4 hours ago
6
Students at the nation’s most prestigious university are being taught remotely using online lectures filmed in the COVID era.
The University of Melbourne, which said this week it was facing a “disappointing” and “sobering” financial position, says it is trying to phase out the six-year-old material being taught to undergraduates studying for bachelor degrees in biomedicine, alongside face-to-face learning and live lectures.
Tuition fees for the course for domestic students last year were nearly $13,600 and more than $56,000 for international students.
One student’s parent, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals on the student, told this masthead it was disappointing that undergrads were being taught remotely with tutorials filmed six years ago.
“They would prefer that face-to-face instruction to help get that full uni experience,” the parent said.
“The fees are also crazy, so if they’re going to be using filmed material to teach, then at least it should be recently produced.”
The acting dean of the university’s faculty of medicine, dentistry and health sciences, Mike McGuckin, said the faculty prioritised in-person teaching and was building new “in-person student workshops” to further improve the on-campus experience.
But McGuckin conceded that learning material produced during the pandemic era was still being used.
“For our undergraduate programs, including the bachelor of biomedicine, teaching and learning is conducted in person and on campus,” the faculty leader said.
“In some instances, teaching material produced during COVID that remains current is included in the curriculum alongside in-person teaching. This material is being phased out as part of our ongoing updates to the bachelor of biomedicine.”
Melbourne is not the only university to offer students recorded lectures, with Monash University also using a mix of recorded and face-to-face lessons. Victoria University, by contrast, has no recorded lectures or lessons, with all learning done in an interactive, live classroom.
David Gonzalez, the president of Melbourne’s branch of the National Tertiary Education Union, said the “use of lectures from the COVID period raises reasonable questions about the student experience”.
“Those materials were developed in response to an unprecedented situation, and while they can be a useful supplement, they were not intended to replace regularly updated teaching over the long term,” Gonzalez said.
“Students enrolling in a degree today, and paying significant fees to do so, would reasonably expect access to current content and meaningful engagement with teaching staff.
“The university should be focused on maintaining the quality and currency of teaching, alongside being transparent with students about how courses are delivered.”
The University of Melbourne is one of Australia’s wealthiest tertiary institutions, reporting assets of nearly $11.5 billion and a net financial surplus of nearly $273 million on revenue of more than $3.7 billion in 2024.
But acting vice chancellor Glyn Davis painted a gloomy picture of the uni’s finances in a message to staff this week, warning that the 2025 accounts – to be published in the coming days – would show the institution in the red for the fourth year running, to the tune of $122 million, on its preferred “operating” basis.
Only investment income from the university’s historic “endowment” fund, which has built up over 170 years of investment and donations, dragged the institution into a $22 million surplus on the conventionally used “net” surplus measure, Davis said.
“These figures make for sober reading,” Davis wrote.
“Unfortunately, a further operating deficit is forecast for 2026, which would be the fifth in a row.
“It is not a crisis, but will require careful management and greater discipline to lift revenue and reduce avoidable costs.”
But Gonzalez said the university’s portrayal of its financial position, and the current round of wage talks with its nearly 14,000 employees, were closely related.
“There are different ways of describing the university’s finances, and staff are aware of that,” he said.
“What matters is whether the university is prepared to invest in its workforce.
“They will be looking for an agreement that delivers fair wage growth and addresses long-standing concerns about workloads.”
