For just a little while back in the sixties and seventies we almost achieved “Public Universities”. However as usual snobbery and money won out over the masses, where today universities are the same collection of self-serving and introverted wailers totally divorced from the general public, hunkered down in survival mode inside their tight and collective selfish and insulated world producing overlords bathed in bigotry and streamlined in the new speak of feminism intent on steering society on a collision course with the bombora of social catastrophe.

With a hyperbole of woe-betide comes the cry (again) for more money from the tax payer; the same little tax payer more frequently excluded from the gilded halls of tertiary education by the lack of it, is now beseeched by the lords of education for more of it. You certainly have a collective hide. Well it is time once more to put the university hide through the tannery of public gaze and let us, this time, produce something that is universally useful to ALL taxpaying Australians.

P.S. (from the little woman)
How about producing a few more doctors for the collective benefit of the public!

I am considering this topic from the point of view of a country girl who had to ride a horse 6 miles to school to get a primary State School education. There was no State High School within Cooee, so at considerable expense my parents sent me to boarding school until I was sixteen. I had to leave to make it possible for my parents to pay for the next daughter to go to boarding school for 2 years. Girls who left school at sixteen then had the option of becoming secretaries, nurses of telephonists. Only when it came to the fifth daughter in the family were our parents able to afford for her to remain at boarding school until she finished her high school years and could get a scholarship to train as a primary school teacher.

In that period of time 1950s-1960s if a girl did have parents willing to pay for her university education, she frequently had to give up her job if she married. Thus many fathers thought it a waste of their savings to pay for the education of girls.
Now perhaps with many university educated women working to add to the family income and with smaller families to educate, plus that women are no longer penalized for marrying or having children, it would not cause a gender preference on which child in a family should receive an university education.

Although government subsidies and income from foreign students has made it possible for universities to educate more Australians in recent years, I do not think it inappropriate for parents or students (with student loans)to pay for 'higher' education.

I'm worried about unis as they have no public profile and pollies ignore them. More and more kids will want to go to uni over the next 20 years and there needs to be some form of levy which ensures they aren't stuck with massive debts.

I know HECS is a levy but if international student numbers continue to fall, then how are they going to fund domestic places?

A HECs debt is nothing if you gain a degree which actually allows you to earn higher wages. Also most of my debt was paid by working in the >8 weeks per year holidays. The hardest financial times for me was living off my $20k/annum federal scholarship during my PhD, in which I had not time to work odue to the huge workload in the lab. I always wondered how the government expected PhD students to survive, either they expected us to work day and night, or that we could survive with an income much less that minimum wage.

I am in agreement with both Diver Dan and Country Girl on this.

University education should be inexpensive and readily available and mostly taxpayer funded, BUT NOT A CENT MORE should go to universities in their current form.

In their current form, they continually ask for more taxpayer funding, while at the same time employing feminists who consistently break the anti-discrimination policies of their universities, by consistently denigrating 50% of Australias population, by consistently denigrating the male gender.

In their current form, university academics consistently oppose trade tariffs, and then when they go into the international market and fail, they want the taxpayer to bail them out.

In their current form, they continually state that they are important centers for research, while almost all technology now in the country is imported, and the universities themselves are almost completely filled with imported textbooks and imported equipment.

Added to this is the inglorious results of the various surveys such as the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement survey rarelhttp://ausse.acer.edu.au/
that show a considerable number of students who spend very little time on campus, and rarely contact their lecturers (or want to).

Start and reform the universities, and the taxpayer might be more interested in funding the universities, but not in their current form.

Country Girl speaks of a time in the past history when sons and daughters of the land holder were subsidised to send their children to boarding school. Opposed to that hardship (apparently), were the sons and daughters of the non-landholders, the workers on the same farms in the same remote locations, whose children were not subsidised for such luxuries as a boarding school education: Whose sons were not given the option to stay home and tend the farm, while the workers sons went to war, all a beautiful view of social strata at work. What has changed?

Well, not a university education. No child will attend a university in Australia unless:

1. Wealthy enough to pay .
2. Is gifted with the IQ of Einstein and granted a scholarship.
3. Is a wealthy foreign student.
4. Is willing and able to starve and risk failure and bankruptcy to succeed.

I completely agree with Vanna on this issue and would add the brain drain to the USA of our science and maths graduates, the poor standard of teacher and nurse that is coming out of universities, the drive to profit which should not be the motive of higher education, the excessive influence of the business sector both within and outside universities, the lack of influence from important subjects which promote hindsight to serve foresight in matters of history, philosophy and politics, the lack of communication and sharing of ideas between faculties... and so it goes.

Universities need to rethink their place in society: Do they impart knowledge and encourage creative thinking for the benefit of that society, or are they yet another profit machine churning out workers who can parrot the text books.

Agree with George here. We also have 38 public funded unis pretty much teaching the same stuff. Time to get real.

Cheryl (or Malcom King),

So what are you getting at, or trying to say?

Should we have less universities or less campuses?

In some universities, a considerable number of students only spend a few hours a week on the campus, and rarely contact their lecturers.

Correspondance students need not set foot on a campus at all, and rarely contact their lecturer. Added to that is the fact that most textbooks are imported and paid for by the student.

So what value is the student actually getting by attending an Australian university?

I hope it is very bad, when it comes, it's the least they deserve.

One of my daughters course mates was having a little trouble with some maths in her B Sc, B Ed course.

After failing for 5 weeks, to be able to contact, or be contacted by a math tutor after many messages she gave up.

She quit the course just a day before she would have been liable for another 6 months hex fees.

As she said, why pay for something the university could not be bothered to supply. She is now earning more in marketing, than she could have as a maths/physics teacher. She reckons sales people are much better at fulfilling their commitments than the 2 universities she has had dealings with.

Well Vanna I suppose what I'm saying is that if the international student numbers fall as we're beginning to see, then the unis will turn to the Fed Government for more money.

We actually have a small population to run 38 unis so some economy of scale could be the answer. There was an amalgamation of many Tafes and unis in the 80s. I suggest we do it again but this time let the unis play to their strengths by creating nation research centres. It no use having every uni teach business and IT. The G8's are doing this already - they can afford to.

The article doesn't take in to account that while international student numbers are in decline, they will probably pick up again dpwn the track, but not to the heady days of the 90s and 2000s.

Cheryl,
I would be very doubtfull that Australian universities will "pick up". Countries such as China and India are churning huge amounts into education, and they will be educating more of their own students.

There is nothing exceptional about Australian universities. They import nearly everything due mainly to the laziness of the staff in producing something unique, and someone could think of Australian universities as being the McDonalds of universities.

As far as reseach goes, a university cannot hire feminists and then expect the public to believe that the university abides by the scientific method, and I think a lot of Indian students have now realised that much more quality research is carried out back in India than in Australian universities.

I would agree with Hasbeen. The quality of education from Australia universities is probably the worst education someone can receive in Australia, but the most expensive.

Great article. After years of underfunding we will soon have an American-style system. The mantra of "we are spending record amounts on higher education," dating back to the Howard Government are always annoying to hear. There are things such as inflation and student numbers to consider. Spending on higher education in 1940 would have been, on figures alone, a paltry comparison to today's expenditure.

And diver dan, more doctors sounds great. Can you tell the AMA and respective state governments to increase the quotas as well as funding?

vanna, not all technology is imported. Relenza (the anti-flu medicine) was developed in Australia. And in Science, Engineering, Medicine, Vet. Science...it is pretty difficult to not be on campus. Economics, Business and most Arts students also tend to be on campus a lot. We do, however, have too many universities spread too thinly. If we amalgamate them expect more student housing near the major unis...and more competition to get into the high demand courses.

Also, Stezza, congratulations on being able to pay your HECS so quickly. But for others out there as HECS only increases with CPI, it may be better to save the money earned during holidays to top up cholarships during the PhD years.

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

Jorge
If you read through the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement

http://ausse.acer.edu.au/

you will find that there are a considerable number of students who rarely go onto campus, and rarely or never contact their lecturer.

The last course I did was through correspondance. All textbooks were imported, and the notes provided by the lecturer were pages photocopied from journals, and all journals were produced in another country. If you were lucky, you received an assignment back within a month.

For this abysmal education, large fees were asked. That was about 10 years ago, but talking to students it appears nothing has changed.

The Australian public has had to put up with this type of education from universities because there was no other choice, but there is a choice for many foregin students, and they have chosen to get their education elsewhere.

As for research in universities, almost all reseach undertaken never makes it to the marketplace.

So basically the taxpayer has to pay money for reseach that they will never use.

As for reliability of information from universities, there are so many left-wing lecturers and prejuiced, discriminatory and misinforming feminists, there would be no information coming from university staff that could be considered reliable or objective information.

I would be like many or the majority of the public. If the students went on strike, I wouldn't oppose it, and hopefully the government won't be paying the university staff money when the students are on strike.

Thanks vanna, the report is a little long for my free time but if you could point out the pages etc. I would be happy to take a look.

I can see where you are coming from, but lecturers nowadays have to divide their time between teaching, academic/research work, grant applications etc. Personally I infrequently contacted lecturers because I did not feel the need to but found them to be available when the need arose.

There really shouldn't be a problem with using imported textbooks. They could be printed in Australia, but that's a choice for the publishers. I agree that journal photocopies for notes is a little lax, though. Students usually have access to their library's collection so the lecturer should probably have provided original material, unless the articles were from themselves or the course was one where this material was appropriate.
As for assignment return times...one month is fairly good especially if it is a substantial work and the course enrols a large number of people, some lecturers actively fact and reference check to prevent plagiarism.

The sad reality is that fees are here to stay and even in "good" universities the standards of teaching range widely (I was in a class where one lecturer was actively booted out by a student petitition and formal complaint). Unfortunately that means that we should be savvier customers as universities are more and more behaving like standard businesses.

With regards to research, I don't think that all of it has to make it to the marketplace. I would say that even corporations that engage in research do not market everything. If we demanded that only marketable research be performed then unexpected discoveries would never see the light of day. Some research forms the foundation for future research, be it 5 or 20 years from now.

Finally, if your lecturers and university staff were so openly biased then I do hope you lodged complaints. In my university experience I found that the left-wing bias came mainly from the student body, which also had its sizeable right-wing groups, and not the lecturers.

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

Jorge,
Here is some brief findings of the AUSSE study.

"Just over 50 per cent of students never talked careers with their teachers, 46.7 per cent never raised for discussion ideas from class and 32.2 per cent did not raise their results with lecturers or tutors"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/students-given-no-guidance-by-university-staff/story-e6frgcjx-1225867469445

Within the primary and secondary education system, there is virtually no connection with the public (just the way teachers want it I think), and within the university system, there is virtually no connection with the public, and very little connection with the students.

For this the students are asked to pay out large sums of money.

The concept that universities are for research is a farce. What research?

Almost every piece of technology inside the country is now imported.

We now have the inglorious system of universities saying that they carry out research, while almost every textbook, piece of software and piece of equipment inside a university is imported.

When every textbook, piece of software and piece of equipment is imported, the universities have created nothing unique, and Australian universities now offer nothing better than McDonalds education.

Foregin students can get the same McDonalds education from 1000 other universities acroos the world, and quite possibly at a cheaper cost.

I half agree with Vanna here but I don't think whether the text books or IT is sourced offshore or onshore is material. It's whether universities prepare people for professional life and give them the ability to problem solve.

There is a push at some unis to dismiss vocationalism as being too much towards the TAFE spectrum. Shame. There's nothing wrong with studying philosophy or pure theory - in fact there's a lot right in it - but the focus should be on self directed learning.

That's a problem for many as they want uni to be the same as school. They want the teachers to be on call and to hold their hand through three years of undergrad.

The problem here isn't the nature of uni - although that's a great subject: what is a university? The problem is can we fund more domestic places off the current tax base taking in to account a major crash in international student revenues? Me thinks not.

So that creates a problem. We have more domestics students than ever wanting in - and remember this is a core Gillard promise - but we haven't seen any sign of the cash.

In a pluralistic society there are many louder and strident voices than the unis. Unless they get out there are start lobbying hard, they will be left dead in the water.

Cheryl,
"whether the text books or IT is sourced offshore or onshore is material"

I think it highly material when universities have been teaching English and literature for at least 100 years, and teaching computing for at least 40 years, but they then import nearly every book and piece of software.

Its like someone teaching cooking, but they eat out and never eat their own cooking.

As far as "preparing" students, preparing them for what?

Preparing them to be workforce fodder for foregin companies perhaps?

As far as teaching ethics or character, forget it. Some of the greatest bastards this world has ever known have been highly educated, and often educated in what are regarded as the worlds best universities.

vanna,
Sadly that is the way universities operate now. Most of my undergrad lectures had 200-300 students. If I were a lecturer I would be glad only 50% of them directly contacted me for career advice. Universities have career counsellors and career centres that should have staff that are ready to deal with most basic enquiries. I remember someone in high school, I think it was the principal, say that it doesn't matter too much what you study but that you learn how to learn.

The article you shared did mention that students at American universities have greater interaction with their teaching staff, something I can subjectively corroborate from Americans that I know. Americans also pay through the nose for a university education, so all things are relative, I guess.

As for primary and secondary schools, as far as I know all schools have P&C meetings. The teachers are there and some parents are present but usually not many members of the general community make it to the meetings.

Also, regarding the importing of technology, software, textbooks etc...it would be great if we get Dell, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Oxford Uni Press, Harper Collins, Prentice Hall etc to make their goods in Australia, but I don't think it can be done so easily. There is a very good chance that Australians have been involved in the developing, editing, marketing and publishing of the software and textbooks that are used in our unis. The publishing rights and printing may be done overseas but Australian minds have probably been involved, just as have minds from many other countries.

And the bit about ethics and character...well, learning is a two-way process. I would dare say that most tyrants don't really bother to learn those traits. Humans are human after all.

Finally, I have to disagree with your view on research at our universities, have a look at the Spring 2010 newsletter from the Australian Research Council: http://www.arc.gov.au/general/discovery_newsletter.htm
It's not an exhaustive list of all the research that happens in our unis, but it gives a snapshot.

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

Jorge,
"46.7 per cent [of university students] never raised for discussion ideas from class and 32.2 per cent did not raise their results with lecturers or tutors"

Basically, about 1/3 to 1/2 of students rarely spoke to their lecturers about anything.

Australian universities are not only the MCdonalds of universities, they have also become dinosaurs of the past.

They must believe that lecturers are a central depository of knowledge who then regurgitate their knowledge to an audience of students in a lecture hall.

But in reality, anyone can get much more knowledge from the internet then they can get from a lecturer.

A lecturer now has to be much more than a regurgitator, they have to be a mentor as well and actually talk to the students, however irksome that might be to a university academic.

The education system in Australia would have to be the least innovative and most backward system that I know of.

It has spent decades ripping off the public, and offering back the most minimal diet. It has consistently followed the laziest approach, which is to grab money from the taxpayer and then spend the lot on imports.

The end result is a mediocre, totally non-innovative and parasitic system that feeds of the taxpayer.

vanna,
I would look at it another way. Why are the students not talking with their lecturers? During lectures only so much time can be devoted to Q&A, I remember some of my computer-savvy lecturers had online forums etc. and the onus was on the student to check it and ask questions. Granted this wasn't every lecturer, but let's not paint all lecturers with the same brush.

In your standard class not everyone speaks up or asks questions. It's just how we function in a group. Someone in a class waits for someone else to ask a question and hopes that it answers their own question.

True, the internet has a lot of information. But there are things that are better (not exclusively, but better) learned in an educational institution. Personally I would find it pretty difficult to learn a foreign language through the internet (yes, I've tried); science pracs are expensive (not to mention dangerous) to do at home as is rehearsing for a music ensemble performance or group drama production. Also, I wouldn't think very highly of a lawyer, doctor or dentist who didn't spend time on campus and presentations in a variety of fields are better done with a group of peers who can challenge your ideas and pose questions.

As for lecturers being mentors: in undergrad courses it would be difficult to mentor 200-300 students for 5 or so months before they move on to the next unit and a different lecturer. During some of my undergrad time we even had 4+ lecturers for the one class, so I cannot see how it would be practical. For postgrad I can see the benefit to having a mentor, but then no-one is perfect. Most companies have managers that are responsible for 10 (or so) people and I would think they find the job of mentoring quite difficult.

Could you elaborate as to how you came about your view that our universities are mediocre and parasitic? Just looking at ARC-funded research: http://www.arc.gov.au/general/arc_publications.htm (2009: http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/pub_supported_research.pdf & 2000: http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/00_03.pdf) not a glowing report card, but it's not so bad.

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

Jorge,
It costs about $15,000 to educate a student in primary school and secondary school.

Now the question is, why does it cost more to educate a university student, when the student:teacher ratio is about 20:1 in primary school and high school, but about 100:1 in a university.

As well, many students (up to 50%) don't seem to even speak with the lecturer (so they don't take up the lecturer's time), and an increasaing number of students hardly set foot on the campus.

As well, nearly everything in an Australian university is now imported and stock standard (or McDonalds education) so there are no development costs.

I would think money going to the universities is being bleed off somewhere.

As for research, wander through a shoping center or hardware store and try and find something made in Australia.

After 100 years of research in Australian universities, the universities themselves import just about everything.

Sorry, it costs about $15,000 per year to educate each student in a primary school and high school.

At least part of this is supplied by the taxpayer (or academic's normally refer to this as government spending, as if the government makes the money).

*As for research, wander through a shoping center or hardware store and try and find something made in Australia*

Vanna, you do go on and on about this. I have yet to figure out,
why you have a bee in your bonnet. You have yet to tell us.

So lets look at the reality. Most money spent by universities
is spent on wages and salaries, all spent to pay Australians.

The house you live in, nearly all Australian building materials.
The car you drive, your choice, Holden or Falcon.
The food you eat. You can live off Australian food and never starve.
The whitegoods in your house. Washing machine, stove, dishwasher,
all made locally if you choose.
You can wear Australian clothes if you wish, as long as you
pay the price. Plenty are made here, they just arn't at a discount
at Target.
Would you like a new kitchen or some new furniture? It is all made
here, if you pay the price. Your choice.

You gan even get drunk on Australian wine, to drown your sorrows,
or since of lat use Australian olive oil on your salads.

So its a furphy that everything is made overseas. Today you have
a choice, like never before. Consumers are king, how fortunate they
are to have that choice.

Yabby,

The price being asked to do a course at a university would be far in excess of costs.

The costs would be much lower than doing a subject at a high school or a primary school, remembering that primary schools and high schoole have a much lower student: teacher ratio, and require that the students are actually at the school, and also remembering that the textbooks and software are bought by the student, not by the university.

So the costs of running most courses at universities would be minimal.

Yet, they want to increase their fees by as much as 50%.

Why?

The answer normally given (or excuse normally given) is that universities are for research.

What research, and how effective has it been?

I would think totally ineffective when almost everything inside a university is imported.

Its like someone teaching cooking, but they never eat their own cooking, and always get their own food at a take away food shop.

The public is paying through the nose for very poor quality education, and paying for research that is mostly ineffective and will never be of any use to the public.

I have my reservations about unis Vanna but me thinks your top mine.

Vanna has sort of hit the nail on the head from a functional point of view - are unis worth the money? The unis I went to operated like mini cities (Melbourne) with numerous buildings and labs to service and rent. They also had high admin salary costs.

I'm not so sure that Vanna is on track with Oz's poor research performance. True, not every piece of research makes money. But research is also about the quest for knowledge. It can also answer why questions as well as how questions.

Having said that, in my experience communications and media at unis have been producing some woeful, highly subjective 'research' which is trendy rather than valid, replicable or useful.

Unis are very expensive to run. Some campuses such as Charles Darwin consistently under enrol and are almost totally supported by NT and Fed Gov. But we need them. But do we need 38 of them? Me thinks not.

Cheryl,
I think you have hit the nail dead center by mentioning "high admin salary costs".

Some time ago there was (& possibly still is ) a teacher shortage in the US. Upon closer investigation, it was found that numerous schools and universities had more people employed in administration than there were teachers standing in front of a class.

The teachers themselves tended to drift towards administration where they could get more pay, and they tended to create jobs for themselves in administration.

So the education system employed many people, but most were not actually teaching.

I tend to think this would be the same for many of the schools and universities in this country, and students and the taxpayer are being asked to pay numerous people in universities and schools to not actually teach.

In effect, they are being asked to pay out more of their money so that various people can live the academic lifestyle, while not actually teaching anything.

The "pursuit of knowledge" is rather meaningless unless someone does something with that knowledge. The fact that universty courses nearly always use imported textbooks means that the money spent on reaserch in universities in the past has been money thrown down the drain, because it has not resulted in enough knowledge being gained to even make a textbook.