Bishop touts ‘graduate passport’
University graduates should be able to move more easily between jobs in Australia and overseas with a new type of “qualifications” passport to be introduced nationally. The Australian Diploma Supplement is also expected to give graduates easier access to overseas universities for postgraduate study. Education Minister Julie Bishop announced the move at a conference in Canberra last week to discuss Europe’s Bologna Process.
Europe is moving towards a giant higher-education bloc encompassing 45 countries which will adopt common degree structures and other common systems that are likely to create competition for Australia. Over 160,000 enrolments in 2005 came from overseas students in Australia’s tertiary institutions based on official reports. Over 80 per cent of these students have come from Asia. These figures illustrate the importance of retaining those students.
As a signatory to the 2002 Lisbon Recognition Convention, Australia is obliged to promote the diploma supplement. Ms Bishop said Australia had to find ways to demonstrate the quality and value of its qualifications. It was clear from industry feedback that a diploma supplement could achieve this. She has earmarked $400,000 for a consortium of universities to design a diploma supplement. Essentially it is a document of several pages attached to a graduate’s degree or diploma that can be easily understood by institutions and employers anywhere. It outlines their achievements, describes courses, the university attended, and the higher-education system in their country of study. In most European countries it is free and is issued in one or two languages.
The Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee gives it the thumbs-up. AVCC president and vice-chancellor of the University of Wollongong Gerard Sutton says a diploma supplement would eliminate the need for Australia to align exactly its degrees with European universities. While it would provide better access to foreign universities it would probably be more important in stimulating labour mobility, he says.
Ms Bishop told the conference it was imperative that Australia develop its own systems to encourage more students and academics to study and work overseas so as to promote further Australia throughout the world, in the face of European developments and competition.
