The former vice-chancellor of the University of Adelaide, which is looking to amalgamate with the University of South Australia, says the merge will create a “lumbering dinosaur”.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 It's branded as a university for the future, but this former Vice-Chancellor says merging
00:07 the state's two biggest universities would create something far from it.
00:12 It will have created instead a lumbering dinosaur.
00:16 Professor Warren Bebbington used to helm the University of Adelaide and travelled from
00:20 interstate to give evidence to a parliamentary committee scrutinising the half a billion
00:26 dollar merger proposal.
00:28 It will be captive of large classes, it will have the kind of sluggish management response
00:33 to change that you get in huge organisations, low student satisfaction.
00:38 He's calling on the state government to postpone introducing legislation to combine the universities
00:43 of Adelaide and South Australia until after the federal government finalises a new Australian
00:49 universities accord.
00:50 South Australia would be locked into launching in 2026 a giant that by then will be quite
00:57 out of step with the changed university environment in Australia.
01:01 We've always said that there's no reason to rush this legislation through this year.
01:06 The government disagrees.
01:07 Whenever you do bold reforms and bold changes, there are people who are not going to like
01:12 change.
01:13 We think that creating Australia's largest university in an Australian context gives
01:16 us the ability to have an offering that no other Australian state can offer.
01:20 But without opposition or crossbench support, laws to create the new university won't get
01:25 up.
01:26 [END]
01:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]