Rethinking and revitalising tertiary education in Australia

This paper canvasses current evidence about the state of Australian tertiary education, and identifies options for innovative policy reform, to achieve cost-effective transformation throughout the sector. Tertiary education includes vocational education and training (VET), which comes under the Minister for Employment, Skills and Family Business at a federal level, (who also has an Assistant Minister for VET and Apprenticeships), and various state-level Ministers; and higher education under the federal Minister for Education who also has various state counterparts. To assist governments around Australia in making the difficult decisions ahead, they will have the benefit of a range of reviews and reports on: the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF); the VET sector; the reallocation of Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP) for enabling, sub-bachelor and postgraduate courses; the Higher Education Provider Category Standards; and Performance-Based Funding for the Commonwealth Grant Scheme. This paper argues that it will be imperative for both federal Ministers to work together, and with their state government counterparts, to take a holistic approach to these reviews in the face of huge challenges facing the Australian tertiary education sector.

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