Universities encouraged to specialise

The Government will progress a recommendation of the Ambitious Australia Report for university research specialisation in this year’s Federal Budget.

The Report said requirements for universities to conduct research at ‘world standard’ in 50 per cent or at least three broad fields of education in which it offers courses have limited the ability of universities to specialise in their areas of comparative strength.

This has resulted in too many ‘broad-based universities’ rather than universities building scale in their areas of competitive and comparative advantage.

Specialisation could be aligned with national priorities and how universities can best meet community needs.

The Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) will be asked to provide advice to the Government on the implementation of this reform.  

Legislation to establish the ATEC recently passed the Parliament.

It will help drive long-term reform in the higher education sector, including reducing the length and cost of a degree for students who already have a relevant TAFE qualification and joining up TAFE and university.

This is all part of our work to build the type of education system Australia needs now and into the future.  

Quotes attributable to Minister for Education Jason Clare:

“This will help us build a system built around the know how of each university, and the needs of the nation.

“A system where we have universities of different sizes and who do different things.

“More like a constellation than the cut and paste approach we have today.

“This will be good for the universities who do this, the people who study there and the nation too.”