I
P
[Next Chapter] [Previous Chapter] [Contents]
|
E I P |
3: Australian Higher Education Governance and Management [Next Chapter] [Previous Chapter] [Contents] |
Recent Changes in Policies and Funding
Diversity within the Unified National System
The 'New Managerialism' in Higher Education
Industrial Relations in the Higher Education Sector
Institutional Autonomy and Academic Freedom
This chapter identifies a number of issues and tensions which have implications for both the form and effectiveness of governance and management of Australian higher education. It should be noted, however, that some of the pressures which confront higher education managers are not new. Indeed a number are merely intensifications of long standing issues. For example, the proportion of tenured staff within institutions; increasing the proportion of women in senior academic and management positions; and performance assessment of academic staff have been part of the higher education management debate for decades. Other pressures, such as those associated with deregulation and market competition, are new and as such are not as well understood either in terms of their complexity or appropriate policy responses. It is particularly important therefore that the role of the higher education manager be understood in terms of a number of broad contextual issues regarding the operations of Australian universities. The issues which are the focus of this chapter are:
Since the publication of the White Paper (Higher Education: a policy statement) and the higher education reforms of the late 1980s, the funding of Australian higher education has become increasingly competitive and commercialised. As is the case in many OECD countries, Australian universities are increasingly under pressure to become more entrepreneurial and to diversify their sources of income through obtaining funds from sources other than the DEETYA operating grant. At the same time, universities are being held more accountable for the effective and efficient expenditure of the public money allocated to them. The dual pressures of funding diversity and public accountability are a source of a number of tensions within higher education.
By and large, institutions are successfully meeting the challenge to diversify their funding base. At present, DEETYA contributes about $5 billion to higher education with total non-DEETYA income around $2 billion. In this context it is interesting to note that a number of universities are not only reporting significant non-grant revenue but also substantial budget surpluses (Correy 1996: 22).
The pressure for institutions to become even more entrepreneurial is likely to increase as governments continue to dispel the view that they are the 'underwriters' for the total higher education budget. The end of assured government funded growth in undergraduate places and a policy refocus on TAFE (Hoare Committee Higher Education Management Review 1995 ) will no doubt maintain this pressure. However, the increasing dependence of institutions for funds from such sources as competitive research grants, consultancy fees, contracts with industry and domestic and overseas student tuition fees has forced a reassessment of the adequacy of traditional management practices for such activities. Indeed, the impact of market forces on higher education has necessitated substantial changes in attitudes on the part of academic staff and institutional management.
The challenge for universities is how to maintain an appropriate balance between free and open scholarly inquiry in teaching and research and the more immediate demands and priorities that can be imposed by the private sector. It has been argued that academic autonomy is related to the multiplicity of funding sources. But what appears to be at issue is not the multiplicity of funding sources per sé, but the structures of control embedded in particular types of funding mechanisms. In this sense, market forces may be more of a threat to academic freedom than government policy ever was (Slaughter 1990; Wood 1992).
The previous government made it clear in a number of policy statements and public comments that it was not prepared to fully fund the expansion of higher education from the public purse. As indicated above, higher education institutions seem to be meeting the challenge to diversify their funding base. Nonetheless, the sector continues to 'cry poor', and there are numerous claims that the expansion of student numbers in the absence of a corresponding expansion in financial resources has severely threatened the quality of Australian higher education, particularly with respect to teaching (cf. Ramsden et al. 1996; McInnis et al. 1996). It may be the case that entrepreneurial activities, though substantial, are not sufficient to supplement government grants in maintaining teaching quality. Alternatively, such claims may be more rhetorical than factual. Overseas experience is of particular interest in this regard.
In many countries, a good deal of the private funding of public higher education comes in the form of student fees and, in some national systems, institutions previously prohibited from charging fees can now do so with respect to certain categories of students. The policy motives behind the introduction or increase of student tuition in formerly 'free' higher education systems are various. They are, in part, one aspect of a more general 'privatisation' of public higher education (Levy 1991) where it is assumed that the benefits to the individual of participation in higher education are equal to or greater than the benefits to society. There is also the assumption that if clients have to pay for the service then the providers will increase the quality of the service in this case, teaching-as they compete with one another for customers (Meek et al. forthcoming 1996; McInnis et al. 1996). While several countries have been successful in obtaining private money to help offset the decline in government support of higher education, this has not necessarily improved or even maintained teaching quality. A recent study of private investment in higher education in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Britain, the United States and Japan demonstrates that the bulk of private money is consumed by research and administration, with little to no private investment going towards teaching. The authors of the report (Goedegebuure, Kaiser and van Vught 1994) conclude that:
The teaching function will bear the full burden of future reductions in public higher education funding, as it has already done in the recent past. Combined with the trend to increased participation this will lead to catastrophic effects in the foreseeable future: institutions will no longer be able to provide adequate education to students as available funds, under unchanged circumstances, will become absolutely insufficient to provide the necessary [teaching] infrastructure ...
What appears to be at issue is not merely raising private revenue, but the overheads incurred in its acquisition and how it is directed or otherwise to core institutional activities.
Although tremendous pressure has been placed on institutions to attract other sources of funds for their operating grants apart from those provided through DEETYA, rigorous examinations of the social and educational costs incurred through such activities have been few. It is unlikely that there will be any reversal in the pressures to diversify funding sources. But what needs to be recognised is that entrepreneurial activities are not just one more burden on management. Rather, the new competitive funding environment is changing fundamentally the context in which management occurs. However, as Neave and van Vught observe (1994: 316) 'Reforms put in place to meet the demands of a national economy are not always those most suited to survival when, as is increasingly the case today, the world economy is often shaped by forces lying outside the control of the nation state'.
While government policy has encouraged competition and placed institutions in a more market like environment, as indicated in Chapter 2, government is also pursuing various mechanisms to assess institutional performance and to ensure public accountability. As is the case in many OECD countries, public funding of universities is changing from an ex ante to an ex post model, where funding is based on a number of output measures. This already occurs with respect to the research quantum, which itself will become even more of an output measure than at present. In 1995, the research quantum, representing about 6 per cent of total operating grants, was based on performance indicators distributed as follows:
By 1997, the proportion to be allocated with respect to output indicators is to rise to 22.5 per cent with a corresponding reduction in the quantum allocated in terms of input.
Although there have been a number of studies regarding the use of performance indicators in Australian higher education (for example, Linke 1984; Bourke 1986; AVCC/ACDP 1988; Grigg and Sheehan 1989; Linke 1991; NBEET 1993, 1994) few (if any) have been embraced by the sector. Nonetheless, performance-based funding and the use of performance indicators in budget allocation remain focal issues on both government and institutional agendas. Whether or not the sector will be able to agree on its own performance indicators or have them externally imposed is as yet unclear. Performance assessment and other accountability measures also raise the more fundamental issue of how best to regulate and steer the higher education system.
There is some confusion in the steering and regulation of Australian higher education created by the dual pressures of enhanced market competition and increased public accountability. What government sees as accountability measures-such as requiring institutions to have mission statements that conform to national goals and priorities, research management plans and regular reporting of statistical information and performance data-many institutional managers view as unwanted government intervention. Despite policy statements to the contrary, there have been a number of reports indicating that many in the academic community believe that Australian higher education institutions have lost autonomy and the freedom to determine their own directions (see Boyer, Altbach and Whitelaw 1994; Moses 1995).
This has created a strong 'them/us' attitude between universities and government. Although, it could be also be argued that to some extent this attitude is a result of the aftermath of restructuring of the higher education sector and also the natural tendency of humans to resist change. Nonetheless, for academic morale not to be further eroded, a climate of trust needs to be fostered for effective dialogue between universities and government. As indicated in Chapter 2, an over emphasis on performance measures and accountability can introduce new forms of bureaucratic control and have the unintended consequence of undermining the presumed benefits of market competition.
The accountability movement in Australia was mentioned in Chapter 2 with respect to quality assurance and is examined in more detail below. Of particular interest are the motives behind federal and State government pressure to restructure governing bodies, as well as the demands for, and consequences of, corporate management approaches within universities. The question of institutional autonomy is also addressed in more detail. However, as the issue of diversity has been an ongoing concern of government higher education policy agendas in most developed countries, some background information to this issue in the Australian context is provided first.
There can be little doubt that the need to enhance diversity places a great deal of pressure on institutional management. It is not that the issue of diversity is new. As was noted earlier, diversity has been advocated as an appropriate policy response to mass higher education at least since the late 1960s. What is new, however, is that diversity is now to be achieved much more through institutional leadership and strategic planning in response to market competition than through policy directives. A popular policy response in the late 1960s and early 1970s to the need to enhance diversity was to create formally separate and distinct higher education sectors, such as universities and polytechnics in the United Kingdom and universities and Colleges of Advanced Education in Australia. In Australia, the binary divide was replaced by the Unified National System (UNS) where nearly all higher education institutions are called universities. However, the creation of the UNS has led to claims that the system has generated uniformity rather than the diversity which it was intended to foster.
Australia has a well entrenched mass system of higher education. For example between 1983 and 1995 total student numbers rose from 349 000 to 604 000 - an increase of 73 per cent. Increased participation rates have resulted in a much broader and more diverse student clientele. In creating the UNS in the context of rapidly expanding student participation, government clearly recognised the need for differentiation and diversity in higher education. The Green Paper stated that institutions would be funded for what they did, not for what they were called, and every official statement on higher education since has stressed the need for a more diverse and responsive set of higher education institutions. Also, policy has been based on the assumption that diversity would occur naturally through competition and the pull of market forces. So far, however, the results have not been encouraging.
Whether or not there is more or less diversity within a higher education system depends, in part, on how the terms are defined. In this respect, Birnbaum (1983) draws the important distinction between internal diversity (differences within institutions) and external diversity (differences between institutions). There are according to Birnbaum several types of external diversity, the most important in the context of this report being:
From a policy perspective, it can be argued that mass higher education must have diversity, as it is through diversity that both the range of choices for students and the accessibility to higher education for many different clientele groups are increased. Diversity is also perceived to ensure that higher education is not only more responsive to the varying needs and abilities of students but also allows for specialisation within the system. Yet it appears that the competitive environment in which the Australian higher education system operates has enforced a degree of uniformity on the sector.
The policy intention was that competition would encourage institutions to find their own particular 'market niche'. However, it seems that institutions have been more prone to copy each others' teaching and research profiles than to self-consciously diversify (cf Harman and Wood 1990). As mentioned in Chapter 2, quality assurance procedures have encouraged a degree of uniformity, with the institutional portfolios prepared for the various rounds of submissions to the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education another indicator of this trend to uniformity. Some other examples of convergence are the proliferation of MBA programs and law degrees, the shortening of master degrees to one year full-time throughout the system, an emphasis on the building of a research culture within the new universities, and the transfer of student load from the undergraduate to the postgraduate level.
In attempting to diversify their funding base, the overseas student market has proved a lucrative avenue for many institutions. Full-fee paying overseas students are big business for Australian higher education, with close to 40 000 of these students enrolled in 1995. But the majority of these students are only interested in a fairly narrow range of courses centred around economics and business studies. Also, in attempting to cater for the preferences of the overseas student market, many institutions have engaged in course duplication.
With the abolition of the binary divide, subjects once relegated to the non-university sector (nursing, tourism, lower levels of teacher training, etc.) were suddenly exalted to the level of university degrees. Combined with a process of extensive institutional amalgamation between 'older' universities and former Colleges of Advanced Education which occurred immediately after the collapse of the binary system, these subjects were automatically dispersed throughout the system. Looked at from this perspective, programmatic convergence rather than diversification has been the result.
At the time of the White Paper and the dismantling of the binary system, many critics of government policy feared the creation of a uniform set of higher education institutions. These fears have been justified insofar as what has happened has been an increase in internal institutional diversity with a corresponding decrease in external system diversity. Thus the adequacy of government policy to promote diversity as well as that of institutional leadership to define distinctive missions for their institutions must be questioned (cf. Goldsworthy 1993: 11). Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, for the reward structures put in place by government policy influence strategic decisions at the institutional level. Thus the rewards to be derived from market competition may have stimulated a degree of institutional imitation. It should also be stressed that some of the policies themselves appear contradictory in terms of intention and application.
Research funding is a clear example of an unanticipated/unintended policy consequence. The previous federal government had a stated policy of concentration and selectivity in research funding. But research policy and the reward structure that it sets in place has stimulated institutions to imitate, at least to a degree, one another's research profiles. Research funding has become more competitive and this presents a particular challenge to a number of the new universities which are still in the process of building a research culture. Partly due to the fact that funding is higher for postgraduate research enrolments than for undergraduate enrolments, the new universities are rapidly developing postgraduate research programs and shifting funded student load to them.
The number of research proposals from staff in these institutions to competitive research funding agencies, such as the Australian Research Council (ARC), has risen dramatically and, within 'older' university/College of Advanced Education (CAE) amalgamations, most ex-CAE staff feel compelled to become researchers (cf. Harman and Wood 1990; McInnis et al. 1996). A proportion of the ARC budget is set aside for the small grants scheme and is allocated to institutions according to their success in winning ARC large grants-placing further pressure on all institutions to obtain a share of the ARC large grant dollars. The research quantum is based on research performance indicators consisting mostly of the amount of Commonwealth research funding won per institution, the number of research publications, and PhD and research masters output. The newer universities have not done as well in the competition for research dollars as the older universities. But what gains they have made are seen as significant in bringing other rewards in their train.
The issue of diversity is probably one of the most important ones to face Australian higher education over the next couple of decades. At stake is whether weaker institutions will merely become a pale imitation of their more powerful and prestigious brethren, or create their own excellence in different and varied ways (cf. Goldsworthy 1993: 11; Leech 1993: 15). Uniform policy probably stimulates a degree of uniformity in institutional response, as does market competition where institutions are competing for the same clientele, such as full fee paying overseas students. It is difficult for governments not to apply the same policy to all institutions, particularly where there is little or no systemic diversity, such as in the UNS. But universal criteria, even ones based on excellence, can undermine diversity, as the following anecdote from the United Kingdom illustrates. Roberts (1994: 331-332), reflecting on a mid-1980s letter from the then University Grants Committee to the effect that the Classics department at his institution should be closed down, comments that:
Yet Classics had been doing a good job. It was not on reflection, perhaps, of the highest academic standards as the University Grants Committee would have conceived them, though its teachers were very good, and carried out some research of high quality. But even at a time when such paragons were more easily found than today, it was not a department which could attract the high-flying classical sixth-former...Nonetheless, though this meant that the achievements of its finalists could not match those of some other universities, the department was, in my eyes, doing an outstanding valuable job by taking students who could never have survived, say, the Oxford classical course, but to whom it gave over the next three years more than a glimpse of the scope, quality and excitement of traditional classical scholarship. They were often enthused. So they went out into the world, often with a little Greek added to their much improved Latin, and a belief that theirs had been an enriching study and a true education....I remain convinced that this was an immensely important social service-truly a service to society. To stop our classical colleagues doing it was folly. The episode appears to me to show that the application of one specific set of academic criteria in an area where a university was operating valuably, but with less exigent academic goals than in other disciplines could itself be a danger to the richness of what universities do.
Despite the pressures for uniformity, there are signs in Australia that institutions are starting to more self consciously think about how best to perform different roles and serve different clientele. In the context of the above quote it is interesting to note the comments of the Vice-Chancellor of Southern Cross University (established 1994) regarding the 'value added' function such institutions are perceived to perform in relation to the less academically competitive high-school graduates. Conyngham in commenting on the lower entry scores for many courses in 1995 said: 'As new universities we are always going to fight to get students. I don't think having to take students with low TER is a problem as a student with a TER of around 50 can turn out to be a first-class university graduate' (Ceresa 1995: 24).
Enhancement or otherwise of diversity is a result of a complex and sometimes contradictory interplay between government policy and institutional response that requires constant monitoring. On the other hand, no matter how well devised the policies at system level, innovative leadership at the institutional level appears to be a necessary though maybe not sufficient condition for the achievement of diversity.
All Australian universities have a governing body (council, senate or board of governors). The governing body is the ultimate locus of authority and responsibility for academic, financial and property matters within the university. However, the role of governing bodies is not always easy to define, particularly given the range of expectations, from outside as well as from within the academic community, regarding how universities should be governed. The substantial differences in the size and composition of the various Australian university governing bodies also add to the difficulty of defining their role. Furthermore, as Wood and Smith (1992: 61-62) observe: 'Australian universities, as with universities in the United Kingdom, tend not to possess a document that describes the powers, responsibilities, and functions of its units, committees, and officers, in operating terms other than in the skeletal framework of the charter statutes' (cf Hoare Committee 1995). This echoes a similar view by McCaig (1965: 98) approximately three decades earlier that: 'One looks in vain in the memoranda and articles of associations of companies, in the constitutions of statutory organisations or the by-laws of universities for any specific statement of the rationale for the specific functions of boards of this nature are expected to fulfil'.
The governing body ought to be seen by the university community and by the polity and society as being composed of trustees for the institution. However, a different view of the governing body is that it consists of delegates, persons with a responsibility to represent a particular point of view or sets of points of view, and with an obligation to report back to the constituency. Extending this distinction a little further, governing bodies can be seen as a group of advocates for an institution (the trustee role), or they can be seen as persons concerned with the regulation of the institution (the delegate role). Clearly, these roles are mutually exclusive; equally clearly, neither one alone adequately characterises the functioning of any governing body today.
The judgement of Justice Lawrence Street(1967) in the case of Benetts v Board of Fire Commissioners of New South Wales and Others is of interest in the discussion of the delegate vs the trustee role of members of governing bodies. Justice Street listed three objects of providing for interested groups to nominate members of such a board:
He then ruled that:
The consideration which must in board affairs govern each individual member is the advancement of the public purpose for which parliament has set up the board...Once a group has elected a member he assumes office as a member of the board and becomes subject to the overriding and predominant duty to serve the interests of the board in preference, on every occasion in which conflict might arise, to serving the interests of the group that appointed him.
New organisational and administrative questions for academic governance in Australian higher education have also been raised by the advent of the multicampus university. However, the 'federated' structure allowed for in the Acts of several networked universities is a relatively new organisational form in Australian higher education for which there has been little guidance regarding how the constituent campuses are to become part of a system and how an effective multicampus administrative structure is to be established. Indeed, one of the major challenges confronting governing bodies of network universities is how best to achieve and sustain a workable balance between the interests of the university as a whole in succeeding in its mission and the interests of the individual campuses in carrying out their activities. The ways in which the Chief Executive Officers of the network members discharge their role on the university governing body are clearly instrumental in meeting this challenge.
The key figures in putting a stamp on the way in which a governing body perceives and discharges its roles are the Chancellor (who normally chairs the governing body) and the chief executive of the institution, normally the Vice-Chancellor. The Chancellor plays a dual role, that of the titular or ceremonial head of the institution and 'Chair of the Board' (the Chancellor chairs the meetings of the governing body which performs the legislative functions, amongst others). There are some distinctive variations in the way these functions relate to each other. Thus, the Australian university tradition is to have the executive and legislative functions concentrated on one person or body, with the titular or ceremonial in another. This is in marked contrast to the situation which exists in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Canada.
One of the unique areas of the interplay of governance and control in Australian higher education institutions is between the senior academic body and the governing body. This flows partly from the fact that Australian structures resemble a bicameral system, with academic governance being vested in the senior, institution-wide academic body in fact, if not in name. One American observer suggested that the 'Australian system invests the [academic] board with more real authority than the typical faculty senate of an American university, whose recommendations and advice are frequently rejected or ignored' (Potter 1983: 65). The role of collegiality in institutions where there has been a move towards more professional systems has been the subject of much debate (e.g. Williams 1990: 14; Lockwood 1985: 103; ASTEC 1987: 28; Neave 1988: 113), particularly in terms of its obstructiveness in the decision making process and the development of consistent policies.
The composition and size of university governing bodies were identified as significant by the 1988 White Paper as an important aspect of the federal government's efforts to restructure the higher education sector. The White Paper made clear that an appropriate guide for both these aspects 'can be drawn from boards of large private organisations' - an appropriate size for councils being 10-15 members. The need for wider community involvement in university governance was also recognised in this policy document.
The continued concern by government for effective higher education institutional governance and management is reflected in the 1995 report of the Higher Education Management Review. Although the Hoare Committee concluded that 'the size of the governing body was less important than the quality of the membership and the quality of the information made available to them' the Committee was also of the view that there was scope for further rationalisation both in terms of size and appropriate member mix. The Committee (1995: 53) recommended that governing bodies should have between 10 and 15 members, and was of the view that 'Governing bodies with more than 20 are likely to be unmanageable, particularly given the increased strategic focus that the bodies should have'. Also stressed was the importance of ensuring that the 'widest possible range of stakeholder views' be considered by the governing body either through direct membership on the governing body or through committees and advisory groups.
The Hoare committee was particularly concerned that council membership was not dominated by internal institutional representatives. However, the view expressed by McCaig (1965: 97) in the mid-1960s regarding the rationale for academic representatives is still of relevance - the rationale being 'the traditional one of participation in their own government and that of bringing some specified knowledge to the deliberation of the senate. In this case it is presumably a knowledge of the needs and wishes of the members of the particular university as well as the wider knowledge of the nature and purposes of universities in general'.
McCaig's own study of the role expectations of the members of the governing councils of two Australian universities whose membership was drawn from academic, government and business circles led him to conclude that 'their type of membership, which allows for the holding of diverse, even contrary, expectations, would militate against their effectiveness'. McCaig's investigations showed that: 'the wide range of legal and ascribed functions for university senates were not clearly seen by the members interviewed as the rightful functions of their senates'; 'while there was agreement on some of these functions (e.g. business administration) different groups of senates tended to have different views of senate functions' and that each group's self perception of its functions was at variance with the functions ascribed to it by the other groups. As McCaig noted, 'Where such a variance was great (e.g. the perceptions of the functions of government members) one might again expect conflict'. Also, the results of McCaig's survey indicated 'that members tended to give little consideration to the functions of the other members on their senates'. Not surprisingly McCaig urged further investigation of the rationale for governing body composition and for finding ways of making them 'more effective administrative instruments'. However, what is surprising is that it has taken three decades to do it.
The Hoare report provides detailed information on the current membership of each university's governing body. However, despite the availability of information regarding council composition and size during 1990, no comparisons were made by the Hoare Committee between this information and the 1995 data contained in the final report.
In this context it is of relevance to note that two years after the release of the White Paper on higher education, the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee distributed a questionnaire to its members at that time concerning the composition and size of their governing bodies. Twenty-six universities provided the requested information and the results were reported by Wood and Smith in 1992. In view of the continuing concern from both within and outside universities regarding contemporary management practices in Australian higher education, a comparison has been made between the size and composition of these 26 universities in 1990 and in 1995 (details of which are provided in Appendix B).
In summary, of the 26 universities profiled by Wood and Smith, seven have decreased the size of their governing bodies since the 1990 survey, nine have increased the size of their governing body and in 10 institutions the number has remained unchanged. The average size of the 26 boards in 1995 was 26 members, just one less than the 27 member average in 1990. The Universities of Wollongong and Newcastle had the smallest boards with 18. Both of these institutions had reduced their board size since 1990. The largest boards were the University of Melbourne (40), Monash University (39) La Trobe University (36), followed by the University of Queensland, James Cook University, University of Adelaide, and Flinders University each with 35 members. The University of Canberra had the smallest governing body membership in 1990-17 members. However, since 1990 it has had the largest proportional increase of all the 26 survey institutions-an increase of 18 per cent primarily in the governor/ministerial category.
The most dramatic changes in governing body size and composition have been at the Australian National University (ANU). In 1990 ANU had the largest governing body with 44 members. However, in 1995 ANU's governing body numbered 22. This has been effected by reductions in most categories of membership. While the average size of governing bodies is still well-above 20, changes have certainly been made over this period in a number of universities. Given the interest in the relationship between the size and composition of governing bodies and their effectiveness, it is somewhat surprising that more detailed research has not been done on those cases where there has been substantial changes with respect to these two variables.
The size and composition of governing bodies also have implications for State/federal relations in higher education. Under Australia's federal political structure, legislative responsibility for higher education, including the establishment of governing bodies, lies with the States. However, the federal government has arguably a legitimate interest in the composition of university governing bodies although clearly it requires State government cooperation to have any influence in this sphere. In this context it is interesting to note that at least one State government has expressed concern over the governance of the universities for which it has legislative responsibility.
In 1995, The Minister for Further Education in South Australia established a Governance Review Group to examine the governance and councils of the Universities of Adelaide, Flinders and South Australia. In particular, The Review Group (chaired by Mr Alan McGregor, chairman of Fauldings Ltd.) was asked to report on:
In justifying the establishment of the Review Group, the Minister is reported as stating that 'There needs to be a balance between a community of scholars and the reality of universities as modern-day business practices' (Tideman and Illing 1996).
The Review Group's report entitled 'Balancing Town and Gown' concluded that 'the most obvious deficiency in the overall make up of the [SA] councils is the lack of people experienced in managing other large organisation, particularly from business and commerce', and that 'All councils in South Australia are too big to be workable'. The report also stated that 'There is obviously a need to more clearly define the positions on councils for people intended to be independent of universities', and recommended capping membership to the State's university councils at 20 (see Tideman 1996). The recommendations of the Review Group are very much in line with those of the Hoare Committee and have been accepted in principle by the South Australian Government. It will be interesting to see if other States follow the South Australian example and the success (or otherwise) of the implementation of the recommendations contained in the above reports.
Australia is not alone in questioning the composition and effectiveness of its higher education governing bodies. In the United Kingdom, for example, Lord Nolan's Committee on Standards in Public Life is investigating the governance of grant-maintained schools, housing associations and training and enterprise councils, as well as universities and colleges. As in Australia, the Nolan Committee (The Nolan Roadshow 1995: 9) has questioned whether:
... staff and student representatives [are] willing to abide by the guidance of both CUC and the Further Education Funding Council that governors nominated by particular constituencies should not act as delegates and that they should respect majority decisions and rules of confidentiality?
Peter Scott, director of the Centre for Policy Studies in Education at Leeds University presented the Nolan committee on standards in public life with results of research findings that showed 'universities are operating "closed" and "incestuous" processes for the appointment of governing body members which raise important questions about accountability' (Tysome 1995: 3). According to Scott, 'Forthcoming vacancies are not advertised: instead reliance is placed on informal networks of contacts and acquaintances among existing members'. Independent or 'lay' members of new university boards in particular were found to be operating in an 'accountability vacuum', with no one to whom they needed to report. These members also effectively appointed their successors. Lay members also relied on senior managers for advice and information, so that 'if, for any reason, senior managers go awry, council/governing body members may pick up problems too late'.
Michael Shattock (1995: 10-11) in response to the Nolan Committee argues that 'What is essential, and what it is possible to provide comprehensively in large institutions, is an adequate professional staff in whom a governing body can rely for sound advice'. The problem according to Shattock may be that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with governance and accountability structures, 'but that growing financial stringency... is going to put these structures under greater strain'. As with the governing bodies of Australian higher education institutions, those in the United Kingdom are faced with a 'Bewildering array of legislation (freedom of speech, provision for disabled, finance and accountability, health and safety, student unions)-together with the diversity of the regulatory regime imposed by the funding councils and demands for approved estates strategies, financial plans, and corporate strategies, that they could be forgiven for asking whether the burdens are not becoming too onerous'. And given the complexity of the task, 'no one in any institution can yet be clear, nor even can the Government, as to how accountability for public monies is to be fully provided without a suffocating regulatory regime ....' Shattock concludes that:
So Lord Nolan is right to be looking at governance issues in higher and further education. But his focus needs to be as much on whether governance structures are sufficiently robust to cope with the financial and legal context in which institutions find themselves as on the individual behaviour of the main participants. Perhaps the larger question is whether institutional managements will be adequate to the task.
In Australia and elsewhere, the composition of the governing body is not without implications for the accountability of the institution to the society which supports it. On the other hand, the notion that universities would be more efficient and effective if governing bodies were more like those in the corporate sector cannot be accepted without question.
In this regard it is significant to note that the two major recent reviews of Australian university governing structures were chaired by corporate executives. In debates about higher education governance and management, the corporate model is often held up as the paragon of management virtue. But what is often not recognised, however, is that the corporate sector has as many if not more governance and management problems as the university sector. For example, a recent study on corporate governance of Australia's top 100 listed companies sponsored by the Conference of Major Superannuation Funds concluded that the 'preferred model of governance is being honoured more in breach than acceptance'. The research was undertaken by the outgoing executive director of the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees and reported in the business section of the Australian under the heading of 'Most top 100 boards fail on independence' (Owen 1996: 26). The study revealed that most boards failed the Australian Investment Managers Association independence test and that 'just 35 of the nation's top 100 listed companies are run by boards with a majority of completely independent non-executive directors'.
Failings in corporate governance and management should not be used to justify those in universities. But it reflects a bit of a cargo cult mentality to assume that by merely modelling university governing boards on those of the corporate sector, that the independence and quality of advice and the more efficient and effective operation of the institution will automatically be ensured. This is not to argue that changes in the composition and function of university governing bodies is not necessary. But the need for such changes need to be assessed in terms of the overall goals and purposes of higher education, rather than based on some vague notion of a corporate management efficiency and effectiveness gold standard. Commenting on the situation in the United Kingdom, Wagner (1995: 10) makes a similar point:
So the issues which are at the forefront of the governance debate are, I believe, second-order questions. How many governors, what constituencies they come from, who elects and appoints them, who they are accountable to and the openness, transparency and integrity of the conduct of their business are all important questions to which, as far as I am concerned, there are self-evident answers if the first -order questions, which are not being addressed, are considered first. These are what sort of organisations are or should universities become and what is their relationship with their sources of funding?
The debate on governance in universities remains muddled because it has not addressed the fundamental question which must be answered before all others - who are the owners?
It is apparent from the above discussion that government (both State and federal), members of higher education governing bodies and the individual institutional managers operate in an increasingly complex environment and face problems and challenges to which there are no easy or simple solutions.
The White Paper proposed particular changes in higher education management at the institutional level, especially to strengthen the role of Vice-Chancellors and other senior executives, to speed up institutional decision-making, and to enhance the capacity of institutions to respond quickly and effectively to new needs and opportunities. The White Paper (Dawkins 1988: 101) stated that: 'the quest for quality and efficiency in an era of rapid change will require both innovative policy-making by institutional governing bodies and strong, decisive implementation of those policies by institutional managers. Effective management at the institutional level will be the key to achieving many of the Government's objectives ...'. The reports of the Hoare Committee and the South Australian University Governance Review Group indicate that governments perceive a need to even further enhance the capacity of institutional governance and management to respond to changes in the socio-economic environment, particularly the needs of employers and the economy.
In addition to recommendations designed to improve the effectiveness of governing bodies, the Hoare Committee indicated that:
Basically, the Hoare Committee called for a more professional and managerial/ corporate style approach to running universities. But there is little new here. In Australia and in many other countries, there has been a push for new styles of academic leadership for well over a decade. In the United Kingdom, for example, Trow (1994) distinguishes between two distinct approaches to managerialism in higher education: 'hard' and 'soft' management. According to Trow (1994: 11): '...the "soft" managerialists still see higher education as an autonomous activity, governed by its own norms and traditions, with a more effective and rationalised management still serving functions defined by the academic community itself.'
But it appears that it is the 'hard' concept of managerialism that has won the day and has the most powerful voice. The hard managerialists:
are resolved to reshape and redirect the activities of [the academic] community through funding formulas and other mechanisms of accountability imposed from outside the academic community, management mechanisms created and largely shaped for application to large commercial enterprises. Business models are central to the hard conception of managerialism; when applied to higher education, as the current government does, the commitment is to transform universities into organisations similar enough to ordinary commercial firms so that they can be assessed and managed in roughly similar ways.
(Trow 1994: 12)
The new managerialist approach to higher education inevitably creates tensions between administrators and academics. But what needs to be recognised is that the push towards corporate styles of management is not idiosyncratic to particular countries, nor can it be divorced from broader socio-economic forces that are re-shaping higher education globally. Miller (1992: 21), for example, sees similarities in management structures in Australia and the United Kingdom: 'there are elements which would seem to relate to deep structures of economy, polity and language which affect both countries'. These in turn extend across institutions of many nations because of similar external influences that are worldwide:
underlying the particular dynamics of management of a higher education institution, lie not only the characteristics of the culture of the nation state and region in which it is located, but a much broader set of external movements which in its cultural aspect are becoming increasingly similar so that the language of management is familiar to academics across continents and is regarded by many with similar suspicion.
In Australia, Bessant (1995) contrasts the 'gentleman amateur administrator' of a past era with the emergence of the professional/managerial university executive officer. According to Bessant, there has been little coverage of the spread through the older (pre-Dawkins) universities of corporate management practices which he sees linked with the ideology of economic rationalism: 'a faith in market forces producing more efficient outcomes than government or institutional intervention'. However, the impetus for a corporate ethos within universities came from the federal government and the Senior Executive Service (SES) of the Commonwealth Public Service and the then Hawke Labor government's commitment to public sector reform and the introduction of private sector managerial practices into the public sector (cf. Williams 1988; Karmel 1989; Meek 1991).
With respect to university administration, a fairly similar pattern reflecting the classic top-down, on-line management approach has continued in most universities. However, according to Bessant, there have been two significant changes in academic management:
Bessant terms the new 'class' of academic managers as the university Senior Executive Service, with its 'Origins in 1978 US Civil Service Reform Act - characterised by the establishment of an elite corps of bureaucrats who were highly paid, motivated in part by performance appraisal schemes, financial bonuses and performance improvement plans and with a performance measurement scale related to pay levels'. Bessant sees a university style SES being created through 'the expansion of the top members of the academic hierarchy into a group of elite executives-the Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellors, Pro Vice-Chancellors and Deans'. University executives other than the Vice-Chancellor 'mostly have specific responsibilities (e.g. Research, Resources, Academic Affairs and the new, increasingly popular addition, International Affairs)'. The position of Business Manager is replacing that of Registrar and is the 'SES head of the general administrative structure' (cf. White 1991: 60).
Some institutions may have a small SES (Vice-Chancellor and his/her deputies and Line Managers), or a larger executive which includes the Deans. 'Where the faculties have not been consolidated under the mega dean structures and there still are a large number of Deans, these are generally not seen as part of the SES' (Bessant 1995: 60) Characteristics of the university SES are that it should be small, capable of meeting regularly, and see itself as being charged with managing the affairs of the university.
To obtain a clear view of both the number and designation of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC) and Pro Vice-Chancellor (PVC) positions within the UNS, a listing of these positions was prepared in early 1995 (Appendix C)1. With respect to the position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the table in Appendix C shows that the average number of DVC positions in Australian Universities in early 1995 was two. The minimum number of DVC positions in an Australian University was zero at Ballarat and Central Queensland Universities, with the maximum being six at Curtin University. Designations included:
Curtin University of Technology and James Cook University also had DVC positions linked to broad groups of disciplines (e.g. Arts, Education and Social Sciences (CUT) and Science and Engineering (JCU)). At the University of Western Sydney, the three DVCs were also CEOs of the different campuses and at the Australian National University one of the DVCs was also the Director, Institute of Advanced Studies.
The pattern with respect to the Pro Vice-Chancellor position is no less varied. The average number of PVC positions in Australian Universities was two. Nine universities did not have Pro Vice-Chancellors:
The maximum number of PVC positions was nine at The University of Queensland. Designations for this position included:
Griffith, La Trobe, Monash, and Queensland universities had campus specific PVCs, and Queensland and Swinburne universities had discipline-group specific PVCs2.
Though the size and designation of the executive branch varies considerably across institutions, Bessant perceives a commonality of function, 'with the emphasis on the group showing a united front to the university on major policy matters'. When the SES reaches a decision, 'this is relayed to the university as a united decision of the group and members are obliged to back that decision even though they may personally oppose it'. The SES is a 'formidable and remote authority' which, according to Bessant (1995: 60), preempts the collegial authority of academic/professional boards: 'It takes a brave academic to stand up and oppose a united gaggle of mega-Deans, Deputy Vice-Chancellors and a Vice-Chancellor at a board meeting'.
While Bessant makes some fairly caustic comments about members of the SES regarding the size of salary, office, type of car, etc., he also recognises the difficulties of the position. Advertisements for SES positions stress a high academic/research profile but those in the positions know that it is extremely difficult to maintain a research output. 'It has not been an easy road for these new members of SES class because they are often torn between the collegial tradition which they know so well and have much sympathy for, and their new roles which are reinforced by the succession of advice (directions) from DEET which they have to administer' (Bessant 1995: 60).
But it is doubtful that DEETYA has been the sole or even primary influence on the role and function of a university SES. A survey of university executive officers and their College of Advanced Education equivalents at the time of the Dawkins reforms clearly demonstrated that a large majority of institutional leaders were in favour of measures designed to strengthen executive authority and to streamline decision making within universities and colleges (Meek and Goedegebuure 1989). A stronger managerial approach to higher education was as much advocated by institutional leaders as imposed by government.
Another characteristic of the new management structures has been the creation of an additional level in the academic administrative hierarchy between departments and the SES. This is a consolidation of faculties/schools under a single administrative head (mega-Dean, super Dean), where often faculties with very diverse interests and/or geographically widely separated have been brought together in order to increase size. 'Alleged economies of scale are important considerations here rather than any academic rationale, the assumption being that it is more efficient to administer a consolidated group of diverse interests than to have each of these diverse interests having semi autonomous administrative structures' (Bessant 1995: 61). According to Bessant, the rhetoric that comes with grouping faculties into large cost centres talks about devolution of authority and power. However, he believes that the new management structures are conducive to neither collegiality nor the devolution of powers:
Throughout the 1980s when corporate management practices spread through the State and federal public services and the education ministries, the public rationale for the process was invariably in terms of devolution of functions and power from the central authority down. In fact, as it was soon realised by participants, it was essentially a devolution of those practices which impeded the central authority exercising more efficient authority over the department or institution. There has been some devolution of the day to day management tasks to the mega-faculties but no real devolution of power. The SES still retain control over the essentials such as finance, staffing and research.
Commentaries similar to those of Bessant have been made in other countries. Buchbinder and Newson (1992: 14), for example, observe that in Canada, departments, faculty boards and university boards upon which collegial decision making depends 'are becoming less important in setting the university's real academic priorities ... Newer documentary forms of decision making actually supplant these bodies and make more room for a greater degree of managerial influence'. Newson (1993: 291) argues that:
... and thus the activities of management in the academy have become more comprehensive and pervasive, as is reflected in the expanding managerial structure. Systbems of management have been applied to aspects of decision making and judgment that once belonged within the realm of 'the collegium'.
The expansion and strengthening of the executive branch within higher education institutions questions past conceptualisations of university management as organised anarchies (Cohen and Marsh 1974) or as political collectives (Baldridge 1971), and according to several commentators, the new managerial structures are the antithesis of collegiality. But in an analytical sense, corporate managerialism and collegiality should be viewed as ideal types; the complex real life of higher education institutions allows the ultimate fulfilment of neither approach. What is important is the movement towards one or the other of the polar extremes, rather than their effective realisation. In one sense, the oscillation between managerialism and collegiality is a source of a good deal of conflict within higher education. But in another sense, it is only another aspect of the overall higher education dynamic-the workings of higher education 'in an unstable organisational universe' (Neave forthcoming 1996).
Many commentators adopt a linear approach to the managerial push in higher education and the economic rationalist ideology on which it is based, 'colonising' all in its sway (e.g. Marginson 1993: 63-64). Certainly, higher education is undergoing a process of revision and adjustment, but there is little evidence to suggest that academe is being totally colonised by the corporate ideologues. Moreover, in a number of spheres, executive officers probably have less real power than what their critics attribute to them, and what they would like to have themselves. Industrial relations is a case in point.
Although the idea of higher education as an 'industry' is abhorrent to many if not most academic staff, it is nonetheless legally recognised as such for industrial relations purposes. This has been brought about as much by the actions of the academic staff associations themselves as imposed by government.
Australian academic salaries have always been uniform across the nation, and in 1973 the federal Academic Salaries Tribunal (whose findings applied in the Australian Capital Territory and had the force of recommendations elsewhere) was established to regulate a central wage fixing system, while various matters related to conditions of appointment were the province of State industrial tribunals. For general staff, all awards to do with salaries and conditions of appointment were registered only in State industrial tribunals.
In 1982, the then Federation of Australian University Staff Associations (later the Federated Australian University Staff Association - FAUSA) affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and in 1983 higher education effectively became recognised as an industry by the then (federal) Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, and the subsequent registration of FAUSA (amalgamated in the early 1990s with other academic staff unions to become the National Tertiary Education Union - NTEU) as a union in November 1986 (Hancock 1989). In 1988, FAUSA was a party to the first negotiated industrial award for Australian academic staff - the Australian Universities' Academic Staff (Conditions of Employment) Award 1988, generally known as the Second Tier Wage Agreement/Award - and 'for the first time academic unions ... had to give an undertaking on behalf of all Australian academics that certain steps would be taken to increase productivity in return for the 4 per cent salary increase gained' (Lublin 1992: 74). This and all subsequent industrial awards have included reference to productivity gains and staff appraisal.
The unionisation of academic staff associations and the treatment of higher education as an industry has resulted in formalisation of relationships between higher education institutions as employers and staff associations as trade unions. However, proceedings before the federal Industrial Relations Commission frequently involve not two parties but three: the employers (the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA), a national body consisting of Vice-Chancellors), the academic or general staff unions, and the federal government. The Commonwealth has a particular stake in salary matters and has made it clear that, unlike the days of the Academic Salaries Tribunal, it accepts no obligation to fully fund awards made by the Commission. It has occasionally taken strong positions on certain conditions of employment matters, such as on redundancy and unsatisfactory performance provisions in the Second Tier Award of 1988.
The White Paper and the Second Tier Wage Agreement envisaged a freeing up of industrial relations and award structures within individual institutions which was to be realised through such processes as enterprise bargaining. Enterprise bargaining at the local institutional level based on staff productivity was further enshrined in the Structural Efficiency Principle of the 1989 National Wage Case and the 1991 Academic Award Restructuring Agreement, and in subsequent wage agreements. But higher education institutions have not been able to exercise the expected degree of freedom to negotiate individual academic employment contracts. If anything, industrial relations within universities have become more rigid and bureaucratic. The executive director of AHEIA has recently been reported as saying that vice-chancellors express 'considerable concern about the enterprise bargaining process-especially at the way the National Tertiary Education Union had been able to act "as a kind of gatekeeper" for the various agreements that had been reached and for the pattern bargaining that had occurred. Given all the effort involved and the expectations which launched enterprise bargaining, vice-chancellors could be forgiven for feeling exasperation with the present industrial relations regime' (quoted in Maslen 1995: 2).
The current debate focuses on tenure ratios, but the real issue is one of long-term staffing flexibility at the institutional level and its effect on academic career structures. The relationship between unions, employees and employers is changing throughout both the public and private sectors, and what is happening in higher education is only one aspect of a much broader industrial relations reform agenda. Many industries are shifting away from national wage agreements, towards enterprise bargaining and negotiated productivity gains at the local level (although certainly not without a great deal of conflict in several instances).
The Hoare Committee recommended an overhaul of industrial relationships in higher education through changing current enterprise bargaining arrangements to provide much stronger involvement and determination of agreements at the local level; through creating more effective performance management practices (including both formative and summative staff evaluation) at the local level; and through abolishing tenure ratios from parent awards. Given the force of the more general movement towards localised enterprise bargaining, it is likely that higher education will eventually follow suit. But this may have a profound affect on the 'traditional' structure and progression of academic careers. At issue is not merely the need for more staffing flexibility and better appraisal of staff performance, but how to achieve this without destroying the traditional values and norms that set the academic profession somewhat apart from other professions. Enterprise bargaining not only places one more burden on management, but also changes the political circumstances under which academic work takes place.
It is important to recognise with respect to industrial relations within higher education that the interest of the academic union is not the same as the collegial interests of all academic staff who belong to a university. In fact, union advocacy can at once weaken the role of collegial decision making and strengthen that of senior management. The award conditions under which industrial relations presently operate provide a great deal of power both to the unions and to senior management, and at the local institutional level, many of the negotiations take place between a very small group of union executive officers and senior managers, often in secrecy. As one former Vice-Chancellor (Penington 1991: 12-13) has commented:
Union action has increased the power of the central management of a university. As the institution must bargain with an outside agency (namely the union ...), it must have an individual or small group which is given the authority to negotiate. The inevitable effect is that central managers, rather than collegial committees, become the effective decision-makers. This is not in the interests of staff members, who need to have some impact on decision-making through the collegial system.
Present industrial relationships affect collegiality in a number of ways. First, while the agreements researched are binding on all academic staff, not all staff belong to the union. Second, often items under negotiation extend well beyond purely industrial considerations (salary levels and terms and conditions of employment) to more basic matters to do with the academic enterprise itself. Third, the negotiations and the agreements researched can by-pass or negate the decisions of properly constituted academic bodies. For example, at one university, the implementation of policies on quality assurance approved by the academic board (with only one dissenting vote, that of the union representative on the board) and council, was effectively blocked by union action for nearly three years.
The final outcome of the academic and general staff award restructuring negotiations will not be known for some time. But one thing is certain: the changes flowing from higher education restructuring in the industrial arena are every bit as momentous for the academic enterprise as the changes that followed the 1988 White Paper.
In Australia and elsewhere, it is often maintained that government no longer trusts higher education institutions to perform in the national interest. This is due in part to the expansion of higher education. As Croham (1994: 197) argues, 'the larger the public expenditure on any service becomes, the greater will be the pressure on government itself to justify its decisions about that expenditure and to ensure that promised benefits are delivered'. Government emphasis on accountability and efficiency pervades all aspects of the public sector, not merely higher education. But in the higher education sphere, accountability and efficiency are often interpreted as the enemies of autonomy. In reference to the situation in the United Kingdom, and commenting on the public views of Professor Conrad Russel, Croham (1994: 196) writes that:
government has become the enemy of academic freedom because, as the monopoly purchaser of the services of the universities, it has increasingly interfered in the management of universities in order to satisfy itself that it gets value for the money it spends. An especially damaging feature of that interference, in Professor Russell's view, is the drive to make governmentally supported services more efficient in terms of unit costs with little regard to the consequences for quality of service.
Also in reference to the United Kingdom, Jackson (1995: 13) maintains that 'the reality of power in higher education is that the balance between the autonomy of universities and their role as the agents of Government policy has shifted steadily and, in recent years, dramatically, against the principle of university autonomy'. He also goes on to argue that the relationship 'between Government and the universities has become more impersonal, less flexible and less supportive of the idea of university self-government and self-direction', a sentiment reflected in the public debate over university autonomy in many countries. One problem with such sentiments is that they imply that in some past era government/university relationships were much closer, if not harmonious. There is little or no supporting evidence that this was the case.
What appears to be happening in many countries is that the social contract between higher education institutions and government, once vague and often taken for granted, is now being translated into an explicit contract. Wagner (1995: 10), for example, laments the fact that in the United Kingdom, the relationship 'between the funding council and the universities is increasingly a contractual one - so much money for so many students with penalties for non-delivery of the contract'. He contends that 'It is a curious phenomenon that as the proportion of our expenditure which comes from public funds reduces so the bureaucratic hoops we have to go through to receive and be accountable for these funds increase'. Croham (1994: 196) comments that:
There is an implicit contract between government and the universities in that public money is made available to the universities for a national purpose. The danger to academic freedom becomes acute if government comes to see this as a business contract with specific terms (i.e., that in return for a given sum of government money, the universities are committed to delivering a given number of graduates of a certain standard in specified subjects).
Whether or not Australian higher education institutions now enjoy more or less autonomy than they did in the pre-Dawkins era is subject to much debate, a debate which differs to that in other countries only in detail. Some commentators, such as Marshall (1990), lament the demise of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission (CTEC) as a 'buffer' body between higher education and government, and see its replacement by DEET and NBEET as clear examples of government interference in institutional affairs. But what is often forgotten is that CTEC was itself fairly interventionist and kept a rather tight reign on how and for what institutions could spend their budget. Australian universities traditionally enjoyed a relatively high degree of autonomy, though the former CAEs were much more closely regulated by State coordinating bodies and federal accreditation authorities. At least for the former CAEs, it is clear that they have more institutional autonomy than in the past with respect to such matters as course accreditation.
According to official statements, government policy moves the co-ordination of higher education away from a tightly controlled and highly regulated centralised bureaucratic system towards that of self-regulation. The White Paper stated that in the UNS there will be (1988: 27-28):
The architect of the present reforms, the then Minister for Employment, Education and Training, the Hon. John Dawkins (1987), said that 'no longer will [institutions] have to run to Canberra to get permission to do things which are essentially their own business. The "dependent client" mentality which has tended to build up in the relationship between institutions and government must be eliminated'.
An overview of select objectives and functions prepared by DEET of the Commonwealth's Higher Education Program relevant to the governance and management survey is provided on the next page. Although there has been a change of federal government since the overview was prepared, it is unlikely that the general thrust of policy contained in this overview will change substantially under the new government.
On the face of it there seems to be little scope for government to directly interfere in institutional affairs. With the demise of CTEC, institutions now must negotiate directly with government for funding through the educational profiles exercise. This in itself is interpreted by some as a loss of autonomy. But the profile exercise is basically demand driven, as was funding under CTEC. As one Vice-Chancellor has commented, 'our profile is simply a description of the present student load enrolled in the various discipline areas of the University, and projections of that load up to three years hence. We also have a guarantee from the Commonwealth that it will fund that present and projected load' (McNicol 1990). The AVCC (1990) has supported 'the educational profile concept as it has been refined, with annual reviews and updates [which are] preferred to the former CTEC "wish list" arrangement and associated triennial visits'. Nonetheless, fears about loss of autonomy persist.
Often, debates about autonomy are more emotive than they are analytically rigorous; and a distinction needs to be made between academic autonomy (maybe better phrased as 'scientific or academic freedom') and institutional autonomy. Drawing on Ashby (1966), Berdahl (1988: 7) defines academic freedom as the 'freedom of the individual scholar in his/her teaching and research to pursue truth wherever it seems to lead without fear of punishment or termination of employment for having offended some political, religious or social orthodoxy'.
In co-operation with education authorities, higher education institutions and the private sector, the higher education program's objectives are to: use higher education resources effectively to address Australia's economic and social objectives and to meet the increasing need for an educated and skilled population; and maintain a higher education system that takes a long term and independent approach in pursuing its teaching, scholarly and research functions.
Most operating resources provided by the Commonwealth to the higher education sector are allocated as block operating grants. Current funding arrangements are designed to maximise the level of certainty institutions have regarding their resource base in the medium term and also to maximise the level of autonomy and flexibility they possess to manage the Commonwealth resources they are allocated. Triennial funding means that institutions know with some certainty what resources they have access to three years in advance. The provision of block operating grants provides flexibility to allocate resources within institutions without centrally imposed constraints.
Other key elements of the Commonwealth funding framework are: accountability through the submission of educational profiles; competitive allocation of research funding to encourage selectivity and concentration; and quality assurance.
While most operating grant funding is allocated as block grants, a proportion of funds are set aside to achieve specific objectives through: The National Priority (Reserve) Fund; The Higher Education Equity Program (HEEP); The Aboriginal Participation Initiative (API); Research; Quality Assurance and enhancement; and a number of other programs.
Decisions on the allocation of additional resources (growth and funding from the Capital Development Pool) are based on consideration of institutional plans and advice from State Authorities (through Joint Planning Committees) and the Higher Education Council. Institutions that are members of the Unified National System are accountable for the public funds they receive through the educational profile process. Each institution is required as a condition of grant, under HEFA, to provide the Minister with an educational profile describing the activities of the institution.
Educational profiles are the principal mechanism for clarifying the functions of higher education institutions for Commonwealth funding purposes. Profiles are developed through internal institutional processes to reflect, in broad terms, each institution's mission and goals and encourage the development and implementation of institutions' own strategic plans. Educational profiles involve a number of elements including statistical returns regarding actual and planned teaching activities, an equity plan, an Aboriginal Education strategy, a research management plan and a capital management plan. The information requirements of profiles are determined following consultation with the Higher Education Council (HEC) and the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) and other interest groups. These include the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), the National Union of Students (NUS) and the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA).
Other information which assists in the evaluation of the higher education program includes statistical data, evaluations by the Department, evaluations of research funding conducted by the Australian Research Council and reports on projects funded through the Evaluation and Investigations Program (EIP).
DEET has no direct influence over micro-management issues such as staff appointments, decisions about curriculum and teaching/assessment methods, research priorities or the management of institutions capital and infrastructure. There are points at which DEET's programs indirectly influence management decisions within institutions, but DEET's programs do not require universities to take a specific course of action.
Most institutions ensure that their internal resource allocation procedures reflect the ways in which they 'earn their money'. For example, per capita funding for students means that faculties with low enrolments cannot be supported by universities at the same level as faculties with high enrolments. However, DEET does not directly influence these decisions.
The data collected/required by DEET are usually only a proportion of the data collected within an institution for its own planning and business purposes.
Berdahl (1988: 7) subdivides institutional autonomy into substantive and procedural issues: 'substantive autonomy is the power of the university or college in its corporate form to determine its own goals and programs... ; procedural autonomy is the power of the university or college in its corporate form to determine the means by which its goals and programs will be pursued....' According to Berdahl (1988: 8-9), interferences in procedural autonomy:
... (e.g. pre-audits, controls over purchasing, personnel, some aspects of capital construction) can be an enormous bother to Academe, and often even counter-productive to efficiency, but still usually do not prevent universities or colleges from ultimately achieving their goals. In contrast, governmental actions that affect substantive goals affect the heart of Academe.
Autonomy can be viewed as a relational issue involving the balance of power between institutions and government, on the one hand, and between management and the academic profession within institutions, on the other. Direct threats to academic freedom may be more closely associated with the internal balance of power between executive and collegial governance than with external intervention. Institutional autonomy provides no absolute protection of academic freedom.
But more appears to be at issue than internal disputes over control between academic staff and the executive branch. Many executive officers have publicly claimed that government and DEETYA unduly interfere in institutional affairs. Of course, the only substantive power the federal government has over the universities is the power of the purse. And in this respect, what many may interpret as direct government intervention in institutional affairs may be contributed to the financial reward structures devised by government and the enhanced competitive environment in which institutions compete for such rewards. According to Mahony (1994b: 125), the new relationship between higher education and government is nominally centred on autonomy to respond to government objectives but is actually based on funding rewards to institutions who support government objectives which results in university competition for funding and enforced conformity to government goals. 'The "new" autonomy is then a paradox: it is the autonomy to be free to conform'.
Neave (forthcoming 1996) encapsulates this seeming paradox in what he terms as the 'law of anticipated results'. The law of anticipated results operates at the institutional level, giving the impression of autonomous institutional action to what is in fact an institutional reaction to actual or anticipated external forces, directives or events. Institutions interpret what is or will be required by government policy and act accordingly, making it considerably difficult to determine whether change is bottom driven or top-down imposed. 'Thus', according to Neave, 'the rhetoric of public policy is often at odds with the institutional behaviour it elicits. One has only to think of the strangely schizophrenic marriage between the centralising tendencies in contemporary British higher education and the government rhetoric of greater autonomy to appreciate the usefulness of the device'.
In Australia as elsewhere, institutions compete with one another in attempting to interpret how best to take advantage of the financial incentives available, and in so doing have been caught in a continuous process of attempting to second guess both the 'market' and government policy. This may be a reason why so many institutional leaders feel that their autonomy has been restricted. Possibly, it may be the general competitive environment that government policies help create rather than the policies per sé which many academic managers perceive as unduly infringing on their activities and freedom.
Also, the Australian academic community appears 'shell-shocked' by the sheer intensity of growth and change that has taken place over the last few years and there is a 'natural' tendency to blame government for most if not all problems. But more fundamentally, what needs to be understood is that the social, political and economic environment in which higher education operates has changed dramatically, and what we are witnessing, as Mahony notes (1992: 11), is the pain of adjustment to new circumstances:
It should ... be emphasised that the post-modern university continues to evolve in Australia, through what has been termed the 'Dawkins revolution'. Forged from two sectors of higher education seen increasingly as an economic resource, with a broad clientele, and placed in a society in which much intellectual leadership has passed from the university, it is an institution strikingly different from its predecessors. Nevertheless, simply blaming the social context, or governments, for university difficulties, may also be symptomatic of institutional impotence.
Some commentators have argued that the university of the 1990s has shifted its orientation from social knowledge to market knowledge and that the 'development of a market oriented university supersedes academic decision making' (Buchbinder 1993: 335). According to Newson (1993: 298), 'These new forms of decision making fundamentally undermine a conception of the university as an autonomous, self-directing, peer-review and professional-authority based institution, and thus changes the politics of how academic work is accomplished'. For decades, if not centuries, the autonomy debate in higher education has mainly concerned the relationship between institutions and government (or church in past eras) and undue external political interference in academic affairs. But within the context of post-industrial society, driven by the production and marketing of knowledge, government is just one of many elements in the autonomy matrix, and higher education institutions may have as many 'enemies' within as without.
Past interpretations of autonomy as protection against government interference persist, but are inadequate to explain the complexity of changes in and threats to academic and institutional autonomy under present social conditions. Appeals to academic freedom as a device to locate control over university affairs within a scholarly collegium will no longer do. Nonetheless, academics will strongly resist being treated like factory workers and there is substantial evidence to suggest that if they are, then the very knowledge productivity that has made universities so important to society will be diminished. And here lies the basic challenge for higher education management: how to exploit the knowledge products of their institutions without destroying the internal foundations on which the production of those products rest.
This chapter has attempted to provide a broad contextual basis for interpreting the operations and management of Australian higher education institutions. As emphasised above, it is a changing and highly complex environment in which the manager of the modern university must function. The context is not stable nor do many of the issues identified have any clear or simple solution. Those who seek simple solutions to the problems facing higher education management, such as the return to a supposed collegiality of a past era or more direct copying of corporate management structures, will be disappointed. On the other hand, while there are problems and always the need for improvement, those charged with the stewardship of Australia's universities have by and large coped remarkably well under very difficult circumstances.
In addition to the broad contextual issues presented above, the higher education manager must cope with a variety of more detailed tasks, such as the preparation and implementation of research management plans, the adoption of technological innovation in course delivery, implementation of various pieces of legislation dealing with equity and access, maintaining adequate teaching and research facilities, maintaining strong community relationships, and simply balancing the budget. These and other issues are addressed in the reporting of the survey results presented in Chapter 4.
Endnotes