Even if we left it completely uncapped, its not like there would be a massive flood. It would still be regulated by ATAR and ultimately,
Sorry, not sure I follow how the number of places would be regulated by ATAR (other than if minimum ATARs were set). Could you elaborate please?
the choice of the university on how high their capacity to train is.
I'm not so much worried about the number of graduates per se, more what even small increases in cohort size would mean for the learning experience and quality. My experiences lead me to believe financially, things are much tighter in universities than many realise.
Frankly, when it comes to top band clinical professions like medicine, dentistry, veterinary, I don't trust universities to make the decision in regards to capacity to train - there's a conflict of interest that contrary to popular opinion, is not offset by the institutions' concern for the quality of the student learning experience. Govts invariably diminish tertiary funding and universities invariably get creative to keep themselves afloat. This is a danger zone for professions that require complex clinical skills.
In dentistry in particular there has been a marked decline in the robustness of the curricula. Lab time and clinic time have gone from near-unlimited access in the early 90s, to a few strict hours. To save precious $$, institutions cut corners wherever possible and students frequently hear instructors and academic staff complaining about budget restraints (e.g. "no, you can only practice this denture registration
once before you do it on a patient - sorry, no time/money").
The safety net for this phenomena is the "self-directed learning" movement combined with the high demand for the course. As a result of demand, those who get admission tend to be highly motivated and resilient and find ways to fill in the gaps. This hides the true deficits, but it's really more of a buffer effect than safety net - eventually, if you degrade the curriculum enough problems will start occurring. They already do, to a limited extent.
In summary, in a situation where there are no restrictions on university places, I don't feel the institutions can be trusted to do the right thing by the professions - particularly when it is in their best interest to take in as many and fork out as little as possible on resources. If dentistry places are to be uncapped, then I think there should be rigorous, frequent, transparent auditing by the ADA or relevant independent authority as a condition.
I'm interested in this, care to elaborate out a little more?
'Arbitrarily avoided' was the wrong term. Governments avoid it because its a sh*t storm policy wise. The government has excluded dentistry from universal healthcare for reasons that I suspect have a lot to do with the fact that higher taxes are electoral poison.
As such, unlike medical practitioners, dentists don't have a medicare provider number. The medicare schedule is effectively what allows the governments to control and regulate the health system at all levels. The schedule is the instrument by which the government acts as a competitor in the 'health market'. Medical practitioners who do not partake in that system (ie choose not to bill and get paid by medicare and according to its schedule), effectively cannot practice - because why would anyone go to you as a patient.
This control allows governments to easily regulate how, when and where doctors practise and provides a strong market influence on how much they bill. No such control exists for dentistry, so it makes it difficult and legally tenuous to intervene. It also means the Federal-state divide is effectively absolute in public dentistry (dental hospitals and services being dominion of the states) - so simply bonding dental places to the public system is not enough, someone needs to pay them. Who? That's where the arguing begins. And never ends. And here we are, with over 300,000 people eligible for public dental services who cannot access it for over 12 months (in some cases 2.5x this).
Personally, at the very least I think there is no excuse for not providing comprehensive preventative and restorative dentistry to all under 18, means tested on a sliding scale of rebate. Cost-benefit wise, its a good place to start - although many citizens loathe the idea of any form of wealth distribution or social welfare that they don't directly benefit from themselves, health measures "for children" is harder to condemn outright.
Then there's the maldistribution of dentists. There's really only two financially viable options to make a real impact:
1. x% of dental school places are bonded via a contract with the Federal Government - possibly with some token "dental equipment grant" of $2-5k to sweeten the deal, and in return the first x no. of working years after graduation must be in an area of need.
2. Implement visa conditions on incoming overseas-trained foreign dentists, who are already experienced and who will - with forewarning - be relatively more prepared to set up shop in underserviced areas.
Both solutions present challenges, but the latter was clearly a golden opportunity to do SOMETHING without invoking widespread anti-tax backlash that our electorate is becoming more and more fond of and also avoiding the nightmare negotiations with the states' over public dental infrastructure.
So why didn't they do it, when it was so obvious and they had the data? Can't 100% say, all I know is it represents the norm - governments avoid regulating dentistry.
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