Democracies erode without vibrant universities. These are the institutions where ideas can be debated be they wild or practical, incredible or mundane.
Routine conversations that embrace universities in these terms are rare. The values that underpin our higher learning institutions of open-mindedness, curiosity, thoughtfulness, experimentation, commitment, contestation – as well as the much-discussed academic freedom to inquire – appear in mission statements. They are too infrequently on display in practice.
Universities have complied with external expectations – and incentives set by governments’ policies – that they remodel themselves as businesses. They have adopted top-down governance structures. They have thick regulatory crusts that protect against scrutiny and provide information on a must-report basis. They have communication offices to mould the message.
Income streams dominate the consciousness of senior leaders to junior casuals: increasing student enrolments, attracting donors, bringing in grants and lucrative contracts. Building reputation, raising status and developing a prestige brand underpin the creation of new income streams.
Neither status nor prestige have protected vice-chancellors from public controversy over their salaries, exploitation and underpayment of casual staff, an employee mental health crisis, sexual harassment, excessive student debt, financial over-reliance on international students, falling student numbers, student attrition, funding shortages and breaches of teaching and research integrity. Sitting alongside a litany of debacles are regular reviews since the 1990s of the sector, most recently the “Universities Accord”.
The Accord articulates commitments that the public would expect of universities. First, to generate and impart high quality knowledge. Second, to provide students with skills that offer good employment prospects. Third, to provide education in a safe university environment that encourages and supports learning. Fourth, to design educational programs for diverse groups from different backgrounds and with different needs. It is not unreasonable to ask: If universities are falling short in meeting such expectations, why?
The Accord identifies funding issues as a major impediment. Sorting out funding has been passed to a new body, the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. The new Commission is expected to be a “steward of the tertiary education sector”, with a coordination, future-focused and evidenced-based decision-making role.
Australia’s public universities depend for funding primarily on federal government grants and the contributions of international and domestic students. Higher education has a regulator but, in terms of credibility, no regulator can compete seriously with the government because it holds the purse strings.
Reviews of funding arrangements are a common part of the landscape, each time straining any trust that might exist between the university sector and government. Trust is important for institutional stewardship.
Institutional stewardship means steering financial sustainability and the efficient management of resources in the sector. From the 1980s, governments have been sending the message to the sector that taxpayers are not receiving value for money from publicly-funded universities.
Government has, for decades, poked and prodded to encourage reform but with little apparent effectiveness overall. One might be forgiven for seeing the government’s stewardship as punishment arising from impatience with a sector that is not meeting the performance expectations of its funder.
There is considerable evidence that higher education feels poorly treated and undervalued. The sector carries grievance that now reaches deep into the heart of universities. Could institutions have averted this disaster? Without doubt, the answer is yes.
The mistake made by universities, particularly elite universities that enjoy rusted-on domination of traditional disciplines, was that they refused to scale up and learn from green shoots of innovation. They were so intent on their war with government that they were dismissive of the intellectual entrepreneurs under their noses and how they could engage productively with them in learning, preparing for, and extending the university mission.
A responsible forward-thinking university, aware of the external pressures bearing down on it and responsive to the care of those producing positive outcomes – teachers, researchers, professional staff and students – would have brought their best minds to the table to nut through the benefits and risks of collaboration outside the ivory tower and develop ways of managing risks. They did not. They were too intent on preserving old roles and privileges and their battle with government.
It needs to be underscored that universities need governments that support and fund them. The brouhaha over funding crowds out the fact that they are a good investment for governments. The Accord calls for leadership to settle funding uncertainty. The proposal is for a government-funded Commission with impartial Commissioners who will make the critical funding decisions.
It is easy to blame leadership for the mess that higher education finds itself in. It is equally easy to blame bureaucrats who have no understanding of what is happening on the ground. Similarly, vice-chancellors can be blamed for not rising to the challenge of leading the higher education sector through change to preserve the best of the past, manage the risks of the future, and be courageous and imaginative in creating better, braver tertiary education institutions. Blame, however, will not produce the peace deal that we need.
It is perhaps more productive to see the impasse to peace in its historical context. In 1998, Don Anderson and Richard Johnson from the Centre for Continuing Education at the Australian National University compared university autonomy in twenty countries. Australia was among the countries where government had less authority to intervene but, in practice, was seen as having too much interference in university policies.
Threats to freedom in all walks of life create resistance, eventually defiance. Domination will not subjugate battle-scarred vice-chancellors who believe they are fighting for academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Game playing tactics of passing responsibility for the mess from one to the other, and now to a new Commission, is what we might expect, given our history and the scars of betrayal on all sides.
A better solution could be for all parties to take an honest look at their tactics, their successes and, most importantly, the harms that have been inflicted on staff and students, and perhaps even on stakeholders more broadly. The issue of lost trust needs to be addressed and then rebuilt.
A university cannot run the government, just as the government cannot run a university. But they can understand and respect the worst fears that each side has and commit to a path forward that provides security that those worst fears will not be realised.
A peace deal cannot be negotiated by a few and imposed on the many if it is to have a chance of success. University vice-chancellors need to be the first to step up, offer respect and engage with others across the sector, and lead with a genuine obligation to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for future generations of students.
Valerie Braithwaite, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University has conducted reviews of the regulation of higher education and vocational education and training for the Commonwealth Government. She currently is a member of the National Vocational Educational & Training Regulatory Advisory Council. The views presented here are her own.
