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<a href = "VICletter.html">Victorian market failure in Professional Indemnity insurance</a><br>
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<br>Professions Australia made a submission to the Senate Education References Committee inquiry into higher education funding and regulatory legislation. A summary is below and the complete submission is <A class="" href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/eet_ctte/highed2003/submissions/sublist.htm " target=_top>No. 396 on the inquiry website</A>.<BR><BR>
<P>Professions Australia (PA) believes that the basic objective of professional education should be <I>to ensure a supply of qualified professionals to serve the community across </I><I>Australia</I>. This objective focuses sharply on outcomes – how the education system impacts upon the community.</P>
<P>The current debate on higher education has focused too sharply on the ‘input’ side – financing, fees, allocation of places and related issues – to the detriment of outcomes.</P>
<P>Diversity of university mission (a key aim of the Government’s package) does not guarantee good outcomes. Diversity means catering for the differing needs of the individual communities that universities serve and for the developing needs of the nation. </P>
<P>There is an unspoken assumption in <I>Crossroads</I> and <I>Our universities:</I> <I>Backing </I><I>Australia</I><I>’s future</I> that tertiary education is too important to the nation to be left to universities. It is also too important to the nation and to individual communities to be left to government, or to government and universities. </P>
<P>Community influence needs to be institutionalised to ensure community needs for graduates in particular professions are taken into account in higher education decision-making. The same applies at the national level.</P>
<P>This can be done through the proposed Commonwealth Grants Scheme (CGS). PA proposes that university-community consultative councils (U-CCCs) be set up at the national level and at the level of individual universities to feed into CGS decisions. </P>
<P>U-CCCs would channel the views of professional bodies, community groups, state and local governments, and other stakeholders into decision-making about the mix of courses and the funding of universities. </P>
<P>PA proposes that community consultation requirements be written into university corporate governance principles and that effective community consultation be made a condition for increases in funding per student place.</P>
<P>There is an evident need for greater community input into higher education decisions. There are already examples, particularly in ‘small enrolment’ professional courses, where the equitable supply of professionals across Australia is under threat. The PA submission presents evidence from a number of professions.</P>
<P>PA also fears that HECS deregulation may lead to competition between universities on the basis of ‘brand imaging’, predatory pricing to drive smaller universities out of some professional streams, and course mixes that do not reflect community needs. PA doubts that price signals alone, such as holding down HECS premiums on nursing and teaching, will channel students into ‘national priority’ streams.</P>
<P>PA believes that improving student: staff ratios can greatly improve the capacity of universities to produce adequately qualified professionals, along with mentoring and accreditation through professional associations. Mentoring also supports the inculcation of appropriate ethical standards in professional graduates.</P>
<P>There is scope for collaboration between institutions, provided it is done to produce better outcomes and not just to save money. <BR><BR><A class="" href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/eet_ctte/highed2003/submissions/sublist.htm ">Go to complete submission.</A> (Look for No. 396)</P>
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