Uni surpluses not enough to fund future needs

23/04/2012 by
Surplus

Australian Financial Review   23 April 2012 Despite posting a combined surplus of $185.5m, on the back of increases in Commonwealth grants, The University of Melbourne ($88.9m) and Monash University ($96.6m) say that the the government's contribution is still inadequate.  Monash's chief financial officer David Pitt points out that Monash's operating margin of 6% (Melbourne's margin was about 5%) is "conservative by any industry standard.  Every cent gets ploughed back into infrastructure, and that's still not enough". It's a pretty strong point. The Medical School Building at Melbourne is approaching the end of its economic life and it's estimated that the cost of a new building … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Monash, universities, University of Melbourne Tagged With: , ,

CQU cements its presence in Cairns

23/04/2012 by
CQU logo

CQU News   23 April 2012 CQ University will open a state-of-the-art centre in Cairns, for more than 350 Far Northern students.  The $500,000 hub will open in July and allow students to form study groups, access e-library and internet resources, sit exams, lodge assignments, participate in live lectures broadcast via high-speed internet, and make academic enquiries. Local Cairns-based staff will operate the centre and provide an on-the-ground point of contact for students and prospective students alike, while ‘hot desks' will  be in place to allow CQUniversity's pool of academic and research talent to operate out of the centre while working in Cairns "The new centre will give … [Read more...]

Filed Under: CQUniversity Tagged With: , , , ,

Monash to set up grad school in China

23/04/2012 by
Acer Image

Monash University News   23 April 2012 Monash University will soon begin enrolling students at its purpose-built graduate school in Suzhou, near Shanghai, after becoming the first Australian university to be granted a licence to operate in China.  The landmark program in partnership with China's Southeast University (SEU) will accept 350 masters students and 150 PhD candidates each year, building to a capacity of more than 1400 by 2017. The Graduate School will feature postgraduate courses in a range of disciplines including nanotechnology, biomedicine, environmental science, transportation, industrial design, economics, thermal and mechanical engineering, and software.  Students will … [Read more...]

Filed Under: International, Monash Tagged With:

No role for TEQSA in UQ scandal

23/04/2012 by
regulatory-jigsaw

The Australian  23 April 2012  An investigation by regulators into last year's University of Queensland admission scandal is unlikely to achieve anything but added bureaucracy and red tape, according to Richard Henry, deputy vice-chancellor at UNSW. "To an outsider it looks like the UQ governing body dealt with a very difficult matter and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency is interfering well after the event without any prospect of adding value,'' said Professor Henry, "I am at a loss to understand what value TEQSA has to add to a properly functioning governing body at UQ.'' So are we: Issues of university governance NewsEXTRA... … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Group of 8, Queensland University, TEQSA Tagged With: , , ,

More disadvantaged go to uni

23/04/2012 by
Students

The Canberra Times    23 April 2012 Record numbers of students from low socio-economic backgrounds entered Australian universities this year, many of them the first in their families to take up tertiary education.  The number of university places offered to students from low SES backgrounds has leapt by 18.9% since 2009, with 40,203 low socio-economic status students offered places this year. Australian Catholic University has led the charge, increasing its low SES enrolments by 63.5% since 2009 across campuses in NSW,Victoria, the ACT and Queensland. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) welcomed this growth in enrolments of students from low socio economic backgrounds … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Australian Catholic University, universities, University reform Tagged With: , , , , ,