Update 18/12/2023: The enacted student support guidelines remove the interference in academic judgment discussed in this post. The changes are highlighted in the relevant parts of the text.

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The current government, and the Accord review that it commissioned, have – with the exception of ministerial approval of ARC grants – taken an interventionist approach to higher education policy.

My commentary has focused on micromanaged allocations of student places (eg here and here). While these policies are misguided, the allocation of funding is within the historical scope of the Commonwealth’s higher education powers. However there is also a pattern of actual or proposed interference in matters previously left to academic or university judgment. This is unusual in a country where university autonomy over academic matters has mostly been respected.

Curriculum matters

Next year a new loan scheme will begin for business start-up programs, STARTUP-HELP. Unusually, its legal guidelines include detail about required course content. Normally universities are self-accrediting within standards enforced by TEQSA, an organisation deliberately designed to be at arms length from government.

The content requirements (below) don’t seem unreasonable in themselves, and were perhaps necessary to identify what exactly STARTUP- HELP was supposed to cover. The bigger practical problem here is that this loan scheme is unnecessary. But the precedent of the government directly regulating course content is not one I like being set.

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