A close family member works as a university lecturer; over the past decade I have worked as a part time consultant, lecturer and tutor at a university.
I went to university at a time when eligibility was dependent on achieving minimum academic benchmarks, the stringency depending on the course chosen.
Now, of course, we have the ALP introduced demand model where intake is uncapped and universities are encouraged to operate as profitable businesses rather than halls of learning.
One does not need to be a Rhodes Scholar to predict the result. To get bums on seats, universities progressively lower entry standards; academic ability is secondary to ability to pay. As a result standards are in free fall. It has little to do with the kind of class warfare nonsense mmartin and others on the left pretend. Australian students from whatever socio-economic background are entitled to the same HECS scheme. It has everything to do with academic ability.
It is past time the federal government scrapped this stupid 40% quota Labor trumpetted and limited access to universities by much higher academic benchmarks than are currently applied. Much higher. The simple fact is that not everyone is intellectually capable of completing tertiary education. To pretend otherwise simply reduces Bachelor degrees to the status of TAFE certificates. I have worked with students in Masters Degrees and wondered how they ever got through an undergraduate degree at all.
Higher education is in deep trouble. What is needed is to concentrate on quality ,not quantity. I applaud any steps by Chris Pyne to return the focus to excellence and achievement, rather than quotas.
