These words are not mine, but they do a good job at expressing my fears for the future of our #TertiarySector
“The university sector’s continued high spending on consultants and the uncertainty staff face may well be contributing to a crisis in higher education staff mental health.
Adelaide University’s own Professor Maureen Dollard published results of a university sector survey last week indicating what many have been saying for the past few years: psychological safety in Australia’s higher education sector is in very poor shape.
Universities are alike in high spending on consultants and alike in poor psychological safety for staff. The low state of staff morale at UTS and ANU in particular has received plenty of coverage in the press. What Professor Dollard’s work shows in this new study is how this phenomenon is present throughout the higher education sector.
It is past time for a re-evaluation of how universities engage with consultants and how they can be better employers and better providers of the education students need.”
Source:
https://thepoint.com.au/news/260219-was-the-adelaide-university-merger-really-worth-185-million-in-consultants
The truly frightening revelations is the cost of Consultancies — in this case AU (Adelaide University) merger costs:
“The contract, which ran from September 2023 to 5 January 2026, was worth around $399,000 per day, or equivalent to the annual salaries of a professor and a senior lecturer combined. Put another way, the consulting contract was the equivalent to the salary of 420 professors and 420 senior lecturers for a year.
Was the level of complexity of the merger enough to justify spending the same amount as it would on the annual labour of 840 highly educated academics?”
Truly gobsmacked by this one… meanwhile, the cost of an Arts Degree (BA) is daunting for all who enrol for one — thanks to the Morrison (#ScottyFromMarketing) Jobs ready Graduate scheme.