Tertiary Education Industry in Australia - Essay Example

Tertiary education Industry in Australia Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Executive Summary Tertiary education in Australia comprises of both Universities and other colleges. It is a post secondary education. Globally Australian tertiary institutions have been performing well and ranked among the 200 best performing Universities globally. The tertiary education in Australia is sponsored by the government although there are some which are privately owned. This report discussed the factors which have impacted the tertiary education industry like the government involvement and the economical conditions. Further, the macro environmental factors impacting on the tertiary education industry discussed include social factors and demographic factors. In addition the micro environment factors discussed include promotional strategies and customers’ markets. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Industry overview 5 Environmental factors impacting tertiary education in Australia 6 Macro environmental factors 7 Social environment 7 Demographic factor 8 Micro environment factors 9 Customer market 9 Competitive pricing 10 Conclusion 10 Introduction Tertiary education is the education which is considered the last in a person’s life. It is the education beyond the secondary school level in Australia. Tertiary education institutions include colleges, Universities and training institutes, colleges for the communities and education learning centers for distant learning (Chenicheri et al 2011). The higher education institutions in Australia are either private sponsored or government sponsored. According to statistics which was conducted in the year 2009, there were 41 Universities in Australia. Out of the 41 Universities, 37 of them are public owned institutions, 2 of them are private owned Universities and the other two Universities were branches of overseas Universities. The decision making for higher education institutions in Australia is made by the government, governments of various territories and the institutions themselves. Most of the Universities in Australia are government sponsored. Under the Australian laws, it is the responsibility of the government to fund a higher percentage to higher institutions. It is registered under the Higher Education Support Act of 2003. Higher education institutions in Australia have been on the increase since the year 2003 (Kirsti 2013). The number of Universities and other Tertiary institutions has been increasing due to the demand for higher education. According to Times Higher Education World University Ranking, Universities of Australia were ranked among 200 the best performing in the world in the year 2011 and 2012. This led to higher demand for Australian Universities by overseas students. In this report therefore, I will discuss the reasons for rising Tertiary education in Australia, impact of Tertiary education in Australia and the environmental factors impacting Tertiary Education in Australia. The Vocational Education Training and higher education sectors were reformed in the years of 1970s. Industry overview There are various factors which have had an impact on higher education in Australia. The first factor that has had an impact on the tertiary education in Australia is the economic and policy pressures. In more stable economies like the countries of Northern Europe, labor market is highly regulated. They have a system of tertiary education which divided into vocational educational training and higher education sectors (Chenicheri et al 2011). In liberal market economies, the two sectors are aligned although they have different academic programs. These two sectors of tertiary education tend to compete with one another. In this regard, the education system enables individuals to compete in the labor market. This led to development of many tertiary education centers and programs. In Australia, there are two economical factors which have undermined the need to divide the tertiary education into vocational education and training and technical and further education sectors. The first factor is the decline in the role of diplomas in the labor market (Chenicheri et al 2011). People holding diplomas are competing with University graduates who possess degrees and other higher degrees. The diplomas are being pushed down and as a result they are losing their usefulness. In addition, degrees are becoming the minimum entry to many vacant positions. The tertiary education division will lose meaning if the diploma holders and degree holders will compete for the same positions. Due to decline in Diploma usefulness, many technical and further education institutions are being phased out of the market. In this regard, the institutions should try and remain relevant in higher education sector (Chenicheri et al 2011). They can only remain relevant in the higher education sector if they offer degree programs. Therefore this decline in usefulness of diploma holders, many technical and further education institutions have started offering degrees thus leading to the rising number of tertiary education institutions in Australia. Another economic pressure which has led to an increasing need for higher education levels in Australia is the increasing qualification levels. There have been changes in the Australian economy and most of its citizens have degrees rather than diplomas. The trend of having higher education is higher than people with diplomas (Gabriel 2012). As a result of increased employees with higher education skills both locally and globally, there is need to increase the skills of the employees. Through higher educations kills, the employees will be able to compete globally thus enable the country to compete in the global market. This led to increasing tertiary education institutions. For instance, Technical and further education institutions started offering degree programs and some of them were upgraded to Public Universities. The government policy also impacts on the sectoral divide of higher education. The government policy is that there is a close interconnection of the tertiary education institutions. The government policy that undermines the sectoral divide between higher education and technical and further education is that the government has failed to expand markets for tertiary education (Gabriel 2012). Both private owned Universities and public owned institutions compete for students and funding from the government. The private institutions can access government funding as well as the funding introduced by Commonwealth government which was introduced in the year 2012. The government further encourages tertiary education so that its employees will compete globally and also they will have expert skills to enable the economy of the country grow. This is an indication of that the government wants the tertiary education institutions to grow. In addition, there are different reporting structures to the government. Technical and further education (TAFE) report to a different government body while Vocational education and training reports to another government organ (Mahsood et al 2013). Due to these differences in reporting requirements, the funding systems and also quality assurance systems are also different. These differences in structures have led to two national regulators one for VET and the other one for higher education institutions. Due to this tertiary education sectoral division, quality assurance is not easy to harmonize because each sector has its own quality measures. Environmental factors impacting tertiary education in Australia Tertiary education in Australia has been impacted by various environmental factors. The environmental factors can be either micro environmental or macro environmental factors. The Micro environmental factors are the factors that an organization can have control like promotions and price while macro environmental factors are the factors that an organization has no control over them (Armstrong et al 2012). The tertiary education in Australia has been impacted by social and demographic macro environmental factors. The micro environmental factors which have impacted the tertiary education system include the competition and the customers’ demands. Macro environmental factors Social environment To start with macro environmental factors, social cultures of the greatly impacted on the tertiary education in Australia. In the first place, the laws of Australia give equal opportunities to all genders. There is no discrimination of any kind in the education system (Francesco 2011). Both women and women have equal opportunities and rights to education and there is no group which is given special treatment. Initially women were given a raw deal when tertiary education system was introduced in Australia. Later women were given equal treatment which led to increased competition thus the tertiary education institutions had to be increased to meet the demands of the customers who are the students in this case. In these Universities, the number of women and men is almost equal showing that both male and female students have equal opportunities to access the education thus increasing for tertiary education facilities. Another social factor that has impacted on tertiary education in Australia is equal treatment and lack of discrimination. There is equal treatment of foreign students like the local students. Unlike other places in the world where there is discrimination which can be racial or religious discrimination, Australian education system has put in place anti discrimination laws so as to improve its reputation globally (Michael et al 2010). The ant-discrimination laws have impacted a lot in the performance of the tertiary education sector in Australia. It has attracted many overseas students to Australia leading to high demand for the Universities. Due to this increased number of students in Australia, the education system has changed to accommodate the increasing number of University facilities. Furthermore, the tertiary education system can fund all students weather overseas or local students without any discrimination. Therefore, the social system in Australia has led to greater impact in the tertiary education sector. Demographic factor Demographic factors have also led to some impacts in the tertiary education system in Australia. Demographic factors include factors like changes in labor force and diversity of the labor force for instance the number of male and female employees (Mahsood et al 2013). There have been labor force changes in Australia leading to changes in the tertiary education system. For instance, there have been changes in the demand for skills to fill various positions. It is like becoming a trend that a university degree is the minimum qualification for various positions. In this regard, institutions which are offering diplomas are loosing meaning because many employers are considering first degree as minimum entry into the job market. Therefore many institutions which were not offering degree programs have introduced the degree programs so that they can remain relevant in tertiary education. Most technical and further training institutions are now offering degree programs to meet the demands of the students. Another macro environmental factor which has had impact on the Australian tertiary education is the diversity. According to the global market situation, diversification has been a major consideration in many work places. Diversity means that different organizations have different requirements in terms of labor for instance the workforce should include both old and young people, both male and female and also should encompass employees from different cultures. Due to increased demand in the labor market, there has been hire desires to promote diversity in the Universities of Australia so that they can take the international reputation (Francesco 2011). Diversity at workplaces has led to development of various programs to meet the different needs of the customers. For instance, most Universities have teaching programs like full time learning, part time learning and also distance learning. In addition, In the year 2012 most of the Universities introduced online learning where students can learn online and submit their assignements online. In this regard therefore, diversity at work places has led to expansion of tertiary institutions to meet the rising number students joining Universities and also has led to change in University programs to meet the demands of the customers (Armstrong et al 2012). Micro environment factors These are the internal factors which the organization or institution can have influence. Examples of the micro environment factors impacting tertiary education in Australia include promotional strategies, pricing strategies, competitors and customer markets (Armstrong et al 2012). Customer market An organization can have impact on the promotional strategies (Mahsood et al 2013). Many of the Australian Universities like the University of Australia have various strategies to reach out their customers. They have effective marketing strategies to ensure they attract many students than the competitor Universities globally. For instance, the Australian tertiary education institutions market their institutions on the internet and world forums where they create awareness of their institutions to customers (Armstrong et al 2012). In addition, the performance of the Australian Universities in the world ranking is good and this has attracted many students globally to join the Australian Universities. Furthermore, the Australian tertiary education institutions market their Universities through their representatives in various states. The need for representatives is to help the overseas students to find ease admission to the Universities (Richard et al 2013). They also conduct marketing of their Universities in different states globally. The impact of this marketing is that it has enabled Australian Universities to be diversified. They have managed to attract students globally and by the fact that Australian Universities are ranked better globally, the chances of securing better positions in their respective organization are high. In addition, the funding systems of the tertiary institutions are also not discriminative. The fees payable to Australian tertiary education institutions is low compared to other Universities in the world (Richard et al 2013). Australian post secondary education system is among the Universities whose fee structure is affordable. Due to global constraint economically, many students would rather join Universities where they can afford the fees than Universities where they can strain in paying the school fees. Competitive pricing Moreover, most of the Universities in Australia are funded by the government which implies that the fee payable is not too expensive. The funding caters for both international and local students. However, the fees paid by foreign students might be slightly higher than local students. The foreign students can also get grants and sponsorships. These factors have led to some changes in the Australian tertiary education system. Diversity has been promoted as well as and also the tertiary education system in Australia has been ranked as among the best performing globally (Mahsood et al 2013). The reason why there is a large number of students in Australia is because of the good funding system which makes the education system affordable. Also, they offer some programs online so that the students do not have to travel to the premises of the University. This has made the tertiary education to attract and retain more customers from the globe (Armstrong et al 2012). Conclusion Tertiary education in Australia is the education system which is post secondary. The institutions that offer tertiary education include Universities, middle level colleges, technical and further education training institutions, community institutions and educational training centers. The tertiary education system in Australia has been performing well globally because of the different systems they have put in place. The majority of these institutions are publicly owned while others are privately owned. Higher Education Support Act of 2003 gives the government responsibility to manage the Universities which include funding. There are various factors which underpinned the harmonization of higher education and vocational training and education. These factors include economical factors like the increasing need for higher education skills and the decline in labor market for diploma holders. Also reporting structure undermines the sectoral division because the tertiary education sectors have different reporting structures to the government. There are micro and macro environmental factors which have impacted on the tertiary education system in Australia and they include social environment and the demographic environment. The micro environmental factors which have impacted on the tertiary education system in Australia include promotional strategies and customer market. References Armstrong, Kotler, et al, 2012, Principles of Marketing, 5th edn, Pearson, Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia. Chenicheri S. N. Nicolene M & Patricie M 2011, Benchmarking the student experience: the offshore campus experience, The TQM Journal, Vol. 23, No. 6, pp. 673-687 Francesco, S 2011, Developing communities: serving ACE through tertiary Education, Education + Training, Vol. 53, No. 2, pp. 181-. 192. 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