Robbing the Pacific
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
IN LAST month’s PIM Martin Tiffany highlighted the fierce competition be tween Australian and New Zealand Universities to attract island students.
But there is an underside to this story which in decades to come could leave the islands robbed of their best talent and their already struggling academic institutions impoverished to an extent which will make them unable to cope with the huge numbers needing places.
The Education War is but a symptom of a system which sees most of Australia’s huge budget for development assistance in education spent in Australian places for island students many of whom could study in the Pacific for one quarter the cost.
When one looks at the number of Australian graduates who eventually become part of the brain drain migrat ing to other countries and the fact that
amongst other island students in Australia there is an alarming failure rate one must seriously question Australia’s motives in spending so much of its aid budget on these places.
And it is not just in the provision of universitv places w here big money is spent on Australian consultants or institutions when at least some of it might be more cost-effectively spent in the islands. On major aid projects the rules insisting on Australian content make it difficult for qualified islanders or island institutions to win high paying consultant positions or multi-million dollars tenders.
Cynical Australian academics, burnt by almost a decade of restructuring, will tell you the large number of in-Australia training places are simply a means of channeling income into Australia’s cash strapped educational institutions.
Looking at the statistics bears out that view.
In Australia the pain of government funding cut backs in education began in the mid-eighties with the Dawkins white paper on Education.
In 1989 Australia significantly boosted its numbers of in- Australia scholarships from the Pacific Islands.
Combined with the introduction of full fees for overseas students in 1990 that saw spending on Australia’s two main scholarship schemes (Sponsored Training Program and Equity and Merit Scholarship Scheme) jump from 55.3 million in the 1988 financial year to $27.8 million in 1992. \\ hile many places are taken by post-graduates or students studying technical subjects such as engineering which are not available at regional institutions many others go to students studying arts, science, accountancy or postgraduate courses which are.
Canberra has made some attempt to stop its in-Australia training places creaming of what should be the University of the South Pacific’s best students by imposing a rule that candidates will only be considered for in-Australia training if places are not available in the region. Unfortunately its a rule which, in practice, is frequently ignored.
Another big problem with in-Australia training is persistently high failure rates. Despite taking the best and brightest students a combination of factors from the students youth and placement at large alienating. Universities in big cities to inadequate preparatory programs have combined to produce failure rates of up to 50 per cent.
Attempts to bring this down by
placing students at regional universi ties, improving selection and bridging courses has not solved the problem.
On the other end of the scale amongst successful students serious difficulties persist with the “brain drain”. While initially almost all students return home follow-up studies show many do not stay. In Tonga for instance 40 per cent of students who had studied under the
Sponsored Training Program were
not in Tonga at the time of one study and another 39 per cent said they
were likely to migrate.
An internal AIDAB review of its education aid in the Pacific shows Canberra has acknowledged these problems and is beginning to
increasc-in-region training.
But on the small scale proposed it
is likely to have no more than a marginal impact.
II most of Australia's education aid dollars were put into the University of the South Pacific and associated institutions the region would be able to train thousands more graduates and. within a decade or so, olfer postgraduate and technical courses such as engineering currently unavailable.
The work being done at the University of Papua New Guinea to establish the Masters of Medicine course is proof this sort of transformation is possible. That c ourse, which got off the ground with an help from Australia, has not turned out nine Papua New Guinea specialist physicians, whose skills and qualifications are world class.
At the moment a mere 53.3 million dollars of Australia's education aid budget goes to the University of the South Pacific.
The need lor urgent attention to cost-effective (i.e. in region) and relevant education is all the more obvious when one looks at the huge numbers of young people due to come onto the job market over the next decade.
If they arc to find work and not get drawn into a cycle of poverty and violence, which has the potential to threaten the stability of island nations, they will need to have skills.
Education, from primary school level and adult literacy through to vocational and tertiary level will be crucial.
Again this is an issue Australia has started to recognise but without any particular vision.
Canberra’s recent decision to extend in-Australia training to Technical and Further Education Colleges and to vocational programs is only likely to add to complaints that the aid program is self-serving and to undercut a whole new layer of regional institutions. Institutions such as the Fiji Institute of Technology, Solomon Islands College of Higher Education and many others.
With countries like Solomon Islands and Vanuatu still unable offer primary education to large number of children it is at that level that the much needed revolution in education needs to start.
Unfortunately, aid donors prefer to put their dollars into higher education where they are likely to be able to influence the region’s future leaders. □