“The council and the executive of the University of Melbourne affirm their support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the ‘yes’ position in the referendum”

In its statement yesterday the university added it, “will continue to contribute to the referendum process by actively facilitating informed public debate. Not everyone will vote ‘yes’ and we fully respect that.”

In Features this morning

Jason Lodge (Uni Queensland) on the questions AI creates and why the metaphors we use to answer them matter HERE.

plus On International Women’s Day Dawn Gilmore (RMIT) sets out issues and options for university women. Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s new selection, HERE

with Paul Harris from the Innovative Research Universities makes the case for another impact and engagement exercise HERE

and  Sean Brawley and Richard Cook (Uni Wollongong) on restructuring services for continuous improvement, HERE

 

NTEU members at Uni Sydney strike tomorrow as part of enterprise bargaining which only feels like it’s been going longer than the 30 Years War

The National Tertiary Education Union was not impressed with management’s offer put to staff last month. Branch president Nick Riemer tweeted (February 22) says there will be “strike action” … “until we get the justice at work we deserve.”

Which looks like leading to more bargaining, given management, is “absolutely focused on reaching agreement with the staff unions and finalising bargaining as soon as possible and would not want to speculate beyond that process,” (CMM February 23).

“Beyond that process” there is not much other than putting an offer direct to an all-staff staff, which the the university would have to be very confident it had the numbers to do. Offers the union opposes rarely win popular votes.

Especially when the other union does as well. The Community and Public Sector Union’s branch at Uni Sydney also opposes management’s wage offer.

Management and unions meet on Tuesday. The present round of bargaining for a new enterprise agreement began in August ’21.

by CLAIRE FIELD

the VET sector is going to need to follow higher education’s lead and allow trusted providers to work directly with industry

I have been interested in understanding more about UTS’ partnership with Telstra – developing microcredentials for Telstra staff and contractors – since it was announced in 2019 and launched in mid-2020.

At the time UTS embarked on the project the world was plunged into the COVID pandemic. Despite this, and its very tight timeframes, the project has gone from strength to strength and I was pleased to learn more about it inmy recent podcast interview with UTS’ Enterprise Learning Lead, Fiona Anson.

Unlike the flexibility available to universities and other trusted higher education providers – no TAFE Institute, community or independent VET provider is able to develop and self-accredit their own courses. Instead the sector has had an almost thirty-year focus on national consistency – aimed at ensuring the qualifications and units of competency taught in VET deliver the same knowledge and skills irrespective of who teaches the course, where or in what circumstances.

This focus on consistency through national Training Packages has been important in licensed occupations such as electrical and construction trades – but the advent of ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI are going to challenge the Training Package model in areas like business services.

In a nutshell – generative AI and especially ChatGPT has unleashed such profound changes to a range of business processes in just the last three months that it is difficult to know how the VET sector (through the Digital Skills Organisation’s Jobs and Skills Council) can keep the Business Services Training Package up-to-date.

I have identified at least 50 units of competency in the BSB Training Package which are likely to need updating to reflect how ChatGPT is changing:

* business planning and decision making processes

* development of policies and procedures

* marketing and communications

* business meetings and record keeping

* legal and paralegal services, and

* professional writing and editing.

To my mind, at least in some fields of education, the VET sector is going to need to follow higher education’s lead and allow trusted providers to work directly with industry to develop and amend courses in a timely manner and be self-accredited to do so.

I canvassed these and a range of other ideas in my submission to the House of Representatives committee inquiry into “Perceptions and Status of VET.”

Claire Field is an advisor to the tertiary education sector

The focus is on students after they arrive

The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade is inquiring into “challenges and opportunities” in tourism and international education (CMM October 21 ’22).

The committee’s trade sub-committee is hearing evidence today from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Last week the committee itself was in Sydney, where it heard from international students, ELICOS bodies and five unis, Macquarie, UNSW, Sydney, UTS and Wollongong.

HE submissions to the inquiry address a bunch of subjects, student visas, working hours, graduate work rights and what a splendid job each university did during the pandemic.

But there was one issue that didn’t keep coming up in them – a national campaign selling Australia to prospective international students. It could have. The inquiry terms of reference include, “effective measures to attract and retain students to Australia.”

Monash U certainly nailed the importance of reaching out, “there is a need to articulate … educational benefits as a whole for those who might seek to choose between Australian or Canadian or British universities,” its submission stated.

And the International Education Association of Australia pointed to Commonwealth spending to promote tourism in general, against nothing, or not much for international ed, while competitor countries have dedicated campaigns.

But selling Australia as an education brand did not feature in the generality of university submissions.

As for Austrade, while it describes its work in support “of a consistent National Brand presence” in its submission, there is no mention of an across media trans-national campaign to sell brand Australia to international students  –  although it  advises the industry  elsewhere that its “Future Unlimited” strategy and content (around for a decade) – “builds an innovative and inspirational image of Australian education with a focus on graduate outcomes.”

In New Zealand they are on to brand building after the pandemic. The “I am New” international education campaign launched last June.