9 Election days to go: more uni scholarships

Labor Leader Kevin Rudd attempted to put more flesh on the bones of his education revolution yesterday, making a range of promises targeted at schools and universities.

Rudd committed funding of $1 billion over four years to ensure there is a computer for every student in Australia’s primary and high schools and announced that all schools will be connected to high speed broadband under a Labor government – once the promised high speed fibre to the node network is built.

At the university level, Labor plans to spend $200 million to double the number of undergraduate commonwealth scholarships to 88,000. Each scholarship provides a little over $2000 per year to undergraduate students to help with the costs of study.

Labor will also increase funding for postgraduate scholarships, more than doubling the number of post-grads supported under the $20,000 per year scholarships from 1580 next year to 3500 in 2012, and fund 1000 lucrative new research fellowships to encourage top academics to stay in Australia.

Monash University’s Bob Birrell, an expert on Australia’s skills shortage, says the Labor’s promises will help attract more students to undertake university qualifications, but they are really just changes around the margins.

“If we are to increase training levels, we have to make attendance to these universities and TAFE more attractive to young people, especially in lower socio-economic areas, and that includes providing financial support,” Birrell says. “This is a start, but we’re still waiting for an announcement form either side on the fundamental change we need – and that’s more core funding for universities.”

Birrell makes the point that while much of the focus during the election has been on trades training, jobs are actually being created at the fastest rate in professional and managerial positions.

“There is a big gap at the higher education level, that’s where the bigger growth has really been and that gap has yet to be filled by either party,” Birrell says.