UC Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten: “We want industry to fund their employees to come to university.” Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Deeper industry links and an expanded online offering are key planks of the University of Canberra’s two-year plan to reposition itself after having to cut 200 staff to restore its budget to balance.
Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten briefed reporters on UC’s Reconnected, a blueprint for a financially sustainable future that redefines its role as Canberra’s university and place in the higher education market.
Mr Shorten said UC sought to develop partnerships with industry sectors in Canberra and across Australia as part of a commitment to deliver much-needed skills, but also to bring in more revenue.
“The reality is that the Commonwealth government isn’t going to radically expand the funding of higher education,” he said.
“We want industry to fund their employees to come to university.”
Mr Shorten said UC wasn’t looking to taxpayers to fund UC’s future.
It wanted to secure some of the billions industry was spending on training, much of which at present wasn’t with universities.
Mr Shorten said there might be a perception in some industry quarters that what universities offered was dated, but it was up to UC to convince industry that it had the expertise it needed.
“Now I don’t think that perception’s entirely fair,” he said. “But we’ve got to work harder at making sure that what we’re teaching students, the research we’re doing, that industry sees an appreciation.”
Securing those partnerships will rest on being able to increase the number of courses offered online because while Mr Shorten stressed that the Canberra region was home to a number of important industries, particularly government, he believed there would be national interest in what was happening at UC.
“We’re proving that with our Master of Counselling,” he said.
“We’ve got counselling students from Darwin, from Perth, from Melbourne, from elsewhere. I think the specialties we have here in Canberra will have an interest nationally.”
Mr Shorten said new course offerings, especially postgraduate, would give people the chance to have either a hybrid experience or to study fully online.
He said industry needed to see the value of what UC could offer, and Mr Shorten was up to making that pitch, leveraging his connections with Australia’s top companies and government departments.
“They’re up for talking to us because people actually do appreciate having a university accreditation,” he said.
“You can go around and do short courses and get different badges and pieces of certificates, but nothing beats having a university qualification.”
The pitch to industry aligns with Mr Shorten’s vision for UC, which is to offer job-ready, practical degrees that meet the needs of both students and the market.
Reconnected says UC wants to be the most accessible university in Australia through its online offering; recognition of prior learning and life experience; greater harmonisation with vocational education, including credits for CIT units; offering of micro-credentials or small chunks of degrees; and openness to neuro-diverse applicants.
School leavers and international students remained core business, but Mr Shorten said UC was committed to encouraging adults in Australia and the Canberra region to return to university.
“Lifelong learning is a big part of the University of Canberra’s value proposition for the region, the community,” he said.
“We want to make it easier for adults to return to study.”
