Deakin Speaking

The creation of a seamless tertiary education sector is the mission of the nascent Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA). The emerging sector in Australia is likely to take one of two forms: a binary or triunary structure. The former would return us to the pre-Dawkins era and the latter would propel us towards a US style model of postsecondary education with research intensive universities at the head of an apex, followed by universities offering large undergraduate programs with a smattering of research degrees underpinned by community or technical colleges teaching the mass of students at the base.

At the end of 2008 as the Bradley Review was in full swing, a heated debate played out in The Australian newspaper on the topic of community colleges. Group of Eighters thought they should be introduced to Australia and the rest of the sector decided not to go gentle into that octad night.

The recent discussion paper on setting and monitoring academic standards for Australian Higher Education from the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) should have been a welcome contribution to a national discussion on this critically important topic.

It is a shame that it has come so late and at the same time that the federal government has announced there will be a new system for ensuring standards at the tertiary level.