UNIVERSITIES are value-free zones and need to reassert the primary purpose of education, building the ethical and moral character of students, a Sydney vice-chancellor has said.

At an inaugural annual oration last night at Macquarie University, the university's vice-chancellor, Steven Schwartz, said he wanted a return to education's ''ancient roots''.

He said the rector of St Andrews University in 1867, the British philosopher John Stuart Mill, correctly identified the object of universities was "not to make skilful lawyers, or physicians, or engineers, but capable and cultivated human beings''.

To address this educational philosophy, all new Macquarie undergraduates would be required to study arts, humanities and science subjects as well as work in the community.

''Education is, or should be, a moral enterprise,'' Professor Schwartz said before a discussion panel including the author and journalist Jeff McMullen, the Herald columnist Miranda Devine, the historian and former vice-chancellor Emeritus Professor Deryck Schreuder, and the headmaster of The King's School, Dr Tim Hawkes.

''Universities … no longer have a moral role, they have given it up for one that is strictly utilitarian. Moral relativity has rendered universities unable to make judgments; they could not even decide which subjects students should study.

''Today students are allowed to choose from hundreds of options with no subjects considered more important than others. The result is that our universities teach students, but they do not even pretend to make them wise.''

Professor Schwartz said universities had diminished and demeaned their work by construing their purpose ''simply as wealth creation''.

He said suggestions offered in the federal budget papers and by the former Australian chief scientist Robin Batterham in his report The Chance to Change - that universities were dynamos of economic growth, boosting the national standing - were a ''gross'' exaggeration.

Rather, a university education should produce men and women who can understand the world, write and speak coherently, identify a poem or distinguish a symphony from a jingle.

The University of Western Sydney's vice-chancellor, Professor Janice Reid, said the higher purposes espoused for higher education more than a century ago were fashioned by a social elite that was male, white, wealthy and privileged.

''There is no denying a university education enables an individual to live a more fulfilling life,'' she said. ''However, without economic security and social cohesion, the quest for personal fulfilment is illusory.''

Dr Hawkes said the lecture was ''music to his ears'' and that a real moral ambiguity existed in society.

But he believed the implementation of such ideas would be difficult.

''Politics, pragmatism, and pecuniary reality may torpedo us,'' he said.

（www.eduwo.com, Anna）