Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

The Universities AccordInterim Report, released last month, has estimated that by 2050 roughly 55 per cent of jobs will require a university degree. That means we need bold ideas right now to ensure we are meeting the skills demand of the future. The accord panel, who are here today, engaged in a workshop led by Universities Australia and said the best way to boost the number of university qualifications in our workforce is to boost the number of students currently underrepresented in our universities. Almost 50 per cent of young people have a university degree today, but if you're from the regions that number is 13 per cent. This has barely shifted over the last decade. We are committed to boosting these numbers to ensure we have the skills and the workforce in our cities and our regions that we will need into the future.

As part of the Interim Report, we've agreed to establish 20 new additional regional university hubs and 14 new suburban university study hubs around the country. Last month I was up in Cooktown to open the Cape York Country Universities Centre, which already has 29 students registered to study. These university hubs will ensure students in regional and remote areas can study without having to move or leave home. There's no guarantee that, of those 29 students in Cape York, they would be studying if they weren't able to study at that university centre in town. We know that regional university students who study closer to home are more likely to stay and work there as a result. So these centres are providing the next nurse or the next teacher for those local communities, which is so important for the future.

Minister Clare and I and the Labor government believe it shouldn't matter where you live; every Australian should have access to a high-quality education and pathways to good, secure jobs.