Education Minister Jason Clare says the scheduled review of the previous government’s Job Ready Graduates package will occur “as part of an overarching University Accord that we have committed to developing over the course of the next few months”

Mr Clare was speaking at Charles Darwin U, Friday.

There are widespread calls for the government to end the JRG arrangement that requires humanities students to pay an originally specified $14 500 a year for the cost of their course, while the Commonwealth contributes $ 1100. Business students are similarly slugged, while maths, nursing and foreign language students pay $3 900.

Keryn Chalmers (Swinburne U), president of the Australian Business Deans Council also wants the review to address JRG’s “very blunt student progress rules, with the 50 per cent pass rate requirement, for students who access Commonwealth assistance and the incentive for universities to take fewer STEM students due to lower overall funding.’

However, undoing JRG in whole or part might be more difficult than oft assumed. “The government is in a bind on what to do about it … you can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again,” Ian Larkins says for CMM’s  Expert Opinion, episode on JRG, with him and Frank Larkins, HERE