Medical training: Universities chase the big bucks

Peter Mac

Sydney University recently announced plans to dump courses in 
nursing and rural management. The Prime Minister John Howard also 
announced a $4 million grant to the private Notre Dame University 
for the establishment of a medical school in the inner Sydney 
suburb of Chippendale (walking distance from Sydney Uni).

Sydney University intends to terminate its nursing and rural 
management course, with the loss of 170 staff jobs (including 100 
in nursing), and the elimination of nearly 1200 student nursing 
places. The University wants to transfer the nursing positions to 
Sydney's University of Technology and the Australian Catholic 
University, and the rural management places to Charles Sturt 
University. However, these other institutions have not yet agreed 
to accept them.

Poor relation to be dumped

Nurses, who represent what is surely the least valued profession 
in Australia, struggled for years to get their education properly 
recognised at tertiary education level. The attempt to dump the 
nursing courses by Sydney University is a result of the Howard 
Government's increasing emphasis on market economics in 
university education.

Sydney University was one of the first tertiary institutions to 
announce it would increase its fees, after the Howard Government 
decided to allow universities to charge HECS students up to 30 
percent of full fees. The universities are becoming increasingly 
dependent on student fees to meet their operating costs, and are 
therefore likely to favour high fee courses such as medicine and 
law, over cheaper courses with correspondingly low income 
expectations, such as nursing and education.

The proposed new Notre Dame medical faculty appears to be focused 
on training doctors, not nurses. Even if it accepts some nursing 
places, its total capacity will be only 80 students, whereas 
Sydney University currently offers 860 places.

There's certain to be a major hiatus in student output over the 
next nine years until Notre Dame turns out its first graduates, 
and even then there will be greatly reduced student positions. 
And if Notre Dame decides not to accept any student nursing 
places the hiatus will continue into the indefinite future.

Privatisation, an enforced conversion

Bit by bit, Australia's education is being corporatised and 
privatised. Because of the outrageous public funding of private 
schools, and the enormous difficulties public schools are facing 
as a result of under-funding, an increasing number of parents are 
sending their children to private schools.

And now the under-funding is being extended to Australia's 
tertiary education institutions, and public universities are 
already charging fees and are becoming more and more dependent on 
them. University education will become a matter of "whatever the 
market will bear", rather than allowing even the least affluent 
students to pursue their course of choice.

Courses in medicine are an excellent case in point. At the moment 
there are 1344 medical student places in 12 Australian public 
universities. Over the next four years, another five universities 
will establish medical faculties on six campuses, three of which 
will be private.

The University of Western Sydney, one of the universities 
establishing new medical courses, has not revealed the number of 
places it intends to offer. However, assuming it offers 80 places 
(similar to the ANU and other smaller faculties), the total 
number of new places would be 435, of which the private 
institutions would offer 220, or just over 50 percent.

Unions up in arms

Chasing the big bucks will not necessarily be plain sailing for 
Sydney University. The union representing staff took the 
university to the Industrial Relations Commission last week over 
the threatened job losses. The IRC issued an interim instruction 
to the university to make no announcement and take no action to 
implement the closure of the nursing course.

That's good news for the nursing profession, and for the 
community that depends on their wonderful services. However, 
thanks to the Howard Government's tertiary education policies, 
many universities now have their gaze firmly fixed on the big 
student fees, as demonstrated by the intended establishment of 
new medical courses and by Sydney University's attempt to dump 
its nursing course.

In short, if the Howard Government remains in office, the 
prognosis for public health in Australia is definitely not good.