澳洲联邦政府早先一个废除高等院校招生名额限制的大胆举措,使得维州院校能够史无前例地招收更多学生。现行的招生体系由需求直接引导,这导致RMIT大学在首轮录取中较往年多发放了20.7%份录取通知,Deakin, La Trobe和Monash分别增加了10.7%, 11%和7.6%。
作为达到在2025年之前将25-34年龄段大学文凭持有率提升到40%这一目标的一部分,联邦政府决定从今年开始的三年内免除对大学招收名额的数量限制。为此,维州高校将总共多发放一万多份录取通知书,增幅为22%。扩招之后,各大学从政府获取的资金也将水涨船高。之前招生数量一直由政府来决定。
最得益于扩招的专业包括卫生,工程和教育,大学录取率达到了近八成,一些专业的录取分数线也相应地下滑不少。
墨尔本大学讲师Emmaline Bexley认为,扩招并不意味着大学教育质量的下滑。只要学生做好了学术上的准备,以50分来录取学生是一件好事。大学普遍使用分数线来作为挑选优秀新生的指导,在Bexley博士看来这更像是一场博弈,分数线更多地反映了学生对某一专业的追求度,而不是该专业在社会上的需求度。
Bexley博士认为,扩招给各院校在录取时提供了较大的灵活性,尤其是学校在针对招收不同新生的时候。比如Deakin对大龄学生的招收,以及Victoria大学偏重西部学生。
扩招的有效性还有待验证,一个可能的问题是学生对专业的追捧,并不等同于劳务市场的需求。好比很多学生对法医医药学很感兴趣,但是法医需求量却并不大。以前政府对招生数量的限制,一部分原因就在于此,这样也有利于政府做出政策性调整。扩招的实际效果将在五年后体现出来。
维州最大扩招受益者RMIT大学校长Margaret Gardner表示,今年RMIT受到热捧。大学新开了好几个新专业,申请就读健康、科学文化以及信息技术的学生分别增长了29.1%,10.9%和8.6%。不过大学在接下来三年里的实际招生数量上将持平。
维州最受欢迎的专业是墨尔本大学的文科(Arts)和科学(Science),分数线分别为90.9和91.5。墨尔本大学今年较去年在首轮录取中,仅多收49名本科生。大学副校长Susan Elliott表示,不大量扩招是由于Melbourne Model的推行。
3000 more uni places
http://www.theage.com.au/national/tertiary-places/3000-more-uni-places-20120116-1q3a5.html
More students have been offered a place at Victorian universities this year than ever before following the federal government's radical move to abolish the cap on enrolments.
The historic shift to a demand-driven system has resulted in RMIT increasing its first-round offers by 20.7 per cent this year, Deakin University by 10.7 per cent, La Trobe University by 11 per cent and Monash University by 7.6 per cent.
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In the three years since the Commonwealth signalled it would remove caps on undergraduate places - part of an ambitious target to lift the proportion of 25 to 34-year-olds with a degree to 40 per cent by 2025 - Victorian universities have increased the number of offers by 10,200 or 22 per cent.
But TAFEs have been the losers in the deregulated system. TAFE applications received by the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre have fallen by 30 per cent since 2009.
In the new system, universities will receive funding for as many students as they can enrol, rather than the federal government dictating how many places each could offer.
As a result, Victorian universities made almost 3000 more offers this year than last year. The biggest increases were in health, engineering and education courses. Almost 80 per cent of those who applied for an undergraduate degree have been offered a place. RMIT offered 1343 more places than last year, which meant the cut-off Australian Tertiary Admission Ranking (ATAR) required to get a place plummeted in some courses.
Students who applied to get into an associate degree in business were in luck - the cutoff ranking plunged from 69.65 last year to 50 this year.
The cutoff ranking for an associate degree in civil engineering at RMIT fell from 78.55 to 62.35, while an applied science degree in psychology at Bundoora campus decreased from 81.35 to 68.
Emmaline Bexley, a lecturer in higher education at The University of Melbourne, said it would be a mistake to suggest this would lead to a ''dumbing down''.
''Letting people in with an ATAR of 50 is brilliant as long as students are educationally prepared,'' Dr Bexley said.
She said while universities tended to use high cutoff rankings as an indicator of the prestige of their degrees, this was a ''bit of a game'' and the rankings were more indicative of demand for a course than what was required.
''This is going to give institutions more flexibility and allow a larger group of students in,'' Dr Bexley said.
She said a really good result would be if universities continued to differentiate in the students they targeted, such as Deakin attracting mature-age students and Victoria University focusing on those who lived in the western suburbs.
The impact of the shake-up was still a ''wild card'', and a potential weakness was that student demand for courses did not necessarily equate with labour market need, she said.
''There is always the CSI effect, where lots of students want to enrol in forensic medicine but there is not necessarily a great call for people to do forensic science,'' she said.
''This has been part of the rationale for having capped positions in the past - it has allowed the government to make strategic responses. It will be interesting to see in five years how it has turned out.''
Victorian Higher Education Minister Peter Hall said industry and education providers would need to work even more closely to ensure Victorian employees had the graduates they needed in the future.
RMIT vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner said the university had strong demand this year, with several new programs starting and a 29.1 per cent increase in applications for undergraduate study in health, 10.9 per cent increase in society and culture, and 8.6 per cent in information technology.
Professor Gardner said the university planned to maintain rather than increase its enrolments from this year to 2015.
The most popular degrees offered by Victorian universities were arts and science at Melbourne, which had ATAR cut-offs of 90.9 and 90.15 respectively.
Despite the lift on the cap on enrolments, Melbourne made only 49 more first-round undergraduate offers than last year, an increase of 0.8 per cent.
Deputy vice-chancellor Susan Elliott said due to the introduction of the Melbourne Model, which offered professional degrees at graduate level, the university was not seeking to increase its proportion of undergraduate students.
The second-round of offers will be released on February 3.