The Australian | 14 November 2013 The Victorian government will restrict access to remedial training for adults, claiming that VET colleges are lining their pockets by enrolling students unnecessarily.But the Australian Education Union says new funding arrangements could strip almost $30 million from TAFEs, which are already reeling from a $290m cut last year.The AEU says the government plans to squeeze funding rates for educationally struggling adults by up to 20%. Victoria already has Australia’s highest proportion of adults with poor literacy, with a recent report assessing 16% of Victorians at the lowest level.TAFE secretary Pat Forward said the cuts would have “an immediate and … [Read more...]
A system of capped funding?
14/11/2013 by
IRU News | 1 November 2013 Capping university funding, as proposed by Melbourne University vice-chancellor, Glyn Davis, would create a system that would be opaque, have no coherence across institutions and invite extensive micro managing of university expenditure, writes Conor King of the Innovative Research Universities group. What does it mean to change university funding to a capped funding amount which universities can use as they will? Can it both give Government certainty of expenditure and protect universities from micro managing of their operations? Under current arrangements universities receive base funding based on the load of enrolled students in particular … [Read more...]
Concern for courses as ANU redundancies fall short
14/11/2013 by
ABC News | 12 November 2013 The National Tertiary Education Union staff fears the Australian National University (ANU) may start forcing staff redundancies and cut courses to meet its budget shortfall.The university says 147 professional staff have accepted voluntary redundancies, short of the 230 jobs it plans to cut in a bid to save more than $50 million in lost government funding.A further 50 academic staff have accepted an early retirement as part of the ANU's academic renewal program.The university says it will use the savings to re-invest in new academic positions.An ANU spokesperson says there are no plans to start forcing staff redundancies and that the university never … [Read more...]
