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What are some of the challenges or hurdles professionals still face and how do you believe they should be addressed? I guess the major change that’ s happened and continues to happen – not just in Australia but in New Zealand, PNG and internationally in general – is the whole notion of greater competition.
Obviously, in Australia, following the Bradley Review, we moved into a demand-driven system. Part of a key focus of the demand-driven system was greater competitive features. I think within the greater competitive feature, which is positive, there has been a focus on ensuring value for money. That can provide a tension sometimes, but rather than investing in professional staff, rather than [ seeing that as ] investing in quality, it’ s seen as an overhead. And it is an overhead, there’ s no question about that, but there’ s been a temptation in some areas to move to an outsource model.“ Let’ s just outsource the arrangement, let’ s have less investment in professional staff,” people say.
Whilst I think there are some services that you can argue benefit from being outsourced, the great majority of professional services are more responsive to students and academics when they are within the institution. I think that tension that has always been there around [ determining ] the value-add of professional staff will only continue, but again it’ s a healthy tension, as is competition. recognition that the role of a professional tertiary education manager is to enable the academic colleagues and the students within the sector. I think that professionalism is only going to continue into the future. We do work in partnership for the goals of the sector.
You mentioned some tension. What kind of resistance was there to change, and why? I think it was just one of those things, that [ professionalism ] wasn’ t seen necessarily as a value-add. In many ways, it was just seen as an afterthought.
Don’ t get me wrong. The core reason our institutions exist is for our students, but the core reason our students come to our institutions is for knowledge. Whether that’ s as a first-year undergraduate [ or ] as a research student. The process of running those institutions, of allowing knowledge to flourish, requires a whole range of tertiary education management services. Whether that’ s the building the students operate in, the systems used, the learning management systems, the paying of staff, the recruiting of staff or the progression of students.
The smoother these services run – the more professional they are, the more efficient and effective they can be – the greater investment you can make in students and academics. So it is, for me, a healthy three-way relationship that puts the student first, recognises the knowledge they’ ve come to get and delivers them the best experience they can have.
What would be the negative consequences of outsourcing the role of professionals? The key issue you have with any outsourced service is you don’ t [ get the benefits of ] understanding the nature of the organisation. If you have staff who are providing core services to students and academic staff, and they don’ t understand the mission of that institution, or the nature of its students – be they high-end doctoral candidates or first-in-family students – I think you get a disconnect in the service provision.
Let’ s be frank, one of the key things that has defined ATEM, as it defines most people who work in a university, is the provision of service to the students who are there.
I think outsourcing or third-party provision of services risks not having a direct, clearly engaged and responsive service provider, and that’ s what tertiary education managers within universities and tertiary institutions do.
Moving forward, what do you see the future holding for the sector? For tertiary education managers, professional staff and groups like ATEM and beyond, I think it’ s about where I started the interview – the sustainability of the sector.
In Australia, we’ ve been caught up in a debate about who pays – whether it’ s the public or the student, etc. I think in many ways, whilst money is important to sustainability, [ the conversation ] needs to move away from that into a broader discussion. What does society want of its universities? What is it that we expect the economy to have? I think if we can get into a position where we know what our universities can deliver, then we as professional staff, as a group like ATEM, can ensure that we have sustainable tertiary education institutes that don’ t just serve the economy and society today, but do it into the future, as they’ ve been doing it for hundreds of years into the past. n
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