My son has just finished Year 12 and, like tens of thousands of other young Australian men and women, he is currently sorting through the various academic options open to him. And like tens of thousands of Australian parents I’ve been looking over his shoulder, offering (politely ignored) advice and quietly thanking Providence that it’s him and not me.

This vicarious engagement with the tertiary education system has confirmed for me what I’ve suspected for some time; that is, the broad-based liberal education, so long the mainstay of Australian intellectual life, is on the brink of extinction. In this, the handbooks that must be read prior to navigating one’s way to the tertiary institution of one’s choice are illuminating.

The demand, and therefore the requirements, for entry into many arts and social sciences undergraduate courses, even in what used to be Australia’s most prestigious universities, is so low that the status of these disciplines must be diminished considerably. Why would a student with a Tertiary Entry Rating (TER) of 90 opt for a course that demands a TER of only 62?

When I was an undergraduate in the early to mid 1970s, some of Australia’s best young minds were arts and the social sciences undergraduates. They revelled in the fiery intellectual and politically charged environment and they helped sustain a broader social critique that informed, and in some cases frightened, the outside world and their fellow students who were studying maths and the sciences. But things have changed.

In recent years I have been invited to speak at various universities addressing such issues as Australian cultural identity, contemporary Australian popular culture and the relationship between politics and the arts. Putting aside for a moment the very remote possibility that I might be a terminally boring presenter, I've been struck, time and time again, by the polite indifference on the part of most students to any sort of intellectual discussion that does not directly and immediately relate to the pursuit of their vocational qualification.

When I was at university in the early and mid 1970s, any one of my propositions would have generated a fierce debate on the floor of the lecture theatre. These days, as I try to inflame at least the front row, I am reminded of John O’Brien’s verse, “Tangmalangaloo”:

‘But dumb and glum and undismayed through every bout he sat;

He seemed to think that he was there but wasn’t sure of that.

After these encounters, I’ve often asked myself whether the universities of today could spawn bands like Midnight Oil and Redgum, for instance.  I fear not and while I acknowledge that there are many who might well consider this a blessing, I think it indicates a depressing shift in national attitude and an understandable failure on the part of the academic vanguard to protect universities from the forces of economic rationalism.

In Australia today there appears to be no place for the generalist.  Commonwealth funding, the allocation of resources and staff by university ‘management teams’ and most educational rhetoric all suggest that the day of the broad-based liberal education as a preliminary to more specialized vocational training is over. As the national political mood inclines to the right, one can’t help wondering whether the resultant decline in the national critical faculty is a calculated by-product of this emerging educational philosophy.

I would argue that this preoccupation with vocational specialization undermines and diminishes Australia’s capacities including our capacity to consider our national identity, our history, our values and our sense of ourselves in the international community. A nation that is unwilling to recognize the importance of, and provide support for, general, liberal intellectual activity is a country that must eventually allow others to do its thinking for it. A country that does not value poets, historians, social and political scientists and writers is a country that has surrendered its right to define and reflect upon itself.

It is a simple truth: if you don’t know where you’ve come from, you can’t possibly know where you’re going. You cannot plan the future if you do not understand the past. You cannot generate new ideas if you do not have the tools to critique the old ones. And as a country, our ability to do these things in the future will be diminished if the undergraduates of today overlook History, Philosophy, English and Politics in favour of Industrial Design, Computing Science and Business & Enterprise Studies.

My very real fear is that in the years to come Australia will be an intellectually arid country, ruled by technocrats and information managers. I fear that we shall be a country in which everyone will understand how his or her computer-driven car works but no one will be able to read a map.

I’m now going to talk to my son about English literature, logic, epistemology and Latin. Wish me luck.