UA provided feedback to the Productivity Commission’s 5 Productivity Inquiries, highlighting the key role of universities in driving productivity by:

• building the skills and capacity of our future workforce
• generating and disseminating research and ideas, and
• building ties, understanding and goodwill with people from other nations.

UA also contributed to the Economic Reform Roundtable, calling for reforms to existing policy settings that are hampering universities’ ability to meet Australia’s skills needs. Our submission encouraged the government to:

• replace the Job-ready Graduates Package to correct perverse incentives
• extend the Higher Education Loan Program to microcredentials to support lifelong learning
• boost national R&D collaboration to help SMEs innovate, and
• reduce red tape to unlock time and resources for teaching and discovery.

This submission captures the university sector’s feedback on the PC’s interim reports, which we note recognise the critical role our sector plays in driving productivity. We would welcome further opportunities to engage with the PC to discuss the sector’s contribution to Australia’s economic growth and development.

Recommendations:

• Actively draw on the experiences of universities participating in the live credit management initiative to inform the scoping of nationalising credit data infrastructure.
• Prioritise reform of the Australian Qualifications Framework to facilitate harmonisation in post-secondary education and support lifelong learning.
• Leverage learnings from international examples of success such as the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) as an example of good practice credit recognition.
• Consider financial incentives for SMEs to engage in degree apprenticeships and other formal lifelong learning models to boost work-related training rates and workforce adaptability.
• Future regulatory reforms should consider introducing a clear TDM (text and data mining) exception that recognises the distinct and non-commercial nature of educational AI and TDM uses within universities.
• Expand practical, hands-on training opportunities for students in nursing and other health professions in shortage.
• Expand on existing and current reviews of R&D incentives to ensure that potential productivity dividends are not missed.