VC’s corner
campusreview.com.au
As universities have become more
business-like, have they lost sight of
their core institutional missions?
By Sandra Harding
H
Australia’s
day after
20
ow are we preparing graduates for these times
and the next? How are we preparing our polity,
our economy, our society for these times
and the next?
Some time ago now, in a discussion about why China
is investing heavily in universities there, I heard a senior
Chinese official explain that “economics can guarantee
today, science and technology can guarantee tomorrow,
but only education can guarantee the day after”.
If the government of China is right about this, what
about Australia’s day after?
Australian universities have experienced times akin to
that type of positive view and accompanying investment
from governments. Think about the nation-building
efforts behind the expansion of universities in the
post‑World War II period and the Higher Education
Endowment Fund/the Education Investment Fund.
Budget night 2009 was momentous in its promise.
But since late 2012, governments of both political
persuasions have proposed and implemented cuts to
higher education and research, with the most recent
federal budget continuing this unhappy trend.
What does this mean for, and say about, Australia’s
universities?
The great puzzle is why investment in Australian
universities appears so insecure.
At one level, the explanation is obvious. For countries
like Australia, exposure to globalised markets and,
among other things, an ageing population puts pressure
on governments’ finances and how scarce funds are
distributed. It seems higher education and research are
particularly vulnerable. These are not the priority they could
be and arguably should be if the Chinese view is right.
So, it is reasonable that under conditions of resource
scarcity, less funding will be distributed to all sorts of
worthy causes, but is there something that serves to
make universities particularly vulnerable?
I think there is.
This goes to tectonic shifts in economy and society
(including demography, technology and the media)
driving loss of trust in institutions and the growth of
anti-intellectualism. Unsurprisingly, these two are related.
And these two have a sharp resonance for universities
and our place in the public policy firmament.
The marketisation of higher education has challenged
universities and, more importantly, challenged trust
in universities.
Universities are institutions in the sociological sense
and that means universities, like other sociological
institutions, must be other-regarding in important
ways. Our legitimacy is tightly bound to the idea that