The Headlines
The subtle politics of higher education
Lessons from the Australian Universities Accord.
By Ant Bagshaw
Major reviews in the higher education sector play an important role in shaping institutional choices, public perception and policy direction. By critically examining practices and outcomes, these reviews can challenge assumptions, spark debate, and push the boundaries of what is considered achievable or necessary in higher education. And they might have implications well beyond the sector that they’re ostensibly covering.
With one Accord
I wrote for QS Insights Magazine last year about the purpose of policy reviews, and I introduced the Australian Universities Accord process. This year-long exploration of the purpose of the tertiary sector in Australia concluded with a final report published in February. At 408 pages, and with 47 recommendations (plus many sub-clauses), there’s a lot to digest.
The sector is combing through the report looking to understand the potential consequences of the proposals. We’re hunting for the indicators of funding, regulation and the short-term policy settings which are most relevant to a time horizon of the next one, three or five years. And we’re speculating about what the Government will prioritise and fund. This is pure pragmatism. Many of the Accord panel’s recommendations have implications over this sort of timeframe.
There’s one recommendation, however, which I think is much more interesting. And it’s piqued my interest because it’s a different sort of proposal; not one which is short term, nor one which directly affects how the sector operates. This first recommendation is for a stated objective for the national tertiary education system laying out a vision for higher and vocational education.
Opening windows
You may already be familiar with the concept of the Overton window, the range of ideas and policies deemed acceptable and feasible at a given time. The commonplace view is that higher education in Australia is not loved by governments.
One senior leader summed up this consensus to me saying that they expect neutral policies from the centre-left Labor Party, and a negative approach from the centre-right Liberals. These two major parties dominate Australian politics, with the power in Federal Government shifting between them every decade or so.
The proposed national objective for tertiary education has two main parts:
a. underpin a strong, equitable and resilient democracy
b. drive national economic and social development and environmental sustainability.
When you read this statement, especially if you work in and around higher education, you might well ask, “so what?”. Why does Australia need to state this view on the purpose of the sector?
There’s a simple answer which is that, in the context of a major review process, it’s useful to have an overarching framework in which the findings and recommendations can be situated. That seems eminently plausible.
There’s another answer here, one which is about finding a way of cementing the growth of the sector in a way which is more likely to withstand changes of government. Prior to Labor’s win in the Federal election of 2022, the Liberals – in government with their Coalition partners, the Nationals – had effectively capped the growth of places in universities. There was definitely no appetite to spend more taxpayer dollars to grow the system.
If the Overton window for tertiary education shifts to centralise the proposition of ongoing growth, we potentially change the shape of the sector well beyond this particular government.
Skilled politics
There’s a lot of theatre to major review processes like the Accord. The expert panel had members from the sector, and from industry and politics. Hundreds of submissions were received to the consultation. Working groups were formed. Research was commissioned.
This theatre, and the symbolic (and literal) weight of the final report, position its conclusions as, well, conclusive. The presentation is one not quite apolitical, but a process agnostic to the politics of the day. The report speaks to generational change: it projects forward to 2050.
The Accord also adopts a positioning of tertiary education with strong alignment to the Liberals’ position, essentially that the purpose of the university system is to deliver the short-term skills needs required for economic success. While the Accord report recommends undoing the tuition pricing reforms known as the “Job Ready Graduates” scheme, which aimed to incentivise students to undertake courses that would lead to “the jobs of the future”, it broadly accepts the premise that skills are the currency of the tertiary system: the primary role is to meet workforce gaps.
We have a conclusion that the system should grow, and that it plays an important part in the national social fabric. The core principle of the stated objective resonates across the political divide. All being well, the Accord potentially secures the foundational legitimacy of the sector for the next generation.
Counting votes
Education has long been recognised as a key predictor of voting behaviour. In a paper called Explaining the 2022 Australia Federal Election Result, researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) state that:
“Age and education were key factors explaining voting choice. These two factors were much stronger predictors than sex, country of birth, location, and even household income. These two characteristics – age and education – were the most important demographic characteristics factors explaining the loss in support for the [Liberal-National] Coalition… Labor voters tended to have high levels of education, lived in capital cities and had low income.”
The numbers are material. ANU’s polling from May 2022 showed that over a third of degree-educated voters backed Labor, and only one-in-four supported the Liberal-National Coalition. In a close race, these margins matter a lot. If voting patterns continue, Labor will be the major beneficiary of growth in higher levels of education.
The Accord’s national objective could become a settled part of the political orthodoxy. If that happens, Labor will have reaped that benefit by accepting the opposition’s argument that meeting skills needs is central to the purposes of tertiary education. Was that the intention of the recommendation? I don’t know for sure, but let’s call it an educated guess.