Interview - ABC Breakfast with Melissa Clarke

MELISSA CLARKE: First year enrolments at Australian universities have hit a record high this year, with a jump in applications to study compared to last year. More students will be studying social work, engineering, science, teaching and nursing, with offers for undergraduate degrees in those fields up significantly. I spoke to the Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, a short time ago. 
Jason Clare, thanks for joining me.

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks, Mel.

CLARKE: [INDISTINCT]

CLARE: Well, childcare is not just about mums and dads returning to work. It's also helping our children prepare for school. All the evidence points to the fact that a child in preschool is about one and a half times as ready to start school as a child who doesn't. And until some of the big reforms we put into place this year were implemented, children from some of the poorest and most disadvantaged families in the country were missing out on childcare almost altogether.

CLARKE: But nannies and au pairs could provide educational services too. So, is that something you'd be willing to subsidise to in order to expand that education?

CLARE: It's not something we're looking at. What we are focused on is making child care more affordable. And childcare is about $3,500 a year cheaper for the average family this year than it otherwise would be because of the changes we've made. We want to make it more accessible. That's why we're building centres in places where they don't exist, and most importantly of all, making it safer. That's why we passed legislation through the Parliament last year, cut funding to centres that aren't meeting safety standards. And I should tell you, Mel, and your listeners, that the deadline for about 30 centres that we've put on notice comes up in the next few weeks. And I'll have more to say about that very soon.

CLARKE: Let's go to uni places. There is a jump in applications for undergraduate places up 4.6 per cent, but offers are only up 2.5 per cent. Are places keeping up with demand?

CLARE: Well, there's plenty of demand and that's a good thing because we need more people with more skills, whether it's a uni degree or whether it's a TAFE qualification. More and more jobs are going to require more skills in the years ahead. Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, they increased the number of people finishing high school from about 40 per cent to 80 per cent. We think that by the middle of this century, about 80 per cent of the entire workforce will need either a TAFE qualification or a university degree. And that's why the data that's out today is so important. More Australians will start a uni degree this year than ever before. And as you say, it's more teachers, it's more nurses, it's more scientists, it's more engineers. I think teaching's up 6 per cent, nursing is up 6 per cent, science is up 8 per cent, engineering's up 9 per cent and social work up 19 per cent. And it's not happening by accident. It's happening because we're investing more in our universities to enable people to do those courses.

CLARKE: There's certainly an increasing demand in many of those STEM related areas. There's been some concern that that's due to the Morrison Government's Jobs-ready Graduate scheme, which is just making arts and humanities and communications degrees much more expensive. Is that what's happening here? Is the pricing pushing more people to consider studying STEM degrees?

CLARE: I don't think that's necessarily the case. People choose the courses that they like, that they love, that they're interested in, but certainly also true that the Job-ready Graduates scheme has failed. It was a recommendation of the Universities Accord for us to make changes here. We've already bitten off a big chunk of that report. I think we've implemented now about 31 or 32 of its 47 recommendations, in part or in full. One of the things we did at the election, you might remember, is we cut student debt by 20 per cent. That's now happened. 

CLARKE: I do want to come to that. But can we just stay with the Jobs-ready program? Because you've established a commission to set up a new funding model.

CLARE: That's right, that’s right.

CLARKE: When will that be ready?

CLARE: Well, hopefully that will pass through the Parliament when Parliament returns in March. It's been passed through the House of Representatives. The Senate Committee is looking at that legislation right now. We're expecting its report at the end of next week.

CLARKE: Going back then to the HECS debt, you wiped 20 per cent off existing student debts last year and there were some other changes around indexation and the minimum threshold. But for all of these new students starting this year, they won't have the benefit of that 20 per cent reduction. Would you consider doing that again in the forthcoming budget?

CLARE: Not going to preempt what might be or might not be in the budget. But can I make this point, Mel? As well as cutting student debt by 20 per cent, which wiped about $16 billion off the shoulders of 3 million young Australians, the other change we made to HECS, which was a very big and important structural change to HECS, was to reduce the amount you have to repay every year. For someone earning $70,000 a year, it means that they have to repay every year about $1,300 less. So, it's more money in your pocket rather than the government's. The architect of HECS last year described it as the most important structural reform to the HECS system in decades.

CLARKE: But if you acknowledge that students in 2025 were struggling with the debt burden of their debts to the point that a 20% reduction was sufficient, the economic conditions are really quite similar for students starting this year. Surely the case is the same that they would need the debt relief that students that were in the same circumstances last year required?

CLARE: Mel, there's no doubt here there's more work to do and we'll keep working through the recommendations. Talk to a lot of students, they'll talk to you not only about the cost of the degree, but the cost of living while they're studying for their degree. That's why things like paid prac are so important. For the first time ever, we're now providing financial support for students while they do their practical training. And something else which I think is important, there's a way that we can make getting a degree quicker and cheaper by getting universities to count your TAFE qualifications first. At Western Sydney University this year, if you've done a TAFE qualification in nursing or in early education, for example, they'll take a year off your degree and up to $18,000 off the cost of the degree. And that's good, but I'd like to see other universities do that, too.

CLARKE: Jason Clare, thanks very much for speaking to us.

CLARE: Good on you. Thanks very much.