Call for ‘professional universities’ to overcome skills mismatch

This has already been done in the late 1980s when Technical and Further Education Colleges became Universities, resulting in more students gaining University Degrees. To achieve this the new universities had to upskill their current staff, and with an increase in student numbers the standards set for graduation had to be lowered. The result was that Australia had an exponential increase in University graduates whose IQ was lower than previous graduates, resulting in a significant number of graduates having fewer skills and less knowledge in their chosen career.

Earlier comment is half right - it was primarily the conversion of Colleges of Advanced Education and Techers Colleges to Universities - though many were absorbed into Universities. What I find mildly hilarious is that no one has questioned the bona fides of the Mackenzie Institute which is teaching a proprietry form of diagnosis and therapy. I have no idea whether this is a legitimate variety of physiotherapy, or is mere quackery. The real question in context is to what extent has the efficacy of the treatment been exposed to research rigour. THE needs to offer more than 'churnalism' (the reguritation of a press release as news) and practice journalism which involves undertaking secondary research about the topic. So in this case maybe ask about what the Mackenzie Institute teaches, ask a University or two about their thoughts. If you don't have time for that put the release on the spike. (And that is what you would get taught in a journalism course even if it had been from a CAE in the 80s).

I find it peculiar that Mr MacKenzie makes no mention of the destruction of the vocational training sector that has followed from the privatisation of TAFE: billions of dollars ripped from the system by fraudulent operators, student debt for vocational studies doubling in 3 years (2012-2015), closures of regional campuses etc etc. It's also untrue to say that universities do not cater for technical skills. Australian engineers are highly sought after: engineering is a highly technical program, and there are strong pathways via vocational education, and sub-degrees offered at universities. The regional/non G8 universities in particular provide very well for mature age students...and tradies wishing to 'get off the tools' are a large market segment for some universities, who do an excellent job in helping them learn the academic skills necessary for success. He cites a American researcher who died before the Bradley Review was even conducted, and that review was over a decade ago. I would love to see some reference to the many reports into Australian universities and education that have been done in the last few years. I think there's some merit to the argument for making it possible for institutions to have more teaching only staff but his views appear to be more focused on supporting the government's anti-university rhetoric than making a serious case about educational reform.