Submission on the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report
CA ANZ’s submission on the Universities Accord responds to the Review Panel’s Interim Report on Australia’s higher education sector.
In brief
- CA ANZ supports the five immediate actions identified in the Interim Report.
- Accounting should be recognised in the national priorities identified for funding.
- Professional bodies will be an important part of the ongoing Universities Accord process.
CA ANZ has lodged its third submission with the Department of Education on the Australian Universities Accord review of the higher education sector.
In this latest submission, we respond to the consultation on the Review Panel’s Interim Report.
CA ANZ supports the five immediate priority actions identified in the Interim Report.
Our submission focuses on the big ideas that we either do or do not support, explain our reasons why, and suggest either augmented or alternative approaches.
In taking this approach, we focus on areas that will help address the ongoing shortage of accounting, audit and finance professionals and build the talent pipeline entering the profession.
CA ANZ is pleased to see recognition in the Interim Report that professional bodies will be an important part of the ongoing Universities Accord process. We are committed to the process and intend to remain constructively engaged.
Recommendations
CA ANZ’s recommendations for the Government are outlined below under the four focus areas adopted in our submission.
1. Matters we agree with and encourage are retained and enhanced
- couch the aspiration of a high quality and equitable higher education system within a broader aspiration to advance the same ends for all post-school learning;
- support universities’ outreach to school and vocational education and training (VET) systems and the wider community and encourage a more decentralised approach;
- address policy, regulatory, governance, funding and other settings to enable rather than bar educational innovations, such as Degree Apprenticeships and joint sector programs;
- make digital capability an integrated endeavour of programs of learning for both young and mature aged students and workers;
2. Approaches to advancing aspirations
- adopt sector and credential neutral attainment targets for the working-aged population and participation targets for under-represented learners;
- extend Commonwealth Supported Places (CSPs) to sub-bachelor pathways;
- introduce needs-based loadings to Commonwealth Grants to under-represented learners and reduce their tuition fees commensurately;
- at a minimum, reintroduce demand driven funding arrangements for under-represented learners, and preferably for all;
- extend CSPs to Non-University Higher Education Providers (NUHEPs);
3. Funding and financing
- recognise Accounting amongst identified national priorities for funding purposes to reflect the ongoing critical shortage of, and strong demand for, accounting and audit professionals and to support Australia’s future STEM workforce;
- determine student contributions on the basis of early career graduates’ ability to pay, as indicated by graduate salaries;
- reduce how much Accounting, Management and Commerce students are expected to contribute towards the cost of their tuition;
- recalibrate student and Commonwealth contributions to ensure that the price signals to students and providers are working in the same desired direction;
- extend funding support to learners to gain credentials of all sizes offered by traditional and non-traditional providers;
- provide lifelong learning funded entitlements that learners can draw upon over their lifetimes to fund their continuous learning and credentials approved with an expanded Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF);
- index Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) to either CPI or the 10 year government bond rate, whichever is the lesser;
- make income contingent loans up to a cap available to learners studying towards credentials of all sizes assessed at AQF level 5 and above;
4. International education
- extend the indicative list of eligible occupations for post-study work rights in Australia to include accounting and audit and update the list of related qualifications eligible for the extension to include degrees in Accounting;
- do not introduce a levy on international student fees.
Read more by downloading our full submission available below.
Related download
Submission on Priorities for the Universities Accord
Read CA ANZ’s first submission on Priorities for the Universities Accord.
Read moreSubmission on the Universities Accord Discussion Paper
Read CA ANZ’s second submission on the Universities Accord Discussion Paper.
Read more