A consolidation of course offerings at the University of Tasmania will allow seamless integration for those navigating the system, the head of the institution says.
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UTAS vice-chancellor Rufus Black said while the coronavirus pandemic had played a role in the timing of the reveal of the university's course restructure, it had provided a platform for the organisation to move forward with its vision for "distinctive, place-based course offerings."
This is in line with Professor Black's strategic plan, which revealed last year the university was facing significant headwinds in the form of low course enrolments and an over-reliance on international students, particularly those from China.
However, with the global coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, Professor Black said UTAS had forged ahead with the streamlining of its course offerings, which were slashed from 514 to 120.
Revelations last month that the courses would be cut caused anxiety in the community that the breadth of courses would not be offered but Professor Black said there was no reason for the community to be concerned.
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"What we did not explain at the time [March] was that 200 of our courses had no students enrolled in them," he said.
"What we have done is eliminated duplication and simplified the way we deliver." As an example, Professor Black said previously UTAS had 12 variants of engineering courses. During the streamlining process, this was reduced to a smaller number and been simplified to align with the engineering course stream.
A booklet of the new offerings has already been circulated to this year's cohort of grade 12 students and Professor Black said so far the feedback had been quite positive.
Uncertainty around tertiary education and entry into university courses has been rife due to the coronavirus pandemic but UTAS has announced it will allow teachers and schools to provide a letter of recommendation for students which will in some ways replace the ATAR score if exams are not able to be held due to social distancing measures.
In the grade 12 booklet, UTAS' course offerings have been divided into 22 education streams such as education, agriculture, media and architecture, among others.
While coronavirus provided an impetus for the changes to the course structure to be announced, Professor Black said the changes had always been part of the university's future. He said it was important the community knew that the breadth of courses had not changed but the changes had made the system easier to navigate for potential students.
"We needed to get it done, we had done some modelling already and we knew we faced some significant headwinds, before this [coronavirus] took hold," he said.
Information on the course changes can be found online.