By CHARLENE GATT
VICTORIA University will be broken into eight colleges and a specialised TAFE facility in its biggest restructure since the university opened 22 years ago.
The VU Agenda: Excellent, Engaged and Accessible, is a master plan launched by the university last week to turn VU into “a great university of the Twenty First Century”.
The structural change to VU means that the faculty model will be replaced with eight colleges in line with the university’s distinctive specialisations – business; creative industries and creative arts; education and early childhood; engineering, science and the built environment; health; law, justice and government; social science and communities; and sport science.
Courses will be structured to encourage seamless pathways from TAFE to Higher Education and all courses will be reviewed in line with the new structure.
Meanwhile, a Victoria University Trades Academy will be established at the new training centre at Sunshine to focus on the delivery of apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships and VCAL.
A target has been set for VU to be world renowned in Sport, Exercise and Active Living by 2016, world renowned in at least another three areas and a national leader in at least five industry clusters by 2020.
The restructure will be implemented by 1 January 2013.
VU Vice Chancellor Peter Dawkins said that reduced funding in both the Higher Education and Vocational sectors and an increasingly market driven policy environment led the University Council and senior management to seriously re-think its operations.
“The new funding environment requires us to operate with greater agility and efficiency. In line with that we aim to be nationally and internationally recognised for our learning and teaching and to strengthen the opportunities for our students,” Prof Dawkins said.
“This will be the most significant structural change to Victoria University since its foundation in 1990 and may be a forerunner to other such changes to institutions in the sector.
“This model clearly differentiates us from most other tertiary institutions and provides the added benefit of delivering long term economic sustainability in a difficult budgetary environment.
“A shared services model, which is also part of this plan, will enable us to be efficient in the services that support our core business of learning and teaching, research and knowledge exchange.”
