The Bradley Review: time to walk the talk

BY SHANT FABRICATORIAN
A month after his ascension to the Labor leadership, Kevin Rudd revealed in an interview with 2GB’s Alan Jones that he wanted to be known as ‘the Education Prime Minister’. Educators and academics across the country, having suffered funding cutbacks for over a decade, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

A year later we have the Bradley Review, a comprehensive 272-page report into the state of higher education that lays out the panel’s vision for the sector until 2020.

Much of the report’s recommendations reflect what the sector has been crying out for ‘ increased funding for research, a focus on addressing a looming academic shortage in crucial disciplines (particularly the sciences), and a drive to improve participation rates for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

But much of the attention has focused on a proposed new funding model that revolves around student learning entitlements known as ‘vouchers’. The report recommends replacement of the current structure – under which the government effectively allocates places to universities for which students then apply – with a ‘demand-driven’ system in which students choose their institution and bring funding with them. Under this arrangement, places would be guaranteed only with demand ‘ no applicants, no money.

The review argues such a model is necessary to ensure students have ‘stronger incentives to participate and provide institutions with the flexibility to decide the courses they will offer and the number of students they will admit’. It adds that ‘choice, underpinned by good information and stronger quality assurance, will drive both a higher quality student experience and institutional diversity’.

Yet, while the report highlights the importance of social equity and helping disadvantaged groups, there is a disconnect between these aims and the proposed shakeup of the funding system. On the surface the plan to introduce vouchers should not affect the aim of greater inclusion, but in practice the report heavily favours the current leading universities, especially the Group of Eight. Of Australia’s present 37 public universities, the lower-ranked institutions stand to lose out.

Writing in The Age, Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Greg Craven said a key problem with the introduction of a voucher system was the dominance of market inertia and reputation in determining student preferences. ‘Higher education is, counter-intuitively, a notoriously unsophisticated market,’ he observed. ‘Student choice is made far more often on the basis of dubious assumptions as to brand than we care to admit, with the result that a voucher system may do less to advance quality than to reward established market profile.’

Indeed, Craven asserts the proposal may negatively impact the quality of education: ‘In many cases around the country, the innovative, industry-engaged, imaginatively taught courses are to be found in ‘second-tier’ institutions. Yet despite their quality, their viability is assured only by the limited number of places in the corresponding sandstone. Create a free market in places, and these courses will be critically exposed.’

While a man in Craven’s position has a lot to lose from the voucher proposal, many vice-chancellors of the bigger universities backing the plan, particularly those from the Group of 8, stand to gain from it. Particularly pertinent is the call to lift all fee caps ‘ a position the report considered, but rejected on equity grounds. University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis said a voucher system would make little difference without full fee deregulation, while his counterpart at UNSW, Fred Hilmer, has argued that a lack of deregulation leads to unacceptable financial risks in a deregulated volume market.

The report acknowledges particular problems in regional areas, suggesting there are ‘thin markets which will not sustain a viable higher education presence’ ‘ a problem it says will be exacerbated by projected further decreases in the 15-24-year age group in many regional areas. Its solution to this, however, is unclear: an extra investment of just $80 million a year for remote and regional areas is recommended, along with ‘serious consideration’ of a university ‘with special expertise in provision of higher education across regional and remote Australia’.

Under a voucher system, these regional universities are most vulnerable, lacking the prestige and reputation to tough it out in the marketplace with the heavy-hitting sandstone institutions. Yet these institutions predominantly provide for the disadvantaged groups the report urges increased participation among.

The Bradley Review is a decent start in that it acknowledges the shortfalls of more than a decade of underinvestment in this critical sector. But more consideration of the flow-on effects is needed if Rudd is to live up to his election-night promise of being a prime minister for all Australians.