Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has responded to the Government’s decision to progress five immediate action items following the release of the Universities Accord interim report, saying it represents a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Greens previously outlined their<\/a> priorities for action:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senator Faruqi said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Minister\u2019s decision to guarantee First Nations students a Commonwealth-supported university place is an important and positive step. The other announcements are well and good but nowhere near what is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSoaring student debt has made university increasingly out of reach for young people, who don\u2019t deserve to be saddled with a debt sentence simply for pursuing education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the Government really wants to improve access to university, they should make university free and wipe all student debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Government is burying its head in the sand when it comes to so many obvious, urgent things that need addressing, like student debt, unpaid placements, PhD students living under the poverty line and the corporatisation of unis leading to rampant casualisation and wage theft. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor is woefully out of touch when it comes to young people. We see it in their failure to act on the housing crisis and we are seeing it in their failure to address student poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s great that Labor will dump the cruel and punitive 50 per cent fail rule, which was introduced as part of the disastrous Job-Ready graduates scheme. However, they should also scrap the scheme\u2019s fee hikes and funding cuts, which have been an unmitigated disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve been calling for changes to university governance and greater democracy on campus for some time, so it’s good to see that the panel has considered this a priority. The corporate university model has been so damaging and corrosive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGreens analysis<\/a> has found that over the last two decades, there has been a 43 per cent reduction in the number of elected positions on university councils. We have to give power back to staff and students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMoving deck chairs on the Titanic is not going to cut it. Big and bold ideas must be urgently implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s time to reimagine universities as essential, democratic places which exist to serve the public good. Free and well-funded university is necessary for equity and the functioning of a vibrant democracy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has responded to the Government’s decision to progress five immediate action items following the release of the Universities Accord interim report, saying it represents a missed opportunity. The Greens previously outlined their priorities for action: Wipe student debt, or at the very least make the student debt … Continue reading “GOVT MISSES OPPORTUNITY TO DELIVER URGENTLY NEEDED UNI REFORMS”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21911,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21910\/revisions\/21911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}