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.