Editorial

With O Week upon us, it is an ideal time to reflect on the value of tertiary education.

Both our higher and vocational education sectors play crucial roles in training our future workforce. This year’s policy and funding conversations (and they will dominate our dialogues for some time) should consider the two sectors as part of a different, but associated system.

Students already consider and negotiate these various pathways for further education, and the higher education pathway is now fraught with additional considerations. As Grattan Institute’s Higher Education Director, Andrew Norton, noted on 4 January 2018, the measures adopted in December’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) announcements see stalled funding with no guarantees of money going to high demand areas (like regional areas or high demand courses). How the sector interprets the delayed funding regime is yet to play out, and higher education will continue to remain vulnerable in a time of large budget deficits.

In our Institutional Researcher’s Corner this month we interview Clancy Birrell, Advanced Analytics Manager at Griffith University.

We also preview a new publication, Building Capacity in Institutional Research and Decision Support in Higher Education, edited by Karen Webber from the University of Georgia.

Tracy Creagh

Editor, The Institutional Researcher