Professor David Lloyd, Universities Australia Chair

If anything lays bare the full extent of the skills challenge facing the nation it is the recent review of Australia’s higher education sector. Even as we currently don’t have enough skilled workers, the expert panel has found that universities will need to double the number of students they educate each year, to reach 1.8 million in 2050, if we are to meet Australia’s economic needs in the coming decades.

The simple fact is we need more graduates. More engineers to deliver new infrastructure to support a growing population, more doctors and nurses to care for the people we love, and more information technology specialists to provide essential services and to protect us online – not to mention the need for more teachers to educate the next generation and more scientists to support the delivery of AUKUS and to guide the energy transition, among other national priorities.

There is not a city or a town, a person or a community that doesn’t rely on the skills and knowledge that university graduates provide.

From designing the roads on which we drive or the houses in which we live, to fighting disease or ensuring pensions are paid on time, the skilled workers and professions our universities educate deliver for our nation, serving Australia and all Australians.

According to the government’s own projections, nine in 10 new jobs will require post-school qualifications in the coming years, while 50 per cent of them are expected to require a university degree or higher. Looking further ahead, an additional 5.8 million jobs requiring higher education are expected to be added to the labour force across the next 30 years – growing from five million jobs in 2022 to 10.8 million jobs in 2052.

Australia’s future economy will be dependent on a highly educated workforce that our universities will be relied on to supply.

I have previously made the point that addressing Australia’s skills needs into the future will require us to rethink how we upskill, reskill and deliver units of education in a manner commensurate with lifelong learning.

Indeed, the ways in which we educate for attainment must now be reconsidered.

In recommending new attainment targets to the Albanese government, Mary O’Kane and her panel have delivered that message loud and clear.

The Australian Universities Accord final report tells us the tertiary education attainment rate must rise from its current figure of about 60 per cent to at least 80 per cent of the workforce by 2050.

O’Kane has put several worthy recommendations to government to drive changes of this nature, and our nation’s universities look forward to working with the government through the implementation advisory committee to prioritise the rollout of reforms while providing institutions with policy and funding certainty and stability. In a world of balanced pragmatism, the complexity and cost of some recommendations will determine where they fall in the pecking order, but all must note that the accord is a blueprint for multigenerational reform across several decades.

Meeting O’Kane’s attainment targets is no trivial undertaking, particularly when our universities are not starting from a position of strength. Higher education enrolments, as a share of the population, have risen steadily since the mid-1950s but are now in sharp decline. The latest government data shows a 5 per cent drop in enrolments from 2021 to 2022.

Cost-of-living pressures are chief among the factors turning people away from university when we desperately need more graduates, so we must act – quickly. Cost of living has been at the centre of the Albanese government’s first two federal budgets, but with these challenges persisting in the economy we must take further measures in the 2024-25 budget.

One area for immediate government action is to directly support students facing crippling cost-of-living pressures. Should we fail this cohort, on whom our future productivity depends, the looming iceberg of skills shortage will continue to plague our economy and the nation.

As the accord final report warns, achieving new higher education and broader tertiary attainment targets will require concerted effort to bring those who are not currently participating in tertiary education into the system.

O’Kane’s recommendations to better support students are sound and should be key inclusions in any support package the Treasurer delivers to Australians in May – improved income support payments, paid placements, feefree preparatory courses and modest changes to HECS are all attainable in the near term and could move the dial on participation to address skills shortages.

We have our collective work cut out, but a little help from government could go a long way. Now is the time to act. We already have ground to make up.