An Australian Perspective on the Humanities

Abstract

As elsewhere in the Anglophone world, there has been a serious contraction in public funding for the teaching of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Australian universities during the 1990s. Although staff morale has suffered and class sizes have grown, the level of innovation in undergraduate teaching has risen and student assessments of how they are taught have improved. Certain disciplines in the Humanities have prospered during this decade; others have gone into seemingly irreversible decline. The Humanities will play a crucial role in Australia’s economic future, given the emergence of new knowledge-laden industries. The styles of teaching and learning in the BA will also foster some of the skills necessary for success in that as yet ill-defined economy.