At ANU there’s a poster promoting free Rapid Antigen Tests and facemasks featuring (you guessed it) a rat wearing a mask

The education minister addresses the Universities Australia conference tonight – the text is for an optimistic speech in the positive spirit of his first UA address, not long after last year’s election

Mr Clare will speak on the Universities Accord discussion paper now out, which delivers on what he promised last year, a review “looking at everything from funding and access, to affordability, transparency, regulation, employment conditions and also how universities and TAFEs and other higher education and vocational education providers and training institutions work together,” (CMM July 7 2022).

And he makes it plain that he wants a policy outcome for the ages, quoting a lyric from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, “a legacy is planting seeds in a garden you never get to see”.

No pressure minister. As George Washington sings to Alexander Hamilton in the show, “history has its eyes on you”.

In Features this morning

Nicholas Fisk (UNSW) in reforming research integrity oversight – what Australia needs is a light touch – but with teeth, HERE

plus If the success rate for the to be announced MRFF early and mid-career fellowships is as bad as expected Adrian Barnett (QUT) wonders whether  researchers should waste their time applying for the next round.

and as the great and the good assemble for the Universities Australia conference Maree Meredith (Uni Canberra) calls on university communities to speak up on the Voice to Parliament. HERE

with Claire Macken from RMIT Vietnam and colleagues, explain why campus buzzes seven days a week

joined by Sandhya Maranna (Uni SA) and colleagues, who set out the top five enablers and barriers for on-line educators. New in Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s series, Needed now in learning and teaching.

RelX corporation’s STM division, where the for-profit journal giant and data management massif sits increased its revenue by £60m to £2.9bn (A$5.1bn)

That’s a  headline hike of 10 per cent on 2021, or 4 per cent in constant currencies.

Why the spondulicks were less elusive
Growth in database, electronic reference and related (45 per cent of STM division revenue) was “driven by content development and high value analytics and decision tools.”

And in research publishing (another 45 per cent) growth came from “higher volumes of articles submitted and published, with pay-to-publish open access articles growing particularly strongly. “

More to come

For 2023 the company expects underlying revenue growth to “continue above historic trends” and operating profit to grow slightly ahead of that

In her new staff newsletter Charles Sturt U VC Renée Leon has some news of her own

“I may be called to appear at the Robodebt Royal Commission,” she states, adding that as a former secretary of the Department of Human Services, she “welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the investigation of the scheme.”

But while she won’t pre-empt any evidence to the commission she does mention that, “as a matter of public record” Robodebt was implemented two years before she arrive at Human Services and, “was brough to an end during my term.”

In a message to staff last night Provost Annamarie Jagose put on the table a compound 15.4 per cent pay rise through to 2026– which is largely in-line with the National Tertiary Education Union federal leadership’s pay demand

plus the university also backs-off its original push for changes to the all-academic 40 per cent research-40 per cent teaching – 20 per cent service work model. “We now propose to protect the 40 per cent research allocation, unless a change is agreed by the staff member,” the provost states. And she sets a 25 per cent  cap on  “education-focused academics” in the continuing and fixed term workforce.

and in a significant move that will put pressure on other Group of Eight universities, Uni Syd offers to reduce the casual academic workforce by 20 per cent, over three years – with 200 new  education focused and 100 teaching and research positions. There would also be 0.2FTE three year fellowships for unspecified numbers of PhD students, “who would otherwise be engaged as casuals.

But – and it is a big but: The offer will be put to campus unions on Tuesday. “Colleagues will then have the opportunity to vote on the new Agreement so that it can be approved by the Fair Work Commission.”  This is brave move – if the unions campaign against it, winning a vote will not be easy for management.  People who are not union members listen to the comrades when it comes to wages and conditions,.

by CLAIRE FIELD

In 2016-17 audits by regulator ASQA  identified 200 critical or serious compliance issues. In 2021-22 it found 15

The Productivity Commission’s Report on Government Services (ROGS) shows that in 2021, more than one in every five dollars of recurrent government expenditure in VET went to non-TAFE providers. And that the share of recurrent funding going to TAFE decreased by 10 per cent between 2020 and 2021.

Interestingly it was some of the smaller jurisdictions where the level of funding to non-TAFE providers saw the greatest increases (Tasmania, Western Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia all saw increases of approximately 30 per cent or higher).

Queensland (+0.1 per cent) and Victoria (+3.0 per cent) had the lowest annual increases in funding to non-TAFE providers, but they currently allocate the highest share of funds to the non-TAFE sector (26 per cent in Victoria and 32 per cent in Queensland).

Regrettably in all jurisdictions except New South Wales and Tasmania, the level of government funding for VET has declined over the last decade.

Given the quantum of funds governments currently give to independent and community providers it was understandable that questions were asked in Senate Estimates last week about the lack of independent provider representation on Jobs and Skills Australia’s Consultative Forum.

It was also interesting that while senators had questions during Senate Estimates about TEQSA’s performance, they did not have any questions about ASQA’s performance (asking instead only a small number of questions about changes to ASQA’s regulatory responsibilities).

The Productivity Commission report looks at ASQA’s audit performance and it was noticeable that the number of compliance audits ASQA undertakes has declined in the last five years (albeit there have been changes to ASQA’s regulatory approach in that time):

* 545 RTOs audited in 2016-17 (13 per cent of all ASQA-regulated RTOs)

* 211 RTOs audited in 2021-22 (5.5 per cent)

Almost 200 of ASQA’s audits in 2016-17 identified critical or serious compliance issues (i.e. equivalent to approximately 5 per cent of all ASQA-regulated RTOs). In 2021-22 there were only 15 audits which found critical or serious compliance issues – equivalent to just 0.4 per cent of all RTOs.

The obvious question is whether compliance in VET has increased significantly, or in fact if the drop in the number of audits undertaken means non-compliance is going undetected?

Claire Field has previously worked in the TAFE and independent RTO sectors and assisted ASQA with early consultations on regulatory self-assurance. There is more analysis of the latest ROGS data on her website.

This means four for “select” bachelors and six for all doctoral degrees – and the student workright cap is up from 40 to 48 hours a fortnight

Ministers Jason Clare (Education) and Clare O’Neil (Home Affairs) announced the new caps yesterday, calling them, “a practical change that will increase the availability of a well-trained and highly capable workforce to help ease current pressures.”

And the working hours extension, “will help students to support themselves financially gain, valuable work experience and contribute to Australia’s workforce needs while they study.” It kicks in from July.

Plus for eligible students in regional/rural areas the extra two years is on top of the existing bonus of one or two years.

Eligible degrees are in health and medicine, teaching, engineering, ICT and ag and food.

Mike Ewing leaves Deakin U (where he is ED, Business and Law) to become ED Business, Law and Arts at Southern Cross U.

At Uni Sydney, Deborah Cheetham Fraillon becomes the inaugural occupant of the Elizabeth Todd Chair of Vocal Studies.

Benjamin Kile is the new Director of the Garvan IMR. He moves from ED at Uni Adelaide’s Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

MS Australia announces $3m in research grants, shared by, * Nicholas Blackburn (Uni Tasmania) * Jennifer Massey (St Vincent’s Centre, NSW)  * Jennifer Rodger (UWA and Perron Institute) * Alice Saul (Uni Tasmania) * Olivia Wills (Uni Wollongong)

Jim Rabeau moves from CSIRO to “global quantum leader” Infleqtion, where he will manage expansion in Australia and establish a quantum computing and tech facility at Swinburne U.