University of Adelaide's new Vice-Chancellor calls for real-world focus for humanities

Adelaide University, one of Australia's original sandstone universities, was founded on humanities studies.

HUMANITIES will lose its place in universities to lab sciences unless the topics studied tackle real-world issues, University of Adelaide's head says.

Vice Chancellor Professor Warren Bebbington said the largest student enrolments nationwide were in humanities and teacher education, but that would change with the impeding "domination" of laboratory sciences.

"Study in humanities is going to continue to erode now that the school curriculums have changed away from the subjects you need for humanities to flourish," he said yesterday.

"(But) the humanities won't disappear provided they (Australian high schools) understand that they need to learn from the scientists by making their topics and their questions not things from their own traditional disciplines, but things from public need."

-  AdelaideNow