Applied Geology News
Curtin identified as Australia's largest provider of geoscience education
March 2008
The Australian Geoscience Council has released its Geoscience Tertiary Education Profile, based on a 2007 survey of the 20 or so universities in Australia with geoscience departments or schools.
This survey identifies Curtin as the single largest supplier of undergraduate geoscience education in Australia, with the Departments of Applied Geology and Exploration Geophysics responsible for 12% of the total geoscience taught at undergraduate level. These figures are based on the total number of full-time equivalent students enrolled in geoscience units.
Curtin also ranked highly in terms of the number of academic staff, with 8% of Australia's total geoscience academics funded from teaching income (third ranked behind the University of Wollongong and James Cook University), and 11% of Australia's total geoscience academics funded from research income (second-ranked behind the Australian National University).
The survey data also suggest that Curtin supplies more than half of the nation's postgraduate coursework graduates in geoscience, and is the sixth largest provider of geoscience research graduates with 7% of the higher degree by research completions over the 2003-2006 period.
Despite areas of relative strength in resource-rich states like Western Australia and South Australia, the profile highlights that geoscience education is a relatively high-cost low-enrolment discipline that does not fare well under Government funding regimes based solely on student numbers. It also emphasised that a recent sharp decline in the number of domestic honours and postgraduate research students is likely to result in a catastrophic skills in the near future.
For further details see the Australian Geoscience Tertiary Education Profile 2007 [pdf 222kb].