Australia’s budget measures will decapitate vocational education – again

Gavin Moodie hasn't mentioned some serious failings with Australian universities. Firstly, the vice chancellors of many Australian universities are paid more than their counterparts in Oxford and Cambridge and fro no good reason that I can see. Secondly the Australian education system offers very few alternatives to university, apprenticeship training and other forms of trade skilling being very much minor and neglected. The opening of universities to virtually everyone regardless of academic ability has had the unfortunate consequences of (a) universities wasting time re-teaching what the students should have learnt in school and (b) devaluing the merit of having a univeristy degree because so many people have them. Thirdly universities want as many students as can be catered for because much of the funding is on a "per student" basis. I say this because universities prefer to lower the entry threshold to allow more students to enrol rather than accept only the more gifted students who managed to meet the original acceptance criteria. Fourthly, university exam results are often adjusted downwards in order that a certain minimum percentage of students obtain a "pass". This has led to situation such as mathematics students achieving 30% on an end-of-year exam and yet being accepted for the next year of the course or awarded a degree. Fifthly, the consequences of all the above mean that each year a large number of students leave the universities with degrees but are unable to find employment in their preferred field, some forced to take quite menial tasks, and all with the debt of their higher education loan hanging over them. Some opt for higher degrees in order to improve their job prospects but even PhDs have become common and higher degrees just add to the debt burden that the students face. I urge other countries not to follow the Australian model, not least because there will at some point be a backlash against it and it won't be pleasant for those working in academia.

I wont deal with every tendentious claim here, but just with 1 which is readily checked. It is not true that '. . . the Australian education system offers very few alternatives to university, apprenticeship training and other forms of trade skilling being very much minor and neglected'. In 2016 there were 4.2 million students enrolled in vocational education and training, generating 1,133,149 full year training equivalents, which is a little higher than the 1,034,916 equivalent full time student load enrolled in higher education.