VK3AUU,

And it's these people not suited to university who are the ones not getting employment. Those doing serious degrees - the 20% - will, and are, finding work because they have what employers want.

I don't mean to disparage the 80% who, along with their parents, have been brainwashed into believing that a degree is the only way to employment, or a 'good job'. Well, a good job requires a good degree, and there is no call or need for BA's that merely produce people who still cannot even express themselves clearly, or do simple arithmetic, and who make good fodder for rowdy demonstrations demanding that others fund their aspired lifestyle.

Technical colleges would have suited them better.

The idea of placing students in workplaces has merit, but why on earth does this need to be controlled by the Federal Government? Surely it is best left to universities, students and local employers to work out the best placements and the terms on which they are undertaken.

I have had very mixed experiences taking students on work placements. Some have been terrific – hard-working, bright, and making a real contribution to the workplace. One was shocking – dishonest, lazy and unreliable. Most were earnest and enthusiastic but also inexperienced, naïve and frankly high-maintenance. They needed a lot of supervision and direction and contributed very little of use. The bureaucracy surrounding the employment arrangements was onerous.

On balance, I would consider taking a student on placement in future only if I was sure that there was a good fit between their skills/interest and the work we do, and that the associated paperwork and compliance was efficient and simple. Placements should be a net benefit to both student and employer.

“Centralising and standardising Work Integrated Learning through the Department of Education”, as Amanda proposes, seems to me a recipe to ensure no employer would touch the scheme with a bargepole.

Our system is getting more and more like the US one. The US job market has deteriorated, and the vast majority of male workers have had stagnant or declining wages since the 1970s

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-figure-4c-change-real-hourly-wages/

Without a university degree, there is often no hope of anything better than a low-paid precarious job, so people are willing to take on enormous student debt in the hope of getting that degree, even if they would otherwise have little or no interest in university.

Employers have also gotten far more choosy because the labour market is oversupplied and are often demanding (unpaid) internships and degrees for jobs that were formerly done by high school graduates or school leavers. Needless to say, the wages are still low, so the former students have little capacity to repay those loans, which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Real entry level wages for university graduates are no higher than they were in the 1970s, despite significant gains in productivity since then.

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-figure-4q-real-entry-level-wages/

The onerous loan repayments interfere with people's ability to afford housing or provide for their families.

Why would we want to copy this system here?

If I had a kid today, I'd be driving them very hard to a plumbers or electricians apprentiship, & definitely not to university.

The only reason to go to university today is if you want to get into the bureaucracy.

I reckon $200,000 would be too cheap for mickey mouse degrees, but it should discourage some of the dumber would be students.

Amanda Rishworth reminds me of Delores Umbridge in Harry Potter, a poisonous woman, whose sole purpose in life is mouth off unpleasant slogans, who could be replaced with a blow up doll and tape recorder.

If you want to know why there are so many graduates unemployed, then you need to ask Labor why they uncapped university places as the economy was struggling, and what on earth does one do with the thousands of ex students with liberal arts degrees especially as the public service is cutting back.

Shadow Minister,

The rot set in with the Dawkins Reforms of 1988. Here is what Barry Jones, who was Minister of Science at the time, had to say about them. "I have little doubt that Dawkinisation will prove to have been the greatest single mistake of the Hawke-Keating years."

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/25/1019441281290.html

Before that time, there were a reasonable number of universities for Australia's population with capped places, and as well as the TAFE system, there was also a network of Colleges of Advanced Education that offered shorter, more vocationally oriented tertiary courses and some undergraduate degrees. Because they did not offer advanced degrees or do research, they were very much cheaper to operate than the universities. Dawkins, among other things, turned them all into universities or amalgamated them with universities.

Now we are stuck with an enormous corporatized, bloated system, heavily subsidized by foreign students, who are being bribed with visas that can lead to permanent residence. Because the customer is always right, standards are being debased, and foreign students are being admitted with inadequate English to succeed in their course.

The universities also do a marvelous job of disguising youth unemployment, so far as some domestic students are concerned.

I recall Terry Lane interviewing a Liberal politician (I forget his name) on In the National Interest on Radio National during the Howard years. This politician said much the same things as Barry Jones. When asked why his government didn't just reverse the Dawkins reforms, he said that it would be politically impossible, as many regional communities had a strong interest in keeping "their" university. It is hard to just blame Labor, when the Liberals and Nationals are going along with their bad policy.