Content
Universities and a sustainable future
17 March 2007
Earlier this week I was involved with other Vice-Chancellors in formulating a pre-election strategy and the case for greater funding, for students, for infrastructure and for research in Australian universities.
I went to that meeting in Sydney directly after interacting at USC with an OECD researcher who is investigating our campus strategies and academic programs that contribute to a sustainable future. So USC will again be in the international spotlight as a case-study.
Dr Johnston, who was conducting the OECD research, gave me the results of a survey of 52,000 young people, potential future leaders, who were entering universities in the UK last year. Amongst that group there is a huge concern with environmental sustainability and whether our way of life will have to change in the 21st century. Most of them feel they will be living in a technologically advanced but environmentally impoverished world, unless dramatic, informed and innovative steps are taken to ensure the sustainability of societies.
Back to the AVCC priorities. The strategy to obtain more funding for universities is a fundamentally important factor in helping solve our current and future problems, many of them being foreshadowed by the university entrants.
If we look at the major national issues now and ahead, they are the lack of skilled professional people, the ageing population, environmental degradation, water and climate change, Indigenous participation rates, the quality of education across the spectrum, to mention a few.
If we are to address these societal issues head-on, we have to bridge the funding shortfall that is bearing on the quality of university infrastructure and funding needs to provide for future leaders, leaders who can be skilful and knowledgeable about addressing society’s greatest issues.
The Prime Minister has himself conceded recently that universities are under-funded and there is no question that he is right. But it is not the acquisition of better funding for its own sake, but to genuinely address producing future leaders who can lead Australia to a more informed and sustainable future.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Sunshine Coast.