There are close links between the University Without Walls model currently being pioneered in Ukraine and proposed reforms for Australian institutions, according to veteran academic leader Richard Heller.
The new model being implemented by displaced ‘phoenix’ universities in Ukraine directly related to Emeritus Professor Heller’s 2022 model for ‘distributed universities’ that proposed a range of reforms to reduce access inequality, he said.
Emeritus Professor Heller, who built an internationally-recognised career as an educator via stints a Australia’s University of Newcastle and the UK’s University of Manchester, said the organising principle of replacing central campuses with virtual and/or physical hubs, while delivering most programs online, were common across both models – and provided plenty of food for thought for Australian institutions.
“At a time when concern about the cost of a university degree is at an all time high, and when university funding depends on unsustainable income from international students, higher education is in crisis with micromanaged staff and disengaged students. Executives face tremendous pressures over constricted revenues and increasing costs, and a completely different approach is required,” Professor Heller said.
“If Australia is to get anywhere near 4 out of every 5 workers having a tertiary qualification, we need to tackle systemic disadvantage and the high cost of education provision head on.
“The Future Campus feature on the experiences of the staff of Berdyansk State Pedagogical University in Ukraine re-establishing a low cost, highly agile teaching program just months after losing their campus to occupying forces has great parallels with what some Australian institutions need to consider.”
In the model of the distributed university proposed by Heller, most teaching would be delivered online, reducing infrastructure costs and returning autonomy to academics to forge strong teaching relationships with students.
Stripping back central campus operations would enable the establishment of local hubs and closer links with community and industry, delivering a better alignment with community, national and global needs.
Using open resources and modern technology to create and deliver curricula would create opportunities to move towards globally-relevant programs and critically, reduce the carbon footprint as well as the cost structure that institutions have to carry.
While Ukraine had to implement changes within weeks as a result of a war, Australia faces a slower, less dramatic, but no less significant crisis of confidence, costs and control – with many Australian universities running into debt and disputes. At the same time, the Australian Government’s Accord aspirations for widening tertiary participation remain largely uncontested, but also largely unfunded.
“It is a really important time to seriously consider these new models and what they could offer students and the nation,” Emeritus Professor Heller said.