Academic Staffing Trends in Go8 and Other Australian Universities, 2000-2010. Go8 Backgrounder 25

This paper presents an analysis of trends in actual full-time equivalent (FTE) university staff over 2000-2010 for Go8 and non-Go8 universities. Staff are classified by function as "Academic" or "Other". Academic staff are classified as Research Only (RO) or Teaching and Research (T&R) or Teaching Only (TO). The evidence shows that the assertions of Professor Frank Larkins are wrong in fact and interpretation. Professor Larkins published a paper in October 2011 which, regrettably, has been reported without question in the Australian and international media. Larkins asserted that universities have been pursuing their own research interests above all else and students are being short-changed as a consequence. He alleged that universities have been reclassifying academic staff in order to game assessments of research quality. He claimed that "the coursework student to T&R + TO staff ratio was concerningly high at 34:1 in 2010". The available evidence does not support his claims. The key findings of the analysis include: (1) The coursework student to teaching staff (T&R + TO staff FTE) ratio in 2010 was 21.7 for Australia's universities in aggregate; (2) Academic staff with a Teaching Only (TO) function have increased as student enrolments have grown; (3) Academic staff with a Research Only (RO) function have increased as research funding has grown; (4) Academic staff with a Teaching and Research (T&R) function have increased but at a lower rate than TO and RO staff; (5) The proportion of casual staff rose only modestly over the decade 2000-2010; and (6) Non-academic staff have increased at a slightly higher rate than academic staff. (Contains 9 figures, 12 tables, and 2 footnotes.)