Although the merger of the University of Canberra and the national’s capital TAFE college is unwelcome, it is likely to happen. As a result, a single institution will appear. The possible options for the future of two institutions were investigated in a report made by Andrew Barr, the ACT Education Minister. Denise Bradley, the former head of Bradley Review of higher education in 2008, believes it is good to create a dual-sector university.
In the report released yesterday, the main message was "it is not an option for [the University of Canberra and Canberra Institute of Technology] to continue to operate in their current form".
Nowadays there are three tertiary institutions in Canberra including the Australian National University. Leesa Wheelahan, education expert, said: "You can't justify two large tertiary education institutions in a place like Canberra. It just doesn't have the economies of scale". She meant that two institutions were competing for a small number of students and Denise Bradley’s recommendation made "perfect sense". The approximate amount of students in a new institution will be 20,000.
However, some believe that the merger would not be equal taking into account the university’s prestige and dominant culture.
