It is a strange time to have to defend universities. There has been a glut of professors and doctors from various disciplines on our television screens and among official government advisers during the twin heath and economic crises, as well as plaudits to Australian governments, relying on expertise to underpin policy. These academics and experts have received their higher education in traditional universities.
Yet this reliance on experts in practice has failed to translate into support for those institutions that have produced these well-qualified individuals. The universities, relying so much on temporary and casual employees and on students, both graduate and undergraduate, who support themselves by casual employment, have not been adequately recognised during the pandemic for their social contribution.
Universities were denied access to JobKeeper support for their staff, including many casuals who are part-time PhD students and whose future is now in jeopardy.
They were also excoriated for undue reliance on foreign students, without adequate recognition of the role that lack of government financial support played in the expansion of international student numbers.
Despite the central place of higher education in the domestic and export economies, the universities were neglected in the various programs put in place to stimulate the economy to snapback after the pandemic.
Then came the attempt by the federal government to deter students from studying Arts degrees (fees up 113 per cent), a misguided attempt which focused on the Humanities by increasing the cost of studying these popular courses.
'Specific government policies, such as the reshaping of student fees to disadvantage the Arts compared with other more supposedly vocationally-oriented courses, are ham-fisted and universities themselves don’t believe they will achieve the goals government policy-makers set out to achieve.'
This new direction came during a major speech by Dan Tehan, the federal Minister for Education. The speech itself contained many useful ideas, though it was bogged down in jargon about harnessing the higher education system, reshaping its architecture, and incentivizing students to provide more job-ready graduates.
Here I should declare my conflict of interest. I have spent my whole academic life teaching in Bachelor of Arts degrees in four Australian universities in three states and one territory. In the process I have enjoyed teaching many now high-profile individuals of all political persuasions in public service, the media, NGOs, and politics.
There are many jokes about Arts students, mostly misplaced. Arts graduates are highly employable and demonstrably successful in the private and public sectors. This conclusion is demonstrated in graduate careers surveys. Starting salaries are also relatively high compared to STEM graduates.
The case for Arts does not just rely on the case for a generalist education, but skills in thinking, writing, creating and speaking. It is also an incredibly varied degree, including social sciences as well as humanities. Many Arts disciplines, including political science and history, are a mix of the two.
Many Arts students are studying double degrees, including the very popular Arts-Law. The combination of International Relations and Languages, European or Asian, is also much in demand. Students come to Arts units from Economics, Environmental, Indigenous and Asian Studies, Social Work, Education and many other fields.
Government attitudes towards universities, the humanities and the arts, are often a strange mixture of ignorance, blindness and misplaced priorities. It is almost as if their graduates fail to match the image of what the government would prefer Australians to be. To say these attitudes are ideologically driven is a big call, but some critics see Arts courses as either inherently left-wing or trendy nonsense.
Such attitudes are ill-fitted to any society which values open-mindedness and critical thinking. Ironically, given international events, these are the very values that distinguish us from authoritarian societies.
Specific government policies, such as the reshaping of student fees to disadvantage the Arts compared with other more supposedly vocationally-oriented courses, are ham-fisted and universities themselves don’t believe they will achieve the goals government policy-makers set out to achieve. Students will follow their hearts and their interests and not be socially engineered.
Government ministers should remove their blinkers and educate themselves about what the Arts offer and what they contribute to Australian society instead of relying on prejudices.
John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University and Chair of Concerned Catholics Canberra Goulburn. He is a PC 2020 delegate from the Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn.
Main image: Cartoon by Fiona Katauskas