Implementing Comprehensive National Higher Education Reforms: The Australian Reforms of Education Minister John Dawkins, 1987-90

Abstract

This chapter reviews implementation of major national reforms in the Australian higher education sector initiated by Education Minister John Dawkins over the period 1987-90. In doing so, it employs the theoretical framework developed by Cerych and Sabatier (1986) in their landmark comparative study of implementation of major European higher education reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. A supplementary aim of the chapter is to assess the utility of the Cerych and Sabatier framework in explaining the Australian reforms, and to do so in the light of more recent theoretical work on public policy implementation and higher education policy change.