Postgraduate report card

Before last year’s federal election, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations compiled a short list of its key priorites. Nigel Palmer recaps.

 

Support for independent student representation

The election campaign saw intransigence on the part of the
Coalition, a firm commitment from the minor parties and some
equivocation from Labor.

The new government has, however, moved swiftly to consult on the
impact of voluntary student unionism and restated its commitment to
ensuring access to independent services, advocacy and representation
for all students. It now has submissions in response to the discussion
paper released by Minister for Youth Kate Ellis in February. We hope to
see at least preliminary measures to address the impact of the former
government’s devastating legislation announced soon.

The outcomes we look forward to are simple: student control of
student affairs and a return to a sustainable model for the provision
of quality student services, independent advocacy and representation
for postgraduate students.

 

Increased funding for scholarships

In his 2007 election campaign launch speech, Kevin Rudd announced
Scholarships for a Competitive Future and the Future Fellowships
program. The first involves an increase in the number of Australian
Postgraduate Awards (APAs) offered to commencing research students from
1580 in 2008 to 3500, effectively doubling the number of scholarships
offered by 2012.

The Future Fellowships program involves 1000 four-year fellowships
for mid-career researchers valued at $140,000 per year, with an
associated $50,000 project and infrastructure grant to go to the
institution for the duration of the fellowship.

The scholarship commitments were pretty much all the ALP put on the
table for higher education in the lead-up to election day, but
represented a win for prospective research postgraduates.

The veracity of the new government’s commitment in this area will be
tested from here. Innovation and science minister Kim Carr, in
particular, has for a long time indicated support for improving funding
and conditions for research students. Increasing the number of APAs is
a good start, but more needs to be done. Carr now has the opportunity
to move on simple fixes that will have a big impact, including:

  • Increasing all federally funded postgraduate stipend rates by at least 30 per cent
  • Funding all PhD postgraduate awards to four years (to match the term of candidature)
  • Exempting all scholarships and awards from assessable income for
    taxation and income support purposes (including, importantly, part-time
    awards), along with amending Commonwealth scholarship guidelines to
    give recipients greater flexibility in going part time.

 

Income support reform

In the lead up to the election, the Coalition announced measures to
allow access to income support for some coursework postgraduate
students. These were by no means landmark measures in terms of impact,
but they were significant in at least recognising the critical need
identified in this area. Many students are doing it tough, but
postgraduate coursework students stand out as an area of particular
concern. Labor will find itself out of step if it fails to allow all
coursework postgraduates to apply for Youth Allowance and Austudy, and
review income support measures for research students not in receipt of
a stipend, with a view to making income support available to all
students regardless of which course they are enrolled in.

 

A sustainable higher education sector

Most universities are now beset with crumbling infrastructure after
many years of neglect, so this won’t be cheap. Addressing the issue of
looming generational change in the higher education workforce will also
need to be high on the agenda. The best place to start will be better
support for the next generation of researchers, and finally addressing
the miserable treatment of casually and sessionally employed staff.

Research funding will continue to be a matter of ongoing (and
possibly excruciating) review. It remains to be seen whether the new
research quality assessment exercise ERA will address the concerns with
the Research Quality Framework or if it raises new ones, and how this
all fits in with the inevitable review of the Research Training Scheme.

In a recent speech, Carr proposed opening access to the Future
Fellowships program to international students. The proposal itself is
sound: CAPA has long been an advocate for adequately supporting
international postgraduates studying in Australia, and the same holds
for international early and mid-career researchers. New ideas without
adequate funding to back them up will inevitably deplete resources
committed to other areas, no matter how innovative. We’d hate to see
election commitments get shrunk in the wash.

 

Nigel Palmer is president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate
Associations and a PhD student at La Trobe University. This is an
edited version of a presentation he gave to the Quality in Postgraduate
Research conference in Adelaide last week.