◆ COVID-19 Images: NTEU members socially-distance protesting at WA universities in 2020.
2020: The year the Government abandoned unis On 16 February 2021, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, said the COVID-19 pandemic 'highlighted a vulnerability' in the business models of universities. Sorry PM, what COVID-19 and the Government’s higher education policy response exposed was a Morrison-led abandonment of public universities and policies that slashed public funding and increased student fees. What 2020 'highlighted' is a flawed higher education regulatory and funding framework and a government hostile to public universities. As NTEU says in our 2021-22 Pre-Budget Submission, now is the time for a major re-think of this framework.
A year of reckoning In 2020 the Morrison Government abandoned public universities. In the wake of COVID-19 the Government offered the
Paul Kniest, NTEU. Director (Policy & Research)
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sector a paltry $80m rescue package, the bulk of which was to benefit private providers with fee relief and funding for additional short courses. Public universities were excluded from Jobkeeper while private providers and overseas universities operating in Australia qualified for this assistance. The Government chose to kick our already battered and bruised public universities with the introduction of its Jobs Ready Graduate (JRG) package that increases student fees and decreases funding to educate each government-supported student.
