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University funding policies may encourage students into undergraduate study rather than sub-bachelor courses to which they are better suited, the sector’s umbrella body has warned.
Universities Australia is calling on the Abbott government to extend the uncapped system of university places to include sub-bachelor programs – such as certificates, diplomas and advanced diplomas – that help students prepare for further study.
In a submission to a review ordered by the education minister, Christopher Pyne, the peak body has strongly backed the Labor-introduced demand-driven system in which the federal government provides funding for as many bachelor places as universities are able to accommodate. It says there is no evidence it is inferior to the old “capped, centrally planned system, or that it is affecting the quality of higher education”.
But Universities Australia warns the exclusion of sub-bachelor courses from the demand-driven funding system could be harming retention and completion rates. This is because people could be encouraged to enrol in undergraduate study when they may be better suited to an enabling program.
“Sub-bachelor programs, including certificates, diplomas and advanced diplomas, and foundation and bridging programs are particularly effective pathways into bachelor study for those less well prepared yet enrolments for these programs remain capped,” it says.
The submission points to the fact undergraduate commencement growth passed enabling course growth in 2012, “suggesting a level of substitution may be occurring”. It recommends an expansion of federal government-supported places in sub-bachelor programs “directed at members of equity groups with strong opportunities for progression either to employment or to bachelor programs and in areas that have low participation or skills shortages”. A sub-bachelor place could be funded at a lower rate than a bachelor place, it suggests.
Last month Pyne appointed the former Liberal education minister David Kemp and one of Kemp’s past advisers, the Grattan Institute higher education program director Andrew Norton, to review the demand-driven system by February.
Labor started to phase out capped university places in 2010 and introduced the demand-driven system in 2012. The government funds all domestic undergraduate students accepted into a bachelor course, except for medicine.
This has led to an increase in commonwealth-supported places from 469,000 in 2009 to 577,000 in 2013, according to government figures.
Kemp and Norton have been asked to identify “possible areas for improvement to ensure that the system better meets its objectives, is efficient, is fiscally sustainable, and supports innovation and competition in education delivery”. Submissions were due on Monday.
The review comes as the federal government looks to take over governance of universities from the states. Ten universities are established under state legislation in New South Wales.
Pyne confirmed on Monday that the commonwealth was in “preliminary discussions” with the NSW Coalition government about the sector’s oversight. Both governments were “committed to cutting red tape and regulation in higher education” and were considering their options, he added.
Labor’s higher education spokesman, Kim Carr, said he generally supported the development of universities as genuinely national institutions, noting just 3.5% of funding came from the states.
But Carr said he feared the government would intrude on institutional autonomy and academic freedom given the Howard government’s past attempts to “bully” the sector. He also pointed to the current government’s “re-enactment of their glory days as student politicians, with student unionism as an example”.
The NSW auditor general identified $4.7bn in unfunded superannuation liabilities related to the state’s universities at the end of 2012. Carr questioned who would be responsible for these liabilities under any transfer of university legislation from a state to federal level.
“If the commonwealth wishes to take over universities there has to be a mechanism to ensure states maintain their [funding] effort, as modest as it is today,” Carr said.
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