Dr Carolyn Allport
In her keynote address to the international university conference, Winds of Change, Women and the Culture of Universities, Dr Allport made the following points.
The market approach to higher education is bad for women's participation and employment in the sector. Women should make their views about university funding cuts and deregulation known in the political arena.
The Coalition Government's funding regime will hurt women's participation in the medium to longer term. Since fees were introduced widely at the postgraduate level, women's participation has already fallen - the largest decline being in law and business, where fees are highest. The Government's strong commitment to market-based funding also requires a loan system. All evidence indicates that women's lower life earnings and career patterns mean that they take longer to pay off current HECS - let alone a loan which has market rates of interest.
The market agenda also undervalues and under-utilises the highly skilled labour of women in the university sector. Cuts in funding, increased competition, cutbacks in courses, mean less stable employment and increased casualisation - with women far more likely to be affected.
Dr Allport emphasised that the current Government's market agenda focuses too strongly on the individual student as the major or only 'consumer' of higher education. While public benefit (from university education) is not denied, it is often deemed too unimportant or too difficult to quantify.
She also emphasised the need to reaffirm the important stake that industry and employer groups had in university education and noted that most importantly, society as a whole benefits from not just the individual product of a graduated student, but from the interaction between teaching, learning and research.
She stressed that it was essential that women contested the current Government's policies in the political arena. Women are an important constituency and politicians of all political parties need to take note of their concerns.
She concluded that the Union would be working to ensure that voters are aware of the damaging policies, not only to women but to the quality and equity of Australia's university system as a whole.
(Source: National Tertiary Education Union, Media Release, 16 July 1998)
Dr Carolyn Allport is National President of National Tertiary Education Union.