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Will a Public-Private Divide Emerge?
14 August 2004
The recent announcement by the Prime Minister that the
Commonwealth Government would provide public funds to help
establish the private Notre Dame University in Sydney is seen by
many as a major turning point in the evolution of higher education
in Australia.
To date there have been two types of universities in this
country. The majority have been public universities, and since the
early 1950s when the Commonwealth took responsibility for the
sector, the funding has come mainly from Canberra. Occasionally,
the States have augmented funds where there has been a need to
provide for priority areas or projects. From time to time, and with
some reluctance, States have supported additional teaching or
nursing places, and more recently huge funds have been directed to
research centres, and much smaller sums have been directed to help
regional universities. The Commonwealth feels the States ought to
play their part as it is they as State Governments that create the
Acts that establish universities, and if they have priorities they
should support them. States on the other hand are not keen on
establishing too many precedents that could be exploited
subsequently by the Commonwealth.
In the late 1980s, another type of university emerged, the
completely private, Bond University. In more recent times Notre
Dame has become another Private, located in Western Australia. Now
that Notre Dame has been granted a base in Sydney, and has been
provided with 200 HECS places that would have been expected to go
to the Australian Catholic University in Sydney, we have an initial
sign that the public-private divide is blurring, and that there may
be a deliberate strategy to change the funding patterns to
universities. It is a completely different pattern of funding than
that of Bond, which has had no direct Commonwealth support in this
way.
On the other hand some public universities now receive around
only a third of their revenue from the Commonwealth Government.
Notre Dame already receives over 20 per cent of its revenue from
the Commonwealth. There is a convergence.
Questions are therefore being asked about the future of higher
education in this country and whether we are experiencing a
movement of the sector towards a model that characterises the
school system and the health system.
Ways are perhaps being explored to see whether university
education can be delivered more inexpensively from the
Commonwealth's point of view, by encouraging the development of
private providers. In such a model the cost is wholly or in part
shifted to the student, and there is diminishing overall government
investment.
In such a future there could be rich universities charging full
fees and being regarded as prestige and their reliance on
governmental revenue would be minimal. Just as there are expensive
private hospitals and expensive private schools.
In other areas there may be less well resourced universities
heavily reliant on government funding and serving less advantaged
populations. Just as there are resource-strapped, over-crowded
hospitals, and school struggling to break the cycle of
disadvantage.
It is clearly an important time for universities, and everyone
who is interested in them should be as alert as possible to the
varying future scenarios.
Governments, communities, governing councils of universities,
staff and students, need to reflect carefully on what kind of
public higher education sector we want in this country and what has
to be done to achieve that.
Whilst we at USC have been a major beneficiary of the recent
reforms, we need to ensure that nothing develops that will damage
in the long term, the recent achievements we have made. I don't
think many people in this country would want second class
universities, any more than they would want under-resourced schools
or hospitals.
This country's future is heavily reliant on a strong public
university system, wherever those universities are located.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast