Context: australian government reforms and
commitments
In response to the findings of the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education, the Australian Government introduced a comprehensive package of reforms to Australian higher education in the 2009 Budget. The reform plans were articulated in ‘Transforming Australia’s Higher Education System’, which stated the purpose as enabling Australia to participate fully in, and benefit from, the global knowledge economy. ‘Funding that meets student demand—coupled with ambitious targets, rigorous quality assurance and full transparency—is the only way Australia can meet the knowledge and skills challenges it faces. In that process the nation must provide educational opportunity for all, not just the few’.
The Government response is designed to support high quality teaching and learning, improve access and outcomes for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, build new links between universities and disadvantaged schools, reward institutions for meeting agreed quality and equity outcomes, improve resourcing for research and invest in world class tertiary education infrastructure. The Government’s package of measures is designed to transform the scale, potential and quality of the nation’s universities and open the doors of higher education to a new generation of Australians. The review of base funding levels and cluster funding was commissioned in response to the Bradley Review. The Review took place in a rapidly changing higher education environment, in anticipation of demand driven funding for teaching and learning to commence in 2012. Postgraduate courses are becoming a much more common entry into the professions, rather than a form of professional upgrading. The proportion of the population participating in higher education is increasing.
As announced in its response to the Bradley Review, the Government is now commissioning a review of base funding levels and cluster funding. This review is the next element in the Government’s commitment to delivering on its reform package.
Terms of Reference
On 26 October 2010, the Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans, announced the following terms of reference for the Higher Education Base Funding Review. This announcement marked the formal commencement of the review:
This review is to deliver the Government’s commitment to:
‘commission a review of the base funding levels for teaching and learning in higher education to ensure that funding levels remain internationally competitive and appropriate for the sector, together with work on options for achieving a more rational and consistent sharing of costs between students and across discipline clusters as recommended by the Bradley Review. This review will report in 2011.’
The review will establish enduring principles to underpin public investment in higher education, including the appropriate balance between public and private contributions towards the cost of
undergraduate and postgraduate education. The review should identify and articulate the principles that should underpin the appropriate distribution of funding by discipline, the share of funding from Government, students and other sources and the best funding model to deliver increased teaching quality.
Benchmarks
The review will identify international benchmarks and trends for undergraduate and postgraduate coursework education and the level of base funding required for Australian universities to deliver competitively. Without limiting the matters considered by the review, it should identify international benchmarks for course quality and student engagement.
In identifying benchmarks the review should have regard to the future development of a standards framework by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.
Cost relativities
The review will examine the cost relativities of undergraduate education for different disciplines and compare this with the funding relativities of the Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding clusters. The review will examine the cost of delivery of quality postgraduate education and whether it is higher than undergraduate education and, if so, whether this is in general or is a feature of particular disciplines or teaching methodologies.
student contribution amounts
The review will consider the relative maximum student contribution amounts for different disciplines and propose options for setting maximum student contribution amounts to reflect a fair contribution to the cost of delivering high quality courses and the level of public and private benefit.
In developing options the review should ensure that they are consistent with the Government’s equity agenda of increasing access and participation of disadvantaged groups by providing financial incentive to enrol low socioeconomic status students. It should be consistent with the Government’s agenda to ensure that fees should not be a barrier to participation in higher education.
access
In considering matters related to undergraduate student places at public universities, the review should be conducted on the basis of the Government’s commitment to abolish full fee places for domestic undergraduate students at public universities.
Options
The review will provide advice and make recommendations to the Government on:
• what is needed to ensure that Australian Government funding for Australian undergraduate and postgraduate coursework education remains internationally competitive and appropriate for the sector
• options for achieving a more rational and consistent basis for: funding across discipline clusters
— the student contributions for different disciplines and for undergraduate and postgraduate
coursework study
• options to ensure that universities are provided support on the basis of the cost of delivering courses of high quality while students make a contribution which bears some relation to the private return for their education
• options for funding models that give all institutions a strong incentive to focus on investing in and delivering high quality teaching and maintaining strong academic standards
• options to maintain the substantial financial incentive for institutions to enrol low socioeconomic students as the system grows.