Industry body PRIA condemns proposed university fee hike for communications degrees
The Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) has denounced the proposal by the Federal Government to overhaul university course fees and potentially double the cost of studying humanities subjects.
PRIA’s national president, Leigh McClusky, said the announcement by Education Minister Dan Tehan is short-sighted and argued Australia’s navigation of the COVID-19 crisis had been greatly aided by successful communications and marketing campaigns.
PRIA’s national president Leigh McCluskey
“This is clearly an inequitable and ham-fisted approach to try and drive young Australians into areas of learning, which may neither be their choice nor their natural skill set,” McClusky said.
Unfortunately PRIA are an irrelevant body that does little to advance public relations and seems to focus on giving out meaningless awards. Their attention would be better focused on the poor standard of education offered to PR and journalism students across Australia’s universities. These institutions are churning out too many graduates – many of whom will never work in the industry – with no real understanding or knowledge of the field in which they have qualified. Most PR graduates are passionate and enthusiastic but not employable as they don’t even know the basics. They will learn (and unlearn) more working in an agency for three months than they did at university for three years. This isn’t their fault, and it could be changed if the industry body was to focus on actually improving the industry instead of their own image.