How can we fix Higher Education in Australia?

Credentialism: the inflation of higher education status in Australia

Credentialism is the reliance on academic or other formal qualifications as apparently the best measure of a person’s intelligence or ability to do a particular job. University education is seemingly valuable only because apparently nothing better is available. Credentialism has pervaded our society for a long time now, and the Federal Government’s obsession with mass-producing degree holders has devalued the uni degree, especially undergraduate. Did graduates like myself just bought a piece of paper?

There are too many degree holders, we’ve oversaturated the graduate job market. And where employers are left to overrely on a qualification that contributes little to productivity improvement or work performance, then what’s the point of the qualification to begin with? A piece of paper that says I’m roughly as good as the crowd? In the meantime, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency sets uniform higher education standards in Australia, thereby restricting the types of higher education that could be delivered. And of course, there’s the usual unnecessary red tape that goes with bureaucracy.

At the end of the day, not everyone learns best the same way. No one-size-fit-all assessment practices will fairly represent learning outcomes achieved. Not all uni degrees in their current form are useful to graduate employers. It’s the lack of diversity of curricula thanks to the Standards Agency that’s enabling credentialism. Meanwhile the Internet has brought the cost of knowledge down to near zero. You don’t necessarily need the big institutions to confer a credential. You could be your own credential. Your LinkedIn profile, your Youtube channel, your website, your podcasts, and other tangible evidence of your product, your business relationships, your achievements… essentially, your portfolio, demonstrates your value today.

Is there still freedom of speech on university campuses?

Last year, Liberal Senator James Paterson called for unis to face fines for failing to uphold free speech.

“He says financial penalties would go some way to preventing the “administrative cowardice” behind the Australian National University’s decision to scrap plans for a course in Western civilisation.

Senator Paterson also took issue with ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt’s claim that his decision to withdraw from negotiations with the Ramsay ­Centre resulted from concerns over academic autonomy, pointing out that the university does not have a stand-alone policy dedicated to ­upholding free intellectual inquiry. This was despite amendments to the Higher Education Support Act in 2011 requiring universities to have a policy around upholding free intellectual inquiry.

Senator Paterson refers to an audit of university campuses conducted by the Institute of Public Affairs last year that found only eight of Australia’s 42 universities have such a policy.

“For all its talk of academic freedom, the ANU is not among them,” he said. “Clearly, the existence of this ­requirement isn’t enough to counteract the pressure that university administrators face from the angry minority hell-bent on ­enforcing their ideological hegemony.

“Only imposing real, financial consequences will bring an end to the kind of administrative cowardice that was epitomised in the ANU’s decision to cancel their proposed course on Western civilisation.” — Source: https://www.facebook.com/Libertarian.AU/posts/1934714566572790

Last month, unis welcomed the finding of a government-commissioned review that there is no evidence of a systemic free speech crisis on Australian campuses. The review was led by former High Court chief justice Robert French. “While the review was called in response to the heightened concerns, Mr French concluded that a series of reported incidents “do not establish a systemic pattern of action by higher education providers or student representative bodies, adverse to freedom of speech or intellectual inquiry in the higher education sector”.

He said the review was “instigated in part because of a perception” by some in government and the community of an increasingly restrictive approach on university campuses… “That perception has developed as a response to a relatively small number of high profile cases which have attracted publicity,” he said, noting concerns about visiting speakers being disrupted by protestors and about international trends.” — Source: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/no-freedom-of-speech-crisis-universities-welcome-inquiry-conclusion-20190406-p51bi6.html

If we’re on a trend that takes us towards a bad destination, at what point should we get worried and try to change direction? The reason the cases are so high profile is because they’re not the norm. Unfortunately, Mr French caved.

Ideas for fixing Higher Education in Australia

I’ve seen some interesting ideas floating around on how we can fix Higher Education in Australia (see below two of them).

Idea 1: “If I were making changes to university funding, it would be to deregulate the pricing structure of what HECS covers. I mean we all know how there are tiers of course fees based, but I would basically be like “universities can charge whatever” and have HECS basically only cover a set amount. That way demand pricing would kick in. I would imagine this would mean STEM degrees basically cap out in the price floor, while certain other degrees become more expensive. I assume this would (in part) force people to take which courses they take more seriously.”

Idea 2: “If you want to clear the rubbish out of universities then link university funding to rates of HECS debt recovery. University courses that are not producing valuable members of society should not get public funding.” Counter to Idea 2: “Strongly disagree — who is to say what a valuable member of society is? Instead let’s do more practical stuff like trying to recover HECS debts from Australians working overseas.”

What are your thoughts and ideas?