Students Let Down By The Old Guard

The Age

Wednesday May 28, 2003

ANDREW NORTON

The student activists leading the protest against Brendan Nelson's higher education reforms are like generals fighting the last war. Applying old arguments to new issues won't help them to understand what's happening, or to win the best deal for students.

The student movement has opposed all previous attempts to increase charges. Whether or not it was fair for taxpayers to fund students who would end up among Australia's most affluent citizens was always a major political issue but, from the point of view of student self-interest, opposition to charges makes perfect sense.

While the Federal Government remained the monopoly funder of Australian undergraduate education, there were no benefits to students in higher charges, especially in later years when there was little fully funded growth in student numbers. Taxpayers were the sole beneficiaries of student charges.

Dr Nelson's package could change all this. If it passes through the Senate, for the first time in a generation there will be a financial relationship between universities and their Australian undergraduate students. Any additional revenue universities earn could - and should - go to improving conditions for students. Some of the spending will produce indirect benefits, such as helping to keep or attract good staff. Other benefits will be more direct, such as improved student-to-staff ratios, better access to computers, more generous resourcing for libraries and, on some campuses, new or refurbished buildings.

There are several other parts of the package aimed at making life better for students.

The Government's attempt to tie additional workplace money to staff performance is designed to encourage universities to reward quality improvements, rather than simply offering pay rises to all staff irrespective of how well they are doing.

A Learning and Teaching Performance Fund will reward universities that show evidence of systematic support for professional development of teaching staff, including sessional staff.

The Government is also promoting more extensive use of student surveys, both during and after courses. Surveys will be published to help students make informed choices.

None of this is to say that the Government's proposals could not be improved. The plan to allocate subsidised student places by discipline to each university will force universities to be even less responsive to student demand than they are now. The cap of $50,000 on debt for students doing full-fee courses will exclude people capable of doing the course and servicing a larger loan.

But, in opposing the Nelson package, student activists are seeing only costs. By looking at proposed reforms through the prism of past reforms, they are blind to its benefits. If student activists were really concerned with students' interests, they would be discussing the detail instead of threatening ``aggressive civil disobedience", as the National Union of Students did two weeks ago.

Andrew Norton is a research fellow with the Centre for Independent Studies.

© 2003 The Age

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