UA blows up govt plan to control ATEC

By stephen matchett

Universities Australia has rejected the Government’s proposal to house the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) in the Department of Education.

Instead, the national university peak body calls for ATEC to be an independent authority – modelled along the lines of the Australian Research Council.

With UA president David Lloyd (Uni SA VC) the only Vice-Chancellor on the Government’s Accord Implementation Advisory Committee, this is a major set-back for Education Minister Jason Clare’s unity agenda.?

In a scathing response to the Government’s proposed model for the new higher education regulator, UA opposes the present implementation plan, released by the Department of Education in June, for three reasons:

1. ATEC will not be independent

The Government’s proposal includes locating ATEC within the Department of Education, “to minimise establishment and operating costs” and for the Department Secretary to be the “accountable authority for the purposes of the finance law, including annual and financial reporting.”

To which UA responds this would make ATEC staff employees of the Department, with the DoE Secretary responsible for use/management of public funds and outcomes. “This would not be an environment in which the ATEC would be independent.”

2. ATEC “would not have sufficient capability”?

UA states that as planned, ATEC would only consist of the Chief Commissioner and three part-time Commissioners and warns that they would only have access to some of the Department’s HE resources,

“The ATEC should be focused on the new vision for the sector. … This additional capability will not arise from applying an ATEC label to existing capability,” UA said.

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3. ATECs program is not clearly defined or achievable?

UA advocates the O’Kane Accord’s recommendation of staged implementation, with advice from an advisory committee.

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UA also recommends

• The Government release a ”revised” model for ATEC and a draft on enacting legislation?
• Phased development of ATEC, with time “to acquire and develop additional expertise”
• ATEC’s first tasks should be to report on universities financial condition and “major threats to viability” and advise actions and recommend next-steps “in the development of a unified tertiary sector”?
• And in a counter-strike to what UA appears to think is a power-grab by DoE, it calls for ATEC to recruit experts from the HE sector.

“The consultation paper over-emphasised the need to guard against ‘narrow sectoral views’ of people recently employed in the sector. Employees from the higher education sector are able to carry out new roles professionally. There will be a limited number of experts from outside of the sector who would be available to the ATEC,” UA states.

With individual Vice-Chancellors backing their own university’s interests, UA is speaking for the system in a calculated response to the Government’s standard divide and rule strategy, which has been ?used most successfully in the international student cap dispute.