Page 1429 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 2012
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He reassured VET providers who have expressed concerns about their ability to maintain market share that it was not the federal government’s intention to see universities offering higher education in courses below bachelor degree level to the detriment of the VET sector.
Further, the government has recently established the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, Australia’s regulatory and quality agency for higher education. As a regulatory agency that was only established on 1 January 2012, the agency is developing operational parameters around where responsibility lies regarding regulation and issue of qualifications.
Because of these complexities, the government proposed initially to explore the middle ground on announcing the collaborative venture between UC and CIT, referred to as UCIT. This proposed collaborative direction could provide a vehicle to take this forward, including to full amalgamation.
On 7 December 2011 the Australian government announced that under the structural adjustment fund initiative it would invest $377 million in state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities at universities across the nation. Accompanied by funding from states, territories and successful universities, this investment would deliver an $873 million upgrade for higher education institutions in regional and outer metropolitan areas.
As part of this initiative the University of Canberra announced it would potentially receive $25.9 million in funding, the goal of which would be to make significant structural changes that would ensure its financial sustainability and the high quality of its teaching and learning.
The ACT government is continuing to work with both the CIT and UC to determine the way forward in the light of the commonwealth initiatives in both the VET and higher education sectors. The outcome of these reforms will be a demand-driven, contestable and performance-based funding environment. This new market-driven tertiary education environment will require both institutions to be more agile and responsive in meeting these challenges. The ACT government looks forward to the forthcoming discussion at COAG in April on these issues.
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (3.08): I must say I am very disappointed in Dr Bourke’s response to Ms Hunter’s motion here this afternoon. It hardly touches on the issues that Ms Hunter has brought before us. We are talking about the issues we are looking at, open government consultation, accountability, and it was basically what we expected—Dr Bourke reading background material when there should have been a fair bit of response to what Ms Hunter had already brought before us earlier today.
On the matter of Professor Denise Bradley, we asked Dr Bourke just yesterday in question time, “Have you even met with Professor Bradley?” The best we got out of him was: “I will have to take that on notice.” I do not think we have got the answer here this afternoon as to whether he has met with Professor Bradley. Certainly his departmental officials have. We got that much out of him.
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