NXT welcomes commitment on inquiry into higher education

Posted February 26, 2018

The Nick Xenophon Team has welcomed Federal Labor’s announcement last Thursday of a National Inquiry into Post-Secondary Education.

“I was the first to highlight the need for such a review back in September last year when the Higher Education Reform Package was being debated in the Lower House,” said Rebekha, the Federal Member for Mayo and NXT’s Spokesperson for Education.

“Back then I said it would be wrong to support many of the cuts proposed by the Government unless there was a comprehensive review into post-secondary education.

“I said NXT believed that Australia needed a comprehensive review, akin to the Gonski-led review of education, to look at how to prepare the next generation for the world of work to ensure young people successfully transitioned to sustainable employment.”

Rebekha said NXT would seek to obtain more detail about how Labor planned to conduct a review and implement any findings.

“The Nick Xenophon Team believes we need a comprehensive review of the whole post-secondary education space in both metropolitan and regional areas,” she said.

“We need to consider our future workforce and how best to shape the university and vocational and education sectors together to build our nation's capacity.

“We need sensible university reform that does not punish students.

“In order to do this, we must do our homework first, bringing together government and all the relevant stakeholders to design reform and then to legislate and implement the same.

“Currently, we have students who are leaving university with high debts and little opportunity of securing stable employment in their area of study.

"We have too many highly qualified young people, with PhD degrees, stacking supermarket shelves or making lattes. We need to do better than this.”

Rebekha's September 2017 speech can read in full here.