Page 1051 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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Let me give you some background to my thinking. In my university days I was much impressed by some words I read from Harold Wilson - they may not have been his originally - when he said "to stand still is to decline". I think that is a compelling message to all governments and to all institutions and I would express to the institutions in the ACT, and most particularly to the Australian National University, that they should consider that.
Now, I do not imagine that any of those institutions are standing still but I do, from my experience in the last couple of months, suggest that they have a look and see how they are adapting to the rapidly changing circumstances in which they find themselves. I would also make the point that the ANU in particular needs to assess how rapidly it is changing. As I moved through that institution I found a very large degree of confidence, and perhaps properly so. It is a fine institution. But in some quarters that confidence seemed to me almost to be complacency.
I have to say that at the outset of this debate almost a year ago I was surprised at the extent of the opposition. I would have thought that in our academic institutions there would have been a ready acceptance of inquiry, a willingness to examine all issues, but that certainly was not the case in the early stages of the debate.
I have studied carefully every submission that the committee received and for those who opposed the amalgamation they have considered their opposition always in respect only of internal factors, factors related purely to their position in that institution and to that institution alone. Nowhere did anyone taking an opposing point of view take a wider view of things. I believe it is important to look at the national issues.
Governments certainly need to look to national interests. The $3 billion a year expended on tertiary education is reason enough but simply the national interest must be of great importance without forgetting the importance of the institutions themselves. I recognise that the success of national aims depends certainly on the quality of the institutions themselves.
I prefer amalgamation as the way to go, not on grounds of size but on the grounds of diversity, on the range of offerings that those institutions can offer. They would provide more disciplines, more categories of awards, thus much greater flexibility for students. To me there is a simple logic in this. Why should the students not have the widest range of options? We found that there was not a great amount of duplication between the CCAE and the ANU. There has been too much good planning for that to happen. There is not a great amount of similarity but there is a good deal of compatibility and that should be exploited. There is no doubt that the merging of some courses would have very positive benefits to students in terms of
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