21 October 2024: University of Canberra (ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø) Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen Parker AO has foreshadowed proposals for organisational change to bring the University’s budget back into balance by the end of 2025.
“The University is sustainable on its current funding levels if it is re-balanced and managed prudently,” said Professor Parker this morning at a staff Town Hall.
While the University continues to work through the proposals, Professor Parker emphasised that ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø would continue to offer high quality teaching and research.
The University needs to take approximately $50 million out of recurrent expenditure before the end of 2025, which will affect all levels of the institution but protect students’ education and experience.
While recent changes to Government policies concerning international and domestic students have contributed to the University’s poor financial performance, Professor Parker noted the University is spending beyond its means.
“The University itself is responsible for this unsustainable position. We cannot expect any external assistance and must take urgent and significant measures to re-balance the institution. There is no point in blaming others,” he said.
Some current measures being taken include:
- reducing the University’s senior executive from five to three positions;
- subject to consultation, removing up to nine further senior manager positions;
- reducing strategic programs, notably the Digital Master Plan and the Education Transformation and Growth program of work, entailing a mix of cancelling some components and deferring others; and
- reductions to discretionary budgets across a large range of line items.
Staffing positions in the University’s five faculties and across its professional services will not be exempt but the final position is dependent on the outcome of consultation and work that is still under way.
“I expect at least 200 staffing positions to be removed this year and in the first half of next year,” he said. “Some will be found from positions that are or become vacant and contracts that are expiring, but redundancies seem inevitable.”
The University will be guided by a number of principles, including the need to protect safety, compliance obligations, student recruitment, student experience, educational quality, research funding and staff experience.
“It is a complex task to be performed in a short space of time and as consultatively as possible,” said Professor Parker.
Professor Parker apologised unreservedly to the University community for needing to take this action stating that it should not have been necessary, and further committed to consulting with student bodies, unions and staff groups.
“The University has a continuing bright future as a distinctive, research-active, high quality educational institution. It is sustainable on its current student numbers, but it is not currently self-sustaining. We need to sort this out ourselves, a task to which the University Council and the Executive are entirely committed.”