I am writing in response to an article by John Biggs headlined, 'When academia loses value', which appeared in the Sunday Morning Post, on February 13.
Professor Biggs is a distinguished scholar with extensive experience of both the Australian and Hong Kong systems of higher education. It is therefore surprising and disappointing to read an article by him which so cavalierly damns the entire Australian university sector and appears to ignore the internationally recognised high quality of Australian universities.
The assertion made in the article by Mr Biggs that the Australian Government has cut funding for higher education is simply not true.
Over the past decade, total operating resources provided by the Australian Government for higher education (in constant prices and including capital funding) have increased significantly, from A$4 billion (about HK$19 billion) in 1989 to $5.2 billion in 1999, an increase of nearly 30 per cent. In addition, last year the Government announced that a further $259 million over three years in additional funding would be made available for salary supplementation for universities, conditional on improvements in management, administrative and industrial arrangements.
A key measure of the Government's commitment to higher education is the fact that operating grant funding per fully funded student (including Higher Education Contribution Scheme loans to students), expressed in constant prices, has been maintained at around $11,800 per student between 1998 and 2002 (higher than at any point since 1990). This excludes the additional funding available in 2000, 2001 and 2002 for salary supplementation.
In addition, under the current funding arrangement university revenues are at all-time high. It is estimated that in 2000 the total revenue available to higher education institutions from all sources will be $9 billion, an increase of nearly $0.9 billion since 1995. It is expected that university revenue will continue to grow.