Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 9:10:37 to 9:14:34
Discussion on whether domestic university enrollments are keeping pace with Australian population growth and the impact of the Universities Accord targets.
Topics: Education, Infrastructure
Speakers: Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Mr. Tony Cook, Senator Jess Walsh, Unknown Speaker, Senator Marielle Smith
of the unpublished data >> seen by future campus. In 2021, according to that data, there were 290,91 domestic commencements and that number jumps to 293326 in 2026, but the Australian population was 25,766 as of
>> Senator O. Sullivan, do you mind if I just respectfully ask you to um tell us which document you're referring to? We
got a few here.
>> Uh it was future campuses. uh which one was it? They've got a I might have given that one away
>> Was it the new data domestic undergraduate staff set to P dated on the 16th of October? Uh someone
it >> was document two. >> I think I actually gave I might have given away the whole pack. So
>> just help us with the numbers again cuz I got two charts on my
>> Yeah. So 2 290901 in 2021.
>> Yep. Got this one now.
>> And that that number jumps to 293326. So the Australian population was 25,7665. uh, as of yesterday, the population is now 28,142. So that that means that if the forecasts are accurate, we have an extra 20 2,425 commencements for almost 2.4 million extra people. you know the growth is not matching population. Is that concerning at all to the department?
>> Uh we'd have to break down population in terms of migrants, people who are eligible for university, all the things that go with that, Senator. Uh but in summary, that's the whole point of the universities accord program to try to increase the number of students who are going into universities. Uh that's what the minister's been very focused on. That's why ATECH was established. That's why we have a managed growth system that you know well because it passed the Senate. Uh that's why we have needs based funding to actually grow the number of students who are uh commencing university over the next decade or more.
So I I'll finish with this chair if so what what I mean what if you adjust it to the population, what we're seeing is a essentially a long-term trend that Australia's domestic university enrollments per head of population is actually in decline. >> Is that right?
>> Uh, I'm going to have to trust you. Sorry Senator, I haven't got that data in front of me. I haven't analyzed that data. It might be students are still going to tertiary education. They're choosing to go into to vet. >> Sure. So the tertiary education and remember the accord
>> about university enrollments.
>> Yeah. The the accord target is based on tertiary not just universities. It's based on both vet and universities in terms of that increase overall. So we'll need an uptick in both vet as well as universities. But we'd have to take the data and analyze it. I I I don't have that figure in front of me.
>> All right. Well, you can um help me with that. You so my point that I'm making is that the when you're adjusting for population, we're actually seeing a decline. If you've got some data that demonstrates something different >> to my reading of it, um, you can help me. That would be very good. >> Thank you, chair.
>> So, we saw a decline, but we've also seen an increase as reflected in these numbers. I take your point about using a divider of the population, and we'll work that through. But yeah, we'll take that on notice and see what we can do
Roberts.