Sending everyone to university has not resulted in better outcomes.
“Sending everybody to university has not resulted in a well-educated population. It has resulted in worthless degrees, dumbed-down standards and vast amounts of student debt. It is a sad indictment of our education system that Australia, a First World country, has to import skilled labour, especially doctors, from developing countries.”
Since the Dawkins Plan of the late eighties turned Universities into nothing more than degree factories over 40 maternity wards have closed in regional Queensland. This is despite the fact that the population in the regions has more than doubled over the last three decades.
These closures are in the main due to a shortage of nurses and doctors. One of the changes the Dawkins Plan implemented was the nurses would go to university rather than learn in the ward.
Somehow the result of these “improvements to education” is that we now have to import doctors and nurses from third world countries to go to the bush.
The obsession with educating foreign students has resulted in a housing crisis and forced the trades sector to build houses and units rather than infrastructure that provides essential services.
The only people improving out of our higher education sector are inner city academics, banks (more demand for housing) and the immigration industrial complex.
Education and Employment Legislation Committee
06/08/2024
Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024
Senator RENNICK: This is my last question. One of the things that irks me is that we have to import foreign doctors and nurses because we clearly aren’t training enough doctors and nurses in this country. What are you going to do to the colleges, especially the doctor colleges, who limit the number of people who can go and do medicine and health? I think it’s not right.
Mr Sheehy : As a son of a nurse, I think there should be more nurses. I think it’s a wonderful career and I think it’s a wonderful thing to do. We’re proud of the 18,000 nurses we teach every year in our universities. On the issue of doctors, that is a matter for the health minister, because the number of doctor places is often limited by that portfolio. It’s not a matter solely for education.
Senator RENNICK: Okay. I’ll ask the department.
Mr Sheehy : I know many of our universities would like to teach more doctors. It’s a very expensive undertaking, but it’s very important for the nation. I think we should train more in Australia, and it would be good to see more funding to do that.
Senator RENNICK: Okay. Great.
