University Autonomy and Government Control
I'm doing a lot of reading about organisational change and the role of the university at the moment and the juxtaposition of two quotes struck me rather strongly.
Burton Clark in 1998, in his book "Creating Entrepenurial Universities" quoted a very apt observation:
"a workable twentieth century definition of institutional autonomy [is] the absence of dependence upon a single or narrow base of support" (Babbage and Rosenweig, 1962, quoted in Clark, 1998, p7)
One of the very real challenges to New Zealand universities is our dependence on the Government for our funding. A large proportion of most universities budgets come from a traditional model of funding that is built primarily around our teaching activities.
In a very real sense our universities lack entrepenurial approaches to teaching. Much of what we deliver is still built around traditional teaching paradigms and there is very little support for radical changes to course delivery. What's going to happen when e-learning finally delivers the promise of flexible, personalised learning? Why would students continue to take three or four years out of their lives to attend full-time university when they could find employment and recieve high quality education on the job?
The need to be more accessable to a wider segment of society, to be a tool for social change as well as education has seen a great widening of participation in undergraduate degrees. Sadly though, this has also seen a devaluing of those degrees. Inevitably they have been easier to obtain - how else could you get 30% of the population to pass something previously restricted to the top 5% of students? But also, as more people obtain them, the cachet of a degree is diluted, students seek higher degrees - Honours and Masters to distinguish themselves, but these take longer and result in yet more debt, yet more reduced productivity for society in general.
The benefits of a university undergraduate education are tricky to demonstrate. My guess is that at least some of what institutions take credit for is simply a consequence of students transitioning to fully "adult" roles in society. Society is gradually moving away from the idea that individuals need institutions to care for them and guide their decisions, how long will it be before students reject the traditional model of education and seek a more modern, a more relevant way of developing their skills?
If the pressure to grow "productivity" continues, how long is it before the Government and employers wake up to the potential of having people productive while learning? We already see many students engaging in evening classes and part-time study while remaining in full employment. Traditionally that has tended to be for second qualifications or specialisations but I can see no real reason why most people couldn't get their first qualification that way as well - particularly if their employer was supportive and especially if that means they avoid crippling student debt. Employers are already struggling to attract good staff and supporting skills development is a well-established mechanism for attracting and retaining good employees.
The Government is going to change the funding model to remove the focus on quantity. Many people will pitch this as a big change. Despite the changes however, the Government will remain the largest single source of university funding and universities will remain - for now - insulated from the wider economic drivers. I think bigger changes wait in the wings.
A hint of the future comes from Australia - often a good indicator of the near future in New Zealand. A recent speech from the Hon Julie Bishop, MP at an Australian conference sets the tone:
"While our universities are autonomous institutions they are also the recipients of $8.2 billion of taxpayer funding this year alone, and as such have to be accountable for how they spend that money"
Now this is in the context of the employment battles going on between the sector and the Federal Government, but it does clearly convey the stick - do what we want, demonstrate economic relevance, or we take the money away.
I think universities in New Zealand are going to face a significant challenge in the future in demonstrating our economic relevance, especially once employers work out there are viable alternatives to employing people with basic degrees. Yes, we can provide flexible alternatives - after all we already do so for a large percentage of students. But my impression is that this is on the basis of a large subsidy from big, traditionally taught undergradute classes.
Offering flexible, technology mediated, education is expensive. Possibly no more or less expensive than traditional lecturing, but it requires completely different systems and infrastructure and that will take time and money to establish. New providers are able to create new systems from scratch and that inevitably means they have an advantage.
The presumption that students must get their entire education from one provider provides a small amount of protection - but its fading fast. The Government is already signalling their desire to break that constraint. How long will it be before universities are required to accept individual papers from a myriad of providers as part of a degree qualification? You can bet that those providers will focus on the most lucrative and popular courses, rather than the expensive sciences or on providing an intellectually rich and diverse selection of programmes.
How long before an external qualification authority takes over degree certification and the Government mandates that all qualifications are "vetted" and awarded by it? Universities struggle to cope with cross-crediting from each other - how are we going to cope with students presenting with a collection of courses from a myriad of national and international sources?
At some point universities are going to have to prove to Government, employers and students that our degree programmes are better and more relevant than a patchwork of courses offered by alternative providers - and I don't think that its too far in the future. Updating our systems to take advantage of the promise of e-learning is the only alternative that I can see to becoming irrelavant and finally disestablished. Updating and modernising our teaching is going to take time - let's hope we start soon enough to be ready for the challenge...