Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a real privilege for me to talk on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Response to the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report) Bill 2023. I am going to talk about some recent study I have done on education, and links between education in Europe. I will also talk a bit about my story with tertiary education. I hope that can bring a positive contribution to this debate.

I want to start by saying well done to the minister for education. We have got a few amendments and we have got some suggestions, but I think his approach to this policy has been consultative and thoughtful, and I think he is on the right track. I mean that most sincerely, and I would like to see a bit more of that from some other ministers in their approach to issues such as water and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Be that as it may, just before the pandemic started I was the recipient of a Churchill Fellowship. The reason I applied for that fellowship is because in my region the big issue we have is a lot of kids aren't motivated in school and a lot of the businesses can't find people to drive those businesses forward into the future. I wanted to go over to Europe, particularly Germany, Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom, to see how they did it and what their approach was to make sure that the links between education and industry are really strong. I think I've got some great learnings, and I look forward, as I get my thoughts together and write my report, to sharing those with all people in this place.

I will talk a little about universities and why I think I have a contribution to make. I started three university degrees, and I completed two of them. I did what a lot of young people did. I was okay at school: 'Sam, you're a good student. You've got to go to uni.' I was 17 when I started at uni. As my first-year grades will attest, I had neither the maturity nor the understanding to be doing a university degree at that age. I did not pass, and I went into the workforce for a number of years. I worked in agriculture. That first degree was an arts degree, and then I worked in agriculture, because that's the employment in my home patch, which is now the electorate I have the great honour of representing.

When I decided that I was ready to go to university, the University of Melbourne had a campus very close to Shepparton called the Dookie campus. At the time, they offered a number of degrees, one of which was a bachelor of applied science in agriculture. I completed that degree and did quite well because I already had some understanding from having been in the workforce. I was 22 years of age, so I was old enough and had the maturity to approach tertiary education. It was an excellent degree. The degree doesn't exist any more, which is a point I've very often discussed with the university. It was an excellent degree, well rounded, giving all sorts of great learnings that helped me not only in my agricultural career but in my career as a politician.

Then, when I was about 40 years old, I wanted to get a postgraduate degree. Fortunately for me, La Trobe University was offering its MBA, a Master of Business Administration, regionally, in Wodonga, Bendigo, Mildura and Shepparton, as well as in the city. That meant that I could go down to my local La Trobe campus in Shepparton after work—six o'clock till nine o'clock—and study my postgraduate degree. I got that after three years of toil and my kids sleeping outside the lecture theatre sometimes—but it was great.

The point I want to make from my experience is that university needs to be there for when people are ready, not kids coming out of school being told they need to go to university no matter what. Have it there for people who are ready and, as they go through their journey in life and their work journey, if an academic qualification or academic study is what they want, then they'll be much more successful if they move into it when they are ready. My own experience tells that story.

I will give you the key take-outs from the Churchill Fellowship I went on. They are that, here, we seem to have an obsession with telling kids that if they're smart they go to university and if they're not they do something else. In Germany and Finland, particularly, the esteem in which vocational education and training is held is on a par with university education. A lot of the businesses I spoke to said, 'We need some people who've got university education and training for some professions, but for other professions, we much prefer the kids who did the vocational education and training.' In Germany, for example, I spoke to Mercedes-Benz. There were some incredibly bright and brilliant technicians who never went near a university. They got an apprenticeship with a company, in this case Mercedes-Benz. The tech schools are so good, that they are seen as good as university. These technicians had gone into technical education and then gone on to great careers with Mercedes-Benz.

This is a fascinating statistic from Finland that I wasn't aware of. We stand and say it's a great milestone that we've got more university enrolments than ever before. I'm not against university enrolments. For the right kids at the right time, it's brilliant. Finland has not increased the number of university enrolments in the last 20 years. The education department is proud of that because 40 per cent go to uni, 20 per cent go to work and the other 40 per cent go into vocational education and training. They're so proud of their vocational education and training, and it's such a great pathway, that they're very happy with the status quo, as are their businesses. So I think there are some lessons for us here in Australia, to look at the way we talk about university and about vocational education and consult with business and industry as to what they need and what they think will get the best and most creative approach for a student in their business, because that's what's going to drive us forward with the innovation that we need.

I'll share something else with you, because I hear in this place discussion of university debts and funding models. Germany and Finland both have free university education. When I explained to them our system, which was originally called HECS—I think it was introduced by the Hawke government; correct me if I'm wrong—and is now called FEE-HELP, of which I was a beneficiary with all three of my degrees, one unsuccessful and two successful, the Europeans thought that was a pretty good approach. They thought it made sense. I think they're thinking of doing it as well. They said to me, 'We've got to make sure the university sector is sustainable, and therefore someone has to pay for it.' They thought the process of charging people after they finish their university degrees, when the higher income they're earning as a result starts to kick in, was a good model.

Probably the other thing—and this goes to one of the elements of the bill that bears closer scrutiny and discussion as to why I support the amendments, and I'm an example of this myself—is that you value something more if you have to pay for it. I just wonder, if people are looking at free university education—people have talked about Gough Whitlam; they don't talk about Hawke so much, but I think he was on the right track—if you have to pay for something, even if that payment is delayed, you value it a bit more and you're likely to try harder and make it work. I think the free university system, where it exists in the world, means that sometimes people can sign up because they think, 'It's not going to cost me anything.'

Regarding the recommendation in this bill to overturn the previous 50 per cent pass rule, where if you didn't pass with 50 per cent you didn't get the funding from the Commonwealth anymore, I sometimes think young people—and I was one of them—need to be saved from themselves a bit. If you're not passing all your subjects with 50 per cent in a university year, then I think everyone has to have a look at whether you're ready for university. I don't know if it's a responsible approach to say, 'Look, you failed to get 50 per cent, but keep going, don't worry about it, the money will keep rolling in; we'll just lend you more.' I think that bears closer discussion and scrutiny.

I want to finish by talking a bit about Indigenous people and education. I've got a great and proud and wonderful bunch of Indigenous groups in my electorate, and I've seen some amazing things happen. I just want to pay tribute to, in particular, five Indigenous women who were given a PhD place by the University of Melbourne to study various theses. They completed those, and some of those Indigenous women have told me that when they were in year 9 at school the thought that someone would call them 'Doctor' one day never occurred to them. It's great, and I really believe in encouraging Indigenous people who, as with all of us, are ready to go to university to be supported. I've seen some really good outcomes in my patch. I couldn't be prouder of those women who did that, and I'm also proud of the University of Melbourne for making it happen.

So, I'm all for that. I suppose it's just really important to make sure everyone, whether they're Indigenous or not, goes to university because it's right for them and goes to university when they are ready and gets supported through university. When I went, and I wasn't ready and I didn't get supported, it wasn't such a great outcome. When I went the two other times, and I was supported and I was ready, there were great outcomes. I got a Bachelor of Applied Science and a Master of Business Administration, which I'm very proud of. I'm sure many people who have those qualifications are very proud of them.

I'd love us to be a country where our vocational education training system is as good as the university system and seen to be held in the same esteem as a university degree, and I would love to see kids encouraged towards that. I think we can work much more closely. Education systems—not just universities but also TAFEs and secondary schools—can work a lot closer with business, to understand the skills of the future. We can encourage people to approach university when they are ready and support them so they have a successful experience at university. That includes all students, but I support encouraging Indigenous people into some sort of training. For some people, that might be vocational education and for others it might be universities.

I want to finish by congratulating the minister and the government on us having this discussion. I really wanted to contribute positively to it, and those are my contributions for the moment.

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