Loading
The federal government and the Australian Psychological Society have both raised concerns about a major shortage of psychologists. The mental health crisis that has been increasing globally in recent decades is not going away. Yet the university’s introductory first-year psychology subject (which can be studied through both arts and science, and is one of the most popular first-year subjects) has been pushed into that top fee tier.
Similarly, social and digital media are exerting a growing influence over the way society functions in the 21st century. But media subjects also fall within the highest fee bracket. Ancient Greek, though not spoken for 2000 years, is seemingly more “vocational”.
Surely, if the Job-ready Graduates scheme aimed to create employable graduates, it would incentivise subjects in areas that fill existing and predicted job shortages. So why are psychology and media students paying four times as much as classics students?
To be clear, I don’t consider classics to be any less important than media and psychology; I’m a literature major after all. I believe that every arts subject is important in a different way – whether it opens up job opportunities, or critical thinking, empathy and imagination. As a result, I think arts subjects should all be priced equally, so that students are free to pursue the areas of study that actually interest them.
Loading
But even if you disagree with that, if the intention of the Job-ready Graduates scheme is to make graduates more employable, then how does charging higher fees for many vocational subjects help to achieve that goal?
Instead, this policy seems to suggest that the scheme’s proponents want the next generation of “job-ready” arts students to be Latin-speaking, Don Juan-loving hieroglyph experts, rather than graduates in public policymaking, media and psychology.
Saria Ratnam is a University of Melbourne arts student. She was highly commended in the 2023 Age/Dymocks Essay Prize for young writers and is currently working as an intern at The Age.
The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.
Read the full article here
