By Naomi Barnes
The Job-ready Graduates (JRG) scheme is up for debate in federal parliament this year. But will the politicians debate the employability of humanities graduates this time? My research reveals that in 2020 when the legislation was debated, the employability of humanities graduates was a matter of rhetoric, not targeted debate.
Using new Humanities and Social Sciences infrastructure led by UQ with collaborating partners QUT and QCIF Digital Research, I analysed every parliamentary speech in 2020 that referenced the JRG scheme and explicitly included the term ‘humanities’. What I found was striking: in a reform that cut Commonwealth funding to humanities, arts and social science degrees, the employability of humanities graduates was not seriously examined.
Across 2,651 paragraphs of parliamentary debate directly about the JRG scheme, only 112 directly referenced the humanities. Of those, just 30 linked humanities degrees to employability at all.
The debate did not occur
This was not expected. Given the reform was justified on the basis of graduate employment outcomes, I anticipated sustained and detailed debate about whether Bachelor of Arts graduates secure jobs, in which sectors and over what timeframes. That debate did not occur.
I found that the debate did not cluster around ‘will these graduates get jobs’ but ‘how much should the public pay for this field’ whether through actual monetary funding (57) or the more abstract loss of national pride, critical thinking and social cohesion (57).
When employability was raised, it was thinly evidenced. The coalition government that introduced the legislation barely engaged with the question directly. Senator Paul Scarr, while he did not explicitly claim humanities graduates were unemployable, he inferred that there were limited jobs available: ‘Absolutely do it. But know the sort of profession you’re getting into…how it could well be that you might find it easier to secure employment in another field.’ Senator Malcolm Roberts of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation directly claimed unemployability.
Not much stronger
Opposition ALP, Green and Independent responses were not much stronger. Roughly half of the evidence presented was anecdotal, pointing out who in Parliament had a humanities degrees and were gainfully employed. The other half of the evidence presented referred to ‘research shows’ or ‘a recent report said’. Only three did directly reference statistical data but that evidence was repetitive only citing the one report. The discussion of arts graduates was not longitudinal, did not robustly evidence occupational pathways or complex market trajectories of the typical Bachelor of Arts graduate.
The thinly examined evidence of humanities graduates’ employability was dressed up by ALP and Green members of parliament pointing out the Liberal Party’s own lack of evidence, or even fabrication of evidence, with 19 paragraphs invoking culture wars, attacks on the humanities and universities, and ideological reasons for the legislation.
In short, the employability of arts graduates functioned more as rhetoric than as a policy question.
Missing from the original debate? A serious account of what arts graduates actually contribute now and into the future.
A bit of a furphy
Every day people are told that their jobs will be taken by robots. This is a bit of a furphy. Some jobs will go. But what is clear is that current leaders are the last generation of leaders to manage only humans. This means that we need people who know how to manage both humans and robots at the same time. People to make decisions which are ethical, empathetic, creative and sustainable. People who put the fate of both humans and the environment they survive in first. This is a Bachelor of Arts graduate.
Every day, Australians are told they are living through crisis: geopolitical instability, misinformation, technological disruption and social fragmentation. These are not problems that can be solved by technical expertise alone. These issues require people who can interpret complex information, understand cultural and historical contexts, communicate across differences and critically evaluate competing claims. International evidence has long linked global awareness, language capability and cultural knowledge to national security, social cohesion and economic prosperity. These are precisely the capabilities developed through humanities, social science and arts education.
Bachelor of Arts graduates are not trained for a single occupation. No one really is anymore. We know that people change jobs regularly throughout their lifetime. The skills that a Bachelor of Arts gives someone are transferable. They are also the skills that are applied to engagement with civic life, public institutions, education, media, diplomacy and the broader knowledge economy. Those Department of Home Affairs’ concerns about social cohesion? Addressing it requires a highly educated public with the skills taught in an Arts degree.
Yet the JRG scheme moved in the opposite direction by making Arts degrees more expensive and therefore less accessible.
Take employability seriously
If employability is to remain the central justification for higher education legislation, it must be treated seriously by Australian parliamentarians. That means moving beyond anecdote, assumption and clever gottchas and toward robust, transparent and longitudinal evidence about graduate outcomes.
This rapid analysis of the JRG debate in 2020 showed there were surprisingly few direct references to ‘humanities’ in the 6296 paragraphs and over 400,000 words of debate about the employability of Australian graduates. This extraordinary detail is but one example of increased transparency possible from one dataset made publicly available to help with the current public consultation for a private members Bill by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi: Higher Education Support Amendment (Reverse Job-Ready Graduates Fee Hikes and End 50k Arts Degrees) Bill 2025.
As the current policy debate unfolds, the question is not simply whether Arts degrees are worth it. It is whether Parliament is willing to seriously engage with the evidence required to answer the question.
Last time they did not.
Naomi Barnes is an associate professor in the School of Education, Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice, QUT. She is a researcher interested in how political actors perform and respond to crises. With a specific focus on moral panics, she focuses on education politics in Australia, the US and the UK. She is editor-in chief of the International Handbook of Schooling in TImes of Crisis and executive member of the QUT Centre for Justice.
Images from Parliament of Australia website, Creative Commons
This article was originally published on EduResearch Matters. Read the original article.
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