The Greater Launceston Planning Process

Australian universities on borrowed time
Posted Wed Oct 24, 2012 2:43pm AEDT

An independent review of Australia's university sector has found that no Australian University will survive to 2025 on its current business model. Business advisory group Ernst and Young spent six months interviewing vice-chancellors, the private sector and policy makers in the higher education sector and declared that the sector is on 'borrowed time' ...  Click here to go to the ABC site http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-24/australian-universities-on-borrowed-time/4331648

In the Greater Launceston Planning process  – http://yourvoiceyourlaunceston.com.au/greater-launceston-plan#widget_name_6 – currently in train there is the assumption that in 2030 the University of Tasmania in its current form will be in Launceston doing much the same as it is now ... and attracting overseas students(?) etc. Interestingly, looking back in a shorter timeframe the university was not operating in Launceston in its current model. Why might we, for planning purposes, assume with any kind of safety, that the status quo or anything like it be evident in any substantial way in 2030?

Currently UTAS is shedding staff positions (approaching 200 currently) and its being speculated that the ultimate number of positions to be lost will be in the order of 500. That does not look a lot like the premise that the Greater Launceston Plan is apparently being founded upon.

If the current tertiary education model is operating on “borrowed time” there are many other corporate, institutional and enterprise models currently in operation that are likewise approaching their use-by dates. That goes for Councils as we now know them as well. Also it is increasingly evident that newspapers are undergoing identity changes that will, as likely as not, change what they will look like by 2020 and goodness knows what’s in store for 2030. And it goes on, and on, and on for better and for worse.

So much for picking winners a long way out with redundant information on your desktop.

Hapless Academic