Opinion & Commentary
Leaks look lousy for lingerers - reform starts with naughty students
If the leaks from Canberra are to be believed, the Government is planning to track university students through a centralised computer system. It will keep records of students' time at university, loan history and academic record. One of its first uses, according to reports, will be to cut subsidies from students who don't complete their degrees on time.
Under the present system, some students linger at university, sometimes failing and repeating, other times switching degrees or completing multiple degrees, all the while picking up government subsidies. Another group, the prospective students who become each year's unmet demand, are excluded entirely.
Looking at commencing students data alone, in 2001, 16,744 non-overseas undergraduate students were admitted on the basis of previously completed higher education and another 25,011 on the basis of incomplete higher education. All of these could be deemed to be taking too long. Together, they are 23 per cent of all commencing students.
For a Government keen to diminish the numbers missing out entirely and anxious to improve its equity credentials while letting universities charge higher fees, cutting down on double dipping has obvious attractions. Those most likely to miss out now are those with relatively weak Year 12 results, and it is schools from low income areas that produce disproportionate numbers of students with lower scores. A large share of the 14,000 to 20,000 who miss out each year probably went to one of these schools.
Although there are no studies of the double dippers, they are far more likely to be from middle-class families because such families dominate enrolments and because they can afford to have a member out of the workforce for long periods in a way less prosperous families cannot.
Under the Government's plan, the double dippers would have to pay full fees with loans, while the subsidised places would go to those new to higher education. It will be hard for the Government's critics to argue that this is inequitable.
Other leaked aspects of the Nelson reforms also suggest the Government aims to get more for its money. A government source is quoted as saying: "Even though no one doubts that we need more doctors, nurses and teachers, no university vice-chancellor is going to like that. If this goes ahead, there will be quotas, and universities will be told to meet them."
Continued - Page 28 From Page 19 Although this source seems a little confused - the reason there aren't more doctors is that Education Minister Brendan Nelson's colleague Health Minister Kay Patterson won't issue enough Medicare provider numbers, and the Government can already direct universities to provide more nurses and teachers - it does signal that these latent planning powers will be used in future.
While it would be better if this were done by tender rather than coercion, even as a supporter of freer markets in education I do not object to the general intention. The Government ought to let disciplines that can survive in the market do so and concentrate its resources in areas, such as teaching and nursing especially, that are likely to be undersupplied in the market.
From the leaks to date, we will still have a hybrid system, part centrally controlled, part market-driven. But there are promising signs that the Government will begin allocating its resources more intelligently while harnessing greater private investment.
Andrew Norton is a research fellow with The Centre for Independent Studies. The Unchained University was published in 2002.
