A tertiary education is not much about what you actually are supposed to learn.
After all - our retention of knowledge is very low - very very low.
It is more about learning how to think and building networks.
Take an example - a teaching degree. Even if there were not much work around for teachers in the future - a teaching degree is 'always' an asset.
Ditto a lot of other degrees - eg. psychology, science, law - many others.
That is one of the mistakes we have made -- we funnel money and resources into areas we guess are going go be in demand - it sounds like common sense - but, the reality is we most often guess incorrectly and stuff up the supply or get the demand numbers wrong.
Ditto research - we try and pick winners -- and, we fail dismally.
And, we just don't fund general research - and that one area is where the biggest discoveries have come from.
We should stop thinking about educating for JOBS - but, start thinking about an educated populace. It is the job, teach, train populist and shallow political thinking that gives us the problems in the first place.
Combine that with limited expectation from lower socio economic levels and you have a disaster waiting.
Australia needs educated people - people who can, yes, do high tech jobs - but, also people who can sit around and think about how to do things better --- OR, completely different - and, that takes time. Not only does it take time and lot of patience - but, you have to have some mechanisms in place where people can do that.
It is unusual to find that space and opportunity in business. But, you can find time, space in University - all you have to do is allow for it - and not centralise the thinking on specific roles.
How many people who are tertiary educated and very successful do you ever meet who actually work in what they originally studied at Uni as a young person?
Few. And that is not only the way it should be, but, the way it is.
"....
to meet our present and future needsso that we can minimise our reliance on importing highly educated/skilled migrants "
therein lies the problem ---------- we don't know what our future needs will be. We have a dreadful record of trying to pick them.
But, we know this ------- there will be MILLIONS, 10's and probably 100's of millions of highly educated people in competition with us in a very few years.
What else do we have? Resources. But so have other places -- AND, worse still, they are developing them at a great rate. And, their labour is cheaper and often they are closer to market.
Our young are our ONLY future.
That's it.
It comes down to one very simple question - do you want em smart or do you want em dumb?
Do you want them to sit around reading an ipad - or do you want them to be smart enough to build the ipads and all the things that go with that.
Australia has one culturally significant thing - we are really innovative. Not all nations have that. So, milk it for all it's worth - combine that national cultural oddity with a high level of education - and, you probably have a winner.
India just sent a mission to mars for the cost of a few curry meals.
That is the sort of thing Aussies do. So, lets capitalise on it.
