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It critiques the Government’s proposal to double the cost of arts degrees, framing it as part of longer culture-war dynamics and exposing universities’ failure to defend their academic mission. 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It is clear that it was given to a new … owner. Whoever this owner was, they had little time for the ancient art that filled the house. Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age  \nEducation Minister Tehan’s recent announcement to double the cost of an Arts Degree has been a bombshell like no other in recent higher education policy. Many have rightly seen it as a policy that makes no practical sense – if you want teachers, as is claimed in the overall policy, you of course need a sizeable number of these trained in the humanities. More concerning though, is the perception that the decision is just another dismal episode in the country’s never-ending culture wars, where national policy seems to be driven, as much as anything, by a desire to vanquish one’s ideological foes-real or imagined.  \nWe should fervently decry this latest plan by the Government and its motivations. In this piece however, I argue that our critical gaze should be directed as much at our universities – or at least at that class of administrator that has come to run them in recent decades. In the directions and strategies that have been pursued over this time, there has been little defence by our ‘institutional leaders’ of the broader educational mission of universities, leaving them seriously exposed to the antiacademic, anti-democratic policies now being imposed.  \nI describe two notions that have been key in the directions that have been pursued, and which lie at the heart of the intellectual enfeeblement of our institutions. The first of these, is the so-called employability agenda, which has come to construct higher education in almost exclusively instrumentalist terms; the other, is the highly flawed notion  \n98 The degrading of university education Tim Moore  \nthat skills in university study can be unproblematically prioritised over the learning of disciplinary knowledge.  \nThe employability agenda  \nMinister Tehan commenced his dramatic address to the National Press Club in June in bold terms: ‘Today, I announce our plan for more job-ready graduates’. Clearly, employability was very much on the Minister’s mind; infact he spoke of virtually nothing else. In an address of just over 20 minutes, the words employ/employment were uttered 15 times, along with other related terms: work (15 times); job (22 times, including the new coinage, ‘job-relevant’study) . Notions relating to those pursuits that actually goon in a university barely rated a mention – learning (three times), thinking (four times), the latter used only as part of a mantra about students needing to ‘think’ about choosing the right ‘job-relevant’degrees. The government, of course, is intending to assist school-leavers with their ‘thinking’ in this regard by putting the study of certain disciplines out of financial reach for many.  \nThe reviews of the Tehan package have not been flattering. Author Richard Flanagan saw the plan as part of a broader cultural trend which ‘places ever less value on the creative, the critical and the questioning, and which regards conformity as the greatest good’ (quoted in Carmody & Hunter, 2020). Ian Marshman and Frank Larkins (2020), higher education researchers atthe University of Melbourne, were sure the Tehan plan precludes any notion of ‘a well-rounded education’, or of students ‘achieving their full potential and wider citizenship capabilities’ (p. 1). Economist Ross Gittens (2020) was much  \nvol. 62, no. 2, 2020  \nA U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nmore pointed: ‘Our unis are about to become even more like sausage factories’.  \nMarshman and Larkins (2020), in their response, go on to characterise the Tehan plan as ‘truly radical’, constituting ‘a major shift in the pu","cbCaicuTLbnHodV4","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaicuTLbnHodV4","pdf",165141,"English","# The degrading of university education\n## Policy shock: doubling the cost of an Arts Degree\n## The employability agenda\n## Origins and intellectual enfeeblement in universities","[{\"question\":\"Why does the author criticize the proposal to double the cost of an Arts Degree?\",\"answer\":\"The author argues it lacks practical sense for a system that claims to need humanities-trained teachers. The decision is also presented as part of broader culture-war motivations and ideological conflict.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the author mean by the “employability agenda”?\",\"answer\":\"It refers to a policy and management direction that frames higher education in almost exclusively instrumental terms. The author links it to an emphasis on job readiness over disciplinary learning, critical thinking, and broader educational purposes.\"},{\"question\":\"Where does the employability agenda come from, according to the document?\",\"answer\":\"The document traces it back to earlier policy developments, notably the 1990s Achieving Quality report, which introduced generic skills and attributes. It also cites subsequent alignment efforts between curricula and industry needs.\"}]","The degrading of university education - Tim Moore | PDF",1792080193,18]