Postgraduate study opportunities across Dual Sector institutions

Carol-Anne Croker

PhD candidate, Researcher, Teacher and Policy Officer

Email contact: cacroker@gmail.com

Via Linked In, Academic.edu. or Twitter #croker09 & FB

Thought for the end of a busy day…

• “...The order which [the work of art] professes is merely an imaginary order, projected onto disorder, the fictive resolution of ideological conflicts, a resolution so precarious that it is obvious only in the very letter of the text where incoherence and incompleteness burst forth. It is no longer a question of defects but of indefensible informers... the work derives its form from this incompleteness which enables us to identify the presence of a conflict at its borders. In the defect of the work is articulated a new truth...”

• Peter Mackerey . p.103 [Barone &Eisner 2011]

Arts-based research. Footprint Books, Sage Publications.

What does a Dual Sector Institution

look like?

University of Bologna 1088, still

leading the “quality globalization

discourse in through the Bologna

agreement, June 1999

“Oxbridge” model?

TAFE NSW? Limkokwing University, Malaysia ?

The AQF levels are now in place

• Who are the students for these new Integrated tertiary education institutions? Is it simply a matter of codifying existing Pathways or Articulation policies and processes?

• Or are we looking at questions of access

and equal opportunity? • Or Industry driven training & upskilling

for the labourforce skills shortage upon retirement of us baby boomkers?

Are we entrenching rampant credentialism?

Who are our students and what do they need? • Lower SES students with subsidised Uni

places (without established strong teaching pedagogies and resourcing for this co-hort?

• Despite the good intentions of the Bradley Review into higher education is this yet another way our University sector can cross-subsidise core teaching functions in a period of diminishing Government per capita student funding?

• Where are these photographs located?

And what of existing pathways?

Who’s to say these graduates are less likely to succeed at University than thosed selected through traditional ENTER scores direct from secondary school or via RPL? In a world where we cannot predict the jobs or skills for the coming decade I argue that RCC is a more important indicator of potential success as it is underpinned by intrinsic motivation to

learn and grow.

Let me now take you on some case studies

• Firstly me: I am Dual sector experienced as both student and teacher/lecturer.

• If I teach sessionally at my University, the assumption is my Undergraduate University studies and some Grad Dip level qualification provides me with the skills to be a successful teacher and up to date with my Discipline field .

• Pay rate up to $109 per hour sessional, no career path without completion of a PhD.

If I were to walk across the street on my Campus separating the two Education buildings….

• Firstly I lose over $50 per hour for my teaching as a sessional, yet my actual teaching skills and pedagogy has been honed and crafted through my Certificate IV in workplace training and Assessment . My Discipline Industry knowledge must be made [effectively] transmissable to my students.

Teaching practice brief bio

• TAFE sector level 1, Access education and General Certificate of Education for Adults

• VET

• Levels 1 and 2 Work Education

• Levels 2 & 3 ICT

• Bachelor level studies, Grad Dip studies and MA studies.

• No –one asks to see my teaching portfolios of student evaluation statements upon applyting for a job.

James

• Aged 22. Left school year 8. Disengaged alienated student through juvenile justice system for misdeamours.

• In 2012 he begins second year Bachelor of e-commerce and Bachelor of Multi-media design.

Phyllis

• Now aged 70, disparagingly called a student seeking a scholarly retirement!

• Left school aged 15, worked until children grown

• Completes Cert IV & Diploma Prof Writing

• Gains access (mature entry) into Bachelorof Arts all the way to Honours.

• Completes MA by Coursework and nominated by prestigiuous University for membership to Golden Key.

• Now on APA stipend completing PhD.

Renate • Aged 50… entered University through the

« Educating Rita style » via Open Universities Australia.

• Works her way through Graduate Certificate level subjects is accepted to University, progresses with HDs into MA by coursework.

• Suddenly applies for PhD entry and University has « shifted policy stance » no more PhD entrants without and undergraduate degree. This after her having taken HECS loans to invest in her future employability till aged 67 (new retirement age).

The Case Studies could keep coming but at CAPA & at NUS there is much policy analysis ongoing.

What I requesting of this room and delegates today is to go back and look for where the systemic discrimination barriers still remain, and ensure the decisions and strategic alignments are for education purposes not fiscal belt tightening at the expense of either sector