Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 19:02 to 24:46
Examination of declining trends in year 12 completion, tertiary qualifications, and the growth of unpaid HELP debt among graduates.
Topics: Education, Government spending
Speakers: Mr. Tony Cook, Senator Matt O'Sullivan
>> Senator, um as you would imagine uh a number of these targets relate to work that we do with states and territories. So I'm just having a quick look over at the targets which are numbered. Mr. Mark, you might be able to help me with what they actually are. I imagine some of these are probably in relation to literacy and numeracy performance of schools. Um obviously if we don't meet targets that does concern me of course it does but part of our work is working closely with states and territories in relation to the funding that we provide to states and territories and then them meeting targets which effectively we set but as you know we don't run schools and and and run teach employers and things like that. So part of the work that we've done is around the better affair of schools agreement as you know and we can go into that into the next outcome but focusing very much on reforms that will enable us to meet those targets but um my preference as a secretary of course is that we would like to meet all
>> Thank you. I want to ask about some specific uh performance measures that are of concern to me. uh and they appear to be going backwards. So, and I'll just run through them and then ask my question. The first one is the proportion of people attaining a year 12 certificate or equivalent is not on track and has gone backwards. The proportion of 25 to 34 year olds obtaining a tertiary qualification is not growing. The proportion of domestic undergraduates who rate teaching quality positively is going backwards. the proportion of employers who are satisfied with the skills of graduates is going backwards. And finally, the proportion of help debt not expected to be repaid is growing. So that's a a pretty dire picture for the department, but more importantly, it paints a dire picture for our education system as a whole, particularly in higher education. Why why is the department's annual report so at odds with the what I would say is the upbeat tone of the the minister's description of the higher education system.
that might be an opinion but I'm very happy to talk about the things you've just raised and you're right they're all now come too effectively almost all of them are in the higher education space
>> and we'll go into detail on those.
>> Yeah sure. Um so some of them of course again is it's funding that we provide to those those providers. Um we have some influence then as to how that funding is is used and how those providers um best support their students to enable them to be satisfied with their courses to enable uh employees to be satisfied with the skills and graduates. It's work that we're continuing to do. Um and so that's why the minister is very focused on things like regulations in terms of universities focusing on teaching and learning and eight notes sorry atte'll be here a little later tonight to talk about some of the work they're doing including some of the focus they might be doing on teaching and learning the portion of help debt not expected to be repaid on new debt as you know the government made a significant um action in relation to reducing 20% of health debt uh over the last year or so um that's basically the actuary uh information that they provide to us in terms of what they expect that would be that's updated every year. It's raised around it stayed around about 13%. I think it's 13 something% at the moment. So, it hasn't been a significant difference I don't think in terms of what the data has been over the last couple of years, but we continue to work with universities in terms of the quality of the work that we do that we're doing. ATH has a big role around that. Now, they're looking at that in terms of compacts. Uh they can talk about compacts later tonight. uh some of their focus will be around things like teaching and learning, what they can do to ensure that graduates um feel that their program or are able to assess their program uh being more positive than what they're doing, what they're um uh what they're saying at the moment. And so there's some of the reforms the government's putting in to address some of these issues that you've raised, particularly around higher ed. I I take
it that that help debt not being repaid is due to you don't get a choice as to whether you repay because it's deducted out of your salary. So I presume it means that people are not is the reason that that individuals are not earning the requisite income to
>> start the repayment system to start the repayment system. So 69,000 or something like that I think it is at the moment. So part of that reason might be that people aren't uh in employment. They might be continuing their study or they might be not reaching that threshold might be part of it. That's right.
>> So we're funding courses that are not leading to employment outcomes.
>> Uh I wouldn't necessarily say that it a lot of this depends on life choices of what students are doing themselves. So I probably haven't got enough data to do a causal link to that one. Sandra, I'm
sorry. Were you were you surprised to see that there were fewer students completing year 12 and going on to tertiary study uh happy with their degrees and satisfying their employers?
>> So Senator um I think there's more recent data and again in schools we can probably talk about what that data looks like. Um again the better affair of schools agreement has a very strong focus on school attendance and school completion and we've set targets in relation to that and so I think we recognize this was an issue there is a little bit still of co lag dare I say in terms of what's happening in schools uh but you will we we are seeing that there's some uh improvements in that data that states and territories are focusing on this is lag data um I don't actually know when the latest data set because I should be able to find what it is. But I it's lag data in terms of it's not the most recent up-to-date data. If the schools group have got more up-to-date data, we'll be able to share that with you on the next outcome.
>> Okay. >> I'll move on to a different subject of uh beef.