Calling for a revolution in higher education

Dear Editor,

In his victory speech on 24 November 2007, Kevin Rudd reaffirmed education as a key priority for the future of this country. We believe that a true education revolution must include a new wave of higher education reform - reform that will redress the imbalances that have characterised the sector of the last decade or more. Such reform should redirect resources back into the core university activities of teaching and research. We urge immediate attention and commitment to the following:

• slim down and simplify the requirements of the higher education bureaucracy, and thus reduce university administrative costs
• provide world-class university education for our future generations through full government funding for the sector’s teaching-related expenditures, including education at the honours and postgraduate levels
• reduce universities’ dependence on overseas full-fee students, a practice that has led to the emergence of cash-crop education programmes which have damaged Australia’s reputation in education
• repeal the previous government’s VSU legislations, to ensure an active and full student experience
• revive Australia’s faltering international standard in innovative research by increasing funding for competitive research projects in all areas