Senate question time ends, but the house is still going.

Independent MP for Bradfield, Nicolette Boele asks:

Universities are facing chronic underfunding resulting in drastic cuts to staff and degrees and I’ve heard from distraught students whose degrees are being discontinued midway through. Charges, charging for services not delivered in any other context would be called a scam. What is the Minister doing to protect students and guarantee the units those students have completed and paid for will be credited towards the completion of a similar degree?

Jason Clare:

Can I thank the member for Bradfield for her question and congratulate her on her election to this place? The first point I’d make is we’re investing an extra $6.7 billion into our universities over the next decade. That’s all part of the first stage of our implementation of the universities accord. About helping to make sure more young people get a crack at going to university, particularly a lot of young people from our outer suburbs, from the bush, disadvantaged backgrounds. The second point I’d make is where a young person finds themselves in a situation that you have just pointed out, universities have legal obligations. We have to provide that student with a teach out plan. It basically means that they’ve got to enable that student to complete that degre, to complete the study of that course, or find a mutually acceptable alternative at no disadvantage to that student. That’s the law. That is the law. That’s the legal requirement under the act.

But I’d make the point that where universities are making decisions that affect students, it significantly affects staff or students, then talk to them. Listen to them. Work with them. Consult with them properly.

Can I make the general point here that I want to see more young people get a crack at going to university. There are more young people starting a university degree this year than ever before. When you take out the two years of cove is an anomaly, more young people starting a degree this year than ever before.

And universities are telling me they expect more students next year than this year. In the next 10 years, we expect an extra 200,000 young Australians to take on a university degree. And so universities need to get ready for that. That’s what the universities accord is all about.

That includes the work we’re doing to fund more bridging courses. For young peep that aren’t ready to start a university degree and do one of those free courses that builds a bridge from school to university. It includes the work we’re doing on paid prac, financial support for teaching and nursing and midwifery, while they do the practical part of their degree and includes a demand driven system for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

If they get the marks, they get a Commonwealth supported place. I’ll introduce legislation to make that a reality too because I want us to be a country where you can’t tell where someone gree up based on whether they’ve got a university degree or not. Can I also briefly say this? That is that if you don’t think that we’ve got a problem with governance of universities at the moment, then you’ve probably been living under a rock. That’s why I’ve introduced a national student ombudsman and a Senate inquiry about this right now and an expert pan that will give me advice on this and other education ministers in the next couple of weeks. It’s why I announced last week plans to increase the powers available to the university regulator