Obiter dicta by Professor Gavin Brown AO

Timeless truths

7 June 2002

Unlike the White Rabbit, I have no time to look at my watch. This fact was discovered under strange circumstances in an interstate hotel room last week. Settling between the sheets after a hard day, I tried to place a wake-up call and found the telephone dead. After several false starts, I moved the bed and discovered a disconnected jack.

At once the message light started flashing and I accessed voice mail, to be met by two ribald communications, intended presumably for the previous occupant who had gone missing from a conference. The clock on the telephone console showed 4pm so I reset it by my watch, took a deep breath and returned to normalcy by booking the wake-up call. "Goodnight, Mr Fraser," answered the operator.

Surrealism triumphed over sleep when the alarm call came early next morning and I discovered that my watch had been on Beijing time for the previous week.

In Beijing I had presented the first John Leighton Stuart scholarship for a graduate of Beijing University to pursue PhD studies at the University of Sydney. The recipient, Zhao Kechang, is a geophysicist who responded ex tempore in excellent English. Indeed the many students who were present for the ceremony were completely at ease in the language, although none had travelled outside China.

From Beijing I moved to Nanjing to participate in the centennial celebration of Nanjing University and of the nine universities of Jiang-su province. At the latter ceremony I spoke on behalf of the foreign universities present - one speech in English amongst fourteen in Chinese. The Mayor of Nanjing, a former academic mathematician, is especially supportive of international links and hosted lunch for the President of Tokyo University, the Rector of Goettingen and myself to discuss his plans for university development in his city.

The purpose of the local Australian trip was to present some preliminary Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee responses to the Crossroads paper. Let me describe some of these.

The DEST profile setting, wherein we receive targets for our student enrolment, should become more flexible in two ways. Universities should be able to increase enrolments in areas of high demand - with, say, a 20 per cent ceiling - and receive full rather than marginal funding. Such an adjustment could lead to an agreed base profile shift in due course. Secondly, increases or adjustments in operating grant should have regard to quality as well as sheer numbers. Thus an institution might be permitted to switch load from, say, general first year to fourth year honours with a drop in absolute load but no loss of resources.

The AVCC also commends the comments on equitable access in the discussion paper and looks to cooperate with government in the design and implementation of specific schemes. While not all universities would seek the option, there is support for top-up fees, provided there were adequate safeguards including a deferred payment option collected through the tax system and provided that the underlying funding base of all universities was protected.

There is acceptance of research priority setting provided the increased commitment to research infrastructure commenced in Backing Australia's Ability is vigorously progressed and there is a strong will to work constructively with government in international education.

The AVCC is willing to assist government in structural reform on the assumption that additional resources will be made available.