Wider input on future of uni needed

Enrolments across most of our local government areas are lagging and it’s alarming, writes Dr Michael Rowan

When problems need to be solved, we should fear inertia, not change. With the electors of Hobart voting strongly to oppose the move of UTAS to the city, the question is: what should happen next? Some opponents of the move are declaring it game over, and saying UTAS should abandon its plans and sell the properties it has acquired in the city to enable the move. I disagree. To allow the electors of Hobart to determine the future of UTAS would be undemocratic and elitist.

It would be undemocratic because not everyone with a legitimate interest in whether the move should take place was able to vote. No votes for the people of the Huon, Kingborough, Glenorchy, Derwent Valley, Brighton, Southern Midlands, Clarence, Sorell and Tasman Peninsula, even though the southern campus of UTAS should better serve all of these communities, and indeed the whole of Tasmania.

And it would be elitist because it would allow the most privileged community in Tasmania to determine the development of an institution which is vital to the future of the whole of the state, and in particular to reducing the yawning gulf of inequality that bedevils Tasmanian society.

Let’s get some data on this. We need to know how successful UTAS is in meeting the needs for higher education of all the people of Tasmania. A handy statistic for that is the proportion of young people from all our different communities who enrol in university after finishing Year 12. Data provided in the Social Health Atlas at the local government level will show us the situation, allowing us to compare not just different local government areas within Tasmania, but also our municipalities with like communities elsewhere in Australia, specifically, local government areas with about the same Socio-economic Index for Areas (SEIFA).

After finishing Year 12 in 2020, 41.5 per cent of young people in the Hobart local government area (SIEFA: 1043) enrolled in university for 2021. Kingborough (SIEFA: 1038) was the next highest, at 28.4 per cent, with Clarence (SIEFA: 1002) at 27.7 per cent, Huon Valley (962) 20.2 per cent, Glenorchy (906) 20.1 per cent, and Brighton (871) down at 14.2 per cent, followed by Sorell (965) and Derwent Valley (893) just below 12 per cent.

Compare Adelaide, the capital of the next poorest state. The average rate at which the same age group of the three inner urban councils enrolled at uni was 68 per cent (SIEFAs 1014, 1046 and 1072), while the middle-class eastern suburbs were between 50 and 60 per cent. The traditionally working class western suburbs were between 40 and 50 per cent, with Port Adelaide Enfield (SEIFA 936 – between Huon Valley and Glenorchy) in the middle of the pack at 45.2 per cent, just higher than Hobart. The more disadvantaged outer northern suburbs of Adelaide are in Salisbury (SEIFA 917) where 37.4 per cent of young people head to uni, and Playford (SEIFA 855) where 26.5 per cent do likewise.

These figures should alarm us. The most disadvantaged outer suburbs of Adelaide are seeing more of their young people go off to uni and get the knowledge and skills that our community needs in diverse industries including health care, social services and education, than every local government area in Tasmania with the exception of Hobart.

There is a problem here that needs to be solved. As university-level knowledge becomes more and more the foundation of economic development and the key to solving social and environmental problems, Tasmania is being left behind by even the most disadvantaged outer suburban communities of the next poorest state. Not all of this can be blamed on UTAS, and perhaps just moving UTAS from Sandy Bay to the city won’t change the situation as much as it needs to improve, but keeping everything like it is now because the electors of Hobart oppose the move certainly won’t.

Which is not to say that the Hobart poll does not deliver an important lesson. To be successful, UTAS does need community support for its future plans, whatever they might be. So what is to be done? Here is an answer that has worked elsewhere: involve more people, from a larger part of Tasmania, in a deeper discussion of the way forward. A citizens’ jury might be useful, bringing together a randomly selected group of people from all the communities with an interest in UTAS’s plans in southern Tasmania, to hear proposals for development both in the city and at Sandy Bay

Tasmania is being left behind by even the most disadvantaged outer suburban communities of the next poorest state DR MICHAEL ROWAN

explained by their proponents, and the criticisms and alternative plans of others, with an opportunity for the jury to call for more information about universities, cities and urban infill development elsewhere to gain a deep understanding of the issues, and to question witnesses. All in order to produce a report to inform UTAS’s discussions with government, state and local, before the UTAS governing council makes an independent decision about UTAS’s future on the basis of what will best promote the interests of the university, and Tasmania as a whole.

That process should call forth ideas for the future of UTAS, Hobart and Sandy Bay which are creative and ambitious for both education and urban development. It should be evidence-based, inclusive, and democratic.

It should deliver an outcome which works for the whole of Tasmania, one which stops us being hopelessly divided and left behind economically, socially and environmentally. No one community should be able to stand in the way of that.