Education Committee Meeting 5-2006

Meeting 5/2006 of the Education Committee was held on Wednesday 6 September 2006, in the Sir George Lush Room, Building 3A, Clayton campus, between 2:15 and 3:30 pm.

Professor M Evans (Acting Chair), Ms J Allen, Professor D Arnott, Ms S Bell, Associate Professor G Codner, Professor T Dingle, Associate Professor B Doecke, Ms G Funes, Mr C Holmes, Professor O Hughes, Associate Professor J Hurst, Ms G Key, Professor M King, Associate Professor T Luff, Mr T Masocco, Dr L McCall, Professor D Murphy, Associate Professor P O’Connor, Dr T Patti, Associate Professor L Roller, Ms L Smith, Drs D Taylor, C Varsavsky, Professor G Webb, Mr P Yates, Professor W Young.

By invitation:

Observer:

Dr B Loff, Ms L Day

Professor S Parker, Associate Professor S Joy, Dr H Kreutz, Mr P Marshall, Mr L Whiteley

Mr T Calder (Secretary)
 

MINUTES

On behalf of the Committee, the Chair welcomed those invited to attend as speakers and observers.  RMO2002/0476
 

4.  MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

*4.1  B-HERT Awards  RMO1998/2187

The Chair informed members that up to five applications for B-HERT awards had been submitted.

The Academic Board noted all matters that were reported for information from meeting 4/2006 of Education Committee.
 

Introducing the item for discussion, the Chair noted that the process of subcommittees of Education Committee submitting their unconfirmed Minutes for inclusion on the Education Committee agenda was a good mechanism for ensuring that members were aware of the issues and activities being considered by the Subcommittees however, the process could be refined for those matters that were considered by the Subcommittee and then referred on to Education Committee for approval.

Secretarial note: At the conclusion of the meeting, the Chair, Secretary and Chair of a Subcommittee discussed the issue and reached a view that unconfirmed Minutes of Subcommittees should continue to be submitted for noting however, any matters requiring Education Committee’s approval should be included in a separate report, with supporting documentation, for Education Committee’s consideration.

The Secretary was requested to develop a proforma report for initial consideration by the Chair.

*6.1  Access Program for Refugees  RMO2006/0881

Following an introduction by the Chair, Professor King, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research and Research Training, commended the proposal for the introduction of Monash Alumni Scholarships and suggested several areas of the proposal that could be further refined. These included the following:

• As HDR students do not receive a GPA the selection process would need to be reconsidered for them.
   
• Funds donated and used for HDR purposed count as research income which in turn generates further benefits for the university. This introduces the incentive to direct external donations to HDR Scholarships and direct internal funding to coursework scholarships.

Following further discussion, it was proposed that a working party be established to refine aspects of the proposal and develop an implementation plan for consideration by both Education Committee and the Monash Research Graduate School Committee.

The Working Party to consist of:

Chair – Professor Max King
Mr Gerard Toohey
Others as identified / volunteers

The Chair outlined to members features of the pilot special admission scheme where students from under-represented schools would sit an aptitude test for admission to courses at Berwick Campus.

The aptitude test, developed by Cambridge Assessment (UK) and the Australian Council for Educational Research, had been used successfully by UK universities. In response to a question, members were advised that successful applicants would need to successfully complete Year 12.

Referring to the approved exceptions as detailed at item 4.1 – Week 13 Policy of the unconfirmed Minutes, it was agreed that the approved exception ‘Oral Presentation’ be amended to ‘Assessable Oral Presentations’.

During the discussion, it was suggested that the preferred methodology for calculating the WAM could be more clearly stated insofar that it indicated that the weighting for 1^st year was ½ of subsequent years. This is to allow for any transition issues students may experience.

The Committee discussed the proposal as detailed in the documentation and agreed with the general direction subject to the matter also being considered by the Monash Research Graduate School Committee.

During discussion members noted/advised the following:

• prospective international students have indicated that a university’s ranking is increasingly an important consideration when choosing where to enrol;
   
• some off-shore based multi-national companies prefer to select employees from more highly ranked universities;
   
• Monash was the only Go8 university to receive 3 out of 5 stars for positive graduate outcomes; and
   
• Employability of students was an important metric as is the need to monitor trends.

Statistical data by faculty/campus is available at the following url:

http://www.ups.monash.edu.au/planning/environment/Rankings/

http://www.ups.monash.edu.au/academic/analyses/

At the request of the faculty this item was withdrawn and not considered.

The Chair invited Professor Graham Webb, Pro Vice-Chancellor – Quality to update members on recent and impending activities relating to the AUQA Audit.

Professor Webb informed members that a subset of the AUQA Panel had recently visited Malaysia Campus, TMC in Singapore, Hong Kong (by teleconference), South Africa campus and most recently Gippsland campus.

Themes emerging from the audit include cross-campus linkages, research intensiveness, dissemination of MEQ and unit evaluation data and follow-up actions, staff development, equity issues and internationalisation.

Professor Webb commended staff who had participated in the Mock Audit process and advised the Committee that participants in the AUQA audit had advised him that the Mock audit process had significantly assisted them in preparing for the actual audit.

Data relating to student performance is available at the following url:

http://www.ups.monash.edu.au/statistics/summary/

The Chair advised that the next Compliance Audit was scheduled for November. In an effort to minimize the impact on faculty workloads, previous audit returns would be sent to faculties for updating.

The Chair introduced the item noting the importance of this process given the devolution to faculties of course and unit amendments.

While noting that approval of new courses, or amendments to courses falling within the six defined categories of university-level strategic significance, require the approval of the Senior DVC or nominee, members noted that aspects of the course proposal templates were being refined including the addition of the requirement for Associate Deans – Teaching to crosscheck with other faculties when approving new units.

Matters raised/noted during discussion included:

• the need to ensure that units were not duplicated across faculties and that ‘service teaching’ was used where practicable;
   
• following a discussion about a recent example of a unit that was badly named, members discussed the need for careful naming of units;
   
• the utility – or otherwise – of service teaching where the unit needed to be delivered within the framework and context of the core discipline;
   
• that service teaching may adversely expose students to differing faculty policies such as Special Consideration; and
   
• devolution of unit approvals means that faculties needed to be more vigilant of prohibited unit combinations.

The Chair thanked members for their contributions and noted that the process would continue to be refined.

The next scheduled meeting of the Education Committee (Meeting 6/2006) will be held at 2:15 pm on Wednesday 11 October 2006 in the Sir George Lush Room, Ground floor, Building 3a, Clayton campus.