Mr ANDREN (10:57 AM) —I welcome the opportunity to contribute briefly to this debate on the Higher Education Funding Amendment Bill 1999 and set down a few of my concerns about the trends in higher education funding. I represent an electorate with a very strong tertiary education base, with Charles Sturt University and Sydney University, through Orange campus, providing a very wide cross-section of studies ranging from sciences, agriculture, nursing, communications, advanced policing, paramedical and education, to name but a few.

Distance education, as one might imagine, also figures strongly in the courses on offer from both these outstanding institutions. But the cracks are appearing under the strain of reduced access to funding. I know the full impact of changes to the HECS system are yet to flow through and enable further expansion of the higher education sector. I supported the changes in the HECS contribution when they were introduced, although I continue to seriously question the classification of some higher HECS courses, such as agricultural science, which has been an important and inhibiting factor on rural education.

It is one thing to place more financial burden on the recipients of higher education, it is another to, at the same time, withdraw Commonwealth funding in real terms from the sector. The government is planning to make a statement on broad funding issues later this year and I certainly hope it takes full account of the recommendations of the West report. I would add at least one further one, which would be a scheme enabling those students who just miss out on youth allowance to be able to access low interest loans, backed by the Commonwealth, to enable them to undertake studies.

I have seen intelligent and keen young potential students miss out or have to leave university studies because they are simply unable to meet the cost and have parents who are unable or unwilling to meet these expenses. Children from broken homes or family split ups fall into this category when they are honest about family means and income. On the other hand, I have heard of students who arrange their affairs so it appears there are irreconcilable differences between child and parent or step-parent in order to access youth allowance. The system is still open to rort.

It is a fact that the Commonwealth funded student load has increased by 82 per cent since 1983. Efficiency gains have seen the operating grant per actual equivalent full-time student unit decrease by 20 per cent. So the institutions have made their efficiency cuts. While the HECS scheme will generate a significant increase in available funds in 2001, the real level of Commonwealth contribution to operating grants will be about the same as in 1983, although planned student load will have increased by 58 per cent.

As the Bills Digest so plainly states, `In terms of operating grants per planned equivalent full-time student units, the Commonwealth contribution will have declined by 37 per cent between 1983 and 2001.' The government will obviously say the increased HECS fees for overseas students, postgraduate students and domestic undergraduates have enabled higher education institutions to become much less dependent on Commonwealth grants. But there are some dangerous and worrying trends. I recently received a letter signed by 33 staff members of the School of Teacher Education at Charles Sturt University. It says:

We would like to draw your attention to difficulties currently being experienced in the Higher Education sector and specifically within the School of Teacher Education. As you would be aware the current Federal Government has reduced funding to universities by 6% since 1996. During this period there has also been one unfunded 12% salary increase for university staff and we are currently in rounds of enterprise bargaining for additional, and entirely reasonable, salary increases which again will be unfunded.

The dramatic decline in funding for tertiary education has meant a decline in the services provided to rural students, a worrying decline in the number of academic staff, increased class sizes and reduced time for research and consultancy.

Moreover, if this decline is not speedily halted and reversed, universities will find it increasingly difficult to attract high calibre staff. The school has recently lost two academic positions because of the funding cuts.

The current funding crisis has become increasingly problematic for academics, is stress-inducing and is affecting morale. We the undersigned would ask you to be a voice in the parliament for increasing funding to the higher education sector before the system falls into further decline.

If Australia is to become the clever country it needs to boost its investment in higher education. This applies especially in the case of teacher training given teachers are agents in the achievement of such worthy national aspirations.

Yours sincerely, Staff of the School of Teacher Education.

There may be some details in that letter which the minister may want to dispute, but the letter highlights the undeniable fact that the ratio of students to staff has increased an alarming 33 per cent in the past 10 years. Quality will undoubtedly suffer as institutions upgrade courses in the expectation of attracting higher fees. The results will inevitably be an inflation in credentials from both the universities and the TAFE sector as they both struggle for fees, among other things, to maintain staff salaries. If the trend continues, we will have highly credentialled but poorly trained graduates, especially in teaching, not unlike the American free enterprise mainstream university system, with their McDonalds degrees.

The other worrying trend, which cannot be explained away by pointing to increased fee revenue and increasing HECS revenue, is the question of equity and access. While the number of students from equity groups has increased in absolute terms, their representation is declining. The proportion of students from rural, isolated and low socioeconomic status backgrounds has declined between 1991 and 1997, while indigenous Australians continue to be greatly under-represented in higher education.

The reductions of $18.2 million through the phasing out of the Higher Education Equity Merit Scholarship Scheme is a savage blow to rural and remote students. This is exactly the sort of subsidy, with some modifications perhaps for such students, that we need to avoid that slippage of representation which the figures so starkly show.

The government will say it surveyed universities through the department to see how effective the scheme had been. It was an informal survey. I will tell you how informal it was. No notes were taken, no papers were delivered, no statistics were collected; it was just a talk. And while there were concerns expressed about the way the scheme was offered by all sides—the government, the department and the university personnel—as an exemption from HECS, it was made patently clear during that so-called survey that the disadvantaged students needed the money up front.

In fact, I understand it was made very clear that the minister would not accept such a scheme. It was stated that higher education is too expensive for the most disadvantaged in our community and—wait for it—that any up-front payments would be an open admission by the government that higher education was and is out of the reach of equity groups. The minister was not prepared to admit that, and so there is no up-front assistance to 17- and 18-year-olds who do not need exemption from HECS but need to feed themselves from week to week, let alone get to university in the first place. That was the reason why the minister was not prepared to accept any sort of up-front process. If that anecdotal information is true, the minister stands condemned for that attitude because this is all about access.

I have argued consistently about the need for a low interest loan scheme to enable students from low income groups to access higher education. I have also argued for the reintroduction of a Commonwealth scholarship scheme. There have been some moves in certain areas—medicine and so on—but I am talking about equity scholarships, with bonding if necessary. This is particularly applicable to the teaching profession, which I entered many years ago with the benefit of a teachers college scholarship and a three-year bond.

The government is quick to take on board the support of the National Farmers Federation for the business tax review. The Prime Minister has described the NFF support as `praiseworthy and lyrical'. Will the minister use the same words to describe the NFF's assessment of the University of Melbourne's report on higher education opportunities for rural and remote Australians? The NFF says the report `presents an alarming picture of the disadvantages facing country students seeking higher education'. The message is there. What premium do we place on higher education? Do we drive the economic wedge further between the haves and the have nots in education too? Forget the emasculation of social sciences, the arts and classics, and the corporatisation of universities. That is another issue for another day.

What I am talking about is equity of opportunity of access to higher education. The decline in opportunity for those of lower means is clearly demonstrated again in this bill and in recent policies of this government. I will be supporting the principle of the opposition's amendment in the second reading stage and look forward to substantial amendments in the area of access to higher education, by way of up-front funds, before this bill becomes law.