Assessing Sustainability of Engineering Entry Standards in Australia

This report delves into the sustainability of Australian engineering, focusing on the implications of lowered entry standards to universities. It investigates previous attempts to regulate entry standards, compares Australian policies with those of other countries, and assesses the sustainability implications for engineering and IT professions. The report examines the impact of these standards on various aspects, including management, resources, quality, and student numbers. It also considers the need for reforms to ensure the quality of education and the future of engineering and IT. The report concludes by advocating for radical reforms to improve entry standards, ensuring the recruitment of quality students crucial for the engineering and IT sectors.

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY IN AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERING
SUSTAINABILITY IN AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The report is about the widening of access to the universities of Australia. This has
lowered the entry standards in Australian universities. The Australian universities are
becoming business minded. The aim of this report is to discuss about these entry standards
how these are sustainable in engineering and IT professions. The report focuses on the
previous attempts to regulate the entry standards. The report also focuses on the comparison
of these standards in Australia with other countries and how they can be applied to
engineering and Information technology. Last but not the least, the sustainable suggestions
for the lower entry standards in the engineering and IT. The report concludes by saying that
Australia should make some radical reforms in their system. The reform is to make the
standard of entry into universities higher so that quality students get recruited which will be
very important for the engineering and the IT profession.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Investigations.........................................................................................................................3
Comparison of policy measures.............................................................................................6
Assessment of the application of the policy measures...........................................................7
Assessment of sustainability implications.............................................................................8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction:
Australia has significantly lowered the standard that is required for entry to her
universities in the quest for the fees of foreign students in the face of a capped domestic
market. Mass tertiary education remains a defining feature of the political landscape, with
little cognisance given to the engineering, IT and the sustainability implications of lowered
entry standards to the respective professions (McKay and Devlin 2016). The report focuses to
investigate on the previous attempts to control the entry standards to the professional degrees
in Australia. The report also discusses the impact of regulation (Drahos 2017). The report
deals with the comparison of the policy measures that are enacted in other countries and to
assess the desirability of their application to the engineering or information technology
professions in Australia. The report also focuses on the assignment of the implications of the
sustainability to the lower entry standards to the engineering and information technology
professions.
Investigations
The Australian Qualifications Framework defines the standards for the educational
qualifications in Australia. The Australian Government’s department of industry nationally
controls it (Young and Allais 2016). The AQF defines the education and the standards and
the authorities that are accrediting in order to issue a qualification authorize the training
organizations. The tertiary institution system of Australia can be divided into two parts
vocational schools and universities (Wheelahan 2015). The vocational system can be called
as TAFE that is technical and further education. The Australian universities are abandoning
their own entry standards in order to give admission to the high-paying international students.
The body who are representing the education agents in India say that the international
students must take an English test that is independent (Read 2015). At some universities, they

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say that they are seeing cases of misconducts in some courses. The universities set and
maintain their own standards of English and they can abandon them at their own discretion
(Murray 2016). The universities of Australia are also accepting the letters of instruction for
the students who are postgraduates from Nepal and India. The universities give millions of
dollars to the federal government (Partridge et al 2018). The recruitment of the international
students is a valuable source of income to the universities. The government of Australia
administers then higher education under a commonwealth minister. There are different types
of issues that are arising due to the current policies and the practices. These illustrates the
how the education policy has transformed in the recent years with the objective and the
critical analysis of its implications it does not have a proper regard for the consequences. The
issues are on four types.
 Management
 Resources
 Quality and
 Student numbers.
Management: There are two types of management in the universities, first is the internal
management of the institutions and the second is government of Australia. The universities
are not there for making profits but to give education to the students. In the recent years, the
government of Australia did nothing to manage the universities but convinced them to do
business with the students (Ryan and Zuber-Skerritt 2017). The government have intervened
in the business of the universities. The government allocates extra funds to the universities,
which the universities freely take, and the government intervenes in the purpose of the
institutions.

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Quality: There have been doubling universities and the large numbers of people are getting
admitted to these universities. For these reasons, the qualities of these universities have
lowered (Lim 2018). The efficiency and the effectiveness of these institutions have also
lowered. To this date, there has been no attempt of assessment of the efficiency and the
effectiveness (Gore et al 2016).
Resources: In the last twenty years there has been no public funding for the higher education
institutions The view of the government was to improve the efficiency of the universities so
that the burden that is imposed on the finances of the government (Treagust et al 2015). The
deficiency that the universities have faced is due to two reasons. First, the introduction of
bargaining of the enterprise and the common wealth decision.
Student Numbers: There have been increased participations in the higher education of
Australia. Over the past ten years, the policies have encouraged access and the higher
education system growth. However, there was no discussion about the level of access the
system can be. The tradeoffs, the students, and the standards of entry and between the number
of students and the resources that are available for teaching each student, are ignored. The
standards of entry are inversely proportional to the number of students that are enrolled. The
numbers of students that are enrolled are a standard but the number of students that are better
is not the standard (Moore and Morton 2017). The main priority here is the quantity and not
the quality. If the standards of the entry fail like this then low quality of work is expected
from the students and the degree will of no value. Over the past ten years, the enrolment is
faster than the funding. The resources that were available per student are lowered. Because of
this, the quality of the faculties in the universities has deteriorated. This has also
compromised the standards. The size of the system of higher education that is to be supported
by the funding of the government should be a result of a decision that is deliberate. The
decision should be taken after an analysis of the objective that considers the interrelationship

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among the access levels, the entry standards, the cost per student, demand of the student and
too see if there access to other post-school training and education. This did not happen in the
past twelve years in Australia.
Comparison of policy measures
The International Higher Education (IHE) has become a preoccupation of policies
around the world. The governments of different countries are seeing the advantages of wealth
that are available from the international engagement. In the United Kingdom, effective
regulation is important to provide accountability for the funds of the public and to protect the
student’s interest. The goal of UK higher education is to ensure that there is comparability
and consistency of arrangements. The assessment of the external quality should be
proportionate. The risk that are founded and based on the institutional assurance
arrangements those are effective (Gibbons Neumayer and Perkins 2015). The education
sector should maintain a robust and shared quality of baseline. The regulation should protect
the students against the negligent and quality providers that are poor. The higher education
UK is a story of global success. It has revenue of two billion Euro and there are huge number
of students and staff. With comparison to these the Australian higher education is nowhere to
the Higher education system in UK (Bachan 2017). The Australian education system has now
become profit based rather than giving education to the students. The standards have become
low as the enrolments are more and qualities of education have gone down. India’s higher
education system is the third largest in the world but things did not grow and develop or the
development has been very slow in the last few years. Like Australia, India needs some
reforms in the higher education system. The focus should be given on standards of
transparency that are higher. It will strengthen the doctoral and the vocational education. The
rise of the engineering and the IT education is India has taken the students to the straight path
that is everyone is opting for Engineering (Paul, Bhuimali and Aithal 2017). These students

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should be given the chance to discover and then explore their passions. To do this,
collaborative and concerted efforts are needed to broaden the choices of the student through
the education of liberal arts. Australia like these should radical reforms to make the education
system better and full of quality. It should be based on quality and not quantity. The entry in
the universities should be based on the performance not on the amount of money or the
amount of enrolments.
Each year a significant amount of students, go abroad for quality education. A large
amount of money is spent and the result is a missed economic opportunity (Sánchez and
Singh 2018). The local students should be retained and the foreign students should be
attracted so that the funds are increased in the education sector resulting in quality education.
To provide quality of higher education, the assurance of quality is must. The assurance of
quality has become an important issue all over the world. The institutions that provide higher
education require assuring a good quality of service in order to remain alive in the market
they operate. These institutions are considered the providers of services like the non-
profitable and the profitable organizations.
Assessment of the application of the policy measures
The policy measures for the higher education can be desired to the engineering and
the IT professions in Australia. The students should be taken based on their quality. In
Australia, the students are taken based on number of enrolments (Rhoades and Smart 2018).
For engineering, the student must be good to get entry into the university. Then he will be
good enough to be in the Information technology companies in Australia. The engineers are
directly related to the IT professionals. If the students are not of good quality then the IT
professionals will also be not good. In India, also there are lots of engineers but there is no
job. Therefore, the students or the IT professionals go abroad. In Australia, the standards of
entry in the universities must be changed to change the education system and the engineering

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education. The entry in the universities must be regulated so that they can be applied to the
engineering and the IT professionals. The regulations must be based on the number of
students, the amount of resources for the education. These two are mainly required to regulate
the standards of entry. However, in today’s life, everybody is walking in linear path of
becoming an engineer. They Australian government to give the students a perception to
explore their dreams and passions (Smyth 2018). The engineers and the IT professionals are
very important for a country. A large amount of revenue for the government comes from
these firms. The higher education is directed related to the engineering and the Information
technology professions. Again, the point comes to the quality of the student. In every country,
the police are to make the entry standards higher so that the product is a very good quality of
student that will be good for the engineering and the IT firms, the revenue will be good for
the government, and it will go on like a cycle. Therefore, it can be said that if the standards of
entry are made higher, the education system will be better, there will be funds for the
resources, and it will be good for the engineering and the IT firms in Australia.
Assessment of sustainability implications
To an engineer, a system that is sustainable is in either equilibrium or that change
slowly. If the humans need to achieve the sustainable system then the humans have to adopt
some patters (Lilley 2016). The engineers contribute to these processes. The engineers
develop process and transport these natural resources into a loop that is closed. Then the
waste can be reduced and the resources can be used efficiently. The engineers can harvest the
renewable sources minimizing the use of non-renewable energy (Lu and Zhang 2016).
Process the natural resources help to preserve the finite natural resources. The mechanical
engineers do these. They built the dams over the rivers to use the natural resources as energy.
Engineers play very important role in creating infrastructures in the world. They are problem

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solvers. They apply their knowledge and skills and build projects to meet the needs of the
humans. The engineers contribute to the sustainable development in the following ways.
 Extract and develop the natural resources.
 Process and modify the resources
 Design and build the infrastructure for transportation.
 To meet the customer’s requirements.
 Recover and reuse the products
 Produce and distribute the energy.
The engineers are working intensely on designing buildings that lessen the usage of
the natural resources. They are designing the buildings in such a way that it reduces the
consumption of water and other natural resources.
If the civil engineers are taken into point, then they build such buildings, which can
reduce the usage of natural resources such as the dams and the solar panel and the biogas
plants. They make the design and build those. For these the entry standards should be kept
higher so that engineers are of high quality (Singh 2017). The sustainability suggestions for
the lower entry standards can be to increase the standards of entry so that the civil engineers
are good and the buildings that they are designing and building will be of bad quality. They
have a very crucial role in the development of sustainability. The sustainable suggestions for
the engineering and the IT professions are that to have good quality of students’ entry into the
universities for the betterment of the engineering and the IT profession. The engineers mostly
the civil engineers are very important for the sustainability. The civil engineers play a crucial
role in the sustainability (Kommers et al 2016). Therefore, also make the entry standards for
the engineering and the IT universities should be made higher and the entry into the IT job
environment higher (De Vries 2018). The IT professionals are also important in the

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Australian society .Engineers are required to make Australia a technological continent. For
them also there are sustainable suggestions for lower standards of entry. Nowadays, without
technology the world will become blind. Therefore, IT professionals should be good enough.
The widening access to the Australian higher education is not sustainable for the engineering
and IT professionals (Al Shobaki and Naser 2017). The students that are coming from abroad
will take the jobs and the engineers of the state will be jobless. To avoid these entry standards
should be higher so that it is difficult for the foreign students to take admission in the
Australian universities. Therefore, everyone in Australia will have the opportunity get jobs.
Conclusion
The report deals with the sustainability in Australian engineering. The Australian
government has lowered the standard of education and the higher education system has
become a business. The Australian higher education system believes in quantity of the
student rather than the quality of the students. The student’s enrolments have become more
that has affected the standards of education in Australia. The funds are also becoming less so
the quality resources are not available that are good for the engineering and the IT
professionals in Australia. The report deals with the sustainable suggestions for the
engineering and the IT professionals. The report focuses on the previous attempts of the
Australian universities to regulate the standards of entry in the universities. The previous
attempts were very good and it leads to the growth of higher education in Australia.
However, in the past decades, the Australian government have regulated the standards of
entry and lowered it due to the number of students enrolled in the university. The impact of
the regulation of the standards of entry is also discussed in the report. The report also
discusses about the comparison between the policies measures that are enacted in other
countries. The different policy measures are different in different countries. The UK has the
best policies. They have specific goals to make the entry standards in the university higher.

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They also have different regulations for the higher education. India too has a good higher
education system. However, the main problem with India is that maximum students are
becoming engineers and they do not explore their dreams. The education system must tell the
students to follow their goals. Such applications of the policies must be desired in the
engineering and the IT profession. The primarily to be done is to make the entry standards in
the universities to be higher so that the engineers and the IT professionals are good at their
work. If the students are recruited according to the wealth they are donating, then the
engineers will not be good as the students are not of good quality. Therefore, they need to
donate money to get admission. The engineers and the IT professional is important for a
continent like America where the infrastructures are large and almost everything is
digitalized. The report also focuses on the sustainable suggestions for the lower standards of
entry. Sustainability is important in engineering and IT profession. To get into these fields
one need to be knowledgeable. The suggestion for the sustainability in engineering is to
higher the entry standards. There will be more funds, the resources for these students will be
more, and the students will be skilful engineers and IT professionals. The civil engineers are
very important for sustainability. They design and make projects for the sustainability of the
humans. Engineers play an important role in the sustainability of the humans. Last but not the
least; the Australian government must higher the standards of education rather than
concentrating on the fess from the foreign students. This will make Australia, one of the best
education systems in the world. Their education system will grow and the government will
get better revenue from the engineering and the IT firms.