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Faculty of Education

March 2009 'ED NEWS'

Congratulations are due to three of our staff who have recently successfully passed their doctorates – these staff are Christine Bottrell; Patricia McCann and Raymond Nichol. We join with them in celebrating their success. Also congratulations to Wan Ng and Howard Nicholas for their award for the “outstanding Paper” at a recent conference. The paper is entitled Capturing 'thinking' with handheld computers. It was presented on 27 February at the international 2009 Mobile Learning Conference in Barcelona.

The Faculty of Education is currently recording a Commonwealth Supported Places load of 113% and a load of 104.9% across all fund sources. Because we have met CSP targets the Vice Chancellor has released the additional budget which had been held back in case of not meeting targets.

As you know we now have the government response to both the Bradley and Cutler reviews. As the Vice Chancellor has remarked this marks the most profound change in the Higher Education system in Australia since the Whitlam years. An increase in the participation of the 25 to 34 year age group is planned in the next 15 years which could potentially position La Trobe well on all of its campuses. However, the most significant change will come in 2012 when there is a complete deregulation of the system such that all funds for teaching and learning and research are contestable. No longer will Commonwealth Supported Places be allocated to universities but rather universities will only gain funds from the students who choose to undertake their courses. Hence if the programs offered at a University are not attractive to students, these programs will receive no funding and will inevitably disappear. This could occur at any level, in any university, faculty, school or academic unit. The University Curriculum Green Paper has now assumed even greater urgency as we seek to renew, refresh, recast and overhaul curriculum in ways that make programs attractive to the students. This overhaul will pertain to content, teaching methods, modes of delivery, choice of timing of study, length and structure of the university year, modes of assessment and to every facet of the curriculum. In this faculty much is already underway along these lines but the urgency for this to be completed ready for 2010 is great. As of 2010 all universities will be able to over-enrol on full funds up to 110% (currently it is 105%). This inevitably means that the most popular universities and courses will take a large percentage of the available pool of students especially those with high scores. The same will apply in 2011 until in 2012 when it is totally market driven and some courses will disappear due to lack of demand from students. The VC is to take an options paper to the University Council in July which will recommend some massive and fundamental changes to make La Trobe more competitive in 2010. The VC has asked Faculties to bring forward to him proposals for short term and longer terms changes and strategies they can implement to bring about the required changes which make our programs competitive in a deregulated marketplace.

In terms of research, Minister Carr has indicated that research funds will be concentrated in areas which are recognized against international benchmarks as being internationally recognized strength. Some research activities which have hitherto attracted DEEWR funding will now no longer attract funds. Likewise PhD funding will only be provided to areas where there is breadth and depth of supervisory capacity. This could result in large parts of universities being debarred from receiving funding for PhD students. The Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) audit process will provide a basis for decisions about the areas of strength within and between universities across Australia and funding will be allocated according to the results of the audit process. Details of the ERA process are being released now with trials in selected areas (which includes education) this year.

All of this points to massive, fast and drastic change across the whole Higher Education sector. The VC will speak to Faculty staff at all staff meetings after Easter and you will be notified as soon as possible when this Faculty will meet with the Vice Chancellor.

In addition to what has been outlined above, the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) audit will occur at La Trobe in September of this year and the two themes that will be the focus of the audit are Internationalisation and Research and Research Training. Dr Julie White is currently co-ordinating the Faculty response to the University request for details for the portfolio which must be provided to AUQA by June 16th. Thank you to all who have assisted in gathering this information and also thank you in anticipation for the ongoing involvement you will have in the process throughout this year. When the audit team is in the University it will call on many staff across the whole University to meet with them and discuss various aspects of the Faculty and University processes. Any staff member could be called upon to meet with the team and to be available to provide their input. This is a valuable process for the University and provides an opportunity to review and strengthen processes and procedures. Thanks go especially to Julie White for her ongoing efforts on behalf of the Faculty with regard to the AUQA audit.

My thanks again to all staff who have contributed to the smooth start to 2009 and also for your readiness to assist in the change process which, as outlined above, will be an ongoing and accelerating one.