[csaa-forum] CHASS: Federal Budget

[Toss Gascoigne]

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CHASS: FEDERAL BUDGET
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- Budget welcome - pity about cluster funding


Budget welcome - pity about cluster funding
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CHASS today (Thursday) welcomed many aspects of the Federal
Budget in the areas of education and the arts.   

Professor Stuart Cunningham, President of CHASS (the Council for
the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences), said that the
Government's investment in education, training and research
targets several important areas of need. 

"The Minister is to be congratulated for leading a national
reinvestment in the tertiary sector," he said.  "We have also
seen welcome funding increases for the creative and performing
arts and film." 

But Professor Cunningham expressed less enthusiasm for how some
changes in the tertiary sector will operate, labelling them as
'retrograde'. 

"We have significant concerns about the new cluster funding
system and the reduction in Commonwealth funding for Accounting,
Administration, Economics and Commerce, where over $1,000 has
been stripped out of each HECS-funded place.  

"It's is hard to understand the rationale for a course of action
which will place additional pressure on students and deter them
from undertaking these courses. 

"It could be on the basis that many accounting and economics
students were expected to end up in high-salary jobs," he said. 

Professor Cunningham said general experience had shown that a
proportion of these graduates will go on to work in lower-paid
parts of the public and community sectors. 

He also expressed his disappointment in the minimal cluster
funding increase for other disciplines: the humanities, foreign
languages and visual and performing arts.  The increase here was
set at the bare minimum indexation. 

"Australia will come to regret our diminishing ability to
understand and communicate with people in Indonesia, Thailand and
China," he said. 

"The teaching and learning of languages are important, for trade
and aid as well as security, where being able to understand plays
an integral role." 

He said national and regional security is one of Australia's
priorities, and that the country was prepared to make huge
investments in defence equipment. 

"The best forms of regional security arise from the ability to
understand and the ability to communicate," he said.   

"Investment in teaching and learning is a smart option and
complements expenditure in military hardware. Australia can't
afford to stand by as our languages capability evaporates." 



For interview:  Professor Stuart Cunningham	0407 195 304

For information: Toss Gascoigne  	0408 704 442



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Thanks,

CHASS 




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