The federal government’s announcement they will more than double the cost of humanities and communications degrees for university students has taken the sector by surprise – not least because it goes against increasing evidence that these programs are the key to our nation’s future success.
If the government wants to support university courses that lead to jobs, they’d do well to listen to their business leaders who have been quite clear, in recent years, about the sorts of graduates they’re looking for….
Most of us working in these fields can explain with great conviction the richness our disciplines bring to students, and ultimately to the societies they live in.
They bring an understanding of the world, of past mistakes and future threats, of current failings we can try to solve, and of medical, social and environmental challenges that confront us.
Our ability to understand the impact of the current global pandemic or migration, the environmental crisis, social cohesion, poverty and its many side-effects, domestic violence, the effects of social media and politics are daily concerns in the humanities.
And increasingly, we are aware the scale of these problems and the failure of our current institutions to deal with them – the often-discussed “crisis of trust” – cannot be solved by science, mathematics, engineering and technology alone.
For other posts on humanities and business, see here.
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