The current higher education system is flawed, so what needs to happen next?

The future of Australia as a post-industrial economy depends on how knowledge, skills and capabilities are learned and fostered. Every Australian will need to engage with the tertiary education system, both to acquire an initial qualification and to up-skill or re-skill over the course of their lives.

The time has come to address the divide between vocational and higher education and implement a reform agenda that has been in development over the last decade. This will involve reforming the Australian Qualifications Framework to give greater recognition to skills alongside knowledge, and enable the vocational and higher education sectors to design fit-for-purpose courses. It will also require reform of the pathways, partnerships, curriculum, funding and regulation and to provide the coherence, quality, navigability and relevance needed for students, providers and industry.

The central figure in the development of this policy agenda was Peter Noonan, professor of Tertiary Education at Victoria University, who sadly passed away in 2022 after forty years as Australia's leading tertiary education policy thinker and adviser to both sides of government.