Economic Reforms in the Australian Education Industry

Question: Discuss about the Economic Reforms in the Australian Education Industry. Answer: Introduction Education is at the top priority of a human life. It has turned to be a necessity of current generation people. Furthermore, the education industry serves as a major contributor of the real GDP of the Australian economy. Hence, the Commonwealth government pays regular attention on the education industry and keeps on introducing different reforms to modify the present status of the high revenue earning sector (Piracha, 2010). Currently, the education industry of Australia has seen a fall in the earnings due to the fall in the number of foreign student. The education industry has evident several economic reforms in the last few years that have been enforced by the Commonwealth government to manage the declining revenue of the Education industry (Smyth, 2014). The paper has been developed to conduct an analysis of the economic reforms made in the education industry by the Australian Government to maintain a balance in the economy. Hence, the paper aims to study the current scenario and challenges in the education industry to understand the need of micro-economic reforms in the sector. Furthermore, the study presents the previous and current changes implemented by the government to stabilise and minimise the challenges of education industry that impacts the economic condition of the nation. Analysis of the reforms in educational industry It is important to note that the number of foreign students in Australia has gradually decreased in the recent years. It impacts the foreign earnings of the government. On the other hand, the cultural and racial conflicts in Australia have been a supportive factor for the decline of foreign students in the country (Turpin, 2010). Previously, the Commonwealth Government mainly focused on the lower level and high school level educations by spending a huge amount of money to implement technological innovation in the school level educations (Watson, Modgil and Modgil, 2007). The high rate of spending in the school level education impacts the quality of education in the higher level education system. Along with that, the Australian Education system lack primary courses that are in high demand in the global market. It is important to note that the major percentage of the revenue from the education industry is earned through the foreign students and the government imply any foreign marketin g policy. Hence, there is a need of better marketing tactics that could help the Australian Education Industry seek growth in the current market scenario. There are several changes required in the policy of the government. To improve the current status of education, the government and educational institutions need to provide better training to the education staffs. On the other hand, the government needs to increase its spending on graduate level educations (Dodd, 2016). There is a need to provide educational loans to the foreign and domestic students at low interest rates to promote education in the country. It will attract foreigners to come to Australia to study higher degree courses (Pockley, 2013). On the other hand, the educational institutions can introduce new courses that in high demand in the global market. Hence, it can be seen that there are need of economic reforms in the education industry to meet the target of $20 billion of foreign earnings in the year 2018. The current Australian government is eyeing towards sustainable education reforms to drive innovation in higher education. The higher education of reforms of Australia has an estimated budget of AU$33.7 billion. The identified education reforms of the government have included deregulation of university fees, advanced numeracy and literacy programmes, and education loan approvals for students of Australia and other countries (Dodd, 2016). According to a report published by the Department of Education, the entry standards of universities have significantly lacked transparency. Hence, the federal government of the country has been forced to take control of the higher education panel to overview the admission reforms of the universities. In this way, billions of dollars in public debt can be restrained. Moreover, significant education reforms must be enforced regarding information technology and commerce education as the highest proportion of domestic as well as international students ha ve pursued to that degree (Bagshaw and Smith, 2016). On the basis of contradictory purpose, Simon Birmingham, the Education Minister of Australia, is going to introduce recent university funding policies of the federal government. Surprisingly, the policy has been determined to cut down the funding made to those universities following the budget (Dodd, 2016). Thus, an indirect impact can be seen on the university fees as universities will raise their fees in order to deal with the situation of funding cuts (Li and Powdthavee, 2015). Considerably, the higher education funding system has become of the contemporary issues for the federal government to be handled in an efficient manner. Moreover, the hikes in the students fees may have added extra challenges to deal with in recent times. On the other hand, latest education policy reforms have addressed that the federal government of Australia would stop funding the public schools of the country. According to a statement of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the government will continue to support the private schools seeing the spectacular changes in the nations schooling system in recent times (Knott, 2016). Understandably, the questions have been asked about such decision-making of the federal government. Invariably, the government of Australia has found more interests to allocate funds to the private schools so that new income tax systems can be enforced (VukasovicÃÅ' , 2012). The latest funding agreement of the government may underpin some of the education syst em models of the country. Through such efficient funding policies and reform measures, the federal government of the country wants to deliver clarity, responsibility and innovativeness among the education system and facilities (Marginson, Kaur and Sawir, 2011). Apparently, the education reforms should enhance the standards of government bureaucracy. Conclusion The latest education reform proposals have been considered following the federal governments budgetary moves securing the interest of the social public. Nevertheless, the university funding cuts will eventually lead to the hike in the students fees. On the other hand, the school funding decisions have enforced significant transparency and control on government bureaucracy leading to the educational system. However, the Higher Education Participation Programmes including several teachers and students can provide significant opportunities to the teaching staffs to become efficient and successful learners. Additionally, some proposed changes linking the pay raise of the teachers can be considered to deliver standard foundation to the education system of the country. References Bagshaw, E. and Smith, A. (2016).What's going wrong with Australia's schools?. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. 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