In general, I agree with Steven's analysis. Either we want a market in higher education or we don't. This report leaves us in a half way house - a bit like being half pregnant.

The other issue is how we get more disadvantaged and indigenous young people into higher education. At the moment, Western societies tend towards quotas and positive discrimination strategies to achieve this desirable and necessary goal. More likely to be succcessful, however, is a dramatic reformation of secondary education, including voucher based funding and parental choice. In addition, we should be building, in disadvantaged areas, selective entry schools and specialist schools in Science and Maths with direct links to University courses to cater for bright working class and indigenous young people.

We should also be looking at vocational education schools with direct links into the training system. The era of the comprehensive, government operated and controlled school is surely coming to an end.

Steven Shwartz starts from the premise that (a) the market is a good thing - where has he been these last dew weeks! - and (b) universities would be better if they were governed by market rules just like Coles - where is the evidence?

More of a market philosophy will mean the increased 'capture' of universities by the corporates a trend which we have already seen and which was highlighted by a report from the Australia Institute last year. Universities are about the production of and free distribution of knowledge; about scholarship; and about academic freedom, none of which is a commodity that can be traded on the market.

It is the current move to commodification of university education that is the problem not the solution. The existing attempts for example to apply market based performance indicators to universities does not work.

I think that the Bradley Report was written by some self seeking academics who say Australia needs to increase participation in higher education so we can be a skilled knowledge workforce. A fine motherhood statement so why are all the IT, finance jobs being offshored. Why do we import built trains and trams from Italy and France? We used to build them ourselves.
What jobs are available for Victorian girls who don't finish school? bakery perhaps.

What jobs are available for Arts and Law graduates?

There are many stories about the looming teacher shortage. A fortnight ago there were under 500 teaching vacancies advertised, if there is 5% unemployment Vic should have 5000 teaching vacancies. I have never seen anything like 800 vacancies advertised in The Age and online.

I agree with the VC's article. You might as well go all the way and let the free market rip.

My main concern is not the market but the ability of many unis and TAFE's to operate in a deregulated environment. Their organisational cultures are inward looking to the point of myopia. They are change adverse and conservative in the extreme.

While many CV's, led by Melb Uni, may want to readjust fees, I fear the real problem is that they'll yell 'charge' but the troops won't follow.

I personally like Schwartz's humour. So very different from the usual high PC, boring, bleatings of the AVCC crowd

"Who can argue with more university graduates?" i can.

it's exactly this kind of presumption of form over content which is now driving tertiary "education". the way universities have achieved more graduates is by dramatically lowering standards. it has turned VC's such as schwartz into pimps, and lecturers into whores.

until there is some genuine concern for whether students are actually learning anything, we'll be stuck with these insane pseudo-business models of education, with their insane pseudo-business quantifications of success.

Bushbasher makes a fair point. Bradley didn't talk much about content.

Here are a few facts. The boomers who went to uni in the 1970s didn't raise the GDP of the nation one iota. In fact, they were a cost. The main reason is that about 60 percent of them went in to the arts. (Now the cat is out of the bag). Now I'll get a heap of comments about the 'true value' of the arts from the dobby gilles set.

Since 1986 the numbers of students enrolled in the post secondary education sector had more than quadrupled and the amount of money owed in HECS debt is about $1 billion. That debt is an impost around their expenditure and savings.

Look, we don't need more pen pushers. We need more plumbers and carpenters. We need builders, stone masons. We need TAFE stuff not arts graduates.

There is no logical connection between saying we need more uni students and the skills crisis. We need more TAFE graduates.

Actually, what we need is about seven less unis and a whole lot more community colleges offering two year diplomas. Sounds like life before Dawkins doesn't it?

Does anyone really think the market can take 37 unis offering prettty much the same stuff?

The shape of things to come isn't mass education, it's with the private providers. I'd say Carnegie Mellon and Harvard know that, which is why the former is already here and the latter is considering a partnership.

Right on Cheryl

Yes these reports are really good at telling us what we do need but how about what we don’t need; another couple of million dollars worth of HECS debt and another few thousand university graduates working at Mac Donalds waiting for the right job to land in their lap.

Hey, if you didn’t already know Australia has a skills shortage and sending more people to university isn’t going to fix it. Lets get back to basics and let our kids know that its OK to do an apprenticeship, and that a trade is a profession that has credibility and commands respect.

Has anyone called a plumber lately? or had an electrician around to put in an extra power point in the study? Yeah well I bet you were reaching for your wallet when they were done. These guys and girls are professionals but for some reason over the past decade, despite the shortage of skilled trades-people in this country, becoming a tradesman has been de-valued and the push by all levels of government for all kids to stay in school until year 12 is partly to blame.

Not everyone can achieve the HSC or get the UAI they want. Likewise not everyone can be trades-person. Why make kids complete years 11 and 12 if what they want to do is be a tradie?, a fitter or a plumber. The VET system is now fexible enough to cater for all kinds of training delivery and accreditation. University is not the answer to all our problems. There is nothing better than experience. This combined with our youth getting a taste of the pride and satisfaction that comes with earning a fair wage after a hard days work. This is what this country was built on and although the future will require the intellectual knowledge of many to create the next big thing, the reality is they will not be able to do it without going to the toilet or that extra power point in the study!

Part of the reason for the lack of tradies is the Defence Force is way more appealing for anyone in the process of an apprenticehip. The issue isn't the short term low pay and condition they receive outside the DF; it's the overly generous pay and conditions of the DF.

We all ready have universities scrambling to fill courses with students, getting a bit too deep in the barrel. With some courses, if you can sign your name, your in. No wonder so many drop out.

Do we really want bachelor of science candidates from the bottom half of the high school crop, because that's what is happening. Back in the days when we still had exams, to determine what the student knew, & could do, rather than assignments, to determine what the parents know, & can do, many of these would have got an "F".

I recently saw course notes, for a B Sc course, studding junior high school math. Much more of this, & some of our science graduates will have to take a remedial maths course, before they can make change in the taxi they'll be driving. Many of the kids in these courses would have no chance of passing an electrical trade course, but will soon have a meaningless bit of paper, to wave around.

Rather than more money spent on universities, what we need, is for some of their staff to give at least half a day's work, for a days pay.

Don't worry about that Concord.

The defence forces have pretty high recruit entrance standards. They do their own testing you know. They can't afford to waste money on dead heads, so they aren't interested on OP scores. It's easier to get into uni, or a trade than many of the defence force schools.

The reason we have a number of unmanned ships, tied to wharfs, around the place, is civy street pays a damn sight more than the navy, for people who can actually do something.

KRudd wants to increase the size of our navy. Well, he'd better find a way to attract, & then keep, more engineering crew. That is, unless he wants to buy some long oars, & hire some of these new uni grads, to pull on the things.

Having taught at a university (one of VC Shwartz's) in the 90's, I can attest that it was quantity over quality. Students had to be taught basic high-school english and maths just so that they could begin the actual degree content. There were still the same number of good students, but their work was devalued by the increasing number of poor students allowed to pass with the same degree.

I had students complain that I had not given them a high enough mark, when they had done no more than regurgitate other people's work and expressed no evluation or opinion of their own.

Universities are about learning, not teaching. This is where the system is going wrong. The more they become extensions of high-school and focus on teaching, the less valuable they become. Students need to learn to learn, rather than be taught.

In relation to skills, I couldn't agree more with those who promote apprenticeships and trades. Those who prefer doing trades, should be encouraged. The focus on tertiary education for everyone is misguided and often leads to students taking on study for which they are unsuited. Not everybody is ready for university when they leave school. Many people are capable of tertiary study at some point, but some may be more suited as mature-age students.

We shoulodn't try to brainwash all students that university is the be-all and end-all of life, push everyone through the system purely to get the numbers up. That will cripple the system, that is already severely wounded.

And Cheryl, I have a science degree, but devaluing arts degrees is ridiculous. They provide a balance to science through analysing opinion and helping us understand our society. Science is very cold and calculating in it's approach, while, for example philosophy and history, while perhaps not immediately so apparently useful, provide insights into how human beings work as a society and enable us to learn the approaches to take in the future to avoid conflict etc. They both have their place, and they are both essential to our society.

What Phil Matinmen says.

And look what sort of job a degree in Chinees language can get you. Mind you all you need to be is a multi-milllionare capitalist pretending to understand poverty, workingmens values and yet demand a non-specific but essential computer literate revolution in education first.

You might also have to be prepared to stand humbly by and accept a lecture in human rights by a dictatorial despot and submissively salute or self-promote by denigrating the most powerful man on earth or be flippantly ignored by some heroic socialist spruiking, greenie, former pop idol.

Keith Kennelly

hummm how many of todays graduates or lecturers would undertand my point. I'll spell it out. Education might impart knowledge but learning tends to imbue students with an appreciation of values and decent behaviour.