Research goes ‘missing’ in the Federal Budget
The dust is only just beginning to settle on May’s Federal Budget but it is clear that it is a Budget of little sweeteners, with several major issues almost ignored.
The Government is content to sit at an unemployment level of 7.5% and indeed predicts that this will remain steady for several years - a very sad situation for young people. Moreover the issue central to all universities’ interests at the moment is how they are to grapple with a second round of enterprise bargained salary increases whilst retaining the quality of teaching and research. This too has been coyly ignored. If salaries increase, with no increase in the university slice of the Government pie, then either staff have to be lost, with the resultant increase in teaching loads, higher student/staff ratios, less time for research as guaranteed outcomes, or something else has to give in an already battered and thinly-spread university sector.
To cover the Government’s total silence about such matters, the universities have been the recipients of a few sweeteners in education and research, which at best are superficial and will cause friction within the academic community as it may lead to the “haves” and “have nots”. These pluses include the fact that medical research has received a boost to allow its funding to double over the next five years and biotechnology and its commercial outcomes have been seized on by the Government as “the area” to support into the next millenium. I can only praise the Government for supporting an increase in medical research funding.
However, “on the down side” the Australian Research Council, the funding body for all other research, has not been considered in the Budget. There is still no news of the mystical green paper which is to redefine its role and funding, and time is on the wing for funding to be finalised for the year 2000. How can one area of research be so much more important than another? How can the “clever country” double medical research money but leave the rest untouched? Medical research feeds off the new discoveries in science, psychology and the social sciences, it is not a separate entity.
It is intriguing that Government policy over the past few years has forced universities to be lean and mean and less dependent on Government income - usually with no prior warning - so universities have to adjust rapidly after the act to compensate for their effective funding being reduced. Planning by universities to become more corporate, responsible for generating their own income has had to be retrospective. While the sector has seen a reduction in Government funding, it has been required to provide increased accountability - a paradox in itself.
Over the years we have seen a worrying drift of school students away from the sciences. How is this dealt with by the Federal Government? They announced some science lectureships at universities. How will this solve a problem which carries implications for Australia’s science effort far into the next century as young people opt out of science to do easier, more trendy and career-oriented courses? It will leave a huge gap in our science person power which will work its way through the next century as these school children move into their 20s, 30s and 40s.
So where is this Government’s integrative vision for education in the primary, secondary and tertiary sector of education?
The Government is content to sit at an unemployment level of 7.5% and indeed predicts that this will remain steady for several years - a very sad situation for young people. Moreover the issue central to all universities’ interests at the moment is how they are to grapple with a second round of enterprise bargained salary increases whilst retaining the quality of teaching and research. This too has been coyly ignored. If salaries increase, with no increase in the university slice of the Government pie, then either staff have to be lost, with the resultant increase in teaching loads, higher student/staff ratios, less time for research as guaranteed outcomes, or something else has to give in an already battered and thinly-spread university sector.
To cover the Government’s total silence about such matters, the universities have been the recipients of a few sweeteners in education and research, which at best are superficial and will cause friction within the academic community as it may lead to the “haves” and “have nots”. These pluses include the fact that medical research has received a boost to allow its funding to double over the next five years and biotechnology and its commercial outcomes have been seized on by the Government as “the area” to support into the next millenium. I can only praise the Government for supporting an increase in medical research funding.However, “on the down side” the Australian Research Council, the funding body for all other research, has not been considered in the Budget. There is still no news of the mystical green paper which is to redefine its role and funding, and time is on the wing for funding to be finalised for the year 2000. How can one area of research be so much more important than another? How can the “clever country” double medical research money but leave the rest untouched? Medical research feeds off the new discoveries in science, psychology and the social sciences, it is not a separate entity.
It is intriguing that Government policy over the past few years has forced universities to be lean and mean and less dependent on Government income - usually with no prior warning - so universities have to adjust rapidly after the act to compensate for their effective funding being reduced. Planning by universities to become more corporate, responsible for generating their own income has had to be retrospective. While the sector has seen a reduction in Government funding, it has been required to provide increased accountability - a paradox in itself.
Over the years we have seen a worrying drift of school students away from the sciences. How is this dealt with by the Federal Government? They announced some science lectureships at universities. How will this solve a problem which carries implications for Australia’s science effort far into the next century as young people opt out of science to do easier, more trendy and career-oriented courses? It will leave a huge gap in our science person power which will work its way through the next century as these school children move into their 20s, 30s and 40s.
So where is this Government’s integrative vision for education in the primary, secondary and tertiary sector of education?
Professor Val Alder
Pro Vice Chancellor (Research)
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