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POLICY & REFORM fuse economic and social considerations. Australia’ s economic viability demanded mass higher education. Equally, access to education at scale was viewed as the most effective means to address socioeconomic disadvantage.
This balance between social and economic concern in higher-education policy has fluctuated over the years, under both Labor and the Coalition. But quality has been a shared and stabilising obsession.
Both Labor and the Coalition raised the spectre of slipping quality in the early stages of the demand-driven system. The message was, if you dial up the numbers, you dial down the quality.
Only two years in, the demand-driven system faced its first grilling at the hands of former minister David Kemp and Andrew Norton. While critical of what they called the arbitrary nature of the policy’ s“ overall” degree attainment target and noting risks to quality, they conceded it was working.
Notably, while foregrounding Menzies’ view that“ lack of money must be no impediment to bright minds”, Kemp and Norton then went on to assert that the“ focus of measurement” in money-related matters should be adjusted.
With regard to the success of the low-SES dimension of the demand-driven system, the reviewers argued more attention should be directed towards the“ matching of student demand to skills shortages”.
For Kemp and Norton, it would seem that“ lack of money” should have you join the ranks of the“ forgotten people” if your chosen field of study doesn’ t match a government-sanctioned skills gap.
In critiques of the credibility of the system, then, we see opinions shift depending on whether one looks primarily through the social or the economic lens.
The‘ quality or quantity’ mindset persists. Listen to some commentators of late and you’ d be forgiven for thinking we are in the grip of a crisis. In recent months, we have seen universities described in mainstream press as,“ overpriced degree factories … exploiting their social licence”, and“ immoral” purveyors of“ broken dreams”, churning out graduates in fields with no labour demand.
Let’ s not get carried away. The notion that Australia’ s higher-education institutions are in the grip of a‘ quantity vs quality’ dilemma is completely unfounded. The evidence simply does not support that claim.
For example, at Western Sydney University, where this binary is keenly felt, quantity is a matter that demands the attention of not just the university’ s leadership, but also of industry and regional and national government.
Western Sydney is the nation’ s third-largest and fastest-growing economic region. It is an area navigating a monumental shift away from outmoded manufacturing and warehousing, towards technology-infused and knowledge-based industries.
Roughly 2.2 million people live in Western Sydney. Maintaining the status-quo, from labour-force and economic perspectives, is simply not an option. In this setting, increased access to quality education is not a policy preference or an ideological meander, nor a matter of“ social licence”. It is essential to the national interest.
Compared with Greater Sydney, the proportion of Western Sydney’ s entry-stage workforce with university qualifications lags by nearly 30 per cent.
Modelling commissioned by Universities Australia estimates Australia will need 3.8 million new skilled graduates over the next decade to meet merely basic levels of demand.
If, as both major political parties assert, we need to move away from our dependence on minerals and resources, and become an idea-based economy, then we must stay the course and help areas in transition close the gap. The rationale is both social and economic. Heightened and more equitable levels of participation in higher education increase labour-market capacity while simultaneously lifting social status, wellbeing and prosperity.
But is this at the expense of quality? Pleasingly, the evidence says no.
Six Australian universities made it into the top 100 of the most recent Times Higher Education world rankings. Ten made the top 250, and 24 held or improved their position.
Scan the QS World University Australian Rankings and the upward trend continues, with the University of Technology Sydney entering the top 200, and Australian Catholic University and Central Queensland University making strong debuts.
Look at graduate outcomes, and steady improvements in quality are evident in student survey data on, for example, employment prospects, starting salaries, and, most notably, student satisfaction.
The system has played an active role in setting and raising high-quality standards. Industry accreditation of programs is a vital part of this. The oversight by bodies such as CPA Australia, Engineers Australia, the Australian Medical Council, and the Planning Institute of Australia brings to bear relevance and the rigour of practice on highly specialised degree programs.
Performing the most critical role with respect to quality, however, is the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, which was instituted in concert with the demand-driven system. It looks at distinct areas when it comes to credibility. In its June 2016 submission to the Higher Education Standards Panel, TEQSA observed that in assessing providers it examines“ the interaction between admission standards, student support and student outcomes”.
Quality is not all about entry, nor indeed outcomes. It’ s what happens in-between that counts the most.
Our capacity to read and engage with the experience of the student is critical. This extends beyond the institutional experience. It is about social and economic circumstances of the individual and how our systems, demand-driven or otherwise, account for and support that experience.
We have to look outside the walls of our universities as well as within the confines of our system. This is hard to do when the strategic, operational and financial dictates of the sector are conditionally rendered within institutional artifice.
Essentially, it is the experience of education we are talking about, when it comes to credibility. That experience is subject to rapid change.
When assessing the credibility of our models, then, we must not discount the primacy of experience, virtual or otherwise.
Most importantly, we need to come to a point where questions of credibility are not framed in defence of a particular model, be it demand-driven or otherwise. Rigour and efficacy must be inherent. Either the model works or it doesn’ t. Simple.
The real question we should be asking relates to the credibility of the assumptions and motives behind each model. More so, we should look at how those assumptions and motives are manifest in educational experiences and outcomes.
That would be a credible approach. ■
Professor Barney Glover is chair of Universities Australia and vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University. Dr Andy Marks is assistant vice-chancellor, strategy and policy at Western Sydney University.
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