Go8's Failure Of Nerve

CAPA endorses the Go8's call for reinvigorated debate and decisive action on higher education and research policy.

However, the Go8 discussion paper, Imperatives and Principles For Policy Reform In Australian Higher Education, fails to effectively grapple with the core issues of private investment in education.

CAPA President, Bradley Smith, said "the Go8 discussion paper is the latest in a string of reports that make a lucid and compelling case for immediate and substantial public re-investment in basic research and, more generally, higher education."

"However, the fine rhetoric on public funding sits alongside an inept attempt to legitimise further relaxation of the rules on fee-paying for undergraduates. On this, the paper is simply a mealy-mouthed restatement of Minister Kemp's discredited leaked Cabinet submission."

CAPA notes the Go8s recognition that 'ability to succeed, not ability to pay, remains the central criterion (sic) for access to all universities'.

"However", Mr Smith said, "in its current form, the discussion paper is not credible on access to universities."

"The ability to pay remains the central criteria for access to postgraduate coursework education since the removal of 25,000 funded places by the Coalition.

"Fee-paying in postgraduate coursework has resulted in declining numbers of students, diminished access and quality and significant falls in strategically crucial fields including science and agriculture."

"Addressing the sort of systemic distortions caused by fee-paying in postgraduate coursework is the litmus test on credibility for any proponents of further deregulation of higher education. The Go8 discussion paper fails this test comprehensively and thus remains locked into simple-minded approaches to marketisation and privatisation of higher education".