Public Universities Australia says SA uni merger ‘offers no benefit’
By TIM DODD
HIGHER EDUCATION EDITOR
7:17PM JUNE 13, 2023
A key alliance representing academics and students is opposing the merger of South Australia’s two largest universities, warning that it is not in the public interest.
Public Universities Australia, a group backed by academic and student groups, the National Tertiary Education Union and many individual academics, said in a statement this week that the proposed merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia “is likely to produce an extremely large institution in which academic standards are further eroded and students are less satisfied”.
“Disadvantaged student groups are not likely to fare better in such an institution,” the PUA said.
The group said that mergers between education institutions with the aim of reducing costs had a high risk of prioritising efficiency (as measured by university managers) over effectiveness of teaching.
It said that students and teaching were generally viewed in Australia’s higher education system “as an exploitable source of revenue through which to subsidise inadequately funded research”.
“There is no indication that this structural antagonism between research and teaching will change with the proposed merger; instead it continues policies that have steadily eroded Australia’s sovereign capabilities that critically rely on the quality of both teaching and research,” PUA said.
The SA university merger has been strongly backed by state Premier Peter Malinauskas.
The two universities are currently working on a business plan – due to be completed soon – which will inform the decision of the both institutions’ governing bodies on whether to proceed with the merger.
PUA added that it did not rule out supporting any South Australian university merger, or some other from of cross-institutional collaboration in the state, if it was “designed to strengthen academic standards, student learning, teaching, and the nexus between research and teaching”.