The Australian National University is downsizing to get its financial house in order. It won’t come without pain, both short and long term. Photo: Region.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr was still to digest the details when he was asked about the ANU’s restructuring plans but it can’t be good for the ACT.
Higher education is one of the ACT’s few power industries, so any contraction in that area will impact the Territory economy.
Fewer students and staff will mean less spending generally and have flow-on workforce implications.
But the diminution of one of the great national institutions will also cast a pall over the national capital and what should be an engine room of Australian economic and cultural life – our universities, where the brightest and best generate the ideas and breakthroughs that propel us forward as a nation.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell says the financially challenged ANU had no choice but to cut and cut hard to get its house in order.
The ANU will be smaller, leaner, do less but do those things better.
Every austerity proponent says the same thing so most will believe it when they see it.
Jobs and programs will go on top of previous rounds of mergers and redundancies.
One wonders what knowledge and expertise will be lost permanently from the university and what impact that will have on its prestige, reputation and capability.
The Vice-Chancellor says the ANU is not alone, and sadly she is right. The whole sector will soon be in retreat, including the University of Canberra, which is battling its own financial demons.
It comes after years of cost shifting by federal governments, the resort to international enrolments to bolster the bottom line, the pandemic that left universities exposed and balance sheets that refused to right themselves.
The fact that this will occur under a Labor government that should have education as its lodestone is deplorable and infuriating. It seems no one is expecting the Albanese Government to ride to the rescue, and that is a shame.
At a time when the country is facing multiple challenges and undergoing a difficult energy transition under the shadow of existential threats (take your pick), letting the universities take an axe to themselves seems self-defeating.
The nation’s priorities seem askew and our leaders have lost their way.
While the future is sacrificed, untold treasure and resources will be exhausted on a nuclear submarine project with no end that will not guarantee security or peace and probably be redundant in its lifetime.
Don’t expect much resistance to the ANU plans. Yesterday, it was shock and awe as operation austerity was put into action with a dump of information on the ANU website after the Vice-Chancellor’s Zoom announcement to staff.
The timing, in school holidays, was not insignificant. The ACT election campaign is also in full swing.
This has been well planned and the ANU is a big institution that can exercise power with the best of them.
Staff will have two weeks to provide feedback and then three weeks later the implementation plan will be released.
There may be minor skirmishes and rear guard actions but essentially it will be a fait accompli.
The ANU will go on but its stature will be much diminished.
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