National conversation needed on our education values

CAPA applauds the second recommendation of the Senate Committee report, Universities in Crisis, that a national debate be conducted on the public interest in a fully functioning higher education sector.

"There has never been a more important time for Australians to consider, understand, and address the needs of their national public university system," said CAPA President, John Byron.

"Similarly, there has never been a more important time for government to harvest the advice of students, academics and administrators, who work at the coalface of higher education," he said.

"In contrast to the current government, the Senate Committee has recognised the need to solicit and responds to public and sector contributions to the development of a coherent and enabling raft of higher education policy," he continued.

The role of consultation and review in the management of our university system has been reduced virtually to nil by the present government. The demise of the Higher Education Council (HEC), which could commission research and which reported to Parliament, was the most telling measure in Dr Kemp's campaign to quarantine himself from the sector.

"The Howard government's unwillingness either to ask the public what it expects, or to ask the sector what it needs, is indicative of a wilful determination to proceed in isolation from the facts confronting our national education needs and the conditions within the university system," said Mr Byron.

"Not consultation and intelligent management, but slavish devotion to ideology and a monolithic arrogance, drive this government in its spectacular maltreatment of education policy," he argued.

"Consequently, the calls of the entire sector and a significant majority of the general public to reverse the considerable damage done under Kemp continue to fall on deaf Coalition ears," he continued. "The government's unwillingness to conduct this very inquiry is a good case in point.

"However, it is clear that the Senate committee is listening, and is committed to establishing structures that will ensure governments keep on listening."

The committee recommends that a national summit be convened to discuss the key challenges and opportunities before our higher education system, and to build consensus around a bank of strategies, funding commitments, and values.

"Summits and conventions are able to play an important policy development role in contemporary democracy," observed Mr Byron, "and education is every bit as important to our national interest as the Republic or our policy on drugs.

"A properly convened summit, with representation from all relevant groups within the sector and from the community at large, is the best way to establish a national conversation on our country's education system - the engine room of Australia's future social, economic, and environmental prosperity."