Latest news with #AlisonBarnes
News.com.au
14-05-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
‘What are these people being rewarded for?': Fury at university vice-chancellor salaries
Universities in Victoria have been accused of 'executive largesse' and 'failing students' after it was revealed five of the institutions' vice-chancellors were raking in more money than the Prime Minister. Despite multiple scandals affecting the beleaguered sector nationwide, just three of Victoria's nine vice-chancellors – those at the University of Divinity ($219,000), and La Trobe ($869,999) and Monash Universities ($1.1 million) – took pay cuts in 2024, according to their latest annual reports, tabled in state parliament on Tuesday. While the salaries of their counterparts at the University of Melbourne ($1.5m), RMIT ($1m) and Swinburne ($1.1m), Deakin ($1m), Victoria ($850,000) and Federation Universities ($910,000) either increased or remained the same. National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) president Dr Alison Barnes said despite 'years of community outrage, Victoria's chancellors are so out of touch they've signed off on even more executive largesse'. 'On one hand, universities blame budget deficits for job cuts, and with the other they push vice-chancellor pay into the stratosphere,' Dr Barnes said in comments provided to Though a vice-chancellor essentially functions as the Chief Executive Officer of a university, Australia Institute senior economist Jack Thrower said such 'huge' packages 'are not justified'. 'We are continuing to see a governance crisis in the sector, with a new scandal arising every week, while many are employees are subjected to casualisation, wage underpayments and poor labour practices,' Mr Thrower told 'This system is also failing students, Australian universities continue to fall down international rankings and there is no correlation between student educational satisfaction and Vice-Chancellor remuneration.' Vice-chancellor salaries have 'skyrocketed' The fact that university executives take home some of the most generous pay packages in Australia is the subject of regular annual outrage. In January, there was a furore when it was revealed Bill Shorten would pocket $860,000-a-year as vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra – more than double his cabinet minister base salary of $406,063. The former Labor opposition leader's pay, however, pales in comparison to that of his predecessor, Professor Paddy Nixon, whose package in 2023 was $1.8m – and that of his counterparts. According to the NTEU, the average vice-chancellor at a public institution is on a total renumeration package of about $1.048m. The salaries of those presiding over Australia's prestigious Group of Eight (Go8) universities all exceed $1m: the University of Sydney's Mark Scott took home $1,184,999 in 2023, and the Australian National University's (ANU) Genevieve Bell $1.1m. Though not part of the Go8, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil pocketed $1,234,000 that same year. The removal of government regulations on vice-chancellor pay in the late 1980s, Mr Thrower said, was 'the most important' contributor to wage increases. 'Since this time remuneration has skyrocketed, from 1985 to 2023, accounting for inflation, average remuneration for Group of Eight vice-chancellors more than quadrupled,' he said. Not only do these wages put them far ahead of their peers in the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand. They're also at least double that of Australia's state and territory leaders (Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, the highest-paid, will earn up to $498,031 in the 2024-25 financial year), and hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who receives a base salary of roughly $607,500. 'Vice-chancellor pay should be pegged to state premiers and university governing bodies must face real accountability for rubber stamping such exorbitant salaries,' Dr Barnes said. The disparity between vice-chancellor renumeration and that of other university staffers is even more galling, Mr Thrower said. In 2022, it was at least seven times more than that of lecturers, more than nine times than that of high school teachers and over 10 times more than that of primary school teachers. 'What are these people being rewarded for?' Defenders of how much vice-chancellors make often argue the role is akin to that of running an ASX-listed top 100 company given the multiple stakeholders they have to juggle, and size, complexity and 'very high-revenue' nature of their organisations. 'They are also the public face of their institutions, constantly in the public eye and often blamed when things go wrong,' a research paper from UK think tank HEPI read, describing their vilification as a 'witch hunt'. Mr Thrower dismissed this comparison as 'misleading because vice-chancellors are not subject to nearly the same level of scrutiny or accountability as corporate CEOs'. 'Vice-chancellors do not face the oversight of a corporate board, whose members face strict legal obligations and liabilities, not to mention the threat of takeover if they are poorly run,' he said. 'They are also not subjected to anything like the level of regulation and scrutiny that the Australian Security and Investment Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) can apply to privately-owned organisations, nor pressure from consumers protected by Australian consumer law. 'Despite managing large amounts of public money, vice-chancellors rarely face budget estimates, parliamentary inquiries, or other forms of public sector accountability.' 'What are these people being rewarded for? The wage theft epidemic, the insecure work crisis or the shocking governance failures plaguing our institutions?' Dr Barnes said. 'When you put these enormous pay packets up against the litany of governance failures we're seeing in Australia, it's clear they are completely out of step with community expectations.' Government needs to intervene in 'lawless' sector A 'key problem' that faces the university sector going forward, Mr Thrower said, is that there is 'a vacuum of responsibility' between the federal and state governments. 'The Commonwealth needs to step in, fix the governance crisis in the sector and refocus it on the public goods of education and resource,' he said. Dr Barnes agreed that the federal government 'has a huge role to play here in reforming university governance'. In January, the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment launched an inquiry into the quality of governance at Australian higher education providers – including their 'exorbitantly' high salaries and allegations of wage theft and underpayment. An interim report was tabled last month. 'There's no other job in Australia where you can be paid so exorbitantly while performing so badly, with seemingly no consequences or accountability for the impact on university staff and students,' Labor Senator and chairman of the Committee, Tony Sheldon, said, describing the sector as 'lawless'. 'A strong, well-managed higher education sector is essential to the wellbeing of staff and students, our economy and national interest. Australians deserve universities that put students and staff first, not the interests of university executives.' The inquiry has been supported by Education Minister Jason Clare, who also established the Expert Council on University Governance in January. The panel has been tasked with ensuring the institutions are able to protect staff and students and examine issues around employment security, underpayment and good governance. A Department of Education spokesperson told that both the federal government and wider community 'expects universities to be model employers'. 'This includes making sure that vice-chancellor salaries are reasonable, comparable with similar public entities, and transparent,' the spokesperson said. 'However, universities in Australia are autonomous institutions and currently are responsible for their own decisions on things such as such as remuneration of staff.'
The Guardian
19-02-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘Teaching to an empty hall': is the changing face of universities eroding standards of learning?
It's easy to picture a university campus. The manicured lawns packed with students reading books in the sun, the commanding academic in a bustling lecture hall, the cheap beer at the student pub after class, debate getting livelier after each glass. We imagine it as the site of multiple awakenings – political, sexual, philosophical, intellectual. But this cliched experience, if it ever existed, has become a thing of the past. With class attendance often not compulsory, academics now speak to empty rows of seats in massive, echoey lecture halls. Students watch their classes later online at a convenient time, if they get around to it. Quadrangles are quiet, save for students walking between classes, or the occasional tourist. When Adelaide University became the first Group of Eight institution in Australia to ditch face-to-face lectures last September. The move was slammed by the National Tertiary Education Union as accelerating the 'death of campus life'. The newly amalgamated university, to open in 2026, intends to roll out 'rich digital learning activities', noting there has been a 'steady decline' in attendance on campuses. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'What is a 'rich digital learning activity'?' the national president of the NTEU, Dr Alison Barnes questioned at the time. 'Removing [the] human in teaching? It completely flies in face of the nature of academic work, the very fabric of the institution.' In reality, Adelaide University was no outlier. In 2020, Curtin University and Murdoch University released plans to move away from face-to-face lectures, even after the pandemic. The next year, the University of the Sunshine Coast did the same, citing a 'gradual shift' from the number of students wanting to attend lectures, as did the University of Tasmania. Darren McKee, then-chief operating officer of Murdoch University, put it bluntly: 'The face-to-face mass lecture is all but dead'. More than a dozen academics who spoke to Guardian Australia on the condition of anonymity say their work has become undervalued and underpaid, with recycled, pre-recorded lectures and Zoom tutorials without attendance requirements leading to a steady decline in the value of tertiary education. More than 900 degrees across almost 30 Australian universities can now be attained entirely online, according to Open Universities Australia, which partners with tertiary institutions to make higher education more accessible. These courses are designed to be taught 100% remotely, providing flexible study options while allowing students to graduate with the same qualification as those on campus. But academics say casualisation of the workforce and budget cuts are also pushing traditional courses away from face-to-face teaching. Many express a sense of hopelessness and resignation, they mourn the days when teaching was more than addressing faceless Zoom screens, when classes were small and intimate, giving tutors time to connect with students and their ideas. Several academics say their role is no longer about fostering learning, it's about money – which means catering to the masses at as low a cost as possible. 'Universities are simply degree factories now,' a casual academic with 20 years experience in the sector says. 'There is no focus on learning – academics aren't encouraged to help people to learn.' Deputy vice-chancellor of student experience at Monash University, prof Sarah McDonald, says as campuses have increasingly diversified and expanded, so have student expectations. Students are enrolling at a greater rate from low socioeconomic backgrounds, are mature age, from diverse backgrounds or studying with a disability. Flexible learning has become increasingly important in enabling equitable access to a more heterogenous cohort. 'There's a real recognition that students now face a multiplicity of pressures – jobs, family commitments,' McDonald says. 'It's not that learning isn't happening in person, it's happening in a way it wasn't 10 years ago. [Decades ago] few students didn't come from an affluent background. It was a different beast. Now students also need flexibility.' Studies show a sense of belonging among young people has been consistently declining in higher education settings and at school from even before the pandemic turbo-charged the shift to remote learning. McDonald's role was established late last year to focus on campus life outside the classroom – including academic and disability support and health and wellbeing. In 2025, that means free yoga and mindfulness sessions, the expansion of quiet spaces and silent discos, a world away from raucous beer-skolling marathons and heated university politics. In a previous era, organic social connection supported wellbeing. Now, universities are dedicating significant resources to programs and spaces that help students find a sense of place. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion McDonald isn't worried about the drift online. 'It can be engaging in the online space,' she says. 'Tutorials, workshops, labs, seminars, these are the things students really value and are prepared to make time for [on campus]. 'We're beholden to meet students where they are.' The argument put by universities is when learning is specifically catered to the online space – it can be interactive and provide the teacher with a great degree of freedom, that is supplemented by smaller, face-to-face classes. But while online learning can provide greater accessibility and functionality, others say the digitisation of education is being adopted for financial incentives without consideration of the student experience. A sessional academic at a Victorian university says the learning standard has become 'below average', with course materials and case studies often 'older than the students' themselves. 'Slides are rarely updated,' she says. 'Lectures are mostly recorded and recycled each semester. Hardly any of the students listen to them and the tutors then have to do the lecturing as well, so a somewhat meaningful discussion can take place in class.' Professor of higher education at The University of Melbourne, Chi Baik, says the idea of the university experience being based on campus is now only true for older 'sandstone' institutions. 'For previous generations there was a social aspect, they would come to campus to hang. Now the majority of first year students only intend to come to campus when they have to. If it's not compulsory, they don't,' she says. 'It was a trend happening before Covid, but Covid gave it a huge injection. Numbers [of students] have increased so much, for many, it's not a personal experience any more, it's transactional. (In 1990 tertiary institutions had, on average, one staff member for every 14 students. In 2023, the figure had almost doubled to 22.) 'It's always going to be challenging when there's so many students to staff. You're one in thousands.' Baik says this is 'demotivating' for academics who put in hours of preparation and are 'lecturing or teaching to an empty hall'. But other than mandating participation, she says 'the ship has sailed'. 'Flexible learning, the online hybrid model, is just getting bigger,' she says. 'It offers opportunities and access previous generations may have not had, but we won't return to a time where you'll see students of their own volition coming on to campus for the majority of study hours.' As students shift off campuses, it's also harder to determine who's engaging with course content, and how much. Coupled with the pursuit of profit, academics interviewed say good teaching becomes 'completely determined' by pass rates, instead of the student experience. One academic who has worked at three Victorian universities says the standard of work has 'never been so low'. It has reached the point he is considering moving to the private sector. 'I have been repeatedly asked to un-fail students,' he says. 'People are graduating with little knowledge or applicable skills.' The sessional tutor says around half of the class is absent at every tutorial. Some don't attend all semester. When he initially reaches out – he's muted, fatigued. He doesn't think anything he has to say is new, nor, in all likelihood, will it change things. 'I used to want to lecture, but now I think, 'who would I be lecturing to?'' he says.
