Mayors push for another uni in west

Harriet Alexander Higher Education Reporter
Sydney Morning Herald
April 18, 2008

MAYORS in Sydney's west are pushing for a second university in the region because they say the University of Western Sydney is cutting vital courses, reducing staff and failing to meet demand from students.

The president of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, Tony Hay, said the region needed more university places to meet the growth in population, now 1.8 million.

"And if that means a second university in Western Sydney, so be it," said Mr Hay, who is also Mayor of Baulkham Hills.

South Australia, which has a smaller population, is served by three universities, he said.

The University of Western Sydney has six campuses, including Hawkesbury, Penrith, Bankstown, Parramatta, Campbelltown and Blacktown, but it announced last year it was winding up courses at the Blacktown campus.

It has cut its performing and fine arts programs and is rationalising its nursing program by moving places from Bankstown to the other three campuses where it is offered.

The university has also embarked on a voluntary redundancy program among academic staff, raising concerns about its already high staff to student ratio.

Leo Kelly, the Mayor of Blacktown, has asked the federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, to fund a restructure that would allow courses to continue at Blacktown, western Sydney's most populous postcode, and failing that, to build another university in the area.

"Our message to them was that the university had been dismantled by stealth and really needed to be restructured, with this Government's policy in mind, to allow people from this region to get an education," Cr Kelly said.

The university was only set up after lobbying by Blacktown Council, he said. "They've betrayed us."

Ms Gillard promised to send a policy adviser to assess problems at the university, he said.

Representatives from 11 councils, including Baulkham Hills, Blacktown, Penrith, Hawkesbury and Campbelltown, met the university's vice chancellor, Janice Reid, last week to discuss their concerns.

Professor Reid said the meeting was a watershed for the university's alliances with local government, but there were always a few mayors among the 14 councils in the university's catchment who were unhappy with its direction.

Professor Reid said the university had closed its Blacktown campus because few students were studying there and it was moving its nursing places as part of a broader program to concentrate courses at a few campuses where it could build critical mass.