Humanities report warns of 'decline' if action is not taken
A study of humanities teaching commissioned by the Australian Research Council, released earlier this month and summarised below, revealed increasing pressures on the discipline and recommended steps to prevent its further decline.
The report Knowing Ourselves and Others: The Humanities in Australia into the 21st Century was launched earlier this month by ANU Emeritus Professor Peter Karmel. "The Review, while proudly displaying past and present achievements and underlining the great blossoming of the humanities since the previous 1959 survey, has pulled no punches in diagnosing current weakness and signalling the almost inevitable decline that will occur in the absence of corrective measures," Prof Karmel said. He supported the recommendations made in the report, including reviving discipline-based education in schools and the need to secure fourth-year honours degree programs. He also supported calls for the establishment of a Humanities Centre in major cities to foster activities in the humanities. The Review, commissioned by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in 1996, is only the second into humanities disciplines in Australian universities. The first, in 1959, was devoted specifically to research. The new report has been produced over a period of 18 months by a team of humanities experts, including Fellows of the Academy of the Humanities. The review was guided by a Steering Committee and Reference Group of prominent humanities researchers and administrators, and coordinated by Emeritus Professor Anthony Low, Vice-President of the Academy and a former Vice-Chancellor of the ANU. Among the review's major findings were: · Many of the humanities disciplines are among the best-performing areas of Australian research. · Many areas of humanities research are held in high esteem internationally. · The share of research funding directed to the humanities by the ARC (especially through the Large and Small Grants programs) has decreased over the past 10 years in proportion to funds to other disciplinary areas. · The humanities disciplines have changed enormously since the last review in the late 1950s; there are more of them and their disciplinary orientation and configuration has changed. · There has been a substantial increase in numbers of postgraduate research students in the humanities, but there is a poorer student-staff ratio than in other disciplines. · Humanities researchers are concerned about working conditions, which have deteriorated markedly in recent years in terms of worsening student-staff ratios, less time and resources available for research, and pay rates that have not kept up with comparators outside universities. · There have been many unplanned and uncoordinated cuts to humanities programs in Australian universities. · Language disciplines are among the hardest-hit areas; approximately10 per cent of language academic staff have been shed over the past two to three years and the number is increasing. The Review's recommendations include: · The Government should develop a policy body to work with the ARC and the universities to ensure a planned, coordinated and cooperative provision of teaching and research in humanities. · Rationalisation of disciplines and cuts to departments should only take place after cooperative, nationwide policies are in place. · A coordinated library and IT provision should be part of the nation's research and teaching infrastructure. · The government establish a body to parallel the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council to advise it on issues of relevance to research in the humanities and social sciences. · The establishment of humanities outreach programs in major cities and regional centres for increased interaction between humanities researchers and the public. The ARC also invited the Academy of Social Sciences to do a similar review of the social sciences, which will be published later this year.