Submission to Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy
EDUCATION AND THE ECONOMIC PARADIGM
Peter Karmel
CUNNINGHAM LECTURE
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
8 November 1994
published in
"CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED - Australian Education in the 1990s"
Occasional paper Series 1/1995
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
EDUCATION AND THE ECONOMIC PARADIGM
THE ECONOMIC PARADIGM
INSTRUMENTALISM
MARKET FORCES
- School Education
- Tertiary Education
ACCOUNTABILITY
CONCLUSION
EDUCATION AND THE ECONOMIC PARADIGM
Those of us who have lived through the past 30 or 40 years cannot help but be conscious of the enormous social and cultural changes that have taken place in Australia: the changing role and nature of the family; multi-culturalism; the increasing access of women to education, employment and power; social mores - to name only four broad areas.
Not the least of the changes relates to the prevailing assumptions about the Australian economy - its nature and how it should work. The shift in the economic paradigm has taken place over the past 20 years. Until the early 1970s, the received view of the Australian economy was one of a mixed economy in which the public sector played an important role in the production of goods and services, and in which government intervention was accepted as a norm. This view of the economy has now been left behind. The role of the public sector has been de-emphasised; much greater weight is being placed on the private sector with an insistence on individualism, private enterprise and the market. No longer do we hear of the mixed economy or even of the government's commitment to full employment - yet these were the currency of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. Likewise, we have moved from a protected, inward looking, much regulated economy towards one which participates eagerly in the global market; especially, we see ourselves as being active in our region of the world.
Manifestations of this paradigm shift include emphases on market forces, deregulation, privatisation, user pays, and best practice corporate styles (including the popularisation of such tools as mission statements, strategic planning, bench marking and total quality management). Lower taxation, and therefore constrained government expenditure, has become a goal of economic policy, as has the promotion of efficiency in the use of inputs to produce outcomes and of effectiveness in the production of outcomes to meet goals. Distributional issues, including full employment, an equitable income distribution and the public provision of services have correspondingly been soft pedalled; and accordingly Australia has become a less equal society.
The changed paradigm is usually encapsulated in the term "economic rationalism". In its stronger form, economic rationalism takes the position that, while market forces do not always produce optimum results, any intervention in the workings of markets always produces a worse situation, i.e. no government intervention is better than any. This is an ideological position not subject to proof. For some it is reinforced by a conviction that minimal government is a necessary condition for personal freedom.
In its weaker form, economic rationalism is the belief that the economy's performance can be enhanced by exposing as much of it as possible to market forces. There is a body of evidence that supports this proposition. Such a doctrine is consistent with government interventions of various kinds, especially interventions to correct market failure. Moreover, governments may spell out national priorities which are consistent with a general commitment to market forces. Such priorities might include, for example, intervention in education aimed at enhancing skills, industry policies directed towards improving economic performance and intervention in human rights issues in the pursuit of social justice.
It is this weaker form of economic rationalism which best describes the policies of the Commonwealth Government of the past decade. Such a form of economic rationalism accommodates government intervention in a raft of policy areas that the stronger form would eschew. Interventions include social justice (access to education, health, law, housing and child care), human rights (equal employment opportunity, anti-discrimination, privacy, multiculturalism, the rights of indigenous people), social security (safety nets for the unemployed, single parents, the poor) and national economic priorities (priorities for education, scientific research and development).
This paper is concerned with the ways in which the shift in the economic paradigm have impacted on education. There have been three facets:
I shall deal with these in turn and discuss related issues.
INSTRUMENTALISM
The most obvious examples of economic instrumentalism are to be found in the recent reforms of the higher education and vocational education and training systems, and in the competency movement.
Educational reforms directed towards improved economic performance are associated with the term of John Dawkins as Minister for Employment, Education and Training (1987-91). In December 1987, Dawkins issued a policy discussion paper on higher education which proposed reforms "to promote further growth in the higher education system in a manner consistent with our economic, social and cultural needs"(1). Although social and cultural aspects were mentioned, the emphasis was clearly on the economic dimension. In particular, substantial growth in participation in higher education was advocated, as was the need for universities to increase their responsiveness to the nation's priorities as laid down by the Commonwealth Government. Six months later, in July 1988, a policy statement was issued that set out a detailed program directed to these ends(2) .
Many changes flowed from the Dawkins reform program. These included:
These changes, especially those relating to the establishment of the unified national system, the mergers and the abolition of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, represented a massive intervention in the system of higher education, greatly eroding the autonomy of the pre-1987 universities. Interventions have continued. Although the Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) has avoided interfering in internal institutional management - indeed, it has relaxed a number of controls of the previous era - it sees the universities as agents of government policy and treats them accordingly, including almost continuous involvement in their affairs. Moreover, many of the senior staff of the institutions themselves appear to accept this role for universities. It is ironic that a government committed to deregulation of the economy has increasingly treated higher education institutions as components in a system subordinated to political and bureaucratic priorities. It is equally ironic that institutions committed to their autonomy have accepted this.
Commonwealth intervention in the affairs of the universities was followed by involvement with vocational education and training. The reports flowing from the committees chaired by Brian Finn(3), Laurie Carmichael(4), and Eric Mayer(5) all had economic performance as their principal motivation, as indeed did the creation of the Australian National Training Authority in 1993. The title of the Mayer report (Putting General Education to Work) is illustrative of the point.
The reforms relating to higher education and to vocational education and training have been based on the premise that more education/training will lead to improved economic performance. While it is no doubt true that a high level of participation in education is a necessary condition for satisfactory economic performance, it is not obvious that educational expansion is a sufficient condition for greater economic growth. The nature of the expansion is clearly important. Moreover, economic performance is affected by other than cognitive and industrial skills (for example, cultural norms, attitudes to risk taking, entrepreneurship and so on). Thus, an undue reliance on education as an instrument for economic success may not only distort the purposes of education but lead to an erroneous diagnosis of the barriers to economic growth.
In April 1989, the Australian Education Council (the conference of Ministers for Education of the Commonwealth, States and Territories) agreed on "common and agreed national goals for schooling in Australia". It listed ten specific goals(6). The motivation for this, and the subsequent development of the National Curriculum Statements and Profiles for eight areas of learning to underpin schooling across the nation, had an economic dimension. The ten agreed goals fall roughly equally between those relating to personal development, living in society and working.
Educational policies of the past seven years or so, at least for post-compulsory education, have emphasised the economic purposes of education at the expense of the personal and social, and have promoted steps judged to improve economic efficiency. The competency movement is perhaps the clearest illustration of the dominance of the economic purposes of education.
This instrumental emphasis in education raises a series of issues, many of them organizational, relating to the curriculum and to access to, and participation in, education. I do not want to go into these in much detail, as I expect that they will be dealt with tomorrow by Professor Schedvin and Professor Crittenden(7). I do, however, wish to draw attention to some of the principal questions.
Curriculum
Curriculum issues that need to be faced include:
There is little evidence of serious concern about these questions. In particular, in spite of the upheaval in higher education of the past few years, there has been virtually no debate on the main purpose of the university or on intrinsic university values.*
Access and Participation
As a consequence of both government policies and labour market trends, over the past decade there has been a substantial rise in retention to the last year of secondary school and increasing participation in higher education. By 1993, 77% of young people remained in school to Year 12 (72% for males, 81% for females). As far as universities are concerned, by the age of 20, 22% of young males have enrolled in universities and 29% of females. When allowance is made for people who enter universities at older ages, current access to universities is measured at 32% of a male generation and 42% of a female one.
The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of educational participation shows that 52% of 19 year olds are in some form of education, including part-time.(10) This clearly leaves a substantial number who are not - almost one half. The Finn Report recommended that "by the year 2001, 95% of 19 year olds should have completed Year 12, or an initial post-school qualification or be participating in formally recognised education or training"(11).
In discussing the provision of educational places, a distinction needs to be made between access to, and participation in, education. In the case of higher education, access relates to the proportion of an age cohort ever entering higher education, that is, entering it for the first time. Participation relates to the proportion of the population enrolled. Clearly, the lengthening of courses or enrolment in second or postgraduate degrees or diplomas can raise participation without increasing access. In fact, this has happened over the past five years - access has remained about constant while total enrolments have increased by over 30%. This latter increase represents a deepening rather than a widening of higher education.
The main questions relating to access and participation include:
An issue which has recently surfaced relates to the geographical distribution of university places. The options that are being canvassed at the official level are predicated on the proposition that there should be no further growth in funded places, although no detailed arguments have been advanced for such a proposition. I shall make further reference to this issue below.
MARKET FORCES
The shift in the economic paradigm may have an impact on the management of educational institutions in two ways.
The first flows from the proposition that education is a personal service like other personal services. Why then not treat education as any other marketable service and sell it through a market? If government support is judged necessary on equity grounds or because of externalities, subsidies can be provided.
The second impact stems from the goal of making the institutions more entrepreneurial and less dependent on government.
Educational Markets
In discussing educational markets, it is convenient to distinguish between school and post-school education.
School Education
Any consideration of school education and market forces needs to take account of the view that all members of the society should be exposed to a common schooling. The argument is that schools are an essential institution for social cohesion and for the socialisation of young people into the "Australian way of life". Moreover, equity demands that all children should have equal access to schooling of a uniform standard. It follows from these two propositions that governments should provide a common schooling for all.
Against this, the proponents of market forces argue that schooling can be regarded as a service like other personal services. Parents should be able to choose schools with congenial educational philosophies, just as they choose other goods or services in the market. Schools should compete for pupils and, through such competition, their services would come to fit their clients' needs and their standards might be expected to rise. For equity reasons, governments should pay for schooling (or at least a base amount towards schooling) and hence the notion of a voucher system.
It is not difficult to see that these two arguments represent mutually exclusive positions and that a rational argument for a compromise position is difficult to formulate. In fact, Australia follows neither position but has a mixed public/private system which has some characteristics of a market. Within the government sector, students are not rigidly zoned to schools: parents have some choice. However, resources are, at least in principle, allocated equally to schools (although some compensatory resources are given to disadvantaged schools). In the private sector, schooling is available at a price, although it is a price heavily subsidised by the government. The most recent figures show that government schools enrol 72% and non-government ones 28% of the school population. There has been a trend towards non-government schools, which in 1979 enrolled only 21%.
The drift to the private sector clearly involves an erosion of the principle of a common schooling. It may also be a threat to the quality of government schools because of the greater capacity of private schools to select students and because the public sector may be losing children from better educated and more highly motivated families. Of course, the effects of a move to a full market would represent a greater threat to common schooling than the present situation. It seems almost certain that, even if the quality of some schools rose, a universal voucher system would bring about a decline in the quality of those schools which were populated with less well motivated students and those from educationally impoverished backgrounds, and that this might lead to a cumulative trend.
The common schooling/choice dichotomy represents a real dilemma for policy makers. The present Australian position is an uneasy and not entirely rational compromise. A relatively stable equilibrium seems to have been reached and a major policy shift in the direction either of common schooling or of choice seems unlikely.
Tertiary Education
While the likelihood of a move towards universal market provision of educational services at school level is slim, some moves in that direction have already been made in higher education and vocational education and training, including TAFE. The dilemma raised by the argument in favour of "common schooling" does not apply to tertiary education.
University fees were abolished in 1974 but, since the early 1980s, fees have steadily been re-introduced: first, by imposing an overseas student charge on foreign students in 1980, and then a higher education administration charge on local students in 1987. In 1986, full fees were charged to some overseas students and by 1990 they were charged to all such students. As far as local students were concerned, the higher education contribution scheme (HECS) replaced the higher education administration charge in 1989 - fees were already chargeable for employment related postgraduate courses (1987). More recently, universities have been permitted to levy fees for all postgraduate courses other than for courses constituting a first professional qualification in nursing and education.
Clearly, there have been significant moves towards a higher education market for both overseas and postgraduate students. These moves have aimed at raising export earnings and economising on government expenditure respectively. Exposing the universities to market forces has also been a consideration. The bulk of students, however, are directly government funded and their numbers controlled by the Commonwealth, institution by institution. Students do, however, have a choice of institution at which to seek a place.
During the past several years, suggestions have been made for a market-oriented approach to the provision of university level educational services. I set out a scheme for such an approach in December 1991(12). More detailed arrangements were subsequently elaborated by a group chaired by Professor David Penington, of which I was a member(13).
The motivation for these suggestions was to reduce the amount of government intervention in the affairs of universities to which I have already referred and to free them to pursue the priorities they, as autonomous institutions, judged to be appropriate. This accords with a belief that autonomous universities setting their own priorities in the context of community needs will, in the long run, best serve Australia's interests.**
A market for the educational services of universities would involve the institutions' setting their own fees (presumably in relation to relative course costs) and determining the numbers of students they enrol in the various courses. The Commonwealth would subsidise individual students up to a total number and for a specified number of years of study, as it deemed appropriate. The higher education contribution scheme, which is an essential element in proposals of this kind and which is widely accepted as an equitable arrangement, would enable students to meet their obligations without reducing access to higher education.
The main advantages flowing from establishing a market for higher education services include the following(15):
The virtues of a market-oriented approach can also be illustrated by an issue that is currently being debated. This relates to the allocation of a fixed quantum of resources among institutions in the face of demographic and other shifts. It has been triggered by the significantly higher population growth rates in Queensland and Western Australia compared with the other States and by the relatively high participation in higher education in Victoria. The issue has been addressed in a joint DEET/HEC report(16).
The DEET/HEC analysis postulates that "the main criteria for the allocation of resources for student places should be related to growth in the population in the feeder groups for higher education and participation rates relative to the national norm"(17). This postulate suffers from two flaws. The first is that there is no obvious reason (other than arithmetical equality) for standardising participation across all regions of Australia - indeed there is evidence that there are genuine differences in student demand. Victoria has the highest proportion of unmet demand and Queensland the lowest.(18) The second is that access (based on the number of Australian residents commencing undergraduate study for the first time) is the relevant variable, not participation (based on total students).
The report proposes three broad categories of options involving some redistribution of places and resources among institutions, a levy on all institutions to fund additional places at some institutions, or the use of private resources.
However, the problem could best be solved by allocating resources according to student demand. The essence of such a market-oriented approach would be to make available annually, via a national tertiary entrance exercise, a total number of funded places for students who have not previously enrolled, entitling them to a specified number of years of funded higher education in any course into which they can gain entry.
The allocation of student places under such an arrangement would truly reflect student demand on a national basis and would equalize access for equally qualified students who seek university places. It would obviate arguments about State/Territory shares and there would be no need to make arbitrary, and possibly political, decisions on the allocation of resources among States/Territories(19).
The advantages that would flow from exposing all university courses to market forces and reducing government involvement in the affairs of the universities do not imply the complete absence of government influence on higher education. Clearly the Commonwealth Government would continue to be involved in the funding of the majority of student enrolments and of most basic research. The government would also wish universities to be informed of its views and priorities so that universities could take them into account. It might be judged desirable to exercise some control on the growth of individual institutions.
My view is firm that the relations between government and institutions, including decisions relating to the allocation of funds, should be managed through an intermediary at arm's length from both the government and the institutions and with the requisite skills (as was the case from 1959 to 1987). Such an intermediary would report to the government periodically on the state of higher education and advise on policy issues. Thus, direct political and bureaucratic intervention, of which the recent imbroglio on the geographical allocation of resources is a good example, would be avoided and the independence of the institutions enhanced.
Entrepreneurship
Quite apart from the re-introduction of fees for overseas and postgraduate students and the establishment of markets of the kind I have just outlined, pressure has been put on universities to move into a more entrepreneurial mode in order to reduce further their dependence on government funding. In fact, the share of university revenues from student fees, research contracts and other sources has risen markedly over the past few years, although the universities are still totally dependent on government for mainstream undergraduate teaching.
Universities have adopted more managerial (less collegial) styles of governance involving mission statements, strategic plans, research management plans, review and evaluation procedures, increased public relations activities, advertising and so on. Universities market their services internationally. They have developed commercial arms (for example, Unisearch and ANUTECH) and have sought out industrial affiliations and research contracts. The establishment of the Open Learning Agency, eventually to be self-funding, is another example.
All these initiatives reflect entrepreneurship. However, frequently account is not taken of the possible unintended effects that these may have on intrinsic university values. Examples of such unintended effects are:
The entrepreneurship of universities is, at present, concentrated on a limited range of activities. The above examples illustrate that this may well distort their work and divert them from the task of teaching Australians and engaging in basic scholarship and research which are their raison d'être. Clearly, a proper balance is required - a balance that would be easier to achieve if undergraduate courses for Australian students were also exposed to market forces, so that universities could exercise entrepreneurship across the full range of their activities.
ACCOUNTABILITY
A characteristic of market forces is that they exercise a discipline on the suppliers of goods and services, and are seen to do so. The freedom of customers to shop around and the search for profit promotes the efficient and effective production of goods and services: efficient, in the sense of producing output at least cost, that is by using as few resources as possible; effective, in the sense that the goods and services are appropriate to meeting customers' or clients' needs. Of course, markets do not always produce optimum results: monopoly, imperfect competition and externalities all distort market outcomes.
This kind of discipline applies to a much lesser degree to services produced in the public sector, of which educational services are a prime example. The push for accountability, which has gathered impetus over the last decade, reflects a recognition of this. Its development has mirrored the shift in the economic paradigm towards market forces. It aims to institutionalise processes for keeping pressure on educational institutions, their staff and students to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in the interests of economic performance.
Three significant examples of accountability in education are to be found in:
School Standards
In 1988, the Commonwealth, States and Territories agreed to work on a series of national collaborative curriculum projects. A year later, the Australian Education Council adopted the ten common and agreed national goals for schools in Australia to which reference has already been made. From the ten goals, the AEC identified eight broad areas of learning - the arts, English, health and physical education, languages other than English, mathematics, science, study of society and the environment, technology. Over the ensuing two to three years, National Statements and Profiles in these broad areas were developed(20).
The statements define the broad content of the learning areas, while the profiles map learning outcomes typically achieved by students as they progress from Years 1 to 10.
The principal motivation for the development of the profiles appears to have been their use as frameworks for improving outcomes and for monitoring standards. In respect of monitoring standards, they are in a direct line from the national surveys of basic literacy and numeracy undertaken by the Australian Council for Educational Research in 1975 and 1980(21). They have a clear connection with economic performance.
At the level of the individual student, the profiles can be used to develop diagnostic tools to assist in improved performance. At the school or system level, assessment instruments based on them are being designed for monitoring standards and, as such, are intended as a means of accountability for the performance of individual schools over time and for the performance of school systems.
Quite apart from the developments arising from the National Statements and Profiles, all State/Territory education systems, except the ACT, have arrangements in place for regular testing of students on a population or sample basis(22).
Needless to say, the monitoring of standards by this kind of assessment is challenged by many educators on equity grounds and because it may distort the curriculum. However, opposition is by no means as strong or strident as it was in the 1980s. This no doubt is due to the paradigm shift.
Competencies
The competency movement that has developed in Australian education over the last five or six years has been driven largely by a desire to fashion and improve education/training outcomes in relation to the world of work from entry to professional level. The origins of competency based training, standards and assessment for specific skilled vocations are also to be found in moves to reform industrial awards.
Since Professor Andrich will be dealing with the topic of competency tomorrow(23), I shall not embark on a detailed discussion of the competency approach to education, including the so-called employment related key (generic) competencies and vocational (specific) competencies, except to point out that the establishment of competency based standards and competency based assessment has a clear accountability dimension. Without laying down standards and designing instruments of assessment, competencies (however defined) are little more than the desirable outcomes of education in terms of the ability to use knowledge and skills effectively to achieve particular purposes. The key competencies of the Mayer Report(24) appear to represent little more than the desired outcomes of general education.***
Competency based standards and assessment provide a check on the performance of students and on the success of institutions and teachers in training them. In this sense, they are instruments of accountability and are attractive to those responsible for funding public education. Whether competency based approaches are able to capture what education is about, other than for training for highly specific tasks, and whether competence has meaning independent of knowledge and context are, of course, moot questions, and ones that Professor Andrich will no doubt address.
Quality
Explicit concern with the quality of education surfaced in the mid-1980s. In 1984 the Commonwealth Government had set up the Quality of Education Review Committee which reported in 1985.(26) Its focus was on the actual and desirable outcomes of school education. It signalled a major change in orientation in the funding of education from an input to an outcome emphasis.
A year later the Commonwealth established a committee to review the efficiency and effectiveness in higher education. This review which reported in 1986 contained the seeds(27) that later flowered in the series of public documents that led to the quality assurance/assessment exercise in which the universities have been involved since last year(28).
This exercise began as an attempt to monitor quality assurance mechanisms in universities in order to encourage their implementation and maintenance. Institutions were to be ranked and substantial additional funds awarded to them in proportion to their ranking. In mid-stream, the exercise's purpose changed to an evaluation not only of the universities' procedures for quality assurance, but also of the outcomes produced by the institutions. Either way, the exercise has an accountability motivation.
The notion of "the quality of a university" defies definition. In the first place, in this context the word "quality" can have two interpretations. It can refer to a grading in relation to some abstract standard. Alternatively, quality can be measured in terms of performance in relation to specifications (or goals). There are, of course, problems with this second interpretation. If goals are set at modest levels, meeting them may not represent significant achievement. Both interpretations involve measurement quandaries.
The second difficulty with the notion of "the quality of a university" lies not so much in the definition of "quality", but in the impossibility of judging a university as a whole. Universities are complex organisations involving many discrete activities and large numbers of people. When we talk about "quality", are we referring to the quality of courses, of research outcomes, of teachers, of graduates, of particular departments, or of whole institutions? Are we assessing the quality of components of the university (departments) or of dimensions of university work (teaching, course content, etc.)? Is the quality of university management a separate variable? What are the attributes of quality? Is equity a dimension of academic quality? How can we add all the variables together? Indeed, in the light of these questions can any meaning at all be attached to "the quality of a university" as an abstract concept?****
Apart from these definitional difficulties, there are other considerations that point to the dubiousness of exercises of the kind at present being undertaken by the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education.
First, the difficulty of summarising the quality of various elements within institutions may lead to the use of simplistic quantitative performance indicators. Performance indicators have become fashionable in public sector operations which do not have the measures of success that businesses operating in market conditions have ("bottom lines" like rates of profit, asset values, market shares). Attempts to objectify quality by performance indicators will often produce misleading or unreliable results. A recent publication of DEET, which included 50 numerical performance indicators, is a prime example(30). Apart from some errors in the data, many of the performance indicators invite misleading inferences due to conceptual confusions. The outstanding example is the use of "government paid cost of a student place" as a measure of the cost effectiveness of institutions. This variable depends on the mix of students among faculties. This mix varies greatly from institution to institution and thus completely confounds comparison. Moreover, the government paid cost of a student place in a particular discipline is itself determined by the funding authority and can hardly be said to reflect the cost effectiveness of the institution! Furthermore, plotting this variable against the number of graduates per teacher (which is featured in a diagram in the publication) is meaningless as no direct functional relationship exists between the two variables.
Secondly, the labelling of institutions as either winners of prizes or non-winners has serious consequences for the non-winners, especially in overseas markets where non-winners' market standing may be threatened even though they provide satisfactory educational services relative to overseas competitors.
Thirdly, how will "low performing" institutions be able to raise themselves, if they are being funded at a level lower than the "high performing" institutions?
Fourthly, considerable resources will be tied up in the quality exercise, both in the administration of the assessment and in the responses of the institutions. It is questionable whether the potential benefits of the exercise will outweigh the costs.
Finally, an atmosphere of compliance or second-guessing is being generated as institutions attempt to conform with the perceived values of the Committee for Quality Assurance, especially if additional funding is involved. These values may well be disputable. Their imposition is likely to distort institutional priorities and lead to an undesirable degree of uniformity.
To argue against the current exercise is not to deny the importance of quality enhancement by quality assurance mechanisms or by inter-institutional comparisons of conformable dimensions of performance, for example, by comparisons of particular courses across institutions or of the research records in particular disciplines. Nor is it to deny the legitimacy of an external audit of the quality assurance methodologies used by individual institutions. However the case against ranking whole institutions and attaching monetary rewards to the competition is very strong indeed.
Above all, more reliance needs to be placed on the professionalism of university staff. This should be nurtured by the development of professional standards with which academics might be expected to conform and by the provision of greater opportunities for staff development. Academics, generally, have a tradition of professional commitment to excellence which has been the mainspring for quality assurance and enhancement in the institutions within which they work. Internal mechanisms and incentives to capitalise on this professional commitment need to be fostered, as does the inculcation of a similar commitment in students and graduates.
Excellence
Concern with quality leads naturally to the question of excellence. Excellence is a much used criterion in academic circles. It implies something more than high quality - rather, pre-eminence. The notion of excellence captures a set of values to which most academics aspire.
Individualistic values, which are the values of the current economic paradigm, and the pursuit of excellence go together. Excellence implies ranking, and ranking implies competition. The pursuit of excellence is a dearly held traditional academic value. Within universities, resources tend to flow (or, at least, should tend to flow) to the most distinguished academics. Likewise, economic interest requires that resources flow to where comparative advantage lies.
The pursuit of academic excellence may conflict with educational values that stress equality in its various manifestations or the maximisation of the value that education can add to a person's natural endowments. Since resources are always limited, there may be a trade-off between nurturing excellence and providing educational access to a wide range of people: adding value to the less able may compete with enhancing the value of the able.
Accordingly, there may be a conflict between traditional academic values and egalitarian social values. This conflict may be sharper at university level than at school level; indeed, some confusion relating to excellence and equality is apparent in current government policy on higher education.
The single minded pursuit of academic excellence by an institution may limit the range of educational services that it can offer the community. Thus, in spite of the importance of the pursuit of excellence, there needs to be a range of institutions to provide a diversity of educational opportunities to match the diversity of preferences and abilities of their clients (whether students, businesses or governments). Again, diversity in education is most plausible at the higher levels and is not necessarily inconsistent with a belief that all young people should experience a common educational foundation.
Emphasis on excellence in individual achievement and diversity in institutional role is consistent with, indeed is required by, the changed economic paradigm of the present era, but, as I have already said, these may seem to rest somewhat uneasily with egalitarian social values. Australian government policy of the past decade has combined an economic model of rationalist flavour with national priorities that include a concern for social justice. In particular, policy relating to universities has had an anti-élitist flavour. Such a stance is bound to involve tensions, even conflicts, certainly confusions. While these can be readily observed in educational policy and practice, they cannot easily be resolved. But they certainly demand debate and they underline the need for arm's length relationships between government and the universities.
CONCLUSION
The paradigm shift in the conceptualisation of the Australian economy has brought about changes in educational priorities; in the structure, organization and management of educational institutions; in the relation of these institutions to the wider society; and in society's expectations of them.
The process of change, which over the past six years or so has been very rapid, has tended to require speedy responses from institutions and has diverted attention from longer term issues including, for example, the fundamental purposes of schooling and the central role and values of the university.
Institutions have necessarily been concerned with short term survival and have been reacting, sometimes frenetically, to a stream of government directives and changing policies. At the same time, pressures for entrepreneurship within institutions and accountability to outside authorities have reinforced a sense of coping from day to day.
The time is well overdue for a more reflective debate on longer term issues. We need to survey where we are now. We need to address issues of the kind raised in this paper. We need to determine how our educational future should evolve. And we need to do this, not as a response to short term political exigencies but as a foundation for the good society.
REFERENCES
(1) Higher Education - a policy discussion paper, circulated by The Hon. J S Dawkins, MP, Minister for Employment, Education and Training, December 1987, page 1.
(2) Higher Education - a policy statement, circulated by The Hon. J S Dawkins, MP, Minister for Employment, Education and Training, July 1988.
(3) Young People's Participation in Post Compulsory Education and Training (Chair: Brian Finn), July 1991.
(4) The Australian Vocational Certificate Training System (Chair: Laurie Carmichael), Employment and Skills Formation Council, National Board of Employment, Education and Training, March 1992.
(5) Putting General Education to Work - Condensed version of The Key Competencies Report (Chair: Eric Mayer), September 1992.
(6) Australian Education Council, Common and Agreed National Goals for Schooling in Australia, April 1989.
(7) Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Symposium, Confusion Worse Confounded - Australian Education in the Nineteen Nineties, 9 November 1994.
(8) The Role of Schools in the Vocational Preparation of Australia's Senior Secondary Students - Discussion Paper, Schools Council, National Board of Employment, Education and Training, 1994.
(9) Pirsig Robert M, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, 1974, Vintage, 1989, page 153.
(10) Australian Bureau of Statistics, Participation in Education in Australia, September 1993, Catalogue No. 6272.0, page 7.
(11) op. cit. page xv.
(12) Karmel Peter, Past, Present and Future. The John Curtin Memorial Lecture, The Australian National University, 5 December, 1991, pages 28-39. See also Karmel Peter, Quantity and Quality in Higher Education, The Sir Robert Menzies Oration on Higher Education, The University of Melbourne, 28 October 1992, pages 13-15.
(13) Penington David et al., Coalition Policies for Higher Education - a discussion document, January 1993.
(14) Universities Commission, Sixth Report, May 1975, paragraphs 4.22 - 4.24.
(15) Karmel Peter, op. cit., pages 35-38.
(16) Resource Allocation in Higher Education, Report of the Joint DEET/HEC Working Party, Higher Education Council, National Board of Employment, Education and Training and Department of Employment, Education and Training, August 1994.
(17) op. cit. page 2.
(18) See Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, Survey of Applicants for Higher Education Courses, 1994, page 9.
(19) See The Australian, 17 August 1994.
(20) Introducing Statements and Profiles, Curriculum Corporation, 1994.
(21) Hill Peter, Unicorn, Vol. 20, No. 2, June 1994, pages 36-41; McGaw Barry, US/OECD Study on Performance Standards in Education: Quality, Curriculum, Standards, Assessment - Australian Case Study (forthcoming).
(22) Mapping State Testing Programs, Australian Council for Educational Research, February 1994.
(23) See reference (7).
(24) See reference (5).
(25) Quality of Education in Australia, Report of the Review Committee (Chair: Peter Karmel) April 1985, paragraph 5.6.
(26) op. cit.
(27) Review of Efficiency and Effectiveness in Higher Education, Report of the Committee of Enquiry (Chair: Hugh Hudson), September 1986, paragraphs 8.58 - 8.79.
(28) Higher Education: Quality and Diversity in the 1990's, Policy Statement by the Hon. Peter Baldwin, MP, Minister for Higher Education and Employment Services, October 1991; The Quality of Higher Education, Higher Education Council, Discussion Papers, February 1992; Higher Education: Achieving Quality, Higher Education Council, October 1992.
(29) op. cit. paragraph 1.12.
(30) Diversity and Performance of Australian Universities (Higher Education Series, Report No. 22, April 1994).