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education links Multi-Partner Campuses:The future of Australian higher educationExecutive summaryBackgroundThis report was commissioned in August 1999 with five clear objectives. These were:
In order to achieve this aim, between September 1999 and March 2000 the research team undertook 44 interviews at 14 sites around Australia and conducted a further eight interviews at six sites overseas. In addition, an international symposium was convened by the group in April 2000 under the title ‘Flexible Futures in Education and Training’ to which 90 experts were invited. Representation ranged across all levels of education, municipal government, industry, small business as well as the state and federal bureaucracy. The symposium was addressed by the Chair of TAFE Queensland, Rachel Hunter, the Director of Technology Transfer for the University of Amsterdam, Drs Johan Vos and the Principal Research Associate at CURDS, Dr David Charles. Symposium proceedings related to the themes of this project are contained in chapter 6. The report begins with a discussion of the concept of Learning Communities and Learning Regions. Chapter 1 explores various models of ‘creative associations’ between the educational sector and the larger community (both socially and economically defined), both in Australia and in the international context. The chapter concludes with an outline of the methodology for the report. Chapters 2 and 3 concentrate upon specific case studies of cross-sectoral collaboration, respectively, in Australia and overseas. These analyses are enlivened by interview materials as well as by comparative observations. The following two chapters focus on particular issues which bear upon the running of multi-campus partnerships in Australia: how the collaborations actually work and how the structure and pedagogies of teaching and learning inform such campuses in differing ways. The report shifts back to focus upon the theme of regional embeddedness in chapter 6. Here, the framework and methodology introduced in chapter 1 is transposed into the environment of multi-campus partnerships operating in regional economies. How do such facilities reflect their regions, enrich them and gain enrichment from them in return? This theme is carried further with a discussion of specific, relevant outcomes of the ‘Flexible Futures’ symposium, noted above. Chapters 7 and 8 can be seen as a related pair. The first interrogates the demographic and economic components of Brisbane’s northern corridor; in particular, the working population figures pertinent to the northern subset of that area, termed the Caboolture-Pine Rivers-Redcliffe sub-region. The purpose of this chapter is to establish a rigorous factual and statistical basis for the chapter which follows, entitled ‘The Case for Caboolture’. This chapter contains a detailed feasibility study for a new form of multi-partner campus in the Caboolture region of Southeast Queensland. This analysis is based upon a 12-point ‘viability index’, itself derived from the evidence tendered in chapters 1-7, which is proposed as a template for all cross-sectoral facilities. Chapter 9 draws these various research threads together, and outlines cogent conclusions and recommendations. Principal findingsThe research team concentrated upon two primary areas when writing this report. The first pertained to the present: the aim was to gain a ‘snapshot’ of current Australian and international practices in the creation and management of multi-partner campuses and their regional relationships. The second area related to the future: here, the goal was to intersect theories about optimal Learning Regions with the potential for such cross-sectoral campuses in the years ahead. It is in this cross-over between present practice and future possibilities that one finds the most exciting aspects of our research. Specifically, the report recommends the adoption of clear measures and standards of analysis in this area, and advocates the introduction of a ‘12-point Viability Index’. Although such an index must always take into account questions of context, our research suggests that it can be deployed to gauge the feasibility of any new multi-partner campus proposal. Equally, it can be used to compare existing multi-partner practices around Australia on a common footing. The 12 points in the index are:
The dimensions of all twelve criteria are fully explored in chapter 8. What is significant here is that this is a first attempt to systematise the assessment of such multi-partner campuses across regions, states and countries to arrive at a common, defensible measurement of success. Allied to this analytical tool, our research uncovered the need to distinguish between cross-sectoral institutions which operate primarily on an independent, ‘stand-alone’ basis in regional areas and those which form part of ‘networks’, typically with a university in a metropolitan centre for which they are regional ‘outliers’. In the former category are such joint ventures as the Coffs Harbour Education Campus (NSW), the Esperance Community College (WA), the Joondalup Education Precinct (WA), the Rockingham Regional Campus (WA), the Central Coast Campus, Ourimbah (NSW) and the Nirimba Education Precinct (NSW). In the latter category are collaborative ventures such as the Berwick and Gippsland campuses of Monash University, the Emerald Campus of Central Queensland University, and the Whyalla Campus of the University of South Australia. The first group of cross-sectoral facilities can most appropriately be termed multi-partner campuses while the second group can most accurately be considered multi-campus partners. Such a distinction is more than a semantic one. One of the signal findings of our research was that the decision to choose a new, joint name and logo for a collaborative operation almost always denoted a higher level of cooperation and integration across sectors than a decision taken to brand the facility as a branch campus of an existing university. This conclusion was valid throughout Australia and was found to be equally so when we investigated the international situation: a true joint venture such as ‘Higher Education Almere’ in the Netherlands initially gives no indication that one of the founding partners is the University of Amsterdam. At the same time, a less-integrated partnership—such as the Seneca@York facility in Toronto—retains the names of both of its founders, just as it perpetuates their quite separate relationship in a single campus area. A third category of analysis in the Australian context pertains to the so-called ‘dual sector’ institutions, in which TAFE and Higher Education operations have been effectively merged by government fiat under a single management umbrella. At the moment, this only applies in Victoria—in which institutions like RMIT, VUT, Swinburne, Ballarat and Melbourne are responsible for about 40 per cent of the TAFE teaching operations conducted in that state (Doughney, 2000)—and in the Northern Territory, where the NTU has, since its inception, been a dual sector operation. These institutions all present particular strengths and challenges: in general, they are less likely to integrate with the secondary school sector than the ‘true’ multi-partner campuses; however, they are all quite innovative in such areas as the design of student-centered course pathways and all are ‘stand-outs’ in terms of major industry liaison and partnerships. In a regional context, the University of Ballarat has been particularly successful in this connection. It has, in our estimation, done more than any of the other dual sector institutions to create a Learning Region in its catchment area. It was also, significantly, the only such institution to report continuing and explicit benchmarking of such activities with an overseas partner. One of the key conclusions of this report is that, while there are many exemplary aspects of cross-sectoral partnerships both in Australia and overseas, there is no single institution or multi-partner campus whose performance is ideal. Thus, the University of Maastricht is one of the finest international examples in higher education of an institution which has generated, and reflects, a Learning Region. At the same time, Seneca@York is probably the most outstanding VET building in the world today; the University of the Highlands and Islands project is an unparalleled example of the way in which advanced Information Technology and a vision for collaboration can create a ‘network university’ over a vast area; and the Almere Alnovum project is an exemplary case of a multi-partner campus involving the university, vocational education, municipal and business sectors. A similar pattern occurs within Australia. Here, Coffs Harbour is a stand-out in terms of seamless cooperation across three educational sectors; Rockingham has one of the most successful multi-partner libraries in the country; the University of Ballarat has an exemplary strategy for marrying IT infrastructure with the development of its region. The challenge now is to draw together these disparate strands of success into a coherent whole—both as these projects develop and as new multi-partner campuses are conceived. Finally, this report suggests that the future for multi-partner, cross-sectoral ventures is a bright one. There may be no better way for education to reach out to communities—especially to regional communities—than by establishing joint ventures which can transform them from being unconnected and underperforming areas into vibrant centres of Learning Regions.
Full Report PDF (662KB)
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