitanareas, because very much it provides the intellectual capital for any new development, which inlarger metropolitan areas can come from a range of sources. It also provides a social model forstudents that are going on to study. If there is some area of study or of activity beyond industrial



rural base, it encourages students to go towards that. As Roger has said, the north-west coastarea of Tasmania is probably one of the worst represented areas in terms of numbers going on totertiary education. Launceston is well below the average, and part of that is the lack of range ofopportunities for people to stay in those areas, we believe.

Mr Jaensch—Approaching it from the other side of the mirror, if you like, this is one of thethings that we identify with our campus that we have in our region at the moment. It is the sameissue that that student was talking about here in Hobart. There is a need for a university to beable to offer a community of academic pursuit or a university community, particularly inregions where people have not traditionally had any contact with higher learning in theirfamilies at all and for whom the jump to head outside a trades or unemployment future might bea big jump culturally in itself. That is a very important thing.

The other aspect in there is not just numbers, but our campus at the moment provides a fairlygeneric preparatory range of courses with the idea that people seeking further advancement intheir tertiary career come down to Hobart or move away to the mainland universities. We arelucky we have the headquarters of our agricultural research programs in the university, and thatis an example of the ability to create a critical mass around a specific field which has somerelevance to the region, particularly in our region, where we have a fair bit of adjustmenthappening in our rural and agricultural sectors. This is a way that we can offer kids leaving thefamily farm a bit of an insight into careers associated with primary industry that they might nothave thought of before. The push there is that, whilst we do not need to try and duplicate fullycomprehensive campuses every 50 yards along the highway, and Tasmania has been a little bitof a victim of that sort of duplication before, there is a strong case for developing places ofexcellence in specific fields which are relevant to the local economies and developing thecritical mass there of the learning community, which makes people feel comfortable and givesyou a reasonable body of people for the other aspects of university life.

Senator BRANDIS—It can also apply more generally, can’t it? It surely is not a coincidencethat many of the great universities of the world—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford andCambridge—are universities that were established and continue to exist in relatively smallcentres, so the idea of a university town is something that can work functionally very well andenhance the quality of the educational opportunities the university provides.

Mr Jaensch—Exactly. And, particularly if that facility has some dedicated purpose, or atleast some strong suit, it increases its relevance for the regional community, who do notnecessarily know a lot about universities. In our area, particularly with our agricultural research,if they are coming up with innovations that have some significance, there are a fewannouncements around, people can generate a sense of pride in a regional institution that theymay never have contact with themselves, but their kids might because somehow they can sheetit home to something else that they know or do in their area.

A university just as ‘university’ might seem very foreign to some parts of our regionalcommunity but if, for example, it is producing important research outcomes and innovations fordairy production then all of a sudden there is a whole sector of our community who can relate touniversity. Without that capacity to develop some excellence and critical mass in particularresearch fields, we are just not going to get that crossover between generations, if you like, orinto our potential student market.



Senator BRANDIS—So you say that the universities in regional centres enjoy the dividendof a more appreciative community, rather than one in a capital city which might take theuniversity for granted as just another public resource?

Mr Jaensch—I believe so—particularly where people can identify with a particular strengthin which they can see relevance to their regional economy.

Senator CARR—You are basically advocating a model of the university which is verydifferent from the current arrangements. It is perhaps more consistent with a model that mightwell have passed in this country, which had specialists—for instance, agricultural colleges—in aparticular region. If I hear you correctly, you are actually saying that you want faculties located,not universities.

Mr Jaensch—Not necessarily. I think there is value in the sort of generic or introductory orpreparatory roles that a centre like the Northwest Centre provides as an entry point for a wholerange of students to a variety of university careers. At the same time, there is a lot of benefit tobe had by those university campuses being able to develop specialist capacities or capabilities,if they exist or if they can be found, that link up to the local economy or specifically that area.At the moment we are very fortunate that our campus is the capital of the agricultural researchparts, but there could be others out there.

Senator CARR—I see the point you are making. Clearly that has some political support.Presumably the state government would have encouraged the development of centres such asthe one you are speaking of. They normally would not occur with the normal application ofeducational economics, would they?

Mr Jaensch—That is right. That is why, as a new regional development organisation in aregion like ours where resources are fairly thin on the ground, we are very keen to partner upwith organisations like the university and have them prospecting for new economic growthopportunities which we can then add our networks of influence and development to.

Senator CARR—So in effect you are actually arguing against a market approach; yousuggesting that there needs to be a more planned provision?

Mr Jaensch—To some extent. There is also a fair case of market failure in a lot of ourregional areas. I think that organisations like ours need to be getting proactive about it.Universities are part of a team that we are going to need to find those next opportunities andmake them real.

Senator CARR—Mr Reid, in your submission you speak of the need for an informationtechnology institute as part of the university.

Mr Reid—From the feedback that we received from the initial submission, which was raisingconcerns about loss of a particular area of study and research at the university, we decided itwas more appropriate to come up with some ideas. We believe that the IT institute does have alot of synergy with what else is going on there. I think it was the state government that wastalking earlier about the need for interactive learning from the university as well. There are anumber of private organisations in Launceston that are already marketing interactive learning,



to a certain extent to the world but certainly Australia wide. The Australian Maritime College iscertainly committed to extending its interactive learning via the Internet because it services aworld population. We see this as being not only a learning process but also the groundwork forall those other developments.

Senator CARR—Again, though, you are actually asking the government to intervene tomake a decision, as distinct from allowing the market to determine an outcome.

Mr Reid—Yes. I believe that there is certainly a place for us to show leadership as well as tofollow market trends, because it is only by demonstrating leadership that we change the trend.At the moment rural areas are declining.

Senator CARR—I appreciate the point you are making. The other problem presumably youface is that other universities have a similar idea. In Queensland, for instance, they are veryanxious to promote Internet learning and they will actually seek to attract students from yourdistrict to a university in Queensland via the Internet.

Mr Reid—I think we would both share the view that if there is going to be leadership shownin terms of where and how a university is developed then the impact you can have in a rural orregional area by channelling some of the university resources there is far more significant thanthe apparent loss that will come from that kind of area.

Senator CARR—My question relates to the capacity of state governments, for instance, tostop another state government encouraging students to attend their universities, for instance,from Tasmania to attend a university in Queensland online.

Mr Jaensch—I do not necessarily think that that is a terribly bad thing. I think you go whereyou can. You go and access the quality of courses and supports that are available to youwherever you are. For people in our region, the ability to access that electronically through new-age facilities at our universities is important. What we want to be able to do, though, in a regionlike ours where over the last decade we have lost several major industrial employers, where weare trying to build an economic recovery and establish some new prime movers for the localeconomy in industry, is to be able to offer investors and developers a research capacity and anenergetic, cooperative, flexible higher education facility which can—

Senator CARR—A skilled work force.

Mr Jaensch—No, which can participate in the development of things like centres ofexcellence.

Senator CARR—I understand the point you make precisely. I ask you to accept myassurance that I do appreciate the impact of structural adjustment. Isn’t the problem that youface, though, that without specific government intervention the sorts of pressures that are goingto be on the public sector mean that people want to know why public investment should be inthis particular location as distinct from any other? After all, these are going to be finite publicdollars that you are asking to be invested in your community.



Mr Reid—I think there is a very easy answer to that. We have for a number of reasonsdecided over the last decade to increase the level of superannuation. We are now about 10 percent taken out of everyone’s wage. Most of that money goes out of regional areas into probablythree major metropolitan areas for investment, simply because when we hand over the economicpower to people who are bound to make economically rational decisions then they are not goingto invest in regional areas. We could argue, though, that for the last decade 10 per cent of thewealth of regional Australia has been taken out of regional Australia through that mechanismalone. It is reasonable for governments then to make decisions that compensate for that.

Senator CARR—What sort of support do you think local investment decision makers,businesses, are going to actually contribute to such a proposal?

Mr Reid—Our view, having spoken to a lot of the businesses in the region, is that they wouldlike to be more involved with the university. They have not really had the recognition of howthat can be a mutually beneficial arrangement as yet. I believe that there is some opportunitythere to improve that interaction.

Senator CARR—There is a general question here about the level of industry contribution.You have heard the argument about some of the negative effects, but there may well be othersthat would say—for instance, in the vocational education area—that industry does not investsufficiently in regard to vocational education. You are arguing for highly vocational programs,as I read most of what you have said, although, Mr Jaensch, you have also suggested thereshould be some entry level programs as well. The thrust of what you are saying is that you wantmatters that are related to local industry.

Mr Jaensch—I am talking there about support being available which is quarantined, if youlike, for access on a competitive basis by university or university facilities in regional areas inrecognition of the importance of new research efforts and seed funding for new researchdirections to regional development. It may not require a new allocation as such; it may requiresimply a quarantining of a parcel of funds which are available on a competitive basis from thosesorts of applicants. Relating to what you said earlier, we are not necessarily talking about havinga case where someone is going to have to defend putting money in this area specifically againstother areas. What you would be doing is having resources available with certain criteria whichare accessible on a competitive basis by these sorts of organisations.

Senator CARR—Mr Jaensch, what you are proposing is quite a serious departure from thecurrent government’s policies in regard to competition policy, for a start.

Mr Jaensch—In what way?

Senator CARR—The idea of quarantining funds to go to particular areas, I would havethought, might be difficult to defend in terms of the current legislative framework.

Mr Jaensch—There are other funding packages available for sectors or for different parts ofour community. The Regional Solutions Fund is an important one which has been earmarked forregional Australia. It would be a fairly important one in this last couple of years.



Senator CARR—Fair enough. I am making the point to you that it does require quite asubstantial change in thinking in the current arrangements.

Mr Jaensch—Yes. That is where it is important. I have crafted the wording quite carefullyhere. It is me speaking from a region to you as government. The things that I am speaking ofhere are not necessarily higher education policy issues. They could equally apply to regionaldevelopment policy. On that basis, any cocktail of the two will do us, but we have a need.

CHAIR—Mr Reid, do you live in Launceston?

Mr Reid—Yes.

CHAIR—And you studied in Hobart?

Mr Reid—Yes.

CHAIR—One of the concerns the students raised with us this morning was the difficulty inaccessing full course loads across two campuses. It was put to us that a third-year sociologystudent would need to travel. They are enrolled in the course in Hobart but, to pick up at leastsome of their subject choices—and it was not clear whether it was required to complete theirdegree—a third-year student would need to travel to Launceston one day per week. How viabledo you think that is for students in terms of the locational aspects of Tasmania?

Mr Reid—I do not think most students are in a position financially to be able to travelbetween campuses on a weekly basis. However, the medical school here has a strategy wherebyfifth-year students do that year in Launceston, or at least part of that year, as a block. I think thatis probably a more appropriate way to handle that issue.

CHAIR—Yes. It is one thing to talk about the benefits of establishing campuses in variouslocations, but if your staffing dollar becomes so scarce that you are looking at trying to shiftstudents between campuses in order to maintain a course load in a particular location, you arecreating some fairly extreme circumstances for students by requiring that level of travel inTasmania, aren’t you?

Mr Reid—Certainly. We discussed with the university the closure of the School of AppliedScience in Launceston prior to it actually occurring, and the need for staff to teach relativelysmaller groups of people in Launceston was one of the concerns there. From a competitionperspective of the university and an economic rationalist viewpoint, they probably should haveonly one university campus. But the point that we are both trying to present is that we see otheroutcomes from universities and higher education other than just being the most efficient way toteach a group of students. We see them as having a significant impact on the whole wellbeing ofthe country.

CHAIR—As there are no further questions, thank you very much for your appearance.



[4.06 p.m.]

GLENN, Professor Andrew, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), University of Tasmania

JOHNSTON, Professor Sue, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning), University ofTasmania

McNICOL, Professor Donald, Vice-Chancellor, University of Tasmania

CHAIR—I welcome representatives of the University of Tasmania. I take this opportunity tothank the university for its hospitality to the committee. We appreciate the efforts ofaccommodating us in circumstances that have probably been less than convenient. Thecommittee has before it submission No. 172. Are there any changes you wish to make to thatsubmission?

Prof. McNicol—No, Senator.

CHAIR—The committee prefers all evidence to be given in public although we will considerany request for all or part of any evidence to be given in camera. I point out, however, that suchevidence may subsequently be made public by order of the Senate. I now invite you to make anopening statement and then we will move to questions.

Prof. McNicol—Thank you. If I can try to summarise the major thrust of our submission itmight make it easier for you to see what messages we are trying to convey. It is pretty simplythis: we have put before you information and data which I think strongly suggests that theuniversity is not at present capable of meeting the higher education needs of the state. We areunderprovided in places to meet student demand. It appears from the analysis that we have donethat on a population share basis Tasmania in fact has a smaller share than might be expected ofhigher education places and that correcting that problem alone would go some way towardsameliorating the constraints that we find in offering a sufficient range of programs and asufficient number of places to satisfy students.

We are concerned at the number of Tasmanians who enrol in universities outside the state. Wethink that is partly indicative of the fact that we are unable to provide places and opportunitiesfor them. Ultimately that has an impact on the state’s development. It is a place where theproportion of graduates is somewhat lower than in the rest of the national work force. We find ita pity that we are actually not able to provide places in our programs for all of those students.

We have noted since 1996 that we have suffered a diminution in our Commonwealthoperating grant to the tune of about six per cent and a reduction in our funding per EFTSU.Disturbingly, our student-staff ratios have gone from about 15:1 to 18:2 over that period, whichreflects two problems for us. One is a decline in the quality of the experience that a student has.The university has prided itself on having high levels of contact between staff and students in itsteaching programs and of course an increase of something in the order of about 20 per cent instudent-staff ratios makes it difficult to achieve that goal. Secondly, every staff member you loseis a loss of expertise, which means that the range of programs and courses you can offer your



students, given that we are the only university in the state, is reduced at the same time. In fact,the loss of some 123 academic staff during that period equates to about the entirety of theFaculty of Arts at its present size. The Faculty of Arts is one of our biggest faculties. It is asignificant loss of academic expertise in the state over that time.

I guess if we had a wish about policy change we would not mind going back and restartingthe clock at about 1996 and looking at what the 1996 to 1998 higher education funding reporthad in it. It projected modest growth for the university for the subsequent period. If youextrapolated it forward to now, it would bring our student load up to about 9,500 EFTSU which,coincidentally—and I say ‘coincidentally’ because I do not think it was in the mind ofgovernment planners to look that far ahead at the time—would just about give us the populationshare Tasmania would have expected for student places, that is, 9,500 students and a student-staff ratio in the order of 15 to 1 in 1996 probably would have given Tasmania a universitycapable of meeting the majority of its needs. It is a pity that the vision has taken us back to8,790 EFTSU today and a student-staff ratio of 18 to 1. We would like to see a reconsiderationof the vision that the Commonwealth has for the university’s development in that kind ofcontext.

Senator CARR—Thank you very much for a very frank assessment of the situation. Iacknowledge that these things are often difficult for university administrations to deal with. Ithink it is unusual for a vice-chancellor to be as direct as you have been with what is clearly anextraordinarily difficult situation. To be able to say that you are not able to meet the needs of thestate is, I think, quite a profound acknowledgment. I do not for a moment suggest that this isnecessarily the responsibility of the administration of this university for this situation. I placethose comments on the record because some of the things I may have to say may be equallydifficult with regard to some of the consequences of what has happened. You have basically saidthat there has been a six per cent cut, that you have had a serious decline in quality, that 103academic staff have gone and that several millions of dollars have been taken from youroperating budget. Today we have had a number of complaints put forward to us concerning staffmorale. We have had some serious issues raised with regard to quality assurance that comesabout as a result of some of these matters. People will interpret some issues differently from theway I have just put it. I think that the de-accreditation of an engineering program is a seriousmatter. We have suggestions that there have been quite serious problems within the universityitself which have led to the staffing review. Do you believe that these sorts of problems are aproduct of the policy directions that have taken place since 1996?

Prof. McNicol—Senator, you have mentioned a few other things which I think probablydeserve some comment along the way. In my opening remarks I said that the quality of theexperience that our students have in studying at university has suffered as a result of cuts andworsening student-staff ratios. I am not saying that the quality of those students as graduates hasbeen affected.

Senator CARR—No, I am not making that allegation.

Prof. McNicol—I would like to get that on the record because I know the issue of whether ornot universities have somehow dropped their standards is a significant one. If you wish torevisit that, we can. But for students and staff—who have all borne the burden of dealing withdiminished resources—it is much to their credit that the quality of our graduates and the work



that the staff puts in still make us proud of the people that have University of Tasmania degrees.The issue of the engineering program and Singapore is not something to do with programquality. Alas, the history of that is a failure at an administrative level to provide the Singaporeanauthorities with appropriate documentation about the program in a timely fashion. It issomething that Singaporeans are not terribly forgiving about. As a consequence, we are nowtrying to redress that. Again, I would like to have it on the record that I think the quality ofprograms offered to international students and the recognition that they have internationally isnot something that we have grave anxieties about.

Nevertheless, to now answer the question with those caveats around it, if your budget isreduced and your student load goes down, it greatly restricts your capacity to do the things thatyou think you ought to be doing, like teaching your programs and getting your research anddevelopment done. Those constraints are obviously a problem for us and a problem for ourstate. We are not always able to produce graduates in sufficient numbers for the work force, forexample. Work force projections show that the state needs more engineers, and we shouldproduce more engineers, but it is actually difficult to produce more engineering graduates whenin fact you have a limited range of student load. You may well have heard that there will be ademand for teachers, but if you put places into teacher education then you cannot develop yourprograms in information systems and computing, which are other needs. So we have abalancing act which is really rationing scarce resources across a range of outcomes. We knowwe are falling short of targets in some of those areas.

Senator CARR—But you are saying that the university believes that you are seriously shortof money and that is the cause of the problem? Have I understood you correctly or not?

Prof. McNicol—Money is something that you use for other purposes. Certainly, if we hadmore money, we could do more things. But our primary argument is that we do not have asufficient number of student places to meet the state’s needs and the programs we have. Thatimplies money, but the basis of it is that we actually need the growth to get the numbers back tothe projections, rather than simply making some kind of request for some blank cheques. Wehave a very specific view about the size we would like the university to be, based on theinformation that we have. That has financial implications, no doubt. The argument from ourpoint of view is more about places in the first instance. That justifies, I think, our request forresources.

Senator CROSSIN—You say that in 1999 you offered places over and above your target andyou did the same in 2000. If in fact, though, you do offer to take students over and above youravailable places, are you not compensated by that from DETYA?

Prof. McNicol—At a very marginal rate. The funds you get for overenrolment are not of theorder where we would think it a good thing to carry a very heavy level of overenrolment,because all that does is simply reduce the funding per student. We carry overenrolmentprimarily as a buffer against falling short on the target, because the penalties going on the left-hand side are much greater than the rewards going on the right-hand side.

Senator CARR—You do not have a large overenrolment at this institution, do you?



Prof. McNicol—No, we pegged our overenrolment back. We believe we can operate within atwo per cent safety margin.

Senator CARR—That is what I thought.

Senator CROSSIN—What is the difficulty there? Is the difficulty in the way your places areassessed in terms of capping the number of places, or is the problem in the way those places arefunded at a reduced rate compared to what they were some years back?

Prof. McNicol—Places are funded at a reduced rate, but the first question is the moreinteresting one. Primarily, one of the drivers of allocation of places across the system is theestimates of participation rates. Probably there has been—and I think our submission goesthrough this in some detail, as does the state government’s—a misunderstanding aboutparticipation in higher education in Tasmania, and the use of those statistics has probably led toTasmania’s needs being underestimated. We think it would be desirable that the methodologyand process used to make those relative judgments be revisited, simply. That alone—withouttalking about any policy changes, but simply asking whether the judgments that have been madeabout Tasmanian higher education participation have been correct or not—would go a long wayto getting our problems sorted out vis-a-vis load share against other states.

CHAIR—You said that if the plan from 1996 to 1998 had been applied, you would have hadsufficient places to meet the population or the need, so what has changed in the planning sensein the allocation of places?

Prof. McNicol—If I may correct the first part a little bit, I said that if you had extrapolatedthat plan through to now, we would have ended up with about 9,500 EFTSU. Of course, theplanning stopped at 1998; we do not know what the Commonwealth would have done. Whathappened, of course, was the decision, in effect, to cap load and put in the six per cent reductionwhen the budgets were being recast—

Senator CARR—That’s about 21,000 fewer places in the forward estimates. That is how ithappened.

Prof. McNicol—Yes.

CHAIR—And you were caught at a time when your estimate had been calculated on a lowerparticipation rate.

Prof. McNicol—Even then, if we look back at that time, the Tasmanian participation ratesand demand were being underestimated. Once you have got growth completely capped, theprospect of being able to make adjustments in the system are that much harder. Everybody waslosing student load and dollars, and so a readjustment of load was probably going to be a verydifficult thing for higher education planners to do in that context.

Senator CARR—I asked you before about the staffing review that you have undertaken. Areyou able to give the committee any advice as to the progress of that review? The stategovernment has advised us that a report will be published in three weeks. Is that true?



Prof. McNicol—The schedule, as I understand it, is that the review report will be in front ofthe council at its May meeting.

Senator CARR—Will it be made public?

Prof. McNicol—I imagine so. That is a matter for the council to determine.

Senator CARR—Yes.

Prof. McNicol—I am assuming that, probably, the answer is yes, but it will be a councildecision.

Senator CARR—Will a copy of the review be made available to the committee?

Prof. McNicol—If it is requested.

Senator CARR—It is requested. Is it possible to have it made available?

Prof. McNicol—Yes.

Senator CARR—Thank you. I am interested in the proposition that has come forward. As Ihave indicated to you already, I understand the difficulties the university administration isfacing, but a number of submissions have mentioned the priorities that have been determinedand the decisions that have been taken by the university administration in regard to dealing withthe crisis in funding. There has been the claim that there has been a disadvantage felt by thehumanities and liberal arts and that it is a result of decisions taken by the universityadministration. How do you respond to that?

Prof. McNicol—On the teaching side—I might have to go back and look at the data toconfirm this—probably the arts faculty was pretty much the same after the last round ofdecisions as it was before it. The point where they got into the greatest trouble was in theapplication of the new research funding scheme. We now have, in effect, a separation in thecalculation of funds for research, which are rather largely performance based, and we decided,in effect, to mirror the allocation of research funds to our faculties and schools. We decided tomirror the Commonwealth allocation process. There was a very good reason for doing that. Ifyou want to optimise your take of those funds on a performance basis, you had better be prettyclearly responsive to the rules for handing them out.

Senator CARR—Professor Glenn, would you say then that the decision is a reflection ofCommonwealth policies? That is where the buck stops.

Prof. Glenn—It is very much responding to the external environment.

Senator BRANDIS—Can you elaborate a little on what you mean by the ‘externalenvironment’?

Prof. Glenn—Just the changes that came in with the white paper.



Senator CARR—So that is one of the consequences. I want to be clear about yoursubmission to the committee. You are saying that if you implement the decisions as they arestated in Canberra, the impact will be that, in terms of the research quantum, the humanities andliberal arts will be worse off?

Prof. McNicol—Certainly, in the immediate future that looks to be the case, simply becauseof the problems about completion rates on postgraduate students. That was the big factor thatreally moved resources around. If you allocated postgraduate places on predicted completionrates, you tended to move places out of non-science areas into science areas, rather largely, andProfessor Glenn can correct me if I—

Prof. Johnston—And there are grants and things of that nature.

Senator CARR—On the question of students fleeing the state—this has been put to us—it isargued that the university’s decision to concentrate on areas of specialisation has actuallyreduced the breadth of course offerings and, as a consequence, made it more likely that peoplewill be required to go interstate to get a number of programs. How do you respond to that?

Prof. McNicol—I think anybody who has said that has a fairly big misunderstanding of thesituation. This probably refers to the university’s nomination of its theme areas, which were theareas of strength that we thought reflected our major efforts in R&D. I will tell you how wearrived at those theme areas. There is not some kind of new overlay on top of the universitystructure replacing things, but it came as a result of an analysis of what we were doing, what wewere good at, and a recognition that we needed to break away from being an institution whichwas very disciplinary based to one where you had multidisciplinary activities. If you look atthose areas of concentration, they were aimed at actually maximising participation from asmany parts of the university in them as possible—with big integrating themes which wouldinform our teaching programs on the one hand and also strengthen our research groups on theother. So I would have thought that that move was more likely to preserve diversity than to havea lot of little separate and very vulnerable enterprises likely to fall by the wayside.

Senator CARR—The NTEU last year carried a series of resolutions concerning theoperations of the administration of this university. I am advised that one of the outcomes fromthose resolutions—and I can go to the detail of those resolutions if you would like me to, but Ithink you are familiar with the ones I am talking about—was for the university to establish itsstaff review. Is that true? Is that a fair analysis of the events and, if not, can you explain to mewhy you think it was necessary to establish a staff review?

Prof. McNicol—It is a review of administration and policy making—I think that is thecorrect term. As I recall it, the trigger for that was a resolution that was passed at the AcademicSenate. The resolution was proposed by one of the senior professors—not somebody I hadactually ever thought was a major player in the NTEU—and it was seconded by me, and it wasaccepted by the council. The reason we thought that this was a desirable thing to do is thatduring that year, when we had been making major changes, it had shown that under pressure theuniversity’s decision making processes probably were not robust and rapid enough to deal withthe environmental change we are in, or were not sufficiently good at engaging all of thestakeholder input that we needed, and that it was a good opportunity to have a look at ourselves.



We did not think, in fact, that the environment of the future was going to be any less demandingthan the one we were in at the time.

Senator CARR—What sorts of areas of change do you think are likely or are required?

Prof. McNicol—I think we discovered that it sometimes took a long time to make a decision,but not all of the people who were involved in it were necessarily well informed, not everybodyhad the authority to act decisively in order to get something to happen. We probably did nothave sufficiently good data and ways of collecting it to inform some of the decisions we wantedto make, so that we needed to, in fact, revise our planning processes in order to get a morestrategic approach to planning our future. We also had some doubts about whether some of thestructures that we have in place are going to suit us into the future. Are our academic schoolsand faculties best organised for future development? These are the issues which are basicallyout on the table. I think all members of the university—the union, the governing body, thesenior administration, rank and file staff, senior professors—have an interest in ensuring that theuniversity is actually able to cope effectively with change, which is going to keep on coming onat us. A review of this sort is aimed at getting us in a good position to do just that.

Senator CARR—Do you think the reliance upon overseas students is going to be sufficientto get you out of the financial difficulties?

Prof. McNicol—We would not have thought so. We are pleased to see some increase in ouroverseas student numbers, but if you look at the University of Tasmania’s balance of overseasstudents to Australian ones we are pretty close to the average load. Unlike some institutionswhich have a very high student load, we had not really planned to expand to that kind of level.You have to remember that the carrying capacity for overseas students rather depends on youreducational profile. If you have an educational profile which is very heavy generally in thingslike business studies, engineering and technology, you usually find that those institutions havemore overseas students in them per capita than those like ours, which are much morecomprehensive. For example, if you want to contrast two universities, compare the Universityof Western Australia with Curtin University and you will see that the UWA’s academic profileand program, which looks much more like ours, has a much lower proportion of overseasstudents than, say, Curtin’s, which has come from a different tradition of courses. We arelimited, ultimately, as our overseas students will not necessarily want to do all of the things thatwe have here. For the number of overseas students that we can put in the place, we do notnecessarily see this as the ultimate salvation of income generation. But we do see overseasstudents as important, and we do see it as quite necessary for any Australian university tomaintain a mix of international students in its student complement.

CHAIR—Do you have any domestic fee paying students?

Prof. McNicol—The only fee paying students we would have would be in postgraduatecourse work programs.

CHAIR—Thank you.

Senator CARR—Professor, Dr Colin Hinrichsen—submission No. 10—has put to us claimsthat the anatomy department here has reduced its hours very substantially and, in fact, cut them



in half. He has raised a number of other concerns relating to marking processes at the university.I am sure you are familiar with the detail of it. This is your opportunity to actually give us yourview on the submission.

Prof. McNicol—I understand that Professor Stewart Nicol was going to give you a muchmore detailed analysis of matters relating to that, particularly the issue of student hours. To tryto give you an analysis off the top of my head about how much anatomy is taught in the MBBSprogram would probably be likely to mislead, rather than to inform, the committee. I have readProfessor Nicol’s response and I do not believe, on the basis of that, that the Hinrichsen claimsabout the diminution of anatomy teaching are correct.

What I think I could say, as the vice-chancellor rather than somebody who is an expert in themedical curriculum, is, firstly, that the curriculum for the MBBS is probably the most rigorouslyinspected and quality controlled in the institution. It is subject to regular accreditation by theAustralian Medical Council, and we are in the middle of an accreditation process at themoment. They will be visiting the university later this year. The changes in the curriculum inrelation to anatomy were made in response to the accrediting body’s suggestions aboutmodernising the program. I can appreciate that an individual staff member may believe that hisor her component of the course is extremely important and ought to have more weight. That isnot uncommon for those of us who teach things; we like to think that the stuff we teach isimportant. On the other hand, I am probably wiser to take notice of the body which is actuallyasking whether the totality of a degree program for training doctors is appropriate. I think thatthe medical faculty was wise and prudent, in fact, to make changes which met modernrequirements for medical education. The details about the hours will be in Professor Nicol’sresponse to you.

On the student issue, which is one on which I have actually spent a bit more time trying tounderstand, very simply what we have here is a student who appealed against a mark. Theformal appeals process was gone through with re-examination, ultimately the student’s appealwas won by the student and, after re-examination, he passed the course. It was as simple as that.

Although individual staff members may have views about the assignment of marks incourses, all assessment is ultimately moderated by faculties and their examiners committees andall of those decisions are appealable by students who believe that there has been unfairassessments or possibly errors of process. From my reading of the documentation, the facultyresponded appropriately in dealing with the appeal, although the individual staff member may,of course, have had a different view.

Senator CARR—Professor McNicol, there is a perception that issues of commercialisationare driving down standards. For instance, the case of the Academic Senate at this universityagreeing to change a postgraduate course program in masters in education, we are told, toshorten the course, so that their programs were more competitive. How do respond to thatproposition?

Prof. McNicol—I cannot see in our university the evidence which would support that. Peoplewill, of course, change the length of courses and views will vary, on grounds of pedagogy aswell as anything else, from time to time about how long a course should be. For a long time,when the Commonwealth was prepared to pay for it, people lengthened their courses whenever



they could. Now, without that kind of opportunity, some courses are actually heading back inthe other direction. In the end, you have to have good academic judgment about what you needin a program and its duration for it to train someone to a professional level. I do not think thatacademics have surrendered that professional judgment at the altar of some commercial god. Ido not believe that our people think that way; I think that they actually have rather more pride inthe reputation of the institution than to do something like that. I certainly do not believe that ofthe education faculty. It is a faculty which has had, for a long period of time in its history, veryhigh standards.

Senator CARR—I would like to take you through this one quote, and this will be my finalquestion as it goes to the specifics of these issues. This was a quote that arose surrounding thepublication of Why Universities Matter last year. Stuart Macintyre and Simon Marginson—I amsure that you would be aware of their work—describe how:

.. the transformation of higher education into a market-oriented, user-pays business providing service to industry andgenerating foreign income has seriously eroded the capacity of the university to carry out its traditional civic functions topreserve and advance knowledge, to prepare students for their professional careers in a broad intellectual setting designedto foster inquiry, and to reflect on public issues. They suggest that the most striking feature of the present situation is theloss of confidence in the academic mission; academics have been reluctant to affirm the values of intellectual inquiry andthe pursuit of truth, and to communicate with the public about what is happening within the university, especially thethreat to academic freedom and the degradation of standards.

As a vice-chancellor, how do respond to those sentiments?

Prof. McNicol—Not in this one.

Senator CARR—Would it occur at any other university? Is the university system facing athreat as outlined by these two authors?

Prof. McNicol—Of course, there is always a threat. There is always a risk, once you actuallybalance off things, that you could tilt one way or the other, but to say that Australian universitieshave lost any sense of civic mission does not describe the universities I have worked in—and intimes during which they have been under funding pressure. It certainly has not muted theacademics in speaking out on matters that they think are important. I think it would be a terriblething for people to actually come to that belief. It just does not square with the world I live in ofthe way in which academics behave.

Senator CARR—I come back to this point: members of your staff carried a resolution in Julylast year that said there was a climate of fear and mistrust that prevented the necessary anduseful public debate about the role and functioning of the university. Why would they say that ifthey did not believe it to be true?

Prof. McNicol—If you looked at what happened during that period and in the run-up to it, wehave had an institution which has been under a high degree of stress, not only in the workloadsthat staff have had to bear but also in managing change and making some decisions which werenot necessarily congenial to everybody and certainly not to everybody’s advantage. It would befair to say that, during that time in this institution and many others, the usual processes ofgoodwill and collegiality have been under a lot of pressure. I think you are seeing thosesentiments coming through in statements of that sort. This is the response of an institutionwhere the pressures are very strong and where a lot of the normal give and take has gone and



where there has been less tolerance all round as people have been trying to deal with quitecomplex issues. I think that it is a simple as that. I do not think there is something more sinistersitting underneath that. You are just looking at strong pressures on institutions and normalhuman responses to those.

Senator BRANDIS—Professor McNicol, do you happen to know how many staff were at themeeting that carried the resolution that Senator Carr has just quoted to you?

Prof. McNicol—No, I do not know. If you ask whether everybody was there, no. Mostly,union meetings do not attract large numbers of staff because most staff members, although theymay actually belong to a union, do not necessarily participate actively in their meetings. But Icould not give a number.

Senator BRANDIS—Professor McNicol, you have said in your evidence that the universityhad experienced a six per cent reduction in its Commonwealth operating grant. Since when isthat, please?

Prof. McNicol—Looking at us now vis-a-vis the situation in 1996.

Senator BRANDIS—Since 1996, what has been the percentage increase or decrease—whatever it may be—in the gross revenues from all sources of the university?

Prof. McNicol—Senator, I do not have those numbers in front of me but no doubt they are inthe financial statements of the university and we could get them out quite easily because theyare on the public record.

Senator BRANDIS—You must have a general awareness, Professor, as to whether the grossrevenues over that period have gone up or down.

Prof. McNicol—The gross revenues will have gone up but this is where I think we and theminister—as a system—tend to lock horns. There are some areas of notable success, I think, inrevenue increases in universities, some from external income. Most notably for us, we havebeen able to increase research income. But a dollar which is being spent on research is notending up in a classroom teaching a student.

Senator BRANDIS—It is being applied for one of the variety of purposes which universitiesserve.

Prof. McNicol—We now have very specific requirements on how a lot of our income is to bespent. When we get a research grant, there is a strong acquittal process: it gets spent onresearch. We do not siphon money off elsewhere, otherwise the ARC or the industry bodieswhich are providing the research moneys would rightly, I think, accuse us of misuse of thefunds we have been given.

Senator TIERNEY—What about overseas students?



Prof. McNicol—It is interesting. In the case of the overseas student load, basically the feeswe get for overseas students teach the overseas students. I think you have got to distinguishbetween income and profit. An overseas student deserves the same kind of treatment as a localstudent in terms of tuition and in fact may require more things, like support and bridgingcourses to get them into the system.

Senator TIERNEY—Doesn’t this contribute to economies of scale in library, IT andadministration?

Prof. McNicol—I would desperately like to have economies of scale. In fact, that is whywould like to get back to about 9,500 EFTSU. But the University of Tasmania has massivediseconomies of scale and, sitting at our 8,790 UFTSU, we really need to scale up by another 10per cent before we actually start to get—

Senator TIERNEY—Applying that sort of money from overseas students would put you in abetter scale position than you would have been otherwise, surely?

Prof. McNicol—It would. But in fact if we had also gotten the operating grants at the studentload which we think would be a suitable one for Tasmania, we would be in a much betterposition again. Although—as you will see in our submission—we are supportive of the newarrangements for research funding, they do actually produce problems on the teaching side ofthe ledger. Accountability and the way in which we spend that money is going to mean that thecross-subsidisation of teaching by research is going to be much diminished. So the operatinggrant which is actually being devoted to the tuition of students is going to be under morepressure. While we are happy to accept the challenges of performance related research funding,we are not in any way comfortable about the impact that that is going to have on the teachingside of the ledger. That really is a serious problem.

Senator BRANDIS—Professor McNicol, coming back to the raw figures, your evidence isthat the revenues that this university has received from all sources over the last five years havegone up, not down, so to say that the Commonwealth operating grant has gone down by six percent is an incomplete picture of the overall fiscal position of the university, surely.

Prof. McNicol—Let me say, Senator, that the funds available to support our teaching missionhave declined.

Senator BRANDIS—You have two pro vice-chancellors sitting with you: one is in charge ofteaching and learning and the other is in charge of research. It is not fair, is it, to segment offone of the principal functions of the university and to exclude the other principal function forthe purpose of the treatment of general revenues?

Prof. McNicol—That is the way we are being funded by the government.

Senator BRANDIS—Are you saying that, if you get money—say, some external body fundsfor research—in, say, the business school or the engineering school, there are no benefits thataccrue from that to that faculty beyond those students or to the university?



Prof. McNicol—The main benefit that accrues, I think, is that we are actually able to retain anumber of high quality staff who can deal with the training of students at an advanced level.But, if we get an ARC grant—and a lot of our money comes in specific grants—that money isnot there to fund the salaries of staff. It is there to actually carry out specific research projects. Ifyou go back into our financials and look at our income growth, a lot of our success in improvingrevenues has come from getting grants for specific purposes for carrying out research. If you dothis for, say, the agriculture and fisheries industries, they actually expect you to do things withfish, not with sociology students. So, there is no transferability of money which comes from aresearch grant in that domain to an area which may be starved for teaching.

Senator TIERNEY—So you do not allocate money to libraries or IT from any of that?

Senator CROSSIN—They do not expect you to spend 30 per cent of that research grantsupplementing your library because you have had a cut in funding from the Commonwealth andin other areas, do they?

Prof. McNicol—No, they expect the library resources to reflect the needs of that researcharea.

Senator TIERNEY—Are you saying that there is absolutely no surplus out of any otherarea, whether it be cooperative arrangements with industry, CRCs or overseas?

Prof. McNicol—I would say that if you netted it out it is going to be pretty hard to find somekind of profit for redistribution. As I have said, the main advantage that you get is that you areable to retain high quality staff in some of the areas where you have that research going. If wedid not have the research money they would quit and go somewhere else. It does not pay theirsalaries but it does keep them in the institution, which is a really good thing.

Senator BRANDIS—As I understand it, your evidence is that the academic standards at theuniversity have not fallen—they are as high as they have ever been. Is that right?

Prof. McNicol—We believe that can be sustained, yes.

Senator BRANDIS—Does the same observation go for outcomes in terms of studentexcellence? Is the quality of the undergraduate students and postgraduates who are graduates ofyour university as high as it has ever been?

Prof. McNicol—I believe that is the case, and I am sorry that we do not have here some ofthe employers who recruit our students to give you an independent view about that. It would bemore credible to hear what they think about successive generations of University of Tasmaniagraduates. You might believe that us saying it is self-serving, but if you were to talk to majoremployer organisations which recruit here and which have had a long history of recruitment ofUniversity of Tasmania graduates, you would find that they agree that the standards have beenmaintained and in some cases improved.

Senator BRANDIS—This might seem a simple view, but in terms of testing the success ofany academic enterprise, I would have thought that the outcomes in terms of the quality of thegraduates and the quality of the research and postgraduate work that the university does is the



most important factor of all. If there is a continued high level of excellence in those outcomes,as you seem to be suggesting there is, does that not suggest that the university is performingwell?

Prof. McNicol—The university is performing well, but I think I can follow the rest of theargument without you needing to put it to me, and that is: therefore, why would we actuallyneed more money if we are going as well as we say?

Senator BRANDIS—I did not say that, and I am not saying that you do not need moremoney, but it is pretty obvious to most people that, when there are more and more constraints onthe amount of public money available, what is needed is to increase the income from othersources. Hence, my original question as to whether the income from all sources had gone up.You told me it had.

Prof. McNicol—Yes, but I think I came back to the issue about how the income can be spent.It still does not solve the teaching problem.

Senator BRANDIS—Sure. Your complaint is that it is too research specific.

Prof. McNicol—We are very happy with the stuff that goes to research. It is helping us keepexcellence there. We would like to see a similar concern on the teaching—and the government, Ithink, appropriately responded on the research issue when it saw there was a real need to getinnovation in Australia moving. If it would only do the second half of the job and look at theteaching outcomes of its university system then we would be well satisfied. At the moment weare keeping standards up simply because both staff and students are putting in extra effort.

Senator BRANDIS—That is a good thing, isn’t it? When people work harder it is good, isn’tit?

Prof. McNicol—When people work harder it is also a good thing to reward them for doing it,and not assume you can keep on squeezing them. The thing that worries me, Senator, is that thegeneration of staff we have had looking after the university system in the second half of the20th century will quit soon and we will expect the new generation of staff to come in and do thejob. The question in my mind is: will they want to? Will they see the opportunities and rewardsof the university system of the future in the same way as I saw them when I started my career? Ihave a worry that we could be at a point where the changing of the guard might mean that weare going to hit a crunch point.

The other thing is that students are under pressure too. Our students probably, on average,work about 11 hours a week in order to make ends meet. They bear an increasingly large HECSdebt and there are worsened student-staff ratios. I do not think that is a very fair thing. If yousaid you were going to increase class sizes in the school system by 20 per cent, which isbasically what has happened in the university system, none of you would escape from the room.Class size in the school education system is an enormously sensitive issue, but in highereducation we have seen a 20 per cent degradation in student-staff ratios as if somehow or otherthis is virtuous and an efficiency dividend. I do not buy that argument, sorry.



Senator CARR—On that very point, the submission we have seen today says that fundingfor academic activity is predominantly directed towards salaries—80 per cent of recurrentexpenditure is directed towards salaries. We are told that the student-staff ratio has blown out by20 per cent. You say:

This has been largely due to the University policy of encouraging early retirements to ease the budgetary problems. Thispolicy has the additional adverse effect in that senior, experienced staff are being replaced by junior staff, with littleteaching experience.

Yet you tell this committee that the quality has not declined.

Prof. McNicol—Firstly, I am not sure that that last statement is correct. I do not think wehave seen a huge diaspora of senior staff. If you look at our staffing profile, it is not over-juniorised—it is in some areas, for example, it worries me that we have to have such a largejunior staff in computing, but this is simply a very difficult area in which to keep senior people.On the other hand, if you asked what the situation is in basic science or the humanities I wouldsay that the age and experience balance of staff is not too bad. I do not think we can support theargument that we have lost all the guys at the top.

Senator CARR—Put it this way: have the Tasmanian equivalent of the workerscompensation claims increased?

Prof. McNicol—No, I do not think they have. In fact, if anything, our workers compensationclaims have decreased over a number of years. I am not sure about the last 12 months or so, butwe have had quite a high degree of success in that area not blowing out. Notwithstanding issueslike stress and things like the Winefield study, which we are aware of, these have not reflectedthemselves as yet in matters to do with workers compensation.

Senator BRANDIS—I want to come back to a line of questioning that I was putting to you.In the United Kingdom isn’t the workload in terms of class contact hours at universitiesgenerally heavier than the workload in Australia?

Prof. McNicol—I do not know.

Senator BRANDIS—Let me tell you. For instance, several years ago at the University ofOxford the number of class contact hours increased to a level which, at that particularuniversity, had never been higher and was regarded as being among the highest in theCommonwealth. Yet it was seen that, because of the quality of the institution, applications forvacancies in tutorial fellowships and chairs not only did not fall away but in fact increased. Thepoint I am trying to convey to you and get some sort of response on is this: burdens in terms ofteaching and class contact hours upon elite staff, ambitious staff, ought not to be a deterrent tocareers. If anything, they ought to energise people, because more ambitious and more talentedpeople will want to work harder.

Prof. McNicol—And I believe my staff do. But if I think of my experiences in twouniversities—and I agree that in Oxbridge the teaching arrangements are quite intensive—whenI tutored students in psychology at Cambridge they were in ones or twos and when I took myfirst classes at the University of New South Wales my first-year class had 1,000 students in it.



Senator BRANDIS—You were not the only teacher, though, where you?

Prof. McNicol—No, but I had the organisational responsibility for managing a process whichwas extremely demanding. A one-hour meeting with a group of highly intelligent students whowere well prepared and self-motivated did not even seem like teaching, but running a first-yearpsychology class of 1,000 students was a fairly heavy time load. So I do not know that it is easyto look at workloads in Oxbridge and equate them to the realities of Australian universities—

Senator BRANDIS—I was using that as an example of a case of which I was personallyaware—where the amount of work went up but the attractiveness of careers at the institution didnot diminish at all.

Prof. McNicol—And that is true here. Our people are not work-shy and they put in anenormous amount of time with their students, but I do not think we should capitalise on theirwillingness to do that. I think the thing they would like us to do in return would be to give themat least some of the freedom of time for scholarship. I am sure that the humanities people, inparticular, whom you met today, would have made that point. Time is precious to them—it issomething which they value. It is not just appearances in front of classes; it is administrating theprocess of the university which eats away at academic time at the moment. They are reallybeing robbed, I think, of the luxury of having time for contemplation. You may not see much ofwhat they are doing, but they are not actually not doing anything—they are working. Thetrouble is that we are robbing people of their thinking time at the moment.

CHAIR—I would like to raise a couple of issues about teaching here, because you talk aboutstaff being robbed of the opportunity of contemplation. With tutorials of, as I have heard today,up to perhaps 30 students, aren’t students being robbed of the opportunity of learning throughdiscussion?

Prof. McNicol—Yes. That is a serious problem. I can give you an anecdote which comesfrom another university. At the last one I worked at, I remember talking to a group of sciencestudents. We were talking about the problems of communication in universities with lots ofstudents from non-English speaking backgrounds and how this made tutorial discussion moredifficult. A hand went up at the back of the room and it was that of a third-year chemistrystudent. She said, ‘I have not had a problem with this. I have not had to say anything yet.’ Thatreally is a function of people working in very large classes where you can get lost. You do notget engaged in discussion. Thirty is not a very nice number. You can lose yourself in a class of30.

CHAIR—That anecdote reflects also the differential that was given to us this morning inrelation to philosophy and similar disciplines about acquiring skills. Your example is thechemistry student who predominantly would be acquiring information in the tutorialenvironment. The environment may not be as relevant to a chemistry student as it would be tosome other disciplines. The other question I wanted to ask you was in relation to sociology.How realistic is it to expect a sociology student to study their discipline across campusesbetween Launceston and Hobart?



Prof. McNicol—It depends how you do it. The Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning)has not been given a chance to talk about teaching and learning. Would you please ask her thatquestion?

CHAIR—Certainly.

Prof. Johnston—There are two issues here. It is possible for a student to study a sociologycourse on one campus. There are some subjects within those courses that may be offered on adifferent campus. If the choice is to do those particular subjects there may be a need to study ata different campus. The university is organised around teaching across different campuses anduses a variety of teaching approaches so that students are not disadvantaged by that. We do offersubjects from staff in Hobart to students in Launceston and the north-west centre and it is a veryimportant part of the organisation of the university and its efforts to meet the needs of studentsright across the state.

CHAIR—My difficulty is this, and we can probably refer back to the Hansard in retrospect,Professor McNicol: I am reasonably confident that in your introductory statement you said thesorts of pressures that this university is under is leading to limits in range. What has beendescribed in relation to sociology seems to be a limit in range—that it is not a real choice formany students to undertake some subjects in Launceston if they are studying in Hobart. Yetyour discussion earlier with Senator Carr indicated that you did not think that there were limitsin range. The evidence seems to be a bit contradictory or confusing.

Prof. McNicol—I have said that we have had a diminution in the range of our programs.There is no doubt about that. If you lose 123 academic staff, you lose quite a degree of thevariety of what you can teach. There are fewer units in programs than there were when those123 people were here. I would not want that ambiguity to survive.

CHAIR—But as quality indicators, I would have thought—without being an in-depthparticipant in the education sector—that issues such as the quality of tutorials and in fact evenin retaining staff and the experience staff get through the teaching experience in tutorials arepretty significant. Issues such as the range of subjects that are available are fairly important interms of the outputs that you produce.

Senator CARR—Student-teacher ratios.

CHAIR— Student-teacher ratios is another one. But you are saying to us that all of theseinputs do not make any difference in your output.

Prof. McNicol—What we are maintaining is that despite that, through the efforts of staff andstudents, we have mentioned standards. I did say that the quality of the learning experience ofstudents has not been improved by these cuts. Certainly the quality of the academicenvironment for the staff has not been improved. We are relying on the students and staff tomake up the difference. And they have. We should recognise that they have done that, but weshould not necessarily believe that that is the perpetual solution by asking them to bear moreand more of the burden without giving them some relief and reward.



CHAIR—One final issue you might be able to assist me with—previous witnesses havenot—is the trend with respect to mobility in Tasmania.

Prof. Johnston—In 1995 the mobility in Tasmania was 15.1. That has gone up to 18.2 for thecurrent year, yet the mobility across Australia overall has remained static.

CHAIR—That concludes the questions. Thank you very much for your hospitality.

Committee adjourned at 5.05 p.m.

Documents

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Official Committee Hansard · 2001. 7. 2. · PRIEST, Professor Graham, Chair of Council, Australasian Association of Philosophy.....153 REID, Mr Russell