One for the VETerans

It looks as if the proposed Jobs and Skills Australia agency could be created by acclamation. “Shame about the name,” a learned reader suggests, “they should call it NBEET.”

There’s more in the Mail

Expert Opinion with Sven Rogge

The president of the Australian Institute of Physics talks to CMM about pre-prints, the role of the ARC, research translation and more, Expert Opinion is  HERE (scroll up)

And in Features

“First in family” university students is a metric that matters – but it covers all sorts of circumstances. The challenge is to celebrate their achievement without assuming they all have the same needs, suggest Sarah O’Shea, (National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education) and Sally Patfield (Uni Newcastle). Theirs is a new contribution to Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series Needed now in learning and teaching.

and  Rhetoric about elite education is obsolete, Conor King (Tertiary Education Analysis) argues in Features. “Education institutions should be expected to cater for all those who needs their services. Exclusivity whose rationale is to create exclusivity should not be part of the system.”

Freedom of expression: most students see no threat

The previous government banged on about suppression of free speech on campus – it appears most students aren’t bothered

There were questions on student’s perceptions of freedom of expression on their campus in the 2021 Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching survey (CMM yesterday).

The QILT report concludes most aren’t bothered, with an overall 87 per cent positive among undergrads for overall freedom of expression. Strong scores are consistent across age and gender, stage of course, location  of campus, and a bunch of other characteristics

But there’s a not-great statistic

The survey also asked respondents if they agreed they are “free from discrimination, harm or hatred” and the specific positive to that ranged from 79 per cent to 83 per cent, across UGs and coursework PGs, commencing study or in later years.

The negative numbers are less bad than they look – the responses included disagrees, plus neither agree or disagree. Here’s hoping there are a lot of no responses. For up to 20 per cent of students to not feel free from “discrimination, harm or hatred” would be alarming indeed.

 Counting Uni Sydney casual academics

There’s talk around the campus traps of more continuing jobs for them

It adds to the impetus established at Western Sydney U, where union and management have agreed on a proposal to create continuing positions for academic casuals (its subject to a staff vote). Australian Catholic U has followed and there is talk of something at Uni Newcastle.

Uni Sydney observers suggest 800 or so continuing jobs would go a long way to “decasualise” the academic workforce – at least for casuals who want continuing employment.

As to how many there of those, whoever knows, it isn’t CMM.

But the category most likely is members of the permanent precariat, PhD grads surviving semester to semester who are said to account for 40 per cent or so of Uni Sydney of the 5000 academic casuals.

Todays Headline Story

Uni lobbies want to be in the room where it happens

Universities Australia  backs the government’s proposed Jobs and Skills Australia agency and calls for it to cover its members

The suggestion is in UA’s submission to the Senate committee inquiry into bills establishing the agency.

Overall UA thinks JSA will be a good thing indeed, critical to supercharging Australia’s workforce and productivity.”

“The role of JSA in providing advice to the government on workforce needs and priorities, workforce forecasting and current, emerging and future skills and training needs will be central to addressing skills shortages in the Australian economy.”

And the agency needs to be a source of independent advice to ministers for education, skills and training, and employment.

Which maybe why UA is keen for its members to be covered, advising senators, JSA should have “explicit authority to include universities and higher education providers within its remit.”

The Group of Eight wants a role for unis explicitly in the legislation

The Eight “strongly supports” establishing JSA but warns the drafts of the bills, “leave some obvious gaps which are detrimental to the nation’s prosperity and productivity,” in its submission to the Senate committee

The Eight accordingly call for amendments to “formally recognise and include Australian universities in the proposed functions of JSA with respect to advice … on Australia’s current and emerging labour market workforce skills needs and priorities.”

“Gosh,” you ask “any universities in particular?”

“It is important for the Go8 to state that it is not asking for any diminution of the emphasis in TAFE and VET. The Go8 recognise their integral role. What the Go8 is asking is to also be taken into consideration as of value. (emphasis and itals in original)

ARC announces Linkage Grants

The success rate was 29 per cent, with 61 approved bids asking for $36.4m and receiving $29.6m

Uni Queensland leads with eight successes, followed by Monash U and Uni Adelaide with six each. All up Group of Eight institutions accounted for 33 of the 61 awards.

As for the disliked National Interest Test statements, the one from Huai-Yong Zhu (QUT) helped CMM have a clue what, “Scale-up of catalytic furandicarboxylic acid production at room temperature” is about. “This project will deliver an efficient, energy-saving new technique for the industrial-scale production of commodities such as plastics that are critical to modern life using plant-based rather than petroleum sources,” his NIT states.

Savings on the way at James Cook U

Costs are up and there is “a further decline” in domestic student load for second semester

This means, VC Simon Biggs, told staff Tuesday, “we will have to consider how to deliver on our plans for increased transparency and accountability to better manage expenditure.”

And that means changes to staffing set out in a preliminary change consultation, “to reduce duplication and drive efficiency,” “have become even more important.”

So important that the university was already on to it, at least for Professional Services. Last week DVC Services Tricia Brand advised there is a formal change process with an “indicative” release date, w/c August 29.  “All directly impacted staff” will hear before then.

Messaging is already underway, with staff in respected roles (including health and safety reps) invited by HR to join  a “change network” “to provide feedback to the programme team and to reinforce messages delivered by managers in your work units.”

Back in June Professor Biggs advised JCU there was work to “identify options for savings,” (CMM June 27).

Appointment, achievements

Mark Blows joins the board of UniQuest (Uni Queensland’s commercialisation company). He is the university’s acting DVC Research and Innovation.  Julian Clark (tech transfer in biomed and health) is reappointed to UniQuest’s board.

Sharyn Davies (Herb Feith Indonesian Engagement Centre at Monash U) receives an Indonesian Government award, for the “promotion of Indonesian in Victoria.”

Palli Thordarson (UNSW) is elected a fellow of the Royal Society of NSW.