Academy urges strong, independent ATEC to steer Australia’s tertiary education system

The Academy strongly supports the creation of ATEC as an independent statutory authority with responsibility for stewarding the whole tertiary education system — spanning both universities and vocational education. It recommends strengthening the legislation to enable ATEC to act proactively, gather evidence, and bring systemic issues and opportunities to Ministers rather than being restricted to offering advice only “if requested”.

Among its recommendations, the Academy urges ATEC to activate its convening powers and draw on external expertise, including from Australia’s Learned Academies — which span the humanities, arts and social sciences, science, engineering, and medical disciplines. The Academies bring independent, discipline-deep knowledge that no single institution, department or dataset can provide. Their insight into research strengths, teaching capacity, emerging fields, workforce pipelines and areas at risk would give ATEC the intelligence it needs to monitor sovereign capability and identify gaps — from languages and Asian literacy to scientific and democratic/civic understanding — and guide long-term national planning.

The submission further calls for an increase in the number of proposed Commissioners to ensure genuine breadth of expertise —alongside appropriate resourcing, a requirement that ATEC report against the National Tertiary Education Objective, and explicit scope for ATEC to employ or second staff from the tertiary sector, to complement the expertise of the Australian Public Service.

Finally, the Academy stresses that urgent reform of the Job-Ready Graduates scheme cannot wait for the passage of the ATEC legislation. The Australian Universities Accord Panel recommended this fix in its Final Report back in 2023, recognising the policy had failed in its core intent and was driving inequity. This is now visible in the data: between 2020 and 2024 bachelor’s enrolment among low-income students fell by 10 per cent, including an 18 per cent drop in law, business and commerce, and a 21 per cent fall across other HASS fields — clear evidence that JRG is dampening participation in critical disciplines and holding back Australia’s sovereign skills pipeline.

The Academy strongly welcomes the inclusion of a National Tertiary Education Objective in the legislation — a first for Australia. Embedding a shared objective that speaks to strengthening democracy, advancing social and economic development, and supporting environmental sustainability is essential to our national prosperity.

Download the full submission.

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