Education in Australia

One of the major differences here in Australia is the education system, particularly higher education (tertiary education, as they call it here). Perhaps there are just as many differences in primary (elementary) and secondary (middle school/high school), but we just aren’t as aware of them, since we don’t really have any way to know what school is like here. We can see that everyone wears uniforms, but apart from that difference, we can’t really report back on that aspect of the Australian education system.

However, we have been able to experience the university education experience here, and we can definitely say that things are pretty different. We’ll share with you the bits and pieces we’ve picked up from conversations with people about the education system here, which surely is not a comprehensive review of the Australian education system. But, it’s been an interesting and frequent topic of conversation for us, and one that certainly seems worth blogging about. So here goes…

When you go to university, you essentially decide what you’re going to study before you begin. The subject you study is largely determined by how well you do on exams at the end of secondary school (high school). Certain subjects, say physics or maths (as they call it here) or medicine, require higher marks on the exams than say psychology. There is flexibility for switching, and it sounds like some universities are experimenting with American-style systems, where you pick your major after a year or two of college, but for the most part, everyone sets out in a certain subject at the beginning.

Undergraduate degrees are only three years long here in Australia. However, this is also beginning to shift towards a more American-style system. Currently, you can stay for a fourth year dubbed ‘Honors’ where you get to do individual research (sort of like a senior thesis). So while that fourth year is not required, more and more employers are requiring that fourth year if you want an interesting job with prospects for advancement. In geology, students that only take three years can expect to be logging core in a warehouse for the next ten years. Actually, honors in geology at the University of Adelaide where Dave is teaching, is a great year—guided research and lots of amazing field trips (New Zealand and Arkaroola in the northern Flinders to name a couple).

So the undergraduate experience is becoming more equivalent to an American degree. However, PhDs are still a bit different. At only three years, you just don’t have the time to do the same amount of field work, publishing, and writing. The result is that a fair number of PhD projects are more like master’s projects in the United States. Don’t get me wrong, some of the PhD students are on par with average American PhD students, but they represent the best students here. Also, the Government funds the PhDs, and universities collect the money when students finish their PhDs, so universities have a clear incentive for people to finish their PhDs.

Another major difference is that a lot of university students live at home. Why do most students live with their parents? Well, it is the cultural. In some ways it makes sense—save some money until you have a job and can pay for your own place. However, it is also due at least in part to the ratio of schools to students in Australia, and perhaps limited options for on-campus housing. There really aren’t that many universities (just 3 four-year schools in the entire state of South Australia), so they are all pretty big. There’s definitely no such thing as a small liberal arts school. If you like numbers, here are some good ones: According to Wikipedia, there are 41 universities in Australia, only 2 of which are private. (Our neighbors thought that number even sounded high when we mentioned it.) In the US, there are 4,861 colleges. (For reference, our population is about 15 times bigger than Australia’s, but we have 100 times more schools, and about 25 times more students.)

Another reason students stay at home is because going to a school outside of your state is not very common. Moving from your home in Adelaide to Melbourne to attend Monash University would be almost unthinkable for an undergraduate degree. Even at the PhD level, the majority of students are still at their undergraduate institution in their home state.

This has some interesting consequences. While there is some difference in the prestige of schools (for example, University of Adelaide is considered the ‘better’ place to go in South Australia), the fact that students stay in their home state means that there is little concentration of the more talented and hard-working students. There are no Harvards or Stanfords in Australia, with the possible exception of Australian National University. Combined with the relatively short duration of undergraduate and PhD degrees, this puts Australians at a disadvantage compared to Britons, Americans, and northern Europeans.

Consequently, the research branches of CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) have a huge percentage of foreign employees. (That’s a little ironic since CSIRO was created as a place to do research in Australia, since Universities didn’t initially conduct original research.) The teaching faculty in the geology department at Uni Adelaide is also one-third non-Australian. This isn’t to say that there aren’t talented individuals coming out of the Australian higher education system—international exchange is common among academics and researchers. However, when Australians are underrepresented in their own institutions, it speaks volumes about the system that is preparing them. And Australians coming from a PhD or a post-doc and going to the United States to compete for teaching or research jobs are, well, buried somewhere in a haystack.

Apparently, a large report came out in 2008 (called the Bradley Report), which highlighted the lack of university-qualified students in Australia. The report said that demand would outpace supply this year, which could be why it’s fairly easy to find a job here. Our view is almost certainly skewed by the fact that we come from the US, which has the highest percentage of people with college degrees. (In fact, I recently came across this article, which I thought was pretty interesting.) However, when other things here seem so similar to the US, it’s definitely startling for us to realize how different the higher education situations are in the two countries. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens to education here in Australia in the coming years.