Speech - AFR Higher Education Summit
This is the third time I have spoken at this Summit.
The first time I spoke here I had just been appointed Minister.
I hadn’t yet released the Universities Accord terms of reference or announced who would lead that work, but I used that speech to talk about my priorities and what I wanted to achieve.
I said that I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on your postcode, your parents, or the colour of your skin.
And that’s what motivates everything I am doing right across the portfolio – from early education to school education to higher education.
Two and half years in, I think it’s worth reiterating my view about what universities should be and what they shouldn’t be.
They are not just about rankings. They're about students.
And they are not places of privilege. They are places of opportunity.
And they are places where the future comes to life.
One of our greatest Prime Ministers, John Curtin said that a great university is one that has a soul.
They should be:
“a friend of the reformer, the host ever willing to receive the initiator, the champion always ready to defend the poor and the obscure”.
I agree.
And reform is happening.
In that first speech I announced a review of the ARC.
The first in more than 20 years.
Last year, when I was back here, the Accord team, led by Professor Mary O’Kane, had just delivered their interim report and the ARC Review team, led by Professor Margaret Sheil, had just handed me their final report.
I told you I would implement all of the recommendations in the Accord’s interim report.
Here’s just a quick reminder of what they were:
1. Get rid of the 50 per cent pass rule that was part of the Job-Ready Graduates package.
2. Expand demand driven funding to all First Nations students who are eligible for the course they apply for.
3. Expand the number of Regional University Study Hubs across the country and set them up in the outer suburbs.
4. Extend the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee for a further two years to provide funding certainty to universities as the Accord process rolls out.
5. Work with State and Territory governments to improve university governance.
In that speech I also told you I would implement all of the recommendations of the ARC Review.
Including the most important one, the establishment of an independent ARC Board responsible for the approval of grants, instead of me. Instead of the Minister.
Getting the politics out of ARC grant funding.
A lot has happened since then.
Both of those reports have been turned into legislation.
They have been passed by the Parliament and they are now law.
The 50 per cent pass rule is now gone.
Any Indigenous student, no matter where they live, who gets the marks can now get access to a Commonwealth Supported Place.
I am doubling the number of University Study Hubs.
I have announced the locations of the next 10 Regional Hubs.
Applications have just closed for the 14 new Suburban University Study Hubs.
Applications will open again soon for the next 10 Regional University Study Hubs.
And the ARC Board is up and running.
When I spoke here last year, you might remember I also talked about sexual violence and harassment on our university campuses, and I think I made it pretty clear my intention to act.
And why:
• 1 in 20 students sexually assaulted since they started university
• 1 in 6 sexually harassed
• And 1 in 2 felt they weren’t heard
In February I got State and Territory Education Ministers to agree to establish a National Student Ombudsman. An independent body to investigate and resolve disputes and give students a stronger voice when the worst happens.
And next month when Parliament is back I will introduce a bill to that a reality as well.
In February this year, I also released the final report of the Universities Accord.
All 47 recommendations and 398 pages of it.
It is a monumental piece of work.
A blueprint for reform for the next few decades.
Obviously bigger than one budget. And one government.
It needs to be staged out. But we bit off a big chunk in the budget.
29 of the 47 recommendations in full or in part.
And last Thursday I introduced the first of a bunch of bills that will be needed to do this.
It wipes out about $3 billion of HELP debt for more than 3 million Australians.
It also introduces a Commonwealth Prac Payment.
Commonwealth Government financial support for teaching students, for nursing students, for midwifery students and social work students, to help support them while they do the practical part of their degree.
This is an important reform.
A lot of students tell me, and I am sure they tell you, that when they do their prac they have to give up their part-time job, or they've got to move away from home or work fewer hours.
Sometimes it can mean they have to delay doing their degree or not finish it at all.
This will give people who have signed up to do some of the most important jobs in this country a bit of extra help to get the qualifications they need.
Just to give you one example of what this will mean. This is what Claire, a midwifery student from UTS told me after we announced this:
“I'm a first-year mature-age midwifery student. This payment is going to be absolutely life-changing for me. As a mother of two small children, I'm often balancing between practical work, placement and looking after my babies.
“There are literally some days where I'm doing 16 hour days between my study and my work and looking after my children.
“I cannot wait for this payment to be available for myself and other future mature-age students who might also want to enrol in this course who previously couldn't financially afford it.”
That’s what this reform is all about.
The same legislation also massively expands Fee-Free Uni Ready Courses.
Those free short courses that are effectively a bridge between school and university.
A lot of unis do this.
Not many do it better than Newcastle.
They've been doing it now for 50 years.
One in five people who get a degree from Newcastle university today start with one of these FEE-FREE courses.
People like Jennifer Baker.
Jennifer was a mum at 19. She worked in hospitality for 10 years. One day, just by chance, she saw an ad in the paper for one of these free courses.
Now she's got a science degree, an honours degree, a PhD and a Fulbright scholarship.
She's a computational medicinal chemist.
That's what these courses do.
When I talk about your chances in life not depending on who your parents are, where you live, or the colour of your skin, that’s what uncapping and properly funding these courses is all about.
All of these, changes to HECS, paid prac and the expansion of these fee-free courses, are important.
But they are not the only recommendations we have already signed up for.
Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, the number of Australians finishing high school jumped from around 40 per cent to almost 80 per cent. That was nation changing stuff.
Now we have to take the next step.
The Accord says that by 2050, 80 per cent of our workforce has to not just finish school, but also go on to TAFE or to university.
And to get there it says we need to make some big structural reforms.
We need to break down that artificial barrier that we have built between vocational education and higher education.
And we need to break down that invisible barrier that stops more young people from poor families, from the suburbs and from the regions from getting a crack at going to uni, and succeeding when they get there.
And that means changing the way we fund universities.
That includes uncapping the number of places at university for students from disadvantaged backgrounds who get the marks for the course they want to do.
It also means needs-based funding, so these same students get the sort of academic and wraparound support they need to succeed when they get there.
It also needs a steward. A body to drive reform over the long term. Over more than the terms of one government. to stay the course and embed change.
That’s what the work of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission will be about.
I want to get these reforms right.
That’s why I have set up an Independent Advisory Committee to help shape them.
It’s also why I asked my department to put out discussion papers on each of these big reforms.
I did that for a reason.
Not to tell you what the detailed design of these reforms is going to look like.
But to get your advice on what they should look like. And I appreciate your feedback. I really do. And I hope you see it in the final form these reforms take.
Which brings me to international education.
You have heard me speak, I am sure, a lot over the years, about the importance of international education.
Not just to our universities, but to our country.
How it is the biggest export we don’t dig out of the ground.
How it makes us money, and it makes us friends.
That hasn’t changed.
But a lot has changed over the last two years.
Two years ago there were 521,831 international student enrolments in Australia.
Today there are 810,960.
Today there are about 10 per cent more in our universities than there were before the pandemic.
The bigger growth has been in VET. There are almost 50 per cent more in VET courses than there were before Covid hit.
That growth has also brought back the shonks looking to make a quick buck. It has lured people who really are here to work, not study.
And it’s put the reputation of this industry under pressure. That’s a fact.
It has also resulted in Ministerial Direction 107.
If you work in international education you will know the impact that has had.
Some universities have benefited from it. But some have been hit hard.
It’s why a lot of universities have asked me to act to put more sustainable arrangements in place.
I know universities and other international education providers are craving detail.
That detail will be provided to universities in the coming week.
This will be a better way to manage international education.
It will be fairer and provide a better foundation for it to grow sustainably into the future.
I know there is a lot happening.
And I know change can be difficult. And this is just one part of the education system. I am also driving the same sort of reform in school education and early education.
I am not interested in just making speeches and signing letters.
I want to help build a better and a fairer education system.
And that’s what drives everything I do.
I hope you see that in what I have done already, and just as importantly in the way I work with you.
There are plenty of people who want to badmouth our universities and the people who work in them.
I am not one of them. And I never will be.
I know our universities aren’t just some of the most powerful engines in our economy.
Or places where the world is changed.
They are places where lives are changed. Just think about that story I told you about Jennifer Baker.
The young mum who is now a computational medicinal chemist.
She might have stumbled upon that ad in the newspaper by chance.
But the things that changed her life were no accident.
They were put there by you and people like you.
And that’s what I want to make possible for more Australians.
What the Prime Minister calls opening the door of opportunity.
And the keys to that door are in our hands.
Thank you very much.