campusreview. com. au
VC’ S CORNER
It was my pleasure in August 1991 to contribute to the first issue of Campus Review. I saw the journal as a valuable initiative, helping the sector understand broadly the many changes going on. That universities needed reform was not in doubt following the 1986 review of Efficiency and Effectiveness in Higher Education, which had important recommendations that had been largely ignored. Then-minister for education, John Dawkins, produced a huge upheaval with important positives and negatives.
Campus Review appeared at the height of the turbulence. Amalgamations were proceeding, and government, in partnership with a new National Board of Employment, Education and Training, was seeking to control every higher-education institution. The Higher Education Council and Australian Research Council were obviously relevant to universities; however, Laurie Carmichael’ s Employment and Skills Formation Council emerged in mid-1991 as a major factor as well. Carmichael sought to embrace all higher-education institutions in his national framework of‘ competenciesbased education’, to be regulated by boards comprising government, industry and unions. These boards would have power to determine what was taught by assessing everything in terms of employment competencies across all of Australia. He even postulated unions might take over from universities as providers.
At this time, my colleagues on the Australian Vice-Chancellor’ s Committee considered it necessary to comply with the minister’ s wishes on competencies, as they had earlier with the deeply flawed provisions for research in the relevant white paper. These were revised following much public controversy and the report of the Smith Committee on Higher Education Research Policy in 1989.
The battles on competencies mattered. Universities were about acquiring knowledge that keeps changing. Through education, students learn to make judgement about things in whatever field they study.
Management of each university became primarily a matter of student numbers and dollars, within its negotiated‘ educational profile’.
We felt relief when Dawkins stood aside from higher education and was followed as minister by Peter Baldwin. He had a technical and union background, but proved keen to learn about universities, of which he had no experience. His initial statement was that I was the only vice-chancellor complaining about competencies, but as debate continued over a year, with others coming to share my view, he appointed Simon Marginson, an education researcher with a union background, to review whether competencies could be used to assess generalist humanities or science.
Following Marginson’ s report, it was pronounced that competencies would not apply to university assessment. Even more important was that the minister saw quality of higher education as a critical issue, as it had been in our strategic plan.
When the University of Melbourne embarked on its own major reform program in 1988, I had ensured all sections of the university participated by using a series of widely circulated newsletters. No element in our strategic plan proceeded unless acceptable to academics at every level and approved by our academic board. I had many meetings with student groups across the faculties year after year. In other institutions, such processes of consultation were limited; a white paper conceived of vice-chancellors as chief executives responding to the minister’ s directions and controlling compliance within their institutions. Newspapers inevitably focused on issues of conflict, rather than addressing broad concerns in the way that Campus Review has for 25 years, discussing the many changes since my time as vice-chancellor.
The consequences of progressive reduction in funding per student since 1987, whichever major party has been in power in Canberra, are affecting the lives of university staff and students. We have seen much reduction in, or even disappearance of, tutorial teaching. Academics have increased responsibilities. The uncapping of student numbers with additional funding at a marginal level came later and has produced further growth in the system. Full-fee graduate programs were permitted after 1997 but progressive growth in private overseas student numbers since the 1990s has become a vital source of additional funding for all universities.
Individual institutions appropriately differ in their culture and priorities for education and research. This is now recognised in different groupings of institutions, so that students and staff select the appropriate university for their interests and needs.
University management has changed over the years, with huge growth in administrative functions and staff to deliver them. In my day, I was supported by three deputy vice-chancellors; each of us had one personal assistant. We worked with a key group of our academic leaders. I benefitted, year after year, from assistance in policy and writing from a wonderful young graduate. The registrar supervised finance, buildings and administrative support structures. IT services were just coming in and have grown exponentially.
These days, many vice-chancellors would have a large cluster of deputy, pro- and assistant vice-chancellors, each with a hierarchy of support staff. The reality, since my time, has been a shift to risk-averse management, of the kind seen in government departments, with costly growth in administration. There is a danger that a large bureaucracy sits between the leadership of institutions and their students and academic staff.
The tightening of funding has led some institutions to take urgent steps to sharply reduce the number of professional and administrative staff, to transfer savings to education and research. In reality, some such people are deeply embedded in partnership with academics. When it is left to external management consultants to make judgement about individuals’ great harm to the culture of an institution can ensue. Consultants see management as generic, unrelated to specialist knowledge or experience. This has recently been a big problem in one major university.
The culture of a university is vital to its performance. If people take pride in their institution, especially when they participate in setting its plans and processes, the institution will move ahead over many years. If, however, people feel removed from key decisions, performance is at risk. I congratulate Campus Review on the quality of its offerings over 25 years, during which it has consistently conveyed news and ideas with human images. It seeks comments from the sector wisely and presents information in a colourful and readable manner, attractive to people at every level in higher education. ■
Emeritus professor David Penington was vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne from 1988 – 1995.
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