By Marina Cameron
Although the government's bill to allow the charging of up-front undergraduate fees will go before the Senate only this week, Open Learning Australia (OLA) has already begun to charge fees for 1997. The passage of the bill is by no means assured; the opposition parties have pledged to block major parts of it.
The national education officer of the National Union of Students, Dave Taylor, said on November 22, "According to a letter sent to all Open Learning students which has been obtained by NUS, all people enrolling in units in 1997 are required to pay $93 per unit as an up-front charge. This fee is required to be paid today, before the Senate has even considered the bill.
"OLA was originally supposed to be an accessible form of education for people who faced difficulty in obtaining access to on-campus study. This fee makes it as inaccessible as ever."
The government's proposed amendments to the Higher Education Funding Act 1988 include deleting the word "postgraduate" from the section allowing postgraduate fees, which Labor inserted into the bill in 1994. This would remove any legislative restrictions on the charging of any fees for higher education.
Minister for education Amanda Vanstone announced at the time of the federal budget that undergraduate fees would be permitted for 25% of students on top of the quota of government/HECS-funded places, but kept quiet plans to allow the charging of up-front fees for all OLA courses.
A Resistance delegate for NUS at the Northern Territory University, Sibylle Kaczorek, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, "This is just another example of the complete disregard of student rights by the Liberals. They've already made the decision to charge fees, and they don't care how it is done. Their willingness to allow the current restrictions on fees (already eroded by 13 years of Labor government) to be flouted is a big concern.
"OLA and the original overseas students program initiated in the late '70s were intended to improve access to education by rural dwellers, the disabled and those from Third World nations. Fees have turned these courses into special programs for the rich here and overseas. There is no doubt that this is exactly what the Liberals have planned for all higher education."