Roger Smyth shares his experiences from the New Zealand Ministry of Education in joining an episode of the HEDx podcast with Professor Giselle Byrnes, Provost of Massey University as co-host. As our Australian Universities Accord final report responds to debate among our providers over what form of Tertiary Education Commission to recommend, what can we learn from experience and lessons across the ditch about how such a commission should be set up and operate?
We might all need to accept a different funding and regulatory environment in the future. We might all need to accept that more than there being winners or losers as our system evolves to meet the needs of our learners and cities, that there is strength in collectively supporting diversity of providers with differences in mission.
Professor Clare Pollock as Provost and Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor at Western Sydney University (WSU) outlines how a university at the centre of Australia’s growth is pursuing a mission based on local partnerships. Her story and the WSU story are at the heart of the accord process and it’s issues. They provide a great example of a university in serving a local community can make a world-leading contribution on a global stage.
Given the links between technology use and equitable engagement, technology should have a central role in lifting equity in higher education. Technology should also play a more central role in the Universities Accord process and what it leads to, potentially in conjunction with the Australian and global EdTech sector and industry. A fuller embracing of technology in teaching and learning will improve both quality and equity of the university system. At a time when we’re looking to increase student numbers and include more diverse Australians in university than ever before, the power of technology to achieve policy aims can’t be overlooked.
Jason Tabarias of Mandala partners shares details of a new report for the Coalition for Digital Learners of what students of today and tomorrow are looking for in their learning experience through technology. Students clearly have an appetite for more effective technology support to personalise, augment and self-pace their learning and engagement. Is our ability to give equity students in particular, the experiences they need, in danger of being the baby we throw out with the bath water of compliance?
Dr Nadine Zacharias as Managing Director and Founder of Equity by Design, joins Co-CEO of Vygo Ben Hallett as my co-host in exploring the technical, operational and leadership issues associated with responding to the unfolding picture and details of the Support Amendment Bill. With consultation open for a further week or so this is a critical conversation for the sector to ensure it is ready to support growing numbers of students we seek from equity groups, to succeed from as early as January 2024 or face significant penalties.
We might have to make technology enabled employment a venue for future oriented, relevant lifelong learning facilities by smart learning facilitators from a new model of higher education. This needs embodied mind sets in higher education leaders and from leaders of the accord. We might need to get out of our higher education bubble and create a psychological safe innovation environment that separates performance and learning zones and rewards them differently and separately. The Tertiary Education Commission on its own may not be the answer to that. A learning capability for the sector that gives space to think and debate and create the future might be the piece that is missing at present.
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