Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. What does the Universities Accord final report say about the future of higher education in Australia, and why is it important the government builds a better and fairer education system?

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my friend, the sensational member for Cunningham, for her question. I also want to recognise in the public gallery the school teachers from Ukraine who are with us today. Welcome to Australia.

Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, the number of kids finishing high school jumped from 40 per cent to almost 80 per cent—that includes a lot of us here. That was nation-changing stuff.

On the weekend I released the Universities Accord final report, and that's a blueprint for how we reform higher education in this country for the next decade and the decade after that. What this report says is that by the middle of this century we'll need a workforce where 80 per cent of that workforce haven't just finished high school but have got a TAFE qualification or a university degree as well. That's not going to be easy. To do this, it says we've got to break down two big barriers. We've got to break down the artificial barrier between TAFE and university, and make it easier to move between the two and make sure the two systems are more integrated and seamless. We've also got to break down the invisible barrier that stops a lot of young people from the outer suburbs and from the regions from getting a crack at university in the first place and succeeding when they get there.

Today, almost one in two young people—young adults in their 20s and 30s—has a uni degree, but not everywhere, including not where I'm from. In places like Fairfield it's only 28 per cent, in Maranoa it's only 22 per cent and in Elizabeth in South Australia it's only 12 per cent. That, at its core, is what the Universities Accord report is all about. It's doing something to change that. This report is jam-packed full of reforms to tackle this and other challenges, including things like fee-free university places, fee-free university courses, needs based funding and making HECS simpler and fairer. I thank Professor Mary O'Kane AC and the Universities Accord team for their report.

The first stage of our response will come in the next few months. If we're going to succeed here we can't just rely on reforms at the university gate because the same kids who aren't getting a crack at university at the moment are the same kids who aren't finishing high school, who are falling behind in primary school and who aren't getting an opportunity to go to early education. It is all connected.

That's why we need to build a better and a fairer education system across the board, which helps ensure that no-one's held back and no-one is left behind. That's what we are going to need it we're going to build the skills and have the economic firepower to succeed in the decades ahead.