Charles Sturt University has welcomed recommendations that were raised during a recent round table meeting of university heads and Member for Calare Andrew Gee.
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Through his role as Minister for Decentralisation and Regional Education Mr Gee met with chancellors and vice-chancellors from 10 of Australia's major regional universities for the roundtable meeting.
"The first roundtable of the series focused specifically on the government's proposed tertiary education reforms," Minister Gee said.
Acting Charles Sturt University Vice-Chancellor Professor John Germov represented the university at the roundtable.
He welcomed some of the concepts that were raised including introducing a new Tertiary Access Payment of $5000 that is designed to help school-leavers from outer regional or remote areas to relocate to undertake full-time high-level tertiary education.
"Charles Sturt University considers a new fund to provide $500 million a year to universities for programs that support Indigenous, regional and low socioeconomic status students to get into university and to graduate, a positive financial incentive that will benefit our students and we welcome this initiative," Professor Germov said.
He also concurred that fees in areas of mental health and social work should be aligned with those of Allied Health (Band 2) to reflect a holistic approach to regional health care and support.
He said increasing the cost of studying social work, behavioural studies and psychology, as part of the federal government's proposed fee restructure, could have adverse impacts on the rural and regional mental health workforce, and the community.
"Charles Sturt University currently has over 13,000 students from regional and remote areas," Professor Germov said.
Mr Gee said he will take all the issues raised at the roundtables back to the Nationals' Party room to get the viewpoints of other country MPs on what our position should be.
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