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Students in Australia have been protesting about a new higher education bill that will introduce deregulation of university fees, and require students to pay higher interest rates on loans. Although the cap on student numbers was removed two years ago, elite universities are unlikely to increase their student intake, and there are concerns that poorer and Indigenous students will find it harder to access higher education. Education minister Christopher Pyne has been blunt in his criticism of protesting students, saying they should “get some perspective”. Our anonymous academic takes the government to task.
Earlier this week I watched a current affairs programme where a vice-chancellor talked about the great things his elite university would be able to do in a deregulated Australian higher education sector.
Some of the initiatives sounded positive and equitable. But the night before, I had attended a meeting at the same vice-chancellor’s university where these ideas were raised. This was a high security public forum where 26 people with some connection to the university were able to speak for three minutes on issues related to the reforms. Almost all the speakers were against the reforms. Almost all the audience – staff, students, alumni and parents – were against the reforms. In fact the reforms were put to an unofficial vote, and the overwhelming response was that deregulation should not happen.
This was the community of a top-ranking university. If ever there were to be a group who might support the proposed changes, it would be these. But they didn’t.
All students spoke eloquently, (almost all) respectfully. They presented strong arguments, and spoke from the heart. They talked about the university’s history of access on merit, not privilege. That there was a need to redress that structural disadvantage that limited access for some students – for example rural, indigenous and female students. And that many students attended this university, not for the prestige, or the high-paying graduate job, but for the opportunity to use their education to improve society by working in lower paid positions in not-for-profit organisations.
I am confident in the future of our society, if these students become our future leaders.
Contrast this with disrespect shown towards students by our coalition politicians. Last week, around 500 students protested outside an Adelaide University building where prime minister Tony Abbott was speaking. Abbott joked about this event at Liberal party meeting two days later.
In a speech, with calculated comic timing, he commented that there were 400 of his friends inside and 500 of his friends outside, and “Thanks to the wonderful white horses of South Australian police, none of my different groups of friends met on that particular night … But I’ve finally drawn a bigger protest than Christopher Pyne.”
The tone of his speech reflected nothing of the seriousness of the event. Police horses forced the students back, and one student was trodden on by a horse and taken to hospital. No laughing matter for the students, or the police.
Pyne has also dismissed the concerns of students. He has suggested they are exaggerating the impact, and told them to get some perspective, with, “We’re not asking for their left kidney to be donated.” Unfortunately for students, with the apparent lack of any modelling by the government, and universities keeping their modelling under wraps, students really don’t know what they are up for.
In his TV interview the vice-chancellor spoke about the complicated nature of higher education funding. Agreed. And every university is able to take a different approach, so no-one can say that $xxx will be the cost of an engineering degree across the country, as they can in the pre-reform context.
While a number of people and organisations have undertaken their own modelling to show that student fees could double or more for some courses under the new proposals, I am unaware of any university that has released the outcomes of its modelling. Our universities have access to the best modellers in the country – but we need to ask why they haven’t released the results. I think we can guess. The figures would be tangible, concrete…and too horrible for words. But most importantly, impossible to dismiss or ridicule.
Everything that this vice-chancellor talked about sounded good, but his approach was to talk about what the university would do with its extra money. Never once did he mention where it would be coming from – our children, who have no idea how they will ever pay off their debt, who are struggling to make ends meet through university, and will be graduating into a far more uncertain job future than any of us did. And students have no assurance that any extra university funding will allocated to better quality teaching. In Australia, university research is underfunded and subsidised by tuition fees.
We need to ask ourselves, can we sit back, or do we help the young people get their message across in a way that will influence those in government, and university lobby groups?
We should demand that universities release their modelling so that students and politicians can see what this will really mean for our young people.
Students are not just stakeholders. They are the stakeholders who will bear the burden of all the increased costs, including the funding of scholarships for disadvantaged students – and their voices are being marginalised.
Where are the forums for their voices? We in the media, and in parliament, need to invite them in, to listen to their arguments. And when universities are forced to create a forum, reluctantly, but an effective forum nonetheless, why aren’t they listening?
So, vice-chancellor, given that it was your event, and there was overwhelming opposition to the new budget measures at the forum – what does it take for you to hear it? And if you did, how could you present the case you did the following day, without once mentioning that all the wonderful things you were planning would be paid for by the debt and interest on the loans we force our children to sign up for?
While student protests can show the mass of concern at this flawed policy, they provide a limited opportunity to convey well-reasoned argument. We need to provide opportunities for students to communicate with politicians in a way in which the value of what they say shines through.
This week’s anonymous academic is a lecturer at an Australian university.
If you’d like to contribute an anonymous piece about the trials and tribulations of university life, contact claire.shaw@theguardian.com.
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