VC's call to shake up Aussie Universities
23 Nov 11
Category:
Abstract
Australian universities are often "held in low esteem" and will "sink or swim" in a hyper-competitive, globalised era where regional engagement is essential, said Ed Byrne, Monash University's Vice-Chancellor, in Wednesday night's annual address to business and education leaders at the Monash University...
Ed Byrne has called for Australian universities to depart from tradition and engage strongly with Asia.
He believes that there are a number of things universities need to do differently:
- move away from our Oxford/Cambridge traditions
- operate within an international framework
- embrace the concept of industry partnership and collaboration
- be more strategic
- focus our research efforts into those institutions best placed to compete for and augment the research funding base, not only here in Australia, but internationally.
- forge and maintain very close academic ties with institutions in India and China
- work to establish a shared talent pool in the same way that European and North American universities do
- rethink assumptions about what today's students want and need
- stop our obsession with rankings as currently framed
- get better at marketing our value to the community
Read more http://theconversation.edu.au/sink-or-swim-australian-universities-in-the-next-decade-4435
Editor's note: This speech also attracted a number of thoughtful responses notably from Joel Spencer, Gavin Moody, Bronwyn Dalton and Andrew Norton. They make interesting reading.
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