AFR Higher Education Summit, Sydney

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

This is the fourth time I have had this privilege.

And the first since the election.

Just after the election Julie wrote an article in the Fin about all the problems and challenges in higher education.

And it said that over last three years I have been focused on students.

And there is some truth in that.

We have cut student debt – by about $20 billion.

We have created a Student Ombudsman.

And we have started Paid Prac.

Financial support for teaching and nursing students. 

For midwifery and social work students.

They’re just a couple of examples.

But over the last few years I have also been focused on the bigger systemic changes we need to make, to make sure we are ready for the changes that will come at us.

That is fundamentally what the Accord is all about.

Setting us up for the future.

That’s what the ATEC is about.

It’s what the new funding system that starts to roll out from next year is all about.

It’s what the work we are doing to break down the barriers between university and TAFE is about.

It’s what the work that is happening right now on governance is about.

All of this will change what our universities look like and how they operate.

And that’s what I want to talk about today.

First, just a reminder about what the Accord is all about.

About three years ago I asked Professor Mary O’Kane to give us a blueprint for reform. 

For the next decade and the one after that.

That’s what the Accord is.

It gives us an idea of what the workforce will look like in 25 years.

A workforce where four out of five people have a TAFE qualification or a university degree.

And what we need to do to get there.

Getting there means a bigger system than the one we have today. 

A lot bigger.

It means breaking down that artificial barrier between vocational and higher education.

And breaking down that invisible barrier that stops a lot of people getting to university in the first place. 

And succeeding when they get there.

We are not going to hit the sort of targets the Accord talks about by helping more people from Mosman or Toorak go to university.

They are already there.

We need to help the sort of people who aren’t there right now.

People from poor families.

People from the sort of places where I grew up.

In our outer suburbs.

In the regions.

That’s really what the Accord is all about.

It’s not an island.

Even doing everything in it is not enough.

We will fail to hit the targets it talks about unless we also fix other parts of the education system.

That’s what the school funding agreements I have signed over the last 12 months with every State and Territory are about.

They are the biggest new investment by the Australian Government in our public schools ever.

About $16 billion over the next 10 years.

And that money is tied to reform.

The sort of reforms that are needed to turn around the drop in the number of students finishing school.

The sort of reforms that are needed to make sure more Australians are ready and able to take on a uni degree.

The Accord is the connective tissue here.

It recommends we massively increase funding for the free bridging courses that help people who aren’t ready for uni, just yet.

We are doing that.

That started this year.

We are uncapping funding for these courses.

We think that means about an extra billion over the next 10 years to help more people bridge that gap between school and university.

The Accord also says if someone from a disadvantaged background gets the marks to do a course, we should fund them.

We should provide them with a Commonwealth supported place.

We have done that for Indigenous students.

That started last year.

It’s already having a positive impact.

Indigenous enrolments were up about 5 percent last year. 

And another 3 percent this year.

Over the next 10 years we think it could double the number of Indigenous students at university.

The next step is to do the same thing for other students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

A demand driven system for all students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

That starts in 2027.

Next year is a transition year.

Next year is all about moving from the current funding system to this new Managed Growth System.

Australians are back at uni this year in record numbers.

When you take out COVID it looks like more Australians started a degree this year than ever before.

That’s a big turnaround after years of decline.

And we have got to build on that.

Universities are telling us that they are expecting more growth next year.

Over the next 10 years there will be about 200,000 more students in our universities.

It’s important that this is managed in the right way.

That means allocating places to support the whole system, rather than the hunger games we sometimes see at the moment.

Next year something else happens.

Needs based funding starts.

Think Gonski for universities.

The school funding system provides schools with extra funding based on where they are located and the needs of the students they educate.

Students who come from economically disadvantaged families receive additional support. 

So do schools in the regions and the bush.

At the moment we have programs like HEPPP that provide funding for extra student support.

This is different.

This isn’t a capped program.

Its demand driven.

The money follows the student.

The more students a university has that meet this criteria the more funding they will receive.

The more students there are at regional unis, the more funding those unis will receive as well.

These two big structural changes - Managed Growth and Needs Based Funding - aren’t sexy, they don’t make headlines, but they’re important.

They will inject $2.5 billion into the system over the next decade.

They are what will do the heavy lifting to help hit the targets in the Accord.

To help build a country where you can’t tell where someone was born based on whether they have a university degree or not.

What I bang on about all the time.

A system where more kids like the kids I grew up with get a crack.

And we have got a lot of work to do over the next few months to get this right.

If we are going to hit the sort of targets that the Accord talks about, we also need something else to drive it.

Something that will outlast all of us.

Something that can help lift those words off the page.

And will that future into being.

And that I hope is the ATEC.

It started a few weeks ago, with Mary O’Kane at the helm.

As I said back in February, I have gotten a few members of the band back together.

Mary, Barney and Larissa. 

They were a big part of the team who wrote the Accord and recommended the ATEC, and now I am getting them to help build it.

What they are working on right now is Managed Growth and Needs-based Funding.

And what next year looks like.

That transition year I talked about.

To make sure we get it right.

They are working with the Department on that.

And they will be working with you on that too.

Later this year, or early next year, I will introduce legislation to formally create the ATEC.

That will cement it in. 

Make it permanent.

But before I do that there is more consultation I need to do with you on what goes in the bill. 

To make sure we get it right.

That will happen later this year.

In the next few months there are also some big decisions we have to make about university governance.

I think everyone knows there is work to do here to make sure governance is up to scratch.

This was a big issue in the Accord.

They called for us to create a Student Ombudsman – and we have done that.

A bill to establish a new Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence is also in the Parliament.

That will hopefully pass next week or the week after. 

And come into effect from next year.

That will give the Ombudsman’s recommendations real teeth.

The Accord also asked me to work with States and Territories on other areas of university governance.

That led to the establishment of the Expert Council on University Governance earlier this year.

The head of that team is Melinda Cilento, the CEO of CEDA.

They are looking at everything from remuneration to accountability, transparency and culture.

I expect their report will set out the principles they expect all universities to sign up to, and the recommendations they want Education Ministers to agree to, when we meet in October.

This is not about belting universities. 

I think you know now that’s not my style.

It’s about working together to make our universities better.

To meet the sort of standards students, staff and the community expect of our universities.

I have encouraged you in a lot of different meetings to lean in to this.

And I have seen examples of that.

The recent public statement about VC remuneration by the University Chancellors Council is a good example.

But can I just encourage everyone again, don’t be defensive about this.

I am calling you in, not calling you out.

Be part of this.

While I am talking about reforms to governance, I also want to thank Mary Russell and the team at TEQSA for the work they are doing here.

Mary has written to me suggesting a number of changes to what TEQSA does and how it works.

At the moment TEQSA can cancel the registration of a university but doing that would almost always cause more harm than the problem it’s trying to fix.

They can also put conditions on registration or accreditation. 

But that too is sometimes not a useful response.

They can impose fines, but only after applying to a court.

They can publish statements of expectations, but they don’t always have the full force of law.

At the moment TEQSA has a sledgehammer and a feather, and not much in-between.

I think there is a good argument that it needs better tools to be able to step in and act when it’s justified in the public interest.

And to be able to respond to systemic risks, not just the compliance of individual providers.

TEQSA’s powers haven’t really changed since it was created almost 15 years ago.

Now is the time to look at this.

And in the next few weeks I will release a consultation paper on what this could involve.

Everything I have talked about today, everything we are doing:

• Paid Prac
• The Free Bridging Courses
• Managed Growth
• Needs Based Funding
• ATEC
• The work on governance.

All of that is the first stage of our response to the Accord.

It’s a big chunk of it.

About 31 of its 47 recommendations. 

In full or in part.

In dollars it’s about an extra $6.7 billion over the next decade.

My job is to make sure we deliver it.

But I am also conscious it’s not everything we have to do.

There is more in the Accord and more we need to do to make sure the higher education system, and the whole tertiary education system, is built right for the challenges that lie ahead.

The conversation that’s happening up in Canberra today could be the spark for some of that.

They are going to be talking about lots of things to boost productivity.

And obviously we are a part of that.

Making the whole tertiary education system more joined up, more seamless, will help.

Cracking the code of credit transfer and RPL will make it easier to get the skills you need quicker and cheaper.

That’s not easy.

If it was, it would be done by now.

But its something Andrew Giles and I have also asked the ATEC to work on.

To plot out a roadmap for reform here.

We have also written to the States and Territories to set up a Tertiary System Advisory Council to guide this work.

Another quick example.

There has been a lot of talk in the lead up to today about AI.

What rules and regulations should or shouldn’t wrap around it.

Over the last few years in schools and universities we have been preoccupied with what it means for how we assess students.

How do we make sure that students are learning, not cheating.

But there is a bigger game here.

If this is going to be as ubiquitous as we all think, if it is more likely to augment rather than automate work, then how do we prepare for that?

I was at UTS a few weeks ago to launch Paid Prac.

Talking to nursing students and midwifery students.

They told me they are getting trained to use AI as part of their degree.

It’s part of the course.

I asked a VC at another university about this the other day.

He told me he thinks AI will be embedded in every degree at his university in the next 5 years.

Another Vice-Chancellor told me last week she thinks her university will do this in the next two years.

If that’s right, and this is a tool set that almost everyone will use, then that’s real productivity enhancing reform.

But it won’t all be organic.

There is work for us to do here.

And I think Barney Glover will talk a little bit later here about the paper that JSA has just released.

That’s just another example of where we have an opportunity to be part of a bigger reform agenda.

In the wake of the election, I think there is also a real opportunity to build a bit of bipartisanship here that is badly needed.

A little later today you will hear from the new Shadow Minister for Education, Jonno Duniam.

He is a serious person. 

A serious thinker.

He thinks about the national interest.

I’m working with him on all the challenges we are grappling with in early education at the moment.

And I am looking forward to working with him on everything I have talked about today as well.

As I have said a number of times, this is bigger than one Budget, one Minister, or one government.

It’s about building a better and fairer education system.

For the next decade.

And the one after that.

We have made a start.

There is a long way to go.