The problem with creating education as a commodity that can be bought and sold on a free market, is the possibility that the essential results/study requirements/exam passes can also be bought and sold, as is happening now, and on an apparently unbelievable scale!

Simply put, when Ideology and dogma replace logic and reason and indeed, not found wanting historical example?

You get what we apparently have now, graduates who can't communicate or know enough to be trusted with routine health care!

Or automotive/aeronautic design or construction/maintenance.

Ditto road rail or high rise construction, excetera etc!

You couldn't make this "stuff up"!
Rhrosty.

Mike Pope suggests amalgamation of universities for "better use of bricks and mortar", but a better strategy might be to keep the campuses as shop-fronts, while integrating the education, research and back-office functions.

Universities like to give the impression that students learn in class, but the typical Australian university student attends about 25% of the lectures and watches the other 75% on-line. Most of these videos are of poor quality and made by staff with minimal training in how to teach on-line. The individual universities are too small to provide the support needed for this form of education.

It would therefore make sense for the courses to be created and delivered by teams of educators for delivery to multiple campuses. The campuses can retain the name of the individual university, as a form of branding, or not (it makes no difference to the education provided).

The alternative is for Australian universities to become shop-fronts for overseas educational content delivered on-line. I would prefer it if Australia retained the capability to design and deliver university courses.

The article states that … ‘The University of Western Australia appointed Bjorn Lomborg to be an Adjunct Professor of a Consensus Centre pronouncing on economic issues in the light of global warming’.

While true at the time of writing (1/5/2015), it can now be reported that the University of Western Australia has cancelled its agreement with the Abbott government and Lomborg. The University will no longer host the Consensus Centre - or Lomborg.