Graeme Turner, Broken: Universities, Politics and the Public Good

- Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland Graeme Turner's last book was The Shrinking Nation which I enthused over in this review:

- This just published short book written for In the National Interest series, published by Monash University Publishing, is another powerful condemnation of Australia's public sphere. His focus in on the deplorable state of our university system. He doesn't hold back. It's persuasive, comprehensive, credible, insightful and detailed, and Turner is very angry indeed. 

- On every level he damns Australian governments of both major parties over the last fifty years for the destruction they're wrought on our higher education system. Their neoliberal, pro-market, privatisation reforms have been utterly disastrous.  

-  ‘…students are dropping out, academics are burning out, and governments have been tuning out for decades’. It's a tragic story in so many ways. The shameless behaviour of governments, both Labor and the Coalition, have demonstrated their profound ignorance of what a university really should be. 

- The sector's federal government funding has gone from 80% in the 1980's to 40% now. The 'creeping cancer of excessive casualisation' has meant that 'more than 50% of the teaching in our universities is now delivered by casual staff on short-term contracts', and it's close to 75% in some institutions.

- 'longstanding collegial systems of governance were gradually replaced by management practices drawn from the corporate world that increased the role of the central executive'. In the desperate search for adequate funding, universities aggressively entered the market for international students. Earnings from these students accounted for 50% of Sydney University's total income in 2024.

- Governments have pressed universities 'to think of themselves as businesses rather than as publicly funded institutions....The consequences for the academic culture of the university community, however, have been corrosive'. 'The demands of the vocations or professions have become decisive drivers'. The broader fields of knowledge are deemed unimportant. ‘The myth of the useless arts degree turns up all over the place’. 

- 'Battered, broken and distorted by years of poor policy, disinvestment and piecemeal strategic initiatives, this is a system that requires a major renovation...There is an urgent need for an independent coordinating body to manage how our university system serves our national interests in both teaching and research.' 

- When I was a student at Sydney University in the early 70's, things were wonderful. I would hate going there today.