The idea was to steer students into courses that would lead to “the jobs of the future” by making some fields (such as history and journalism) more expensive and others (such as nursing, teaching, computer programming and engineering) less expensive.

Fees rose by as much as 117% for some fields and dropped by as much as 59% for others. The government believed this would affect student choices.

Education experts were very critical of scheme. They argue it is not only unfair, it would not work. But to date there have been few studies looking at the evidence.

Our research, with our former student Maxwell Yong, shows the impact of the Job-ready Graduates scheme was modest at best.

Our research

Our study looked at student’s preferences when applying for degrees and final enrolments ie what they ended up studying.

We used data from the Universities Admissions Centre, which handles applications for degrees in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

We looked at more than 725,000 undergraduates applying between 2014 and 2022. This means we had seven years of data before the Job-ready Graduates scheme was introduced, and two years afterwards.

Using various statistical models, we analysed whether students increased their preferences for fields that became cheaper and reduced preferences for fields that became more expensive.

Our findings

Overall we found the Job-ready Graduates scheme only had a minor impact on course choices.

Just 1.52% of university applicants in our study chose fields they would have not chosen had it not been for the scheme, moving from humanities, arts, law and business to STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) and teaching.

Maths and statistics had the largest drop of student fees (59%) of any field. But only one out of every 2,000 students responded by changing their preference to maths.

Communications, journalism and media studies had the largest increase in fees (117%). But only one out of every 350 students chose not to preference these fields in response.

This is perhaps not surprising. Under HECS-HELP, students do not have to pay university fees up-front. Many students also choose courses based on their passions and interests rather than the amount of the deferred fees.

Big repercussions

While we found only modest responses to these large fee changes, this does not mean students are not affected. Because of the reforms, many will accumulate much larger HECS-HELP debts.

For a three-year bachelors degree in journalism, the debt grows from around $20,000 to $43,500. For a mathematics degree, the debt falls from around $28,600 to $11,850. The new difference in debts ($31,650) is more than triple the old difference ($8,600).

Higher debts mean more years of making repayments. Longer repayment times may mean delayed home purchases and starting families.

These reforms overturned 25 years of university fees reflecting the earning prospects of graduates. Those likely to earn more post-graduation (lawyers, doctors, financiers) paid a bit more. Those likely to earn less (arts, nursing, teaching) paid a bit less.

The Universities Accord

The Albanese government is in the middle of a broad review of the higher education system, including university fees. The Universities Accord review panel is due to hand in a final report in December.

An interim report was highly critical of the Job-ready Graduates scheme, saying it risks “causing long-term and entrenched damage to Australian higher education”.

As a new model is considered, it is important policymakers understand increasing HECS-HELP debts for some and reducing them for others is not going to prompt students into areas the government deems a “priority”.

Jan Kabatek is a research fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne and Michael Coelli is an associate professor at The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A tax, or levy, looks very likely to be a recommendation of the final report of the government’s Universities Accord review due to be released in February, which would lead to it being enacted in next year’s federal budget.

There have been a series of nods, winks, things that those in the know have said, and things they have refused to say, which leads to the conclusion that such a tax is on its way.

And don’t overlook the convenience factor.

Viewed from a strictly electoral point of view, a tax on international students sits at the level of political nirvana. It’s like a cake that gets bigger the more you eat of it.

It would indeed be the government’s magic pudding, pulling in revenue with absolutely no political backlash.

In fact, at this time of rising house prices and high rents and growing fear about high migration levels, taxing international students is a political positive for the Albanese government. It helps fend off opposition attacks on high levels of temporary migration, of which students are a major source, which Liberal leader Peter Dutton is trying to turn into an issue to win the 2025 election.

I was first to report that the international student tax was being considered by the Universities Accord panel before it released its interim report in July. The report recommended it be considered. Then the tax recently won a notable endorsement from Australian National University economist Bruce Chapman, who is the architect of Australia’s much admired HECS student loan system.

Chapman strongly backs the tax saying that it is unlikely to discourage international students – he believes its price elasticity of demand is low – and that the older universities that have enrolled the most international students have benefited enormously from public support for a long time, back to their founding over a century ago.

Chapman also has the ear of Clare, who has declared several times that he is consulting the economist about his higher education changes.

For Clare, a decision to back a tax would be easy. He wants to expand the university system to take in more of the students who currently miss out – those from low socio economic backgrounds, Indigenous communities, and rural and regional areas. He also wants to undo the Morrison government’s university fee system which puts high $16,000 annual fees on some courses – law, humanities, business and social sciences – while others are a quarter as much. He can’t do it without raising more revenue.

International student fees are worth about $10bn a year so the maths shows that a 10 per cent levy would bring in $1bn.

To try to assuage universities and other education providers who enrol international students, the government is likely to promise to spend it in the sector.

Inevitably some universities will lose. Key losers are the big five, which enrol the lion’s share of high-fee-paying Chinese students – Sydney, UNSW, Melbourne, Monash and Queensland. Although if Chapman is right about price elasticity, they might not lose too much.

In fact it’s more likely to be students from poorer countries such as India who will be more sensitive to a tax-induced price rise. This could badly hurt bottom to mid tier universities that have a lower price point and are attractive to students from India and other less wealthy countries.

If independent education providers are also subject to the tax they will be hit hard. It’s less likely that they will see any of the benefits that could come from increased government spending to encourage disadvantaged students to go to university.

One of their industry groups, the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia, is campaigning hard against the tax. It could make Australian education less affordable and damage the country’s reputation, it says.

One thing certain is that such a tax, if introduced, will never go away. And, once there, it can easily be diverted to general revenue and its initial purpose, of funding worthwhile programs in higher education, could be lost.

The ongoing battle of skills shortages and the war for talent has created an environment requiring greater workforce intelligence. It is an environment where workforce strategy and AI converge to meet a need for workforce management optimisation.

This development in human resource management calls for greater alignment of workforce skills development and the skills needs of employers. It has profound implications for governments in managing economies and societies, employers adjusting work practices, and the current and future workforce. Its impact and opportunities for universities and organisations are significant.

For many years, stakeholders in the skills and learning sector have grappled with the “future of work” concept.  The term “future of work” is a symbolic expression of the idea that traditional models of work and study will change. The argument has been that Australian tertiary courses, learning environments and partnerships would have to change to meet these evolving models.

There will always be changes to the nature of work and the skills required to participate in it. Employers increasingly need employees with skills, capability, flexibility, and agility… and they’re needed now. We live in a world of lifelong learning, where a university degree doesn’t necessarily equate to a lifelong career. Universities are beginning to offer education to upskill and reskill graduates, but not fast enough to keep up with a constantly evolving workforce.

Employers are no longer just seeking skilled graduates; they’re constantly looking for ways to upskill and reskill their current workforce. The traditional cycle of hiring and firing staff for jobs is a wasteful use of resources that creates wasted potential and infiltrates workplace culture.

This is all happening amid existential challenges to the traditional higher education system. These challenges arise from dips in student demand, sector sentiment, and growing drop-out rates, leaving students with high debt and no degree. The gap between graduate skills and workforce requirements has never been greater. We must prevent the waste of talent and potential by ensuring meaningful work with a mission and purpose that aligns with societal needs.

Reejig is an award-winning workforce intelligence platform that uses AI to align employer skills requirements with the capabilities of an agile workforce. Reejig uses AI to make mobilising, skilling, career pathing, planning and finding talent easier for organisations. This also presents opportunities for Australian universities.

The traditional model of selecting skilled employees based on a single point-in-time degree qualification has passed its expiry date. We now have a workforce that must continuously accumulate skills that can be credentialed and profiled.

What do universities have to do to keep relevant in this environment? A radical response would go far beyond offering micro-credentials and digital badges. There is a broad and fast-growing market for education products and services that serve diverse learners – including those looking to upskill or reskill.

All Australian universities are under pressure, and 75 per cent are in deficit. Universities can gain a competitive advantage by capitalising on opportunities to fill skills gaps. With domestic demand possibly in terminal decline, we could take advantage of the opportunity by not making this change. There are many leadership opportunities to embrace this type of education.  

Professor Martin Betts is the founder of HEDx
Dr Nora Koslowski is Learning Innovation Officer at Melbourne Business School
Siobhan Savage is Co-founder and CEO of Reejig

Police allege that Paul William Chesworth – an engineer with a “bomb-making hobby” – threatened to use explosives, resulting in Wollongbar TAFE being locked down and students warned to stay indoors.

Officers, including police negotiators and Polair, were called to the property at 8 am following a “concern for welfare” warning.

Mr Chesworth was arrested and taken to Lismore Base Hospital for and initial assessment at about 2pm.

A TAFE NSW spokesperson said the lockdown was a “precaution” with several students being forced to stay inside, some posting on X, formerly Twitter, while the site was locked down.

Power has been out. Just come back on. Not sure if it’s connected to the police operation or a coincidence? We’ve been told, via walkie talkie, that we are to remain in lockdown at Wollongbar TAFE following advice by NSW Police. @abcnews pic.twitter.com/hz1oNDUk5c

— Kim Honan (@kimhonan) November 23, 2023

The McLeans Ridges man faced Ballina Local Court on Friday following the six-hour siege situation.

Mr Chesworth’s case was raised before Magistrate Karen Stafford, but he did not appear and was represented by a lawyer.

He has been charged with using a carriage service to make a hoax threat, as well as giving false information about a person/property in danger and possessing a prohibited drug – oxycodone.

Mr Chesworth is also charged with contravening an apprehended violence order (AVO) in relation to a separate alleged incident. No pleas have been entered.

The operation sparked concern on social media about guns and bombs, but police stated no one in the wider community was at risk at any stage.

Police blockaded roads, including the highway, and told residents to stay indoors.

It’s alleged Mr Chesworth is an engineer interested in “bomb making” with court documents indicating Mr Chesworth’s “threats and actions” over “the past several days” caused “significant disruption to the local community”.

Police also allege the hoax involved “inducing a false belief that an explosive has been or will be left in any place”.

Defence lawyer Gemma Campagna told the court Mr Chesworth was back in Lismore Base Hospital under police guard and a release application would not be made.

She said it was unclear how long he would remain in hospital and she did not have instructions.

Mr Chesworth is accused of having 14 oxycodone painkillers not prescribed to him.

He has pleaded not guilty to a charge of reckless wounding in company relating to alleged offending at an earlier date.

It’s alleged Mr Chesworth inflicted a large wound on a man’s cheek which needed a dozen stitches, and that he later breached bail and a related AVO.

Mr Chesworth has not been charged with weapons or explosives offences; his case was relisted at Byron Bay Local Court on November 27.

The 2021 National Student Safety Survey (NSSS) commissioned by peak body Universities Australia (UA) found that since starting their studies, one in 20 students had been sexually assaulted and one in six students had been sexually harassed in a university context.

Until this week, Australian governments had been largely content to leave the issue to the self-regulating university sector to manage.

But last Wednesday the Commonwealth Department of Education released a draft action plan addressing gender-based violence in higher education.

Following a meeting of education ministers from around the country Tuesday, the plan has been released for further consultation and detailed design work.

The draft action plan has been developed in coordination with victim-survivor advocates, student leaders, staff representatives, subject matter experts and university and student accommodation provider representatives.

If implemented as a full package of measures as intended, the action plan will be game-changing for Australia’s university sector, dramatically increasing support for student survivors and demanding greater institutional accountability and transparency.

Student safety advocates have welcomed the draft action plan, saying it “has the potential to be transformative”.

The plan proposes several promising accountability and transparency measures.

Firstly, as has been recently flagged in the media, a new National Student Ombudsman aimed at ensuring students have access to an effective, trauma-informed complaints mechanism.

This new complaints pathway responds to the strident criticism of the national higher education regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), which last month admitted that it had not investigated any of the 39 complaints against university handling of sexual violence matters that it had received since 2017.

A new National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence –  detailing requirements around a range of issues including critical incident management, provision of support to students and whole-of-institution data collection and transparent reporting – will provide a consistent framework for universities and residential colleges.

The establishment of a new expert unit in the Department of Education, to lead implementation of the new National Code and undertake targeted compliance activities, would strengthen provider accountability and effectively remove these responsibilities from TEQSA, which has  been criticised for its inadequate regulatory efforts in this area.

If adopted, the introduction of robust requirements around increased data transparency and scrutiny, together with annual reporting by higher education providers (through the Commonwealth Minister of Education to the federal Parliament) will be critical.

To date it has been extremely difficult to identify and assess performance across the sector, with research undertaken earlier this year revealing that three-quarters of Australia’s universities were not reporting sexual violence on campus despite their promises to be transparent.

The draft action plan also includes a pledge to “enhance the oversight, standards and accountability of student accommodation providers” regarding their gender-based violence prevention and response efforts, noting that consultation needs to be undertaken with the sector on this point.

The need for greater work here reflects the complex legislative and governance arrangements underpinning Australia’s student accommodation providers.

The more than 220 residential colleges associated with Australian universities include university-owned or administered colleges, university-affiliated institutions, and private entities including both non-profit organisations and commercial businesses, such as UniLodge and Urbanest.

These providers operate under a bewildering array of governance and operational arrangements and are currently subject to substantially less regulatory oversight than comparable accommodation settings, such as boarding houses and aged care facilities.

Many also operate independently of the authority of the universities with which they are associated.

Residential colleges have been identified as a particular site of concern for sexual violence in two national student safety surveys and have been the subject of regular media attention.

Many maintain enduring connections with their alumni communities, some of whom have been vocal in suppressing earlier attempts to tackle college culture, so it is commendable that governments have flagged their intention to finally tackle this difficult but neglected area of regulation.

Consultation on the draft action plan is open until the end of January. For now, it provides an important signal that Australian governments have serious expectations around universities and residential colleges strengthening their responses to gender-based violence.

That government attention is long-overdue.

Dr Allison Henry is a Research Fellow and Associate with the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW. She completed her PhD on 'Regulatory responses to sexual assault and sexual harassment in Australian university settings’ in May 2023.  Dr Henry was a member of the Commonwealth Department of Education's Gender-based Violence Stakeholder Reference Group.

In a new paper Professor Norton argues that a new body, the Tertiary Education Commission proposed in the government’s Universities Accord review, is likely to over regulate funding leading to a misallocation of places and a reduction in student choice.

The setting up of the new commission to oversee higher education is expected to be a recommendation in the Accord review’s final report, due in February. “Its authors clearly want to replace current decentralised modes of decision-making, under which universities and students co-ordinate the allocation of student places to courses, with a more centralised and bureaucratic system of control,” Professor Norton says in the report published by the Centre for Independent Studies.

The details of the TEC’s role are not yet known but Professor Norton said there is a clear preference in the accord’s interim report for adopting a centralised approach to deciding how much funding, and how many student places, would be available for individual universities to deliver particular courses.

He said the centralised approach was unlikely to outperform the demand driven system set up by Labor over a decade ago which gave universities freedom to decide which courses they would offer and how many students to enrol.

Professor Norton also believes that the Morrison government’s Job Ready Graduates policy — which used differential fee levels to try to steer students away from courses such as business and law and into nursing and teaching — is also better than a centralised approach.

“It did not intervene in university supply decisions, instead giving universities more flexibility in moving public funding between courses,” he writes in the report.

He said that a system in which a TEC is responsible for the number of student places offered in each course at each university, guided by job demand forecasts by the government agency Jobs and Skills Australia, would lead to slow decision-making on a bureaucratic cycle.

“Bureaucratic systems could lock public funding into yesterday’s labour market needs, causing stranded resources that cannot be used effectively,” his report says.

Professor Norton said the Albanese government had “already shown appetite for this level of regulation”.

First there was its announcement (following an election promise) of 20,000 new university places and the government specified how many would go to each university, which course types they could fund, and who they could go to. They were restricted to disadvantaged students.

Then in August this year the government offered new student places to train graduates for the AUKUS nuclear submarine project. Universities which applied had to provide detailed strategies and timelines for using the funding.

“It reflects a low-trust, high regulation approach to funding higher education with strong parallels to the Universities Accord interim report,” Professor Norton writes.

In the report he compares the way numbers of nursing and engineering students changed over the past decade to match demand under university funding systems which were not centralised.

Professor Norton contrasted this market driven approach to Australia's medical training system in which the number of student doctors is decided by government. The result is “not encouraging”, he says.

“Australia relies on doctors from overseas and has many doctor job vacancies.”

Deakin University’s Global Centre for Preventative Health and Nutrition (GLOBE) released its Uni-Food 2023 report yesterday, benchmarking the healthiness, equity and environmental sustainability of university food environments in Australia.

Globe Co-Director Professor Gary Sacks said he was disappointed by the results in the report and that universities need to do more to improve the campus food environments.

“University campuses have an important influence on the diets of students and staff,” Professor Sacks said.

“Historically, they have been some of the first organisations to support young people’s health. For example, by implementing policies such as ‘smoke-free campuses.’

“Universities are in a position to showcase a healthy and environmentally sustainable environment, and demonstrate the health, environmental and financial benefits of doing so.”

Nine universities across Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and New South Wales opted into the assessment in 2021/2022 and were scored on the healthiness, equity and environmental sustainability of their campus food environments.

The average score of all nine Australian universities was just 46 out of 100 points, with Monash University topping the list with a score of 66 out of a possible 100 points.

“We found some strong examples of universities working to improve their food environments by reducing food packaging, ensuring vending machines only sell healthy food, offering nutrition counselling and creating community gardens, but none of these initiatives go far enough to score well on our scorecard,” Professor Sacks said.

“Most universities lack comprehensive policies and commitments to make the necessary improvements to their food environments.

"Universities pay a lot of attention to where they rank against each other on research and teaching. These scorecards provide further opportunities to show leadership,” Professor Sacks said.

Key recommendations for universities to improve their score include limiting the availability and marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages and ensuring on-campus food retail outlets provide affordable, healthy and environmentally sustainable foods.

Called “Be That Teacher”, the campaign features emotive stories from eight real teachers who have positively affected their students’ lives and futures.

For example, Mr Wang, a maths teacher from Victoria talks about how a Year 10 student wrote him a note to say “thank you for making me feel smart for once”. Mrs Kentwell, a primary teacher from Queensland, spoke about holding the hand of a young blind student in a running race, while other students cheered him on.

The rewarding feeling you get from teaching is something I’ve never felt from any other job.

The campaign, by ad agency Clemenger BBDO, is running across social media, television, cinema, billboards and at bus stops and train stations until next April.

Why do we need it?

The campaign comes amid an ongoing teacher shortage crisis in Australia. Federal government modelling has predicted a shortfall of more than 4,000 teachers by 2025. Last month, the New South Wales government revealed a 42% drop in casual teacher numbers meant 10,000 lessons in the state were going without a teacher each day.

We also know the number of students enrolling in teaching degrees has dropped 12% in the past ten years. Of those who do enrol, only 50% finish the degree and 20% of those who graduate leave the profession within three years.

Australian studies have also told us teachers do not feel valued by the community, are abused and disrespected by parents, and receive poor media coverage.

Is this campaign the answer? Can advertising help solve Australia’s teacher shortage?

Advertising can work

There is evidence to show advertising can work. A clever way to demonstrate advertising’s value is to examine what happens in its absence. Our 2023 study showed, on average, brands experience a decline in sales when they stop advertising for more than one year.

But there are no certainties with advertising. So what increases the chance of a successful campaign?

Advertising works primarily by creating and refreshing memories – in this case by establishing a link between “teaching” and “positive career option”. This heightens the chance teaching will come to someone’s mind when considering careers. The freshness of a memory (how recently they saw the ad) increases the chances they will think of teaching.

This means the campaign should run while the shortage persists, to increase the chance it will be in potential students’ minds and particularly during the lead-up to university preference cut-off dates over the summer.

Do the ads themselves work?

The campaign gets an A on several factors.

The videos are beautifully crafted, capturing attention by using human faces, voices and authentic storytelling. All these elements improve the chances of campaign success by evoking an emotional response, which heightens memory retention.

The “Who will you inspire?” tagline used in the campaign is also both emotive and memorable.

The branding needs more work

Beyond the ads, the Be That Teacher website contains information about pursuing a teaching career (how to do it, available scholarships and support). While the campaign can create a memory or pique someone’s interest, this information will help people decide if teaching is the career for them.

Here, the branding aspect (or identity) of the campaign needs more work. Be That Teacher is new to Australians and it needs to be more prominent in the videos and still images to stand out and capture attention.

Introducing the line “Be That Teacher” visually at the beginning of the ads and adding a verbal mention, rather than just at the end, heightens the chance it will be processed and remembered. This is crucial if the campaign is going to push people to the website.

Of course we also need more than ads

Recruitment and retention issues in education are not new. Teachers report feeling overworked, underpaid and overly burdened by administrative tasks.

These are all complex issues and clearly, advertising will not be the sole fix to the teacher shortage (nor are governments suggesting it will be).

But with teachers so essential to Australia’s future, every effort should be made to build and retain our teaching workforce. Good advertising like this campaign can help generate more interest in the profession and provide a gentle nudge towards improving the status of this vital career.

Virginia Beal, Senior Marketing Scientist, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Universities Australia (UA) released its Charter on sexual harm last week with support from the University Chancellors Council.

UA Chair Professor David Lloyd said the Charter reflects each university’s commitment to combatting the “major societal problem” of sexual violence on campus with “rates in the community [that] remain unacceptably high.”

“We need to do more to combat the scourge – universities, governments, schools and businesses all working together because, collectively, we can do better by the people in our communities,” Professor Lloyd said.

“This Charter will drive new and improved measures to build on the many initiatives already in place at organisations across the nation.”

Safety advocates Fair Agenda, End Rape On Campus (EROC), The STOP Campaign and the National Union of Students released a joint statement on Twitter denouncing the UA Charter.

“Once again, Universities Australia and its member universities have decided amongst themselves that they don’t to listen to experts on the issue of sexual violence in our university communities,” the statement said.

The advocate organisations have been working with the federal government’s gender-based violence working group to advise on actions to improve student safety on campus.

“We are gobsmacked that universities have evidently been running a unilateral parallel process, seemingly without consultation with key student representatives or victim-survivor advocates,” the statement said.

“We welcome any legitimate, substantive efforts to address sexual assault and sexual harassment in our universities.

“But let's be clear, this Universities Australia Charter on Sexual Harm appears to be entirely about attempting to protect university reputations and a cynical and belated PR campaign by Australia’s universities to look like they are taking action on the crisis of campus sexual violence before Education Ministers meet next week.”

Outgoing UA Chief Executive Catriona Jackson has defended the body’s handling of the issue, saying universities can’t be responsible for dealing with it alone.

“As a sector, we have not shied away from dealing with sexual harm – we are not sitting still in the face of this major societal issue,” Ms Jackson said.

“Our commitment to do more to support and protect individuals shows the seriousness with which universities are treating this scourge and our commitment to address it.

“We need other organisations to come on board with us – we can’t do it alone.

“We call on all sectors – governments, schools, businesses, workplaces and the media – to commit to this Charter so that, collectively, we can work to change our society for the better.”

Victim-survivor advocate and founder of EROC Australia Sharna Bremner lambasted UA and the Charter, saying, “It looks like they asked ChatGPT to pull together something based on nothing more than their previous media releases.”

UA has received intense scrutiny this year for not doing enough to protect students and staff from sexual violence on campus.

The peak body came under fire for accepting $1.5m taxpayer funding to create a sexual consent campaign that never eventuated.

The Charter will no doubt continue to be a topic of discussion as the Universities Accord panel prepares to deliver its final report ahead of the new year.

Achieving synergy between education and technology has become a central goal for contemporary university leadership, reflecting the evolving expectations of students, universities and global policy. Education technology offers both immense potential and a profound challenge for a new generation of leaders navigating an increasingly complex landscape.

This complexity is amplified by growing turbulence, exemplified  by events like the Optus network failure in Australia this month and the years-long global disruption caused by COVID-19. Universities face the unique challenge of evolving to meet the needs of learners and industry while maintaining quality tertiary education and achieving this all at scale.

We have witnessed a convergence of interests between traditional universities and EdTech companies, challenging leadership to  bridge the cultural gaps between these two environments.  The driving force is the desire to provide affordable, high-quality learning experiences on a large scale. Organisations like Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation highlight the entrepreneurial and innovative culture of corporate environments in education, normalising quick decision-making and a willingness to learn rapidly from failures.

Universities, on the other hand, often adhere to inflexible consensus-based decision-making processes. While these processes can lead to sound decisions, they may not be well-suited to the rapid changes of the present era. Universities also contend with multiple layers of governance and a diverse set of stakeholders, which can slow down decision-making and hinder innovation.

Open University (OU) has embraced a more flexible consensus-driven leadership model to realise their innovative aspirations and evolve their learning platform FutureLearn. RMIT has expanded its onshore and offshore campuses, serving as a significant undergraduate educator of the professions. These institutions exemplify the provision of access to quality learning experiences at scale.

Both OU and RMIT have demonstrated impressive technical and innovative capabilities, which proved invaluable during the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing disruptions. With the chaos of the pandemic now dissipating, we must assess whether we are fully capitalising on opportunities for advancement generated by such turbulence. This question is at the core of the book "Toolkit for Turbulence" co-authored Graham Winter and this week’s podcast guest Martin Bean.

The book's underlying premise is that leaders must adapt and recalibrate to effectively navigate turbulence, beginning with a mindset that allows them to "hold their shape in the squirm." University leadership must cultivate a culture where they can re-evaluate their investments in technology, striking a balance between digital and physical solutions. University leaders must also articulate a clear mission and destination for their institution's technological endeavours, with a focus on providing access to quality education.

Despite the remarkable response during the COVID-19 crisis, tertiary leaders must avoid reverting to old patterns. The underlying business model of higher education is broken and requires radical shifts and innovative solutions.

Leaders should reconsider the overemphasis on the 18-24 age group in favour of a broader focus on individuals aged 16-75, recognising the diverse learning needs of a wider demographic. New leadership playbooks and toolkits for change can help to facilitate this transformation. Leaders who adopt a coaching approach can more effectively align personal and organisational values, fostering openness, collaboration, learning and decision-making amid ambiguity.

These principles must be applied to long-term change, and vulnerability should be celebrated as a strength rather than a weakness. Modern leaders must embody new competencies including resilience and the ability to navigate complexity through turbulence. In turn, they require self-care and support to enable them to support others effectively.

The opportunity for leaders is in their capacity to leverage technology and innovation, a realm now accelerated by generative AI. In doing so, they can avoid the mistakes that loom in the wake of inaction and uncertainty and work toward achieving accessible and quality learning a scale.

The dynamic relationship between education and technology has become a defining feature of modern university leadership, setting the stage for innovation and change. The turbulence that accompanies this transformation demands leaders who can adapt, innovate and embrace technological solutions. The future of higher education depends on these visionary leaders who can navigate change and steer their institutions toward a brighter future.

This week’s podcast guest Professor Martin Bean is the CEO of the Bean Centre. The Bean Centre works in partnership with education experts and technology companies to create better learning experiences.