The SA budget includes funding for an inquiry

Which should take nobody by surprise. Premier Peter Malinauskas put the issue on the agenda in opposition and campaigned on it for the March election. And so his first budget includes $1m for a “commission to advise the government on a university merger.”

Headed by “an eminent commissioner with experience in higher education,” it will “engage with business leaders, university unions and student representatives” and “the leadership of the three universities”

The commission will have three FTE staff and presumably will report in 12 months, (there’s no money for ’23-24).

But why? : “The harsh truth is that each of our universities is too small and too under-capitalised to make it into the list of top international universities. They simply don’t do enough large-scale research to be recognised as world leading and that is holding our state back,” Mr Malinauskas said in 2019

His objective for a merger is “creating an internationally recognised top 100 university and driving the state’s economic growth for decades to come (CMM November 2 2020)

And to what purpose?: Uni SA VC David Lloyd wonders. In April he suggested that if the premier wants a global top 100 university hiring talent and concentrating research would do it, although that would not have economy-building outcomes. Instead he suggests, having an Australian top-three university in SA, is “interesting and ambitious.” (CMM April 13).

The comrades are ambivalent: The National Tertiary Education Union has surveyed members about a merger. Just over 52 per cent responded agin and over a quarter are ambivalent. Some 85 per cent of respondents supported a term of reference which rather questions holding an inquiry into a merger at all, “it should explore, whether smaller, more nuanced and bespoke universities serve their respective communities and histories better than one giant, super-university.”