Scandals in Australian universities

In Australia, scandals about the management of public universities continue to be covered in the media. A recent one is the use of billions of dollars to pay consulting firms to tell management which staff to sack and courses to cut because they are not making a profit.Below is a recent episode of an ABC (Australian equivalent of BBC or PBS in USA) show on the topic, Chaos on Campus.I tend to avoid engaging too much with media lamenting the state of unversities as I find it too disturbing. However, I was asked to reference the show in something I was asked to write and so felt I should watch it. It was painful.This is definitely a scandal. However, it got me reflecting on something that I think gets virtually no media coverage and when I talk to people outside the university, they are pretty surprised and shocked. Anecdotal evidence from my colleagues is that attendance at lectures is now typically around 10-30 per cent of enrolment. Even before COVID-19, lectures at UQ were all…