Atec will fall short of ambition unless its independence is guaranteed

The Australian government’s unveiling of the Universities Accord final report in early 2024 was meant to be a landmark moment, outlining a plan for long-term reform. However, the report’s ambition to dramatically expand university participation while minimising increases in public spending was always unrealistic when funding per student has flatlined, research and development lacks investment, and regulatory costs continue to climb.

Students, staff and university executives all agree that the hikes to arts and humanities degrees under the previous government’s Job-ready Graduates legislation exemplify problematic approaches to funding. Squeezing domestic students for more fee income and squeezing the mostly sessional staff who teach them to do even more with even less is not sustainable – especially without further significant growth in the international student enrolments that have propped up Australia’s university sector over the past two decades.

At the same time, we can see plenty of fat to cut. The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA), alongside higher education sector unions, is concerned about executive salaries, the focus on building shiny new “world-class” buildings for marketing pamphlets, and an addiction to the use of consulting firms for making what are essentially educational decisions, watering down the role of the academy in determining institutional “strategy”.

The public have noticed, too. Reflecting such concerns, a recent YouGov poll found that 54 per cent of the public believe that the primary goal of our universities is to generate a profit – compared with just 44 per cent who believe it is to educate and (an abysmally low) 25 per cent who believe it is to conduct research.

Arguably, this misplaced sense of purpose is a direct outcome of institutional demands to address the whims of successive governments – many of which have been managerial, rather than educational. Nevertheless, it is unsurprising that the recent Senate Inquiry into the quality of university governance, as well as the Expert Council on University Governance, have felt the need to spend the past 12 months dissecting the decision-making processes behind staff cuts, consultant use and executive salaries. And while the Chancellors Council, National Tertiary Education Union and CAPA are also working together towards principles for university governance reform, the essential question remains: Where is higher education going?

The government thinks it has the solution to answering that question: the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec). In principle, Atec is a strong, independent body charged with coordinating funding, policy alignment and long-term reform. In practice, however, the current legislation falls short.

Atec has been tasked with an ever-growing list of problems to fix in a A$40-billion sector central to Australia’s future (including to cultivating social cohesion in an era of increased fracturing). Those problems include figuring out the actual costs of running universities, moving towards a needs-based funding system, harmonising Australia’s skills and education frameworks, implementing caps on international students, and allocating domestic funding under the new Managed Growth system. But three commissioners with limited university-sector expertise cannot be expected to take all this on.

To be fair, Atec will sit alongside existing regulatory frameworks, including the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa) and National Student Ombudsman (NSO). But rather than a help, this could be a hindrance. Without careful coordination, there is a risk of duplication and bureaucratic stagnation.

There is also a question about whether Atec will be sufficiently independent from the Department of Education. Rather than fostering alignment between universities and national policy objectives, critics fear that it could simply rubberstamp ministerial preferences through mission-based compacts that reflect the glossy yet sterile annual reports omnipresent across the sector, lacking meaningful consultation or sector buy-in/ownership.

True stewardship requires more than bureaucratic oversight. It demands expertise in research policy, international education, productivity and equity. It requires evidence-informed legitimacy, grounded in consultation with those most affected by its decisions. And it requires independence to mediate between government objectives, university missions and local/national institutional realities, free from the constant course corrections that five education ministers in 10 years have wrought. Such alignment is not compliance. It is coordination in the public interest.

This is why the body’s establishing legislation must be amended to foster greater independence, broader expertise, mandated student consultation, and mission-based compacts that protect equity, academic freedom and meaningful civic engagement.

Any serious reform of Australia’s higher education system must also place well-being as a central priority. This is not an optional add-on to teaching and research. Well-being directly shapes student retention, completion and post-study outcomes. It also shapes staff retention and success.

The mission-based compacts developed through Atec should explicitly require universities to embed staff and student well-being into their core performance frameworks, alongside academic quality and research impact. This should include a commitment to maintaining safe learning environments and inclusive campus cultures, particularly for students from international, rural and regional backgrounds, who face disproportionate pressure and isolation.

But well-being isn’t just an internal issue. Universities are public assets and mission-based compacts should aim to embed them into their local communities, connecting them with student associations, government and non-government organisations to identify local problems and act as the research nexus for developing solutions. The point is not to abandon the pursuit of international recognition and esteem but to leverage it to the advantage of communities by fostering collaborations and drawing in new resources.

Without all this, Australia risks another decade of underfunded teaching, stagnating research and declining public trust.

Jesse Gardner-Russell is the national president of Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) and a PhD candidate in ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne.

Richard Lee is the national vice-president of CAPA and a PhD candidate in higher education at the University of Queensland.

They are grateful for the comments of the CAPA national team, including board chair Gemma Lucy Smart and research officer Maxim Buckley, and they acknowledge the insights of Ian Hardy, an associate professor in Queensland’s School of Education.