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NEWS
Better? Not without peer
VC argues the current accreditation process has lost one of the old system’ s strengths – the chance for institutions to learn from one another.
Australian universities no longer take part in regular national peer-reviewed quality improvement processes but University of Southern Queensland vice-chancellor professor Jan Thomas says such practices still have much to offer.
Thomas has told Campus Review that although Australia’ s establishment of the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency and its accreditation process has been a success, there has remained an argument for a return to one aspect of the previous Australian Universities Quality Agency system – invaluable peer review-based processes for ongoing institutional improvement.
Speaking ahead of a recent trip to Hong Kong – where she has been tasked with chairing a panel of auditors charged by the Hong Kong Government with assessing the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology – Thomas said that whilst it was unlikely such a process would be reinstated in Australia, international examples such as Hong Kong continued to demonstrate the model’ s potential benefits.
“ We had these processes in Australia and then they were removed and replaced by TEQSA, which does a fine job of assessing whether an institution should be accredited or not but doesn’ t have this quality improvement element,” she said.
“[ It also lacks ] this kind of situation we had previously, where everybody knew they were going to be going through this cycle and there were things you needed to improve and there were more opportunities to learn from one another.
“ I think that is a loss to the [ Australian higher education ] sector because there was this sense that institutions could learn from one another and improve – it was not just a pass / fail approach.”
Thomas said her years as a member of the Hong Kong Government-appointed Quality Assurance Council, which oversees auditing of the nation’ s universities and other higher education institutions, had provided her with invaluable exposure to positive and negative practices.
“ Both of those things help you do your own job because they cause you to stop and reflect that,‘ OK, I am doing something this way in our place a bit better’, or perhaps even to consider,‘ Gee, that doesn’ t look great – I wonder if we are doing that too?’,” she said. ■
See“ Triple fault”, page 14
Big governance
University boards are often two to three times as large as those for ASX 200 companies – for better or worse.
A leading corporate governance academic has called on universities to consider reducing the overall size of their boards to align more closely with standard ASX 200 company structures.
Phillip Cenere, who is a member of the New South Wales council of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame’ s business school, told Campus Review that in contrast to the ASX 200 standard of about seven board members, most university boards had anywhere from 15 to 22.
“ You have representatives from general staff, from academic staff, undergraduate and postgraduate students and alumni, then you also get other members appointed by ministers, and so on,” Cenere said.“ The result is quite large governing bodies. They are representative bodies rather than skills-based boards, and the difference is that if you have a skills-based board you can pick and choose to ensure you’ re covering the full range of skills you need.”
Cenere warned that some elected university board members might have narrow governance experience or might not have adequate financial knowledge to fulfil their obligations. He explained that whilst a broad range of representative views
and input to governance was invaluable for universities, such expertise could possibly be better sourced via advisory boards.
A spokesman for the University of Melbourne, which has a board with about 17 members, said state legislation that covered the university’ s governance deems the board a body corporate but also a body politic, consisting of“ scholars and students that make up the university”.
“ Unlike some boards of directors, universities have very large numbers of stakeholders – students, alumni, industry and government – with different levels of investment,” he said.“ This diversity must be reflected in governance structures. The university’ s council membership reflects the diversity of its stakeholders, with appropriate expertise.”
Curtin University chancellor Colin Beckett – whose university council is made up of 22 members under state legislation – backed the structures the institution had in place.
“ Curtin’ s council size … reflects a representative approach to governance,” he said,“ with the emphasis on independent councillors chosen to ensure a good mix of relevant skills and with an adequate number of councillors from the university to ensure that council has a good understanding of the needs of the academy.” ■
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