Tuesday, 30 September 2014
'It's the Q&A audience, Tony'
PYNENOCCHIO HAS NO RESPECT FOR OTHERS
Education Minister Christopher Pyne chooses not to engage when young members of the Q&A audience speak out on whether there is a crisis in education.
Sunday, 21 September 2014
Fact check: Will Australian universities 'slide into mediocrity' without reform?
Fact check: Will Australian universities 'slide into mediocrity' without reform?
Posted
situation in Australia is such that we cannot have no reform to our
universities or they will slide into mediocrity, be overtaken by our
Asian competitors," Education Minister Christopher Pyne told Network
Ten's The Bolt Report on August 24.
"Our
international education market will dry up. Our university students
will go overseas thinking that they have first-class degrees only to
find they come eighth out of eight in every race."
ABC Fact Check examines how Australian universities are tracking against their international competitors.
relatively small population, Australia has developed an international
reputation for providing a high quality, innovative and highly
internationalised university system, according to Simon Marginson, a
professor of international higher education at The University of London.
Australia created 2.4 per cent of the world's published journal papers in 2010 and in 2012 it placed eighth in a ranking of national higher education systems, Professor Marginson wrote in a 2013 paper examining Australia's tertiary education policy.
There's
little doubt world rankings of universities play a significant role in
"shaping global movements of knowledge, people and money in higher
education", he said.
Ranking tables are especially important for
Australia, where international students bring $15 billion to the
economy, making higher education the country's third largest
export earner after iron ore and coal. The sector brings more money to
the Australian economy than gas, gold, tourism, oil or wheat.
The Group of Eight, a group of Australia's large research universities, says Australia is the world's third most popular destination for international students, attracting nearly 7 per cent of international student population. Ranking tables help these students decide which university to attend.
from the Group of Eight says there are valid criticisms of ranking
systems, including a lack of comparable data among world universities
and failure of the data to capture important outputs of different
universities in different fields.
It notes the ranking systems include only 3 per cent of the world's 17,000 higher education institutions.
"World
university rankings do not relate well to the missions of universities
whose principal mission is not research, or at least not
internationally-referenced basic research," the report said.
While
the world ranking systems value research universities, there are
important roles for universities which focus on producing quality
graduates for the Australian labour markets, it said.
Despite some problems with the ranking systems, Professor Marginson says there is no doubting their importance.
"League
tables might be obnoxious or fallacious but if a university rises in
one of the rankings it is all over the website," he said. "If it slips,
the vice-chancellor may not be reappointed."
Richard James, director of the university of Melbourne's Centre for the
Study of Higher Education, says Shanghai Ranking's system is widely
viewed as the best.
Its methodology
includes considering every university that has any Nobel laureates,
Fields medallists, highly cited researchers, and papers published in
select academic journals. It ranks more than 1,200 universities and
includes more than 500 universities in its tables.
In
the most recent 2014 rankings, Australia had four universities in the
top 100 and 19 in the top 500. This has remained relatively constant
since 2011. Looking back to 2004, the rankings tables show Australia had
just two universities in the top 100 and 14 in the top 500.
The 2012 Group of Eight report says Australia's apparent rise in the Shanghai rankings has
been influenced by recently awarded Nobel laureates from The University
of Western Australia (2005) and Australian National University (2011).
The
report also says: "Australia's relative improvement in several of the
world university rankings reflects the plateauing of inputs to US and UK
universities, the lagged accounting for the emergent Asian
universities, alongside some recent absolute lifts in funding inputs for
Australian universities".
This table shows the top eight
Australian universities and their world rankings, according to Shanghai
Ranking, over the past 10 years:
While
the Australian National University and the University of Sydney have
slipped in the past couple of years, the University of Queensland and
the University of Western Australia have both entered the top 100 list
in recent years.
Professor James tells Fact Check that if
Australian universities do not deregulate they will end up slipping in
the rankings because competition is rising at the top end.
In
2013, the Times Higher Education system placed five Australian
universities in the top 100 and 19 in the top 400, while the QS ranking
placed seven in the top 100 and 26 in the top 500.
More specifically, Mr Pyne has told Parliament "universities in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore are rising strongly through the ranks".
While
there are still no Chinese universities in the Shanghai Ranking top
100, there has been significant growth in the numbers of Chinese
universities in the top 500.
Singapore has no university in the
top 100 and its rankings in the top 500 (two universities) have remained
constant over the past decade.
Hong Kong has five universities in the top 500 with two moving into the top 200 in the past couple of years.
In 2013-14, the Times Higher Education
system placed one Chinese university in the top 100 and 10 in the top
400, while the QS ranking for 2014-15 placed three in the top 100 and 18
in the top 500.
The Group of Eight's report says many Asian
universities are receiving "substantial increases" in government
investment in higher education and university research.
"The rate
of growth in academic publications output from Asia is far outstripping
that of Australia and the quality of Asia's research outputs is rapidly
improving," it said.
Some
leading advocates for higher education have been calling for reform
after cuts to higher education by successive governments.
Universities
Australia chief executive Belinda Roberts says: "Either the status quo
of ongoing inadequate investment, or further cuts without deregulation,
will condemn Australia's great university system to inevitable
decline..."
"We don't invest as much of our GDP in universities as
many countries, so we haven't been riding on the sheep's back, we've
been riding on the international student's back," Professor James said.
A
review by the University of Melbourne in 2011 found international
students pay about 40 per cent more than domestic students and
effectively subsidised their domestic counterparts.
"We
have built an extreme reliance. It would be unlikely we would find a
similar system anywhere in the world that would require exposure to and
reliance on international students to directly underpin basic quality,"
the report's author, Michael Beaton-Wells, told The Australian
newspaper.
Professor James argues that if international student
numbers were to fall, as they did from 2010 to 2013, the entire sector
would go into decline.
However Andrew Norton, higher education
program director at the Grattan Institute, says: "I don't believe that
there are short-term quality issues likely to drive down demand from
international students, although of course we should not be complacent
about this," he said.
an economic and social policy research centre at the University of
Canberra, predicts university fees may dramatically increase if the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014, which passed the House of Representatives on September 4, also passes the Senate.
Mr Pyne's explanatory memorandum
for the bill says the reforms will "ensure that Australia is not left
behind at a time of rising performance by universities around the
world".
However Mr Norton says the rankings are principally based
on research performance and "research policy itself is only facing small
reforms as part of the Pyne package, none of which should have any
material effect on global rankings".
Mr Norton says "there is a
widespread suspicion that if fees are deregulated, much of the money
will go to fund research". He says if that is the case "then fee
deregulation could help improve the relative position of Australian
universities".
"However, it is not clear that it is sensible for
students to pay for research. At this point no university has announced
what fees it would charge or what it would do with the money from those
fees, so this point is still speculative," he said.
Group of Eight chair Professor Ian Young argues deregulation
will enable Australian universities to be brilliant. He says
deregulation will enable universities to differentiate, like in the US,
where students can chose from small liberal arts colleges to Ivy league
colleges.
But Professor John Quiggin from the University of Queensland says
the mooted reforms have not found favour with academics and students.
He says big questions remain about following an American system which he
says has failed.
In the end, "the main issue around fee deregulation is whether it can improve the student experience", Mr Norton says.
is strong evidence showing Chinese universities are moving rapidly up
the world university rankings, however there are still no Chinese
universities in the top 100.
During the last decade Australian universities have also moved up the world university rankings.
It's
unclear how much universities would charge after the Government's
proposed deregulation, and whether universities would spend money on
measures that would make them more internationally competitive.
On the available evidence, without Mr Pyne's reforms, it seems unlikely Australian universities will slide into mediocrity.
Mr Pyne's claim is far-fetched.
Fact check: Will Australian universities 'slide into mediocrity' without reform?
Posted
The Government claims allowing Australian
universities to charge students unregulated fees will keep them
internationally competitive. It has issued dire warnings about what may
befall the universities if the current funding system remains.
"Theuniversities to charge students unregulated fees will keep them
internationally competitive. It has issued dire warnings about what may
befall the universities if the current funding system remains.
situation in Australia is such that we cannot have no reform to our
universities or they will slide into mediocrity, be overtaken by our
Asian competitors," Education Minister Christopher Pyne told Network
Ten's The Bolt Report on August 24.
"Our
international education market will dry up. Our university students
will go overseas thinking that they have first-class degrees only to
find they come eighth out of eight in every race."
ABC Fact Check examines how Australian universities are tracking against their international competitors.
- The claim: Christopher Pyne says Australia
cannot have no reform to its universities or they will slide into
mediocrity and be overtaken by Asian competitors. - The verdict: On the available evidence, without Mr Pyne's reforms, it seems unlikely Australian universities will slide into mediocrity.
Ranking the world's universities
Despite itsrelatively small population, Australia has developed an international
reputation for providing a high quality, innovative and highly
internationalised university system, according to Simon Marginson, a
professor of international higher education at The University of London.
Australia created 2.4 per cent of the world's published journal papers in 2010 and in 2012 it placed eighth in a ranking of national higher education systems, Professor Marginson wrote in a 2013 paper examining Australia's tertiary education policy.
There's
little doubt world rankings of universities play a significant role in
"shaping global movements of knowledge, people and money in higher
education", he said.
Ranking tables are especially important for
Australia, where international students bring $15 billion to the
economy, making higher education the country's third largest
export earner after iron ore and coal. The sector brings more money to
the Australian economy than gas, gold, tourism, oil or wheat.
The Group of Eight, a group of Australia's large research universities, says Australia is the world's third most popular destination for international students, attracting nearly 7 per cent of international student population. Ranking tables help these students decide which university to attend.
Criticism of the ranking systems
A 2012 reportfrom the Group of Eight says there are valid criticisms of ranking
systems, including a lack of comparable data among world universities
and failure of the data to capture important outputs of different
universities in different fields.
It notes the ranking systems include only 3 per cent of the world's 17,000 higher education institutions.
"World
university rankings do not relate well to the missions of universities
whose principal mission is not research, or at least not
internationally-referenced basic research," the report said.
While
the world ranking systems value research universities, there are
important roles for universities which focus on producing quality
graduates for the Australian labour markets, it said.
Despite some problems with the ranking systems, Professor Marginson says there is no doubting their importance.
"League
tables might be obnoxious or fallacious but if a university rises in
one of the rankings it is all over the website," he said. "If it slips,
the vice-chancellor may not be reappointed."
Three main ranking systems
The three main world university ranking systems are produced by:- London publisher Times Higher Education;
- Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University;
- and London higher education events and publishing company The QS Group.
Richard James, director of the university of Melbourne's Centre for the
Study of Higher Education, says Shanghai Ranking's system is widely
viewed as the best.
Its methodology
includes considering every university that has any Nobel laureates,
Fields medallists, highly cited researchers, and papers published in
select academic journals. It ranks more than 1,200 universities and
includes more than 500 universities in its tables.
How Australia has fared
Fact Check has looked at the Shanghai Ranking data on the performance of Australian universities over the past decade.In
the most recent 2014 rankings, Australia had four universities in the
top 100 and 19 in the top 500. This has remained relatively constant
since 2011. Looking back to 2004, the rankings tables show Australia had
just two universities in the top 100 and 14 in the top 500.
The 2012 Group of Eight report says Australia's apparent rise in the Shanghai rankings has
been influenced by recently awarded Nobel laureates from The University
of Western Australia (2005) and Australian National University (2011).
The
report also says: "Australia's relative improvement in several of the
world university rankings reflects the plateauing of inputs to US and UK
universities, the lagged accounting for the emergent Asian
universities, alongside some recent absolute lifts in funding inputs for
Australian universities".
This table shows the top eight
Australian universities and their world rankings, according to Shanghai
Ranking, over the past 10 years:
| | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011 | 2013 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The University of Melbourne | 82 | 79 | 75 | 60 | 54 | 44 |
| The Australian National University (ANU) | 56 | 57 | 59 | 70 | 66 | 74 |
| University of Queensland | 101-152 | 102-150 | 101-150 | 86 | 85 | 85 |
| University of Western Australia | 153-202 | 102-151 | 101-150 | 102-150 | 91 | 88 |
| University of Sydney | 101-152 | 102-150 | 94 | 96 | 97 | 101-150 |
| Monash University | 203-300 | 203-304 | 201-302 | 151-200 | 101-150 | 101-150 |
| University of New South Wales | 153-202 | 151-202 | 152-200 | 151-200 | 101-150 | 101-150 |
| University of Adelaide | 203-300 | 151-202 | 201-302 | 201-300 | 201-300 | 151-200 |
the Australian National University and the University of Sydney have
slipped in the past couple of years, the University of Queensland and
the University of Western Australia have both entered the top 100 list
in recent years.
Professor James tells Fact Check that if
Australian universities do not deregulate they will end up slipping in
the rankings because competition is rising at the top end.
In
2013, the Times Higher Education system placed five Australian
universities in the top 100 and 19 in the top 400, while the QS ranking
placed seven in the top 100 and 26 in the top 500.
'Overtaken by our Asian competitors'?
In his claim, Mr Pyne says without deregulation, Australian universities will "be overtaken by our Asian competitors".More specifically, Mr Pyne has told Parliament "universities in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore are rising strongly through the ranks".
While
there are still no Chinese universities in the Shanghai Ranking top
100, there has been significant growth in the numbers of Chinese
universities in the top 500.
Singapore has no university in the
top 100 and its rankings in the top 500 (two universities) have remained
constant over the past decade.
Hong Kong has five universities in the top 500 with two moving into the top 200 in the past couple of years.
In 2013-14, the Times Higher Education
system placed one Chinese university in the top 100 and 10 in the top
400, while the QS ranking for 2014-15 placed three in the top 100 and 18
in the top 500.
The Group of Eight's report says many Asian
universities are receiving "substantial increases" in government
investment in higher education and university research.
"The rate
of growth in academic publications output from Asia is far outstripping
that of Australia and the quality of Asia's research outputs is rapidly
improving," it said.
Calls for reform
Mr Pyne says "the situation in Australia is such that we cannot have no reform".Some
leading advocates for higher education have been calling for reform
after cuts to higher education by successive governments.
Universities
Australia chief executive Belinda Roberts says: "Either the status quo
of ongoing inadequate investment, or further cuts without deregulation,
will condemn Australia's great university system to inevitable
decline..."
"We don't invest as much of our GDP in universities as
many countries, so we haven't been riding on the sheep's back, we've
been riding on the international student's back," Professor James said.
A
review by the University of Melbourne in 2011 found international
students pay about 40 per cent more than domestic students and
effectively subsidised their domestic counterparts.
"We
have built an extreme reliance. It would be unlikely we would find a
similar system anywhere in the world that would require exposure to and
reliance on international students to directly underpin basic quality,"
the report's author, Michael Beaton-Wells, told The Australian
newspaper.
Professor James argues that if international student
numbers were to fall, as they did from 2010 to 2013, the entire sector
would go into decline.
However Andrew Norton, higher education
program director at the Grattan Institute, says: "I don't believe that
there are short-term quality issues likely to drive down demand from
international students, although of course we should not be complacent
about this," he said.
Would deregulation improve Australia's global competitiveness?
Recent modelling by NATSEM,an economic and social policy research centre at the University of
Canberra, predicts university fees may dramatically increase if the Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014, which passed the House of Representatives on September 4, also passes the Senate.
Mr Pyne's explanatory memorandum
for the bill says the reforms will "ensure that Australia is not left
behind at a time of rising performance by universities around the
world".
However Mr Norton says the rankings are principally based
on research performance and "research policy itself is only facing small
reforms as part of the Pyne package, none of which should have any
material effect on global rankings".
Mr Norton says "there is a
widespread suspicion that if fees are deregulated, much of the money
will go to fund research". He says if that is the case "then fee
deregulation could help improve the relative position of Australian
universities".
"However, it is not clear that it is sensible for
students to pay for research. At this point no university has announced
what fees it would charge or what it would do with the money from those
fees, so this point is still speculative," he said.
Group of Eight chair Professor Ian Young argues deregulation
will enable Australian universities to be brilliant. He says
deregulation will enable universities to differentiate, like in the US,
where students can chose from small liberal arts colleges to Ivy league
colleges.
But Professor John Quiggin from the University of Queensland says
the mooted reforms have not found favour with academics and students.
He says big questions remain about following an American system which he
says has failed.
In the end, "the main issue around fee deregulation is whether it can improve the student experience", Mr Norton says.
The verdict
Thereis strong evidence showing Chinese universities are moving rapidly up
the world university rankings, however there are still no Chinese
universities in the top 100.
During the last decade Australian universities have also moved up the world university rankings.
It's
unclear how much universities would charge after the Government's
proposed deregulation, and whether universities would spend money on
measures that would make them more internationally competitive.
On the available evidence, without Mr Pyne's reforms, it seems unlikely Australian universities will slide into mediocrity.
Mr Pyne's claim is far-fetched.
Sources
- Christopher Pyne, Interview, The Bolt report, August 24, 2014
- Simon Marginson, Tertiary education policy in Australia, July 2013
- Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia's top 25 exports, goods and services, 2013
- Group of Eight Australia, International students in higher education and their role in the the Australian economy
- World University Rankings: ambiguous signals, Group of Eight Backgrounder, 2012
- Methodology, Shanghai Ranking Consultancy
- Second reading, Higher Education and Research Amendment Bill 2014, September 4, 2014
- Universities Australia, media release, August 28, 2014
- International student fees keeping universities afloat, The Australian, July 1, 2011
- Ben Phillips NATSEM, The conversation, June 25, 2014
- Comlaw, Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014
- Explanatory Memorandum, Higher Education and Research Reform Amendment Bill 2014
- Professor Ian Young, ANU Vice Chancellor, National Press Club, July 30, 2014
- Professor John Quiggin, School if Economics at the University of Queensland, September 16, 2014
Saturday, 13 September 2014
Schools worse now than when Gonski wrote report
Schools worse now than when Gonski wrote report
EXCLUSIVE
Worse off: the academic gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students is widening.
The Australian education system is in worse shape now than
when David Gonski handed down his damning assessment of it three years
ago, with academic performance sliding and the gap between advantaged
and disadvantaged students widening.
A new analysis of My School data provided to The Sun Herald tells of deterioration in Australian schools since the controversial website was launched in 2010.
It also finds that the disparity between the highest and
lowest performing students, which is already greater than most other
developed countries, is deepening.
The NAPLAN test results from 2009 to 2013 published on the
website show student achievement has stalled or languished across a
majority of the measures. But a deeper analysis reveals, while results
have climbed for advantaged students, they have slipped for those from
the middle and bottom of the socioeconomic scale. The gap is especially
stark in high schools.
The co-author of the analysis, Chris Bonnor, says the
notable trends, measured over just a few years, indicate a serious and
worsening equity problem.
"What Gonski found to be bad, seems to be getting worse," Mr
Bonnor, a former school principal and policy analyst, said. "If we
ever need another impetus to get equity right, surely this data is
posing lots of questions that need to be answered."
Results for years 5 and 9 show writing and numeracy scores
have fallen, while reading scores rose for year 5 and were unchanged
for year 9. But, when grouped by socioeducational status, numeracy
scores rose for the most advantaged students in all sectors. For
schools in middle and low brackets, the trend is downwards or
fluctuating. The divergence is also noticeable for both year groups in
writing.
The picture looks better for primary school reading where results have improved.
The trends show the link between disadvantage and poor test
results has become more pronounced, particularly in primary schools and
schools in metropolitan areas.
Mr Bonnor said the money trail over the past few years
helps explain the downward trend. He examined school funding at schools
from public, private and Catholic at three different levels of
advantage. While disadvantaged students receive the most in government
funding, more money was spent on the most advantaged students than any
other group, especially when school fees were taken into account.
The analysis does not capture any changes resulting from the
new needs-based funding model implemented this year. But, the report
argues, the changes have occurred while the Gonski review "proceeded,
reported, was variously ignored, cherry-picked, somewhat implemented
then in relative terms largely abandoned".
Trevor Cobbold, the convener of Save Our Schools and a
former Productivity Commission economist, said the scaled-back version
of the Gonski model would "fall far short" of addressing weakness in
Australia's school system.
"Every principal in a disadvantaged school in the country
will be pleased with the extra funding they're going to get, but that
just shows how desperate they are," he said. "They are happy to get the
$1000 extra per kid because they can do something with it but I think
the evidence shows we're just actually not going to make a big enough
difference."
The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maurie
Mulheron, says teachers have been "trying to work miracles" without the
additional resources they need for disadvantaged students.
A spokesman for Education Minister Christopher Pyne said the
federal government does not believe increased funding leads to better
results.
"This has been disproven over the past decade, where school
funding has risen by 40 per cent, but student outcomes have declined,"
he said. "It is the quality and ability of teachers that makes the
biggest impact on student performance in our country."
Labor's assistant minister for education Amanda Rishworth
said the next generation of Australians would pay the price of the
government's reluctance to commit to the final two years of Gonski
funding, when the bulk of the money was due to flow through.
Schools worse now than when Gonski wrote report
EXCLUSIVE
Worse off: the academic gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students is widening.
The Australian education system is in worse shape now than
when David Gonski handed down his damning assessment of it three years
ago, with academic performance sliding and the gap between advantaged
and disadvantaged students widening.
A new analysis of My School data provided to The Sun Herald tells of deterioration in Australian schools since the controversial website was launched in 2010.
It also finds that the disparity between the highest and
lowest performing students, which is already greater than most other
developed countries, is deepening.
The NAPLAN test results from 2009 to 2013 published on the
website show student achievement has stalled or languished across a
majority of the measures. But a deeper analysis reveals, while results
have climbed for advantaged students, they have slipped for those from
the middle and bottom of the socioeconomic scale. The gap is especially
stark in high schools.
The co-author of the analysis, Chris Bonnor, says the
notable trends, measured over just a few years, indicate a serious and
worsening equity problem.
"What Gonski found to be bad, seems to be getting worse," Mr
Bonnor, a former school principal and policy analyst, said. "If we
ever need another impetus to get equity right, surely this data is
posing lots of questions that need to be answered."
Results for years 5 and 9 show writing and numeracy scores
have fallen, while reading scores rose for year 5 and were unchanged
for year 9. But, when grouped by socioeducational status, numeracy
scores rose for the most advantaged students in all sectors. For
schools in middle and low brackets, the trend is downwards or
fluctuating. The divergence is also noticeable for both year groups in
writing.
The picture looks better for primary school reading where results have improved.
The trends show the link between disadvantage and poor test
results has become more pronounced, particularly in primary schools and
schools in metropolitan areas.
Mr Bonnor said the money trail over the past few years
helps explain the downward trend. He examined school funding at schools
from public, private and Catholic at three different levels of
advantage. While disadvantaged students receive the most in government
funding, more money was spent on the most advantaged students than any
other group, especially when school fees were taken into account.
The analysis does not capture any changes resulting from the
new needs-based funding model implemented this year. But, the report
argues, the changes have occurred while the Gonski review "proceeded,
reported, was variously ignored, cherry-picked, somewhat implemented
then in relative terms largely abandoned".
Trevor Cobbold, the convener of Save Our Schools and a
former Productivity Commission economist, said the scaled-back version
of the Gonski model would "fall far short" of addressing weakness in
Australia's school system.
"Every principal in a disadvantaged school in the country
will be pleased with the extra funding they're going to get, but that
just shows how desperate they are," he said. "They are happy to get the
$1000 extra per kid because they can do something with it but I think
the evidence shows we're just actually not going to make a big enough
difference."
The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maurie
Mulheron, says teachers have been "trying to work miracles" without the
additional resources they need for disadvantaged students.
A spokesman for Education Minister Christopher Pyne said the
federal government does not believe increased funding leads to better
results.
"This has been disproven over the past decade, where school
funding has risen by 40 per cent, but student outcomes have declined,"
he said. "It is the quality and ability of teachers that makes the
biggest impact on student performance in our country."
Labor's assistant minister for education Amanda Rishworth
said the next generation of Australians would pay the price of the
government's reluctance to commit to the final two years of Gonski
funding, when the bulk of the money was due to flow through.
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