Staid Australian college opens up a little

Staid Australian college opens up a little

By Dewi Anggraeni

JAKARTA (JP): Mention "Melbourne University Private" to some
alumni of the University of Melbourne and you will see outrage;
varying degrees, admittedly, but definite outrage. This is
Australia's second oldest, arguably its most prestigious and,
more crucially, most conservative university.

The thought of it going private seems to invoke fear in many
who are in some ways associated with it, the fear that quality
may be compromised in trying to attract the number of paying
students required to make the enterprise feasible. Admission to
the university, according to these people, should be based on
excellence, not affluence.

To say the University of Melbourne is going private, however,
is an exaggeration. The truth is the university has established a
private wing this year, with two foundation schools.

The Melbourne School of Energy and the Environment, and The
Melbourne School of Multimedia and Information Technology,
expected to commence operations in 1999, are planning to admit
5,000 or 6,000 graduate students, a 20 percent addition to the
present student population of approximately 30,000. And the two
graduate courses are not offered in the public part of the
university.

At first glance, it appears Alan Gilbert, vice chancellor of
the University of Melbourne, has taken a brave, even daring step.
How did he react to accusations he sold out to the economic
rationalists and compromised the academic excellence of this
university? It is also interesting to note that while Melbourne
was one of the last universities to begin accepting full tuition-
paying overseas students, it is now the first to establish a
private wing.

What critics of the project seem to disregard is that with the
continuous restructuring of federal funding for higher education
institutions, universities have little choice but to be creative
and innovative in their fight for survival.

University education in Australia is not free, but it is not
entirely inaccessible either. Undergraduate students are required
to pay part of the costs of their education, known as the Higher
Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), and the federal government
pays the rest. Australian students accepted by a university can
either pay their HECS up front or defer the payments until they
find employment and their taxable income reaches the minimum
threshold (US$19,945 for the 1996/1997 income year).

Graduate students must pay up-front. Since there are many
more undergraduate than graduate students, and among the
undergraduates only a small number opt to pay up-front,
universities are mainly dependent on government funding for their
day-to-day operations.

Foreign students are not entitled to HECS and must pay in full
up-front. At present, 1.3 percent of the student population of
the University of Melbourne is from Indonesia. This is relatively
small compared to universities who began admitting full paying
students much earlier than Melbourne.

When he became vice chancellor at the beginning of 1996,
Gilbert discovered the university would lose $70 million by 2001
if it continued along the same path. He knew he would have to
make it more internationally competitive. To the administrative
board, he made it clear they had the choice of two options:
become entrepreneurial or go out of business. Curiously, he did
not face strong opposition then.

According to Gilbert, Melbourne University Private will
operate differently from the public part of the university.

"In the public part it is based on offers to the students. We
offer courses and the students choose the ones suitable for them.
In Melbourne University Private, we tailor courses according to
demands from the corporate sector," he said.

"For instance, a mining company in the Philippines may want
their mining engineers to learn international law, and ask us to
run the course for three months each year for five years. We will
design the course to suit them."

He agreed that, apart from the existing resources of the
university which would no doubt be utilized to the maximum, there
would be needs for outside sources, which would be contracted on
a consultant basis.

Melbourne University Private, which charges $10,5000 to
$15,000 fees for a master's degree program, is planning to offer
scholarships for up to 10 percent of the total number of students
for those who have the excellence but not necessarily the
affluence.

Melbourne University Private was established as an unlisted
public company in January this year. The University of Melbourne
has contributed $17.5 million toward the initial costs of
approximately $105 million to get it off the ground. At present
there are four corporate partners committed to the project.

What motivates a private company to become involved?

David Mullaly, executive officer of Grocon, a large Australian
construction group and one of the corporate partners, said: "The
corporate world sees in this project an opportunity to be
involved in research that will shape the policy of the business
world. Basically, we want to encourage companies to do business
in a sustainable way."

Now businesses in Australia have progressed further. Not only
are they more sophisticated in their outlook, they also want to
be part of the drive in policy making. One way of realizing this
ambition, it appears, is by being involved in the establishment
of a private wing of an internationally recognized university.