Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, Senator Evans. Can the minister inform the Senate what action the government is taking to reward high performance in Australian universities? How will this contribute to the government’s productivity agenda?

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Pratt for her question. Today Senator Carr and I revealed the details of the next plank in the government’s 10-year reform agenda for higher education when we released the new draft compacts and performance funding framework for consultation with Australian universities. Compacts will be the mechanism by which new teaching and learning performance funding is delivered to universities across Australia. Performance funding will strengthen universities’ focus on improving outcomes for students, especially the important national goal of increasing the number of Australians who enjoy the rewards of a higher education. We expect that every university will contribute to achieving the government’s ambition that, by the year 2020, 20 per cent of undergraduate students will be from low socioeconomic backgrounds. For this reason, the government is asking every university to agree to improve the participation of people from a low socioeconomic background by 2.5 per cent over the next five years.

As we move to a student demand driven funding system for higher education, the government wants to ensure that universities continue to offer high-quality education. To do this, the government will ask every university to agree to targets to improve students’ experience of university and the quality of their learning outcomes. My department, together with Senator Carr’s department, will write to universities today to seek their feedback on the draft compacts and performance funding framework.

Universities play a significant role in enhancing the productive capacity of the Australian economy, whether they are metropolitan universities that attract students from around the state or whether they are regional universities focused on meeting the needs of the local community. The government believes that it is important to place the right incentives to reward universities for contributing to higher productivity through continued improvement in the quality of learning outcomes that they deliver. That is particularly important as we work towards the government’s goal of ensuring that, by 2025, 40 per cent of young Australians will hold at least an undergraduate degree.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister inform the Senate what the benefits to universities will be from entering into a compact and agreeing on performance targets with the Australian government?

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The performance funding that the government is offering will provide incentives to universities to improve outcomes for students. Universities have everything to gain if they enter into a compact and agree to performance targets. From 2011, universities that respond to the government’s call to enter into a compact with teaching and learning performance targets will receive an annual share of $94.2 million of facilitation funding to make a start. Universities that then meet their targets will receive a share of $136.6 million each year in reward funding. Over the three calendar years of the compacts, this means that up to $550 million will be available to those universities that sign up to the compacts.

These are substantial incentives, fully funded in the 2009 budget, which the government is putting on the table to reward high performance by all Australian universities. We expect Australian students to be the main beneficiaries.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Given the rapid changes that are taking place in higher education, can the minister please advise the Senate what action the government is taking to ensure that the base funding provided to Australian universities remains competitive and appropriate?

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no doubt that the face of the higher education sector will change over the period ahead as a result of the government’s significant reforms in response to the Bradley review of higher education, and this will have implications for the way in which universities are funded in the future. Earlier today, the appointment of an expert panel to conduct a review into higher education base funding was announced. This review implements one of the recommendations of the Bradley review to establish principles for public investment in Australian higher education and to make sure that funding levels are competitive and appropriate. The review builds on the government’s substantial new injections of capital and recurrent funding for higher education. Last term, the government committed to lifting caps on undergraduate university places for domestic students at an estimated additional cost of $2.1 billion over five years. We also introduced a new indexation approach, which will mean that universities will have an additional $2.6 billion over five years to provide top-quality education. (Time expired)