Published in The Australian, 3 August 2016

Universities need to work harder at minimising the risk of indoctrination of students by radical groups.

University of Southern Queensland vice-chancellor Jan Thomas told the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference in Ghana last week that it was imperative all universities “consider strategies to curb radicalisation”.

She pointed to British research showing “higher education at its best counters radicalisation through improving students’ self-esteem and sense of achievement and in enhancing their feeling of belonging to society”.

The role for universities in this area included educating students to be critical thinkers, conducting research to better understand radicalisation, and building resilience and cross-cultural tolerance, Professor Thomas, who is chairwoman of the ACU, told the HES.

However, Greg Austin, an international security expert and visiting professor at University of NSW, said universities had no role in monitoring students for radical thought and most staff had no qualifications to help deradicalise students. Rather the focus should be on research.

“Australian universities have a relatively weak research base on most aspects of domestic terrorism and violent extremism in this country,” he said. “There are pockets of excellence on niche subjects, especially around the theme of countering violent extremism.
However, the research scene has remained largely static in the past decade.”

Since 2010 the Australian Research Council appeared to have funded one grant focused on political science aspects of countering violent extremism, terrorism and radicalisation, Professor Austin said.

Greg Barton, a counter-terrorism expert at Deakin University, said universities should do more but the question was how.

“People don’t like talking about countering violent extremism or radicalisation; it’s a very sensitive topic,” said Professor Barton, who is also co-director of the Australian Intervention Support Hub, a research centre launched last year to counter radicalisation.

“It would be good to work with Muslim student associations across Australian campuses, but if you go through formal channels the chances of meeting sharp opposition are quite high, partly because of the dynamics of campus politics.”

Professor Thomas argued it was important that Australian universities supported their peers in developing countries.

“There’s a massive opportunity in developing nations to influence how they educate their young people and to promote a peaceful and tolerant society across such a large swath of the world,” Professor Thomas said.

“Critical thinking skills are important in parts of the world where these extreme political and religious groups have a stronger presence.”