BY VIV MILEY
2001 began with allegations that full fee-paying students' marks were being adjusted upwards, bending the rules to encourage more income from fee-paying students. While the allegations have not been fully resolved, it left egg on the face of the federal government, which claims there is no university funding crisis.
Education is the priority issue for a majority of Australians according to the Newspoll from the June 13 Australian: 80% of respondents rated education as the most important issue in the coming federal election. The education platforms of the major parties, and how they will be interpreted by the voters, may be critical to the election result.
On July 2, an Australian Labor Party task force headed by Barry Jones handed down the Knowledge Nation report. The report drew a mixed response from the media. Some labelled it visionary, while others criticised Jones' "complex interactions under a knowledge nation" diagram, which came to be known in the corporate media as "spaghetti and meatballs".
The report outlines the areas which need improvement to transform Australia based on "knowledge intensive industries". The report argues that wealth creation over the past 200 years has been built around "goods-producing industries, particularly manufacturing" and that "a new engine of wealth creation is emerging, based on information processing".
To tap into this new "engine", the report argues, Australia needs to better use the scientific knowledge it already has to make the "key" goods-producing industries more efficient, boost research and development, build an inventory (or "cadastre") of Australia's resources to make better use of them, halt the brain drain and end the problems of the education system.
Quite often, the recommendations in the report are extremely vague and offer no coherent idea of how they will be carried out. For example, it calls for "raising school participation through a targeted program that tackles the causes of disadvantage". How the targeted program will "tackle the causes of disadvantage" is not explained. The report also states, "The knowledge nation will be a fairer nation" and that it will be "fundamentally blind to gender, race, and other forms of difference" without explaining why or how.
Research and development
In terms of research and development, Knowledge Nation is little different to the Liberals' Innovation Nation. Both seek to increase government spending to boost the level of commercialisation of research and increase collaboration between the public sector and business.
The Knowledge Nation report states, "The task force believes, however, that the commercialisation of Australian research will only be improved significantly if we send strong signals to business by getting the fundamentals right. This means attracting large players in the worldwide pharmaceutical industry to commercialise home grown biotechnology research". In other words, industry needs to be assured that the Australian government will back them up with subsidies.
In effect, the initiatives of both major parties are nothing more than taxpayer-funded handouts for corporations and industries that are unwilling to spend money on conducting the research themselves. The cooperative research centres that have been praised by the Howard government allow private institutions to use public infrastructure to conduct research. They are given incentives by the government for working within such a framework.
The effect this has on universities as educational institutions is significant. It means research programs at universities become business-oriented, and programs and courses are adapted to cater for the needs of big business and industry rather than as a pedagogical tool.
"Brain drain" is a term used to describe the phenomenon of Australian graduates emigrating overseas primarily to work for large IT or biotechnology companies. However this scenario is hardly surprising given that "human capital" is flocking to where it will get a better return for its "commodity".
The thinking is that the government has made an "investment" in these people and therefore should be getting a "return" from them.
However, the ALP's solution is not to reinvigorate the public sector, where these people could be meaningfully employed for the benefit of society. Rather, its plan is to "help" the Australian capitalist class develop private industries in which graduates can be employed.
Universities
While acknowledging that the Australian university system is in trouble, the solutions offered in Knowledge Nation to "tackle" the funding crisis only seek to shape universities further to meet the needs of big business. There is little in Knowledge Nation that differentiates it from Coalition policy.
For example, the first recommendation to end the tertiary education funding crisis is to "boost the number of university positions by an amount necessary to meet industry needs".
While mention is made of a review into the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), something the Coalition's policy is sorely lacks, it is extremely vague. Compared with the National Tertiary Education Union's budget submission, which called for a single rate of HECS, increasing the HECS repayment threshold, more HECS-exempt scholarships and increasing funding to universities by around $1.02 billion a year, the ALP's recommendations lack detail and clarity.
The Knowledge Nation report sees education as a key "export" industry that can boost Australia's position as a "knowledge economy". The plan is to establish a public online university, which will also offer degrees internationally. The proposed University of Australia Online (UAO) is central to this. The projections are grand, seeking to make Australia a "world leader in online education within the next few years, winning at least 10 per cent global market share of revenue". How this will be done is not explained.
Branching into this sector is also justified in terms of giving greater access to Australians by providing online degrees at half the current HECS rate. What the report fails to acknowledge is the existence of several online universities already in late stages of development or up and running.
One of federal Labor leader Kim Beazley's recent stunts for the cameras has been to sign a pledge that, if elected, his government will not privatise any more of Telstra. What he is not highlighting is that the Knowledge Nation plan would require Telstra partly remaining in government hands. Without it, the promises of increased broadband access, cheaper phone calls and even the UAO would remain completely hollow.
Corporatisation
Knowledge Nation does not seek to radically alter the current corporate trajectory of Australian universities. If anything, it seeks to further consolidate this direction.
Put simply, the Knowledge Nation document is the ALP's attempt to convince the Australian ruling class that it is fit to govern Australia on its behalf in the 21st century.
For working people, however, the plan offers nothing new. While raising living standards is mentioned throughout the document, this is tied to raising productivity. Such rhetoric was dragged out by the ALP during the years of the wage-cutting Prices and Incomes Accord. Considering what a sell-out that was for working people, any assurances of higher living standards through greater productivity are hollow.
Neither Labor's Knowledge Nation nor the Coalition's similar document, Backing Australia's Ability, take into account the General Agreement on Trade in Services which demands increased trade liberalisation and the breaking down of "barriers" to free trade in education services.
Given that Knowledge Nation is a 10-year plan, the fact that there is no mention of GATS seems to be much more than a gross oversight. During the 2000 ALP national conference, Labor reaffirmed its analysis that "most Australians have directly benefitted from trade liberalisation" and made recommendations that Australia should ensure that the next Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum "adopts a powerful position in favour of further trade liberalisation at the next round of WTO negotiations".
This seems rather strange, especially in relation to the UAO scheme. Under the GATS agreement, trade "barriers" can mean government funding to public institutions that are "competing" against "like" private institutions. While still not fully tested, under the GATS guidelines it means that private institutions will have to be eligible for the same funding.
Given that two of the areas needed for the UAO, namely telecommunications and education, have already been earmarked by the US as areas where greater trade liberalisation should occur, it is unclear how the ALP plans to viably conduct the initiative and keep it in public hands.
While possibly being more visionary than the Coalition's Backing Australia's Ability, Knowledge Nation is nothing exceptionally new or grand. It seeks to take Australia down the slippery path of corporate globalisation and makes out that this is the only route to go.