More commissioners or none: Atec bill draws conflicting views

An inquiry into proposed legislation underpinning Australia’s higher education “steward” has elicited contrasting views, with some commentators arguing for more commissioners and one analyst arguing for none.

Submissions to a Senate committee claim that the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) will not be able to function properly with the three commissioners prescribed in its establishing bill, saying up to eight more will be needed.

Critics say the proposed structure leaves the body’s leadership short of vital expertise – particularly in research and international education – and struggling to bear the “cognitive load” of stewardship over higher education, vocational training, governance, administration, stakeholder engagement and regional and Indigenous education.

Mark Warburton, an honorary senior fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE), said at least two more commissioners were required. The proposals effectively rendered the agency a “one-person operation”, with two commissioners able to constitute a quorum in Atec meetings, and the chief commissioner carrying a casting vote.

“These arrangements do not adequately provide for the skills and perspectives to properly inform Atec in the making of major strategic decisions,” observed Warburton, a former higher education bureaucrat.

Julia Horne, a University of Sydney historian specialising in higher education, said Atec needed between four and seven commissioners. Policy analyst Matt Brett said the 1964 Martin report had proposed an Atec with a chair and 10 full- and part-time commissioners. “The tertiary system has grown more complex over the last 62 years,” Brett noted.

Science and Technology Australia (STA) and the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations both said the body needed a fourth commissioner overseeing research. “It will be extremely difficult…for Atec to perform its stewardship role without giving due attention to universities’ role to perform research for the national benefit,” STA warned.

Consultant Claire Field said the bill saddled Atec with fewer commissioners than originally conceived by the Australian Universities Accord panel, which had championed the body’s establishment. Thinktank Per Capita said Atec needed at least one commissioner with a “strong understanding” of international education policy, given that foreigners made up about one-third of university students.

The Senate committee has until 26 February to report its findings. Many submissions have criticised the bill for denying Atec sufficient independence from the bureaucracy to hire its own staff and give the government proactive advice.

CSHE senior fellow Ant Bagshaw mounted a counter-argument, saying Atec should not proceed and its functions – along with a promised A$54 million (£27 million) of funding – should be handed over to the civil service.

“The Australian Department of Education already has the legal mandate, scale and system-wide position to act as steward,” Bagshaw’s submission contends. “The department [should] be legislatively required to discharge the stewardship role with strengthened transparency, consultation and capability.”

System stewardship does not require a new agency, Bagshaw’s submission argues. “Creating Atec risks fragmenting accountability, duplicating core functions and concentrating power in a small number of commissioners, rather than fixing the underlying stewardship deficit.”

Bagshaw told Times Higher Education that to achieve real independence, Atec would need to be a “super-agency” encompassing the higher education regulator Teqsa and possibly the Australian Research Council and vocational training regulator Asqa. “Instead, we’ve got this…half-thought compromise, and I’m just not sure it’s a good enough compromise.

“I just don’t think [independence is] going to happen. I don’t think the government is going to concede on that point.”

Bagshaw said Atec was widely conceived as a “buffer body” supplying specialist higher education expertise, akin to England’s Office for Students and New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Commission. “Their education departments are dominated by schools,” he pointed out. “That just isn’t true in Australia.”

Meanwhile, regional education commissioner Fiona Nash and former academic Tom Calma have been appointed as commissioners of the interim Atec, following the recent departure of Mary O’Kane and Larissa Behrendt. Calma is first nations commissioner and Jobs and Skills Australia boss Barney Glover is acting chief commissioner.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com