12/09/2011. The commencement of the Australian Law Students’ Association (ALSA) 2012 Education Team marks the beginning of a new campaign on Higher Education. The Higher Education Working Party has placed at the forefront of its initiatives a strong lobbying campaign on the issues surrounding the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), and subsidiary issues that trickle, notably student income support and tertiary education infrastructure funding.
The role of the Higher Education Working Party will be threefold: policy development, lobbying and communication with other bodies. Ideally, by the end of the ALSA 2011-2012 term, a national campaign on the abovementioned Higher Education issues will be in full flight.
“Whilst once upon a time law graduates were amongst the highest paid graduates this is no longer the present situation. Law degrees are amongst the least costly run and yet one of the least funded by Government. This allows for little innovation despite students paying the highest contribution to their studies.” ALSA Vice-President (Education) Aimee Riley said.
ALSA believes that rather than expanding the number of law schools across the nation, further things should be done to ensure that students are receiving the best possible legal education for the time, effort and money expended. The assumption that law graduates are highly paid needs to be removed. It is not enough to place such heavy burdens upon students, who are increasingly not entering into the legal profession upon graduation. At present the reality is many students will graduate unable to pay off their accrued HECS debt unless they enter into commercial practice, thus removing the freedom from graduate career paths. ALSA believes that students should not be forced into particular employment as a result of the economic burden of studying law.
“We are yet to see the Government act on concerns expressed in 2008 into the base funding of legal education by the Bradley Review Panel, CALD and ALSA” says Alice Crawford ALSA Education Officer. ALSA looks forward to the commencement of this campaign.
Media Contact: Aimee Riley
Vice-President (Education)
Australian Law Students’ Association
Email:
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