Tertiary education is diseased — and real change is the cure
The ailing university sector needs real change if things are to improve, writes.
THE University of Otago, along with many other universities, is ill. The disease has intensified slowly over many years and the fevered and distracted patient, critically weakened, perhaps, by Covid, flails helplessly.
This illness, of course, is more widespread than just academia and much of our social, economic and political life is affected by the virus of the 1980s. It is a particularly insidious little beast because those it afflicts thrash about muttering words like efficiency, freedom, choice, profit, aspiration, strategy, vision, until they collapse into a Tourette’slike state and can speak only hyperbole.
Given the rough diagnosis, I would like to examine some of the symptoms from the early onset of infection to the present.
We might begin with the introduction of tertiary tuition fees as an early indication of changing values. More so than primary and secondary education, tertiary education gives an individual personal benefit and advantage and so should be paid for, at least partially, by the individual.
I can recall officials in the 1990s attempting to calculate how much of any qualification contributed to the general good and how much to the individual. A fine example of measuring the immeasurable and an ironic imposition of what is, in effect, a tax on potential rather than real income.
And so to the business model of universities.
Universities are businesses and should be structured and managed as such. Steven Joyce, then minister of tertiary education, downsized university councils, transforming them from representative bodies to streamlined boards of directors. They must, he said, be nimble and know about business in a dynamic world rather than merely reflective of the interests of a variety of constituent communities.
From the sponsorship of professional sport to an obsession with brand and image (hence bloated comms departments), the corporate subsumes the academic.
So don’t come to me for more money, was Mr Joyce’s mantra: sell yourselves to overseas students, grow the business.
Somehow, all this managerial athleticism failed to keep up with events. We know what happened when the borders had to close and the business environment was less favourable.
To give credit, Otago was less affected by this drop in income than some other more entrepreneurial institutions, but the case for a conservative cap on fullfeepaying students is crystal clear.
However, the deleterious effects of the new regime have had numerous other manifestations in our own university. I will touch on two of them.
In the recent past, the ‘‘people and capability division’’ (or HR) was let off its leash to reorganise and downsize support staff. A result of this, apart from a loss of jobs, was the establishment of Call Otago, an allpurpose, problemsolving centre detached from any functioning department and stripped of institutional knowledge. A bit of a joke until moralesapping frustration overcomes you; and a bureaucratic nightmare.
At another level, however, the new slimline business model of governance and management necessarily sidelines the academic organs of the creature. Vicechancellor equals chief executive and reports to the board; the Senate, once the academic powerhouse, has not in all the many reports on university affairs warranted a mention.
As far as I can tell, noone has debated the academic value and function of the language ‘‘programmes’’. We hear a bit about cost but nothing about value. Years of scholarship gone, as if it never existed, or shrivelled to ‘‘proficiency’’.
Mary Williams’ excellent account of the current state of affairs at Otago (ODT 25.5.23) makes perfectly clear the detachment of leaders from the functioning university. It is a shame that senior academics in particular have not been more forthright in resisting some of these impositions, but in my experience academics in general tend to wrap themselves in their careers and hope to keep warm.
Some degree of change is possible if the community of scholars is prepared to assert itself.
Real change, though, needs a government prepared and able to fund the common good. One day it might happen.