The APS has had a longstanding program of advocacy in place aimed at improving funding for the psychology discipline in higher education. Advocacy efforts were ramped up from 2004 when the Federal Government reduced the funding of Commonwealth-supported postgraduate places in psychology by some 59 per cent, only partially redressing this cut in 2008 following lobbying by the APS and the Head of Department and School of Psychology Association (HODSPA). Since that time, the APS has continued to rigorously advocate for appropriate funding for psychology courses, given the continued growth in demand for postgraduate professional psychology training places and particularly in the context of the Government’s program of reforms to higher education (see boxed information).
Key funding issues for psychology
Demand for undergraduate psychology places across the higher education sector in Australia has been strong for some years and there seems little evidence that this demand will abate in the near future. As in the USA, psychology is one of the most popular subject choices for higher education students and there is strong anecdotal evidence that the numbers of students studying psychology at the undergraduate level in Australia have been growing in a sustained fashion. Despite this continuing demand, funding for undergraduate psychology courses is certainly not without challenges. It is, however, at the postgraduate level that psychology faces its most urgent funding issues and these have therefore been the main focus of the APS advocacy efforts to date. The APS has consistently communicated several key messages in its advocacy for better funding arrangements for the psychology discipline, and these are summarised below.
Chronic underfunding leads to an increasing gap between demand and supply in postgraduate psychology courses
Mental health training is a priority area of the Australian Government’s health policies and initiatives and although not all psychologists work in the mental health sector, psychology is one of the largest disciplines in Australia’s mental health workforce. Despite this, data obtained by the APS suggest that postgraduate professional coursework Masters and Doctoral degrees have been in decline since 2004 when the Federal Government changed the cluster funding arrangements.
A comprehensive survey of the costs of postgraduate training undertaken by the APS in 2008 and involving Departments and Schools of Psychology in all States of Australia showed the average funding shortfall for Commonwealth Supported Places (CSPs) in postgraduate professional programs per student EFTSL per year is $8,426, with some institutions reporting figures higher than $15,000. These data confirm the consistent stream of anecdotal reports from higher education providers over the past five years of a serious funding shortfall between the costs of offering a place in an accredited entry level professional postgraduate degree in psychology and the government funding available for such places.
The consequence of this chronic under-funding appears to be declining numbers of postgraduate professional psychology courses and a loss of postgraduate professional training places across Australia (Voudouris & Mrowinski, 2010 ). The only available data set, collected by the APS and HODSPA in 2007, suggested a net decrease in postgraduate professional psychology degrees across Australia during the five-year period to January 2010 despite very large and growing unmet demand for postgraduate places, and despite the fact that the psychology profession is considered by Government to be an area of workforce shortage (Commonwealth of Australia, 2010). The corollary of this decline in courses was a 12 per cent decrease in the number of entry-level professional postgraduate degree places during the three year period from 2007 to 2010 despite record numbers of applicants for these courses in 2010 (Voudouris & Mrowinski, 2010 ).
The APS is aware of the very considerable numbers of suitable applicants for accredited professional postgraduate courses who are turned away every year because demand for places greatly outstrips supply. Specific measures are needed to arrest the growing shortfall between demand for, and available, places in postgraduate professional psychology degrees. In particular, the funding model must recognise and prioritise psychology as an area of workforce shortage by providing additional funding assistance, in the same way that previous priority areas such as nursing and teaching have been supported in the past.
Cluster-based funding relativities are outdated
The APS has consistently advocated that the relativities in the current Commonwealth Funding Clusters are based on outdated and incorrect assumptions. The psychology discipline is a science-based discipline and has always been taught as such. This is clearly reflected in the Standards set down by psychology’s accreditation body, the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC). APAC requires laboratory training components to support strong foundations in biology and other sciences in all accredited undergraduate programs which prepare graduates for education and training at the postgraduate level and evidence-based teaching at the postgraduate level.
The discipline has changed considerably over the more than twenty years which have passed since the current Commonwealth Funding Clusters were developed. The APS has pointed out to policy makers, for example, that the increasing importance of neuroscience in many elements of psychology combined with advances in technology mean the discipline’s teaching requirements much more closely resemble those of other science disciplines rather than those of the humanities. The international trend in psychology is that students require greater access to costly facilities and equipment to gain appropriate education in the discipline compared to the way the discipline was taught 20 years ago.
This is in part driven by the consolidation of the psychology discipline as a “hub science” (Boyack, Klavans, & Börner, 2005), which has promoted the strong multidisciplinary nature of psychology and led to a much larger role in the burgeoning fields of brain sciences. The increasingly multidisciplinary nature of psychology is reflected in the greater breadth of inputs required and outputs to be achieved (in the form of graduate attributes and competencies) for professional accreditation of both undergraduate and postgraduate courses (APAC, 2010).
Funding systems must recognise the full costs of education in the psychology discipline given the extent to which it has changed over the past 20 years. Specifically, if cluster funding arrangements continue under the new funding model, psychology must be reallocated from the current position in Funding Cluster 5 (clinical psychology, foreign languages, or visual and performing arts, where funding can reach a maximum contribution of only $15,972) to at least the funding level of Cluster 7 (engineering, science, surveying) to better recognise the true costs of offering this type of professional education. Should future funding abandon cluster arrangements, the central guiding principle in calculating base funding must be transparency of the contributing factors and base funding should primarily be based on the cost of delivering a course in a specified discipline. This should include elements for teaching materials, work-integrated learning and/or placement requirements, and required student-staff ratios (for professional training in particular). If additional factors are to be recognised, such as regional/remote location, lower income background and targeting of priority areas for rapid workforce growth, then these should be explicitly nominated and loading amounts allocated for each purpose. Such an approach would allow these loadings to be adjusted when circumstances change without having to revisit the whole funding model. Such explicit nomination would also ensure that the loading factors are transparent, can be evaluated for efficacy and will reduce the risk they will be lost in any compounded funding quantum.
More rigorous competency benchmarks and entry level registration standards have increased costs
Education and training requirements for the psychology profession need to meet the high competency standards required of work-ready graduates who are safe, ethical and skilled practitioners worthy of registration. Thus accreditation standards for psychology specify minimum student-staff ratios, as well as specifying the minimum numbers of supervision hours and practica required, resulting in high costs. In psychology, practical experience at the postgraduate level must total at least 1,000 hours to meet the requirements for general registration.
Work-integrated learning mainly in the form of external placement is a strong feature of accredited professional postgraduate coursework programs and is expensive, especially in the psychology profession where the training of psychologists requires complex and intensive accredited fieldwork training regimes, mostly conducted in small groups or one-on-one and requiring close supervision by highly qualified supervisors. Professional postgraduate training degrees are highly structured, comprising multiple elements including coursework, practical supervised training with multiple client groups, and an evidence-based research thesis addressing an applied problem. Mastery of professional competencies (such as interviewing, history taking, problem formulation, psychometric assessment, ethical practice, and planning, implementing and evaluating the effects of psychological interventions) requires a large quantum of workplace-based practica. These requirements make such degrees very expensive compared to some other postgraduate courses which are not aimed at producing work-ready professional practitioners.
The increasing cost of engaging appropriately qualified and accredited supervisors at ratios required to ensure adequate supervision and training, and the increasingly frequent expectation that placement providers will receive fees for accepting students (or at least cover costs associated with students operating in their workplaces), have been recognised by Health Workforce Australia as acute problems which are limiting the numbers of professional training places which can be offered by higher education providers (Health Workforce Australia, 2011).
Conclusion
It is clear that the current funding model is based on outdated assumptions and no longer adequately reflects the real costs of educating and training a psychologist, with a consequent large (and probably growing) shortfall between the number of applicants for postgraduate professionals training and available places in professional psychology courses. Should the Government take a decision to extend the demand-driven funding model of its current higher education reforms to postgraduate student places, higher education providers are more likely to withdraw places in courses for which there is a substantial shortfall between Commonwealth funding and real costs. Retention of a mechanism by which higher education providers can convert excess undergraduate CSPs to postgraduate CSPs will not be enough to permit an expansion of postgraduate places commensurate with growth in undergraduate psychology numbers if postgraduate professional courses in psychology continue to be grossly underfunded. Under a demand-driven funding model, the decline in postgraduate places and courses – and an increasing reliance on fee-based places which will result – could have very serious implications for the supply of psychologists to the Australian community.
The funding model to be adopted must specifically recognise and provide an additional funding loading where extensive placement pratica or other work-integrated learning are required by registration authorities in professional postgraduate courses like those in psychology. Alternatively, the funding model must provide prioritised support for professions in workforce shortage, such as psychology, to increase numbers of places.
Government Reforms to Higher Education
In October 2010, as part of the Government’s response to the Bradley Review of Higher Education, the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations announced a root-and-branch review of funding in higher education (the Higher Education Base Funding Review). The Review has coincided with the rolling out of the largest and most wide-ranging set of reforms to the higher education sector since the 1980s. One of the key aspects of the Government’s reform agenda is the plan for a large increase in the higher education participation rate, with the Government originally setting a target of at least 40 per cent of Australian 25- to 34-year-olds attaining a Bachelor’s degree by 2020 (currently this rate sits at around 34%).
While there has been some questioning as to whether such a target is attainable within the time frame set, the Government has remained committed to a major expansion of tertiary student numbers, and to achieve this has been planning to shift higher education funding to a demand-driven system in which there is much less government regulation over the numbers of undergraduate Commonwealth Support Places (CSPs). In the past, CSPs have been subject to Government-imposed caps on the numbers in each discipline cluster. These caps will be lifted from 2012, making higher education providers free to decide what courses they will offer and to decide how many students they wish to admit, but only for undergraduate places. The Higher Education Support Amendment (Demand Driven Funding System and Other Measures) Bill 2011 recently passed through the Senate, introducing amendments to the Higher Education Support Amendment (HESA) Act which will allow such a demand-driven undergraduate enrolment system to be created.
The Review has sought comment on a range of funding issues, including principles for public investment in higher education, funding levels required to remain internationally competitive, and the appropriate balance of public and private contribution. The APS has participated in the consultation process, both meeting in person with members of the Review Panel and making a written submission to the Review. The Government received the Final Report of the Base Funding Review recently, committing to its public release before the end of 2011 to allow comment from the higher education sector on the Report’s recommendations.
In November the Government also released a consultation paper concerning the allocation and funding of Commonwealth Supported Postgraduate Places, asking for comment on several potential models for the allocation and funding of non-research places under the new deregulated funding system. The APS is currently preparing a submission to this consultation.