tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/marketised-education-system-10141/articlesMarketised education system – The Conversation2016-04-22T15:19:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/582402016-04-22T15:19:40Z2016-04-22T15:19:40ZEnglish has taken over academia: but the real culprit is not linguistic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119686/original/image-20160421-26983-1wl7ai6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In academia, you'll need to. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Africa Studio/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Not only is April 23 the anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, but the UN has chosen it as <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33819#.Vvzvnk32aM8">UN English Language Day</a> in tribute to the Bard. </p>
<p>If growth in the number of speakers is a measure of success, then the English language certainly deserves to be celebrated. Since the end of World War I, it has risen to become the language with the <a href="http://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/">highest number of non-native users in the world</a> and is the most frequently used language among people who don’t share the same language in business, politics and academia.</p>
<p>In universities in countries where English is not the official language, English is increasingly used as <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/e484_emi_-_cover_option_3_final_web.pdf">a medium of instruction</a> and is often the preferred language for academics in which to publish their research. </p>
<p>In Europe alone, the number of undergraduate and masters programmes fully taught in English grew from 2,389 in 2007 to 8,089 in 2014 – <a href="http://www.aca-secretariat.be/fileadmin/aca_docs/images/members/ACA-2015_English_Taught_01.pdf">a 239% increase</a>. </p>
<p>In academic publishing, the use of English has a longer history, especially in the sciences. In 1880, <a href="http://www.hamel.com.mx/Archivos-Publicaciones/2007%20Han%20Engl%20in%20Science.pdf">only 36% of publications</a> were in English. It had risen to 50% in 1940-50, 75% in 1980 and 91% in 1996, with the numbers for social sciences and humanities slightly lower. </p>
<p>Today, the proportion of academic articles in the Nordic countries which are published in English is between <a href="http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:730884/FULLTEXT01.pdf">70% and 95%, and for doctoral dissertations it’s 80% to 90%</a>. </p>
<h2>Pros and cons of using English</h2>
<p>One frequently cited advantage of publishing in English is that academics can reach a wider audience and also engage in work produced outside of their own language community. This facilitates international collaboration and, at least ideally, strengthens and validates research. In teaching, using English enables the mobility of staff and students and makes it possible for students to study abroad and get input from other cultures. It also helps develop language skills and intercultural awareness.</p>
<p>But some downsides have been identified. In the Nordic countries, for example, the national language councils have expressed concerns at the lack of use of national languages in academia. They’ve argued that this may <a href="http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:730884/FULLTEXT01.pdf">impoverish these languages</a>, making it impossible to communicate about scientific issues in Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Icelandic. There has also been fears that the quality of education taking place in English is lower because it may be harder to express oneself in a non-native language. And there are concerns about the creation of inequalities between those who speak English well and those who don’t – though this may <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-native-english-speakers-fail-to-be-understood-in-english-and-lose-out-in-global-business-54436?">begin to change</a>.</p>
<p>Research suggests a more nuanced picture. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/23903393/Languages_and_Linguistic_Exchanges_in_Swedish_Academia._Practices_Processes_and_Globalizing_Markets">National languages are still being used in academia</a> and are <a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/36537/">no more threatened here than in other domains</a>. Both teachers and students have been shown to adapt, drawing on strategies and resources that <a href="http://lnu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?dswid=5188&pid=diva2%3A846485&c=7&searchType=RESEARCH&language=sv&query=&af=%5B%5D&aq=%5B%5B%7B%22personId%22%3A%22kaijo%22%7D%5D%5D&aq2=%5B%5B%5D%5D&aqe=%5B%5D&noOfRows=50&sortOrder=dateIssued_sort_desc&onlyFullText=false&sf=all">compensate for any perceived loss of learning</a>. The ability to cope with education in a non-native language depends on a number of factors, such as level of English proficiency – which <a href="http://www.ef.co.uk/epi/">varies significantly across the world</a>.</p>
<h2>English built into the system</h2>
<p>Some solutions to these problems have focused on devising language policies which are meant to safeguard local languages. For instance, many Nordic universities have adopted a “parallel language policy”, which accords equal status to English and to the national language (or languages, in the case of Finland, which has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish). While such initiatives may serve important symbolic functions, research suggests that they are <a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/40032/8/Hultgren2014a.pdf">unlikely to be effective in the long run</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119831/original/image-20160422-17405-qs03r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119831/original/image-20160422-17405-qs03r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119831/original/image-20160422-17405-qs03r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119831/original/image-20160422-17405-qs03r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119831/original/image-20160422-17405-qs03r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119831/original/image-20160422-17405-qs03r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119831/original/image-20160422-17405-qs03r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Learning in Oslo – but in what language?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/astrid/3058060117/sizes/l">AstridWestvang/flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>This is because the underlying causes of these dramatic changes that are happening in academia worldwide are not simply linguistic, but political and economic. A push for competition in higher education has increased the use of research performance indicators and international bench-marking systems that measure universities against each other. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://theconversation.com/competition-as-a-fetish-why-universities-need-to-escape-the-trap-58084">competitive marketplace</a> means academics are encouraged to publish their articles in high-ranking journals – in effect this means English-language journals. Many ranking lists also measure universities on their degree of internationalisation, which tends to be interpreted rather simplistically as the ratio of international to domestic staff and students. Turning education into a commodity and charging higher tuition fees for overseas students also makes it more appealing for universities to attract international students. This all indirectly leads to a rise in the use of English: a shared language is necessary for such transnational activities to work.</p>
<p>The rise of English in academia is only a symptom of this competition. If the linguistic imbalance is to be redressed, then this must start with confronting the problem of a university system which has elevated competition and performance indicators to its key organising principle, in teaching as well as research.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With English dominating university life around the world, what are we losing?Anna Kristina Hultgren, Lecturer in English Language and Applied Linguistics, The Open UniversityElizabeth J. Erling, Lecturer of English Language Teaching , The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/560592016-03-16T10:13:09Z2016-03-16T10:13:09ZAcademics admit feeling pressure to embellish possible impact of research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114948/original/image-20160314-11288-re6pzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bowl them over. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">stockshoppe/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Academics applying for research funding have expressed their concern at feeling the need to exaggerate and embellish the possible future impact of their work. In a series of interviews with senior academics in the UK and Australia <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2016.1144182">for our new study</a>, several told us that the process of writing statements about the imagined future impact of their research could feel like the creation of “falsehoods” and “untruths”, particularly when the impact was not immediately apparent. </p>
<p>Others described predictions that were being made about the kind of impact research would have on the general public as “charades” and “illusions”, “virtually meaningless”, or “made up stories”. This was particularly the case for those working on arguably less socially applicable areas, such as theoretical physics, aesthetics or literary theory.</p>
<p>Researchers working on fundamental aspects of human functioning, for example, might be tempted to describe how their research could benefit society by improving the public’s happiness levels or quality of life. In reality, such a causal relationship may be far more complicated. </p>
<p>In the UK, academics are frequently asked to provide evidence for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-impact-of-impact-on-the-ref-35636">impact of their research</a> on the wider society outside of academia. It is now mandatory for all applications for funding from UK research councils to incorporate a section on the <a href="http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/innovation/impacts/">predicted impact of the research</a>. This intensified with the inclusion of “impact” as one of the criteria under the <a href="http://www.ref.ac.uk/">Research Exercise Framework 2014</a>, an exercise used to judge the quality of the UK’s research.</p>
<p>A similar focus on impact has occurred in Australian universities. The Australian Research Council also requires that funding applicants provide a short impact statement as a part of their research proposals. There is also ongoing consultation about <a href="https://theconversation.com/watt-report-suggests-financial-incentives-for-measuring-research-impact-51815">impact as a new feature</a> in Australia’s own national research evaluation exercise, the Excellence Research Australia in 2018. </p>
<p>In the UK the expectation that researchers should demonstrate the potential impact of research in funding applications has <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/letters/only-scholarly-freedom-delivers-real-impact-1/408984.article?storycode=408984">provoked the ire of many academics</a>. They have questioned the efficiency of this new feature of their funding contract, seeing it as a box-ticking exercise to prove the “public value” of research which has the potential to constrict the freedom to research new knowledge for its own sake. </p>
<h2>Too sensationalist?</h2>
<p>We were curious to find out how researchers have responded to the requirement to predict their impact, particularly at a time when research funding is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/07/science-budgets-cuts-damage-britain">both scarce</a> and massively competitive. </p>
<p>We interviewed both authors and reviewers of impact statements drawn from the arts and humanities, social sciences, natural and life sciences and physical sciences, based at two research intensive and research elite institutions in the UK and Australia. </p>
<p>We found a common perception that if the impact was not immediately apparent it was almost inevitable to have to inflate and embellish claims about how much impact a piece of work would have in order to secure funding. </p>
<p>While many agreed that their research ought to be communicated in order to make a difference and contribute to the public good, many disagreed with the way funders conceptualise and ask for “impact” to be predicted in funding applications. They suggested that, where impact was not immediately obvious, a kind of “impact-sensationalism” was both a necessary and justifiable way of trying to secure research funding. Some tacitly felt this was a necessary evil and a means to an end. </p>
<p>One Australian professor, commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you can find me a single academic who hasn’t had to bullshit or bluff or lie or embellish in order to get grants, then I will find you an academic who is in trouble with his Head of Department. If you don’t play the game, you don’t do well by your university. So anyone that’s so ethical that they won’t bend the rules in order to play the game is going to be in trouble, which is deplorable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another interviewee, a UK professor, stated that over-claiming was an unfortunate but integral aspect of the grant-writing process:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Would I believe it? No. Would it help me get the money? Yes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/opinion/slow-burn-impact/2019339.article">As many critics have argued</a>, being asked to imagine future impact could be said to “fly in the face of scientific practice”. No surprise, then, that the accuracy of impact predictions may be as uncertain as a shot in the dark. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115090/original/image-20160315-9238-1g2gm4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115090/original/image-20160315-9238-1g2gm4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115090/original/image-20160315-9238-1g2gm4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115090/original/image-20160315-9238-1g2gm4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115090/original/image-20160315-9238-1g2gm4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115090/original/image-20160315-9238-1g2gm4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115090/original/image-20160315-9238-1g2gm4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Moral fabric of academia under pressure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amy Johansson/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<h2>Integrity under threat?</h2>
<p>Some of the academics we interviewed described the temptation to sensationalise narratives of impact with a sense of moral conflict. </p>
<p>In the UK and Australia’s very competitive <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-race-to-turn-higher-education-into-a-market-were-ignoring-lessons-from-history-35792">higher education markets</a>, where performance is in the spotlight, there is increasing pressure for academics to be seen to prioritise demands from their universities to raise research money. But as our research shows, this could arguably be one of the most difficult challenges to an academics’ sense of professional integrity and moral fabric.</p>
<p>By sensationalising the future impact of their research, academics are merely displaying a natural survival instinct. Yet the fact that they feel they have to embellish their predictions, shows that as the contours of academic practice continue to shift, funders’ concepts of impact remains ever problematic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the race to apply for research funding, writing statements about future impact can feel like a charade.Jennifer Chubb, Doctoral Researcher, Higher Education, University of YorkRichard Watermeyer, Senior Lecturer in Education, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/432162015-07-13T11:04:46Z2015-07-13T11:04:46ZWhat kind of university can help reduce poverty?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85980/original/image-20150622-17715-4mwmeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brazil's University of São Paulo</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/11707866505/sizes/o/">rvkroffi/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, development agencies have encouraged low and middle-income countries to focus their education spending on primary schools and basic vocational skills. They <a href="http://theconversation.com/why-does-so-little-foreign-aid-go-to-support-universities-43160">have considered</a> that universities provide lower rates of return on public investment and benefit elites at the expense of the poor. </p>
<p>That is changing and it’s now acknowledged that strong higher education systems are also a vital piece in the puzzle of poverty reduction. Countries need well-trained professionals to staff public services, as well as technological innovators and researchers to tackle local and national development challenges. The <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/specialreports/index.php?action=view&report=49">debates</a> on what the priorities should be after the Millennium Development Goals end in 2015 have shown a stronger endorsement for the role of universities.</p>
<p>However, higher education won’t have a real impact on countries’ development unless three key things take place. First, universities have to function together as part of a coherent system in the public interest. Second, access to higher education must be equitable and allow admission for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Third, teaching, research and community engagement must address key local and national development needs. </p>
<p>But none of these three elements can be taken for granted given universities’ current direction of travel.</p>
<p>Two major global trends in higher education are challenging these assumptions: commercialisation and “unbundling” – the gradual breaking up of the traditional campus university. Commercialisation has affected all aspects of universities’ operations, from “cost-sharing” or the introduction of tuition fees, to providing consultancy for the private sector and commercial outsourcing of campus services. Given the squeeze on public funds for universities across the world, there are few places in which institutions are not being strongly encouraged to commercialise their activities.</p>
<p>“Unbundling” refers to the process through which the combination of functions of the traditional university are separated out, potentially leading to the disintegration of the institution as we know it, according to Pearson’s chief education advisor Michael Barber in the report <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/files/FINAL%20Embargoed%20Avalanche%20Paper%20130306%20%281%29.pdf">An Avalanche is Coming</a>. </p>
<p>The unity of teaching, research and public service – with its roots in Humboldt’s University of Berlin in 1810 and developed through the <a href="http://ext.wsu.edu/documents/landgrant.pdf">US Land Grant universities</a> – is slowly being unravelled. Teaching-only institutions, employer-based degree programmes, the movement of research to private laboratories and consultancy firms, and particularly the emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are contributing to this trend. </p>
<p>The huge growth of distance education providers, such as the <a href="Indira%20Gandhi%20National%20Open%20University">Indira Gandhi National Open University</a> in India, has also contributed to challenging the notion of university as a physical location. There are also moves towards separating out the teaching and accreditation functions of the university, with skills “<a href="http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/06/20/how-badges-really-work-in-higher-education.aspx">badges</a>” now awarded by external agencies.</p>
<h2>Proceed with caution</h2>
<p>The implications of these trends for addressing development needs in the resource-constrained countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America need careful assessment. Evidence from the process of commercialisation has been mixed to say the least.</p>
<p>Liberalisation of higher education in Brazil from the 1990s <a href="http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ihe/article/view/5471/4891">led to</a> an exponential growth in the private sector, now accounting for three quarters of enrolments, with nearly half of these in for-profit institutions. While undoubtedly having a positive impact on the expansion of access to university beyond just the most well-off in society, fees still put them out of the reach of many and there are <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/brazils-main-concern-is-research-quality-at-its-universities-says-adviser/2016854.article">widespread concerns about the quality</a> of provision of these institutions. Profit incentives lead to a driving down of investment in academic staff and learning resources, and attempts at regulating the sector have had limited success. </p>
<p>Kenya, with a much smaller enrolment base and weaker public and private financial capacity than middle-income Brazil, has also witnessed its own form of commercialisation. Since the mid-1990s, state universities have introduced a parallel stream – admitting fee-paying students alongside the government-subsidised ones. In some institutions these <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140508075050866&query=parallel+kenya">parallel streams</a> have spiralled out of control, reaching well over half of enrolments.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85981/original/image-20150622-17729-sljk76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A tight squeeze at Kenyatta University library.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Book Aid International/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>While for Kenyan universities these are a welcome source of revenue in the context of scarcity of public funds, they have led to an intolerable strain on quality. Recruitment of new lecturers has lagged way behind the expansion of enrolments and institutional infrastructure cannot support the influx of students.</p>
<h2>Don’t push efficiency too far</h2>
<p>In contrast to commercialisation, which has been developing for decades, unbundling is still in its infancy and we have no clear examples of systems in which the process is fully under way – so to a large extent we are reliant on extrapolation from initial signals. </p>
<p>One implication of the unravelling of higher education systems is decreasing state leverage, with an obvious impact on the ability to regulate for equality of opportunity in admissions. The importance of cross-fertilisation between teaching and research – benefiting both students and staff – is widely recognised. MOOCs, often touted as a potential saviour for impoverished regions of the globe, <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140626103112605">have limited potential</a> in contexts in which poor primary and secondary schooling has hampered young people’s ability to learn on their own.</p>
<p>One of the best-known contemporary initiatives in this area, the non-profit university <a href="http://kepler.org/#home">Kepler</a> in Rwanda, in fact shows a trend of what might be called “re-bundling”, providing face-to-face tuition and dormitory facilities to support students undertaking MOOCs.</p>
<p>So there is a worrying disjuncture between the hopeful vision of the potential of higher education held by development agencies, and the current trends for delivery endorsed by many of them. Bilateral and multilateral donors have shown strong support for new private sector providers and <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/10/15/world-bank-coursera-partner-open-learning">online distance</a> education under the <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140410191429827">emblem</a> of innovation. </p>
<p>Efficiency and affordability when pushed too far can undermine the <em>raison d’être</em> of the whole venture. If universities are to succeed in fostering both poverty reduction and development for the benefit of society, they must provide high-quality teaching and research in the public interest, and engage with local communities. Ultimately, it’s not just any higher education that will do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tristan McCowan receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, Department for International Development and British Council.</span></em></p>As more foreign aid starts going to higher education, developing countries need to be careful about the direction of travel for their universities.Tristan McCowan, Reader in Education and International Development, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/357922015-03-10T06:20:04Z2015-03-10T06:20:04ZIn the race to turn higher education into a market, we’re ignoring lessons from history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70317/original/image-20150128-22311-417nm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C88%2C995%2C890&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not all universities must reform in unison. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-79098160/stock-photo-shot-of-graduation-caps-during-commencement.html?src=Ip6vzAzRUamnX0cnKcTgng-1-26&ws=0">Graduation caps via hxdbzxy/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Universities around the world today face pressure to conform to economic rationality and <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/TOCs/c9619.html">contribute</a> to national innovation. Though often presented as a revolution, driven by “globalisation” or other vague buzzwords, this is nothing new. Research and teaching have never been free from external constraints and public universities have long been expected to justify the resources society devotes to them. </p>
<p>But universities feel threatened and increasingly incapable of fulfilling their primary functions. The question at the centre of most current debates on university reform is to what extent universities themselves should determine the goals, values and norms of pedagogical and scientific practice. For politicians and the general public, academic freedom – even as a noble principle honoured mainly in the breach – is becoming <a href="https://theconversation.com/counter-terrorism-bill-could-be-devastating-for-university-freedoms-36312">meaningless</a>. </p>
<p>Debates on the freedom of higher education are as old as the university. But today’s ideologically imposed constraints are very different from the financial dependence of public universities on the state after 1945. The current international trend towards <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/407359.article">semi-private, semi-public universities</a> poses new challenges to academic freedom. This is exemplified by the <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n20/stefan-collini/sold-out">dominance of market-based vocabulary</a> and principles for scientific conduct.</p>
<p>And the adoption of corporate management models is leading to the authoritarian concentration of power <a href="https://theconversation.com/collegiality-is-dead-in-the-new-corporatised-university-5539">within universities</a>. Critical voices opposed to current reforms <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n20/stefan-collini/sold-out">argue</a> that intellectual autonomy is being sacrificed to an unworkable vision of financial autonomy for public universities. </p>
<h2>From Humboldt on…</h2>
<p>These debates are at the heart of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/universities-at-the-crossroads">collection of articles</a> on The Conversation. The pieces shed much needed historical light on the current restructuring of higher education and research – in Europe and beyond. They emerge from a <a href="http://www.eui.eu/SeminarsAndEvents/Events/2014/December/200yearsofdialoguebetweenknowledgeandpowerinEurope.aspx">recent major conference</a> on higher learning and politics. </p>
<p>The cross-national historical comparisons presented here illustrate the peculiarities of the current reform culture. They also demonstrate the historical complexity of the relationship between university and society, and warn against national parochialism. When told there is no alternative, we should look abroad for ready proof to the contrary. </p>
<p>Higher education, society, politics, and the market have had very different interconnections in different countries. As a result, despite the wide influence of <a href="http://www.guildhe.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Andy-Westwood-HEA-June2014l.pdf">marketisation ideology</a>, there are real differences around the world reflected in public discussions on the future of the universities. We give a flavour of that variety here.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70315/original/image-20150128-22305-1twm6yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70315/original/image-20150128-22305-1twm6yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70315/original/image-20150128-22305-1twm6yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70315/original/image-20150128-22305-1twm6yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70315/original/image-20150128-22305-1twm6yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70315/original/image-20150128-22305-1twm6yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70315/original/image-20150128-22305-1twm6yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wilhelm von Humboldt, founder of the modern university.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Humboldt#mediaviewer/File:Berlin_-_Wilhelm_von_Humboldt.jpg">Lestat (Jan Mehlich). Wikimedia.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The public universities of contemporary Europe date from 1945, yet they are based on the early 19th century <a href="http://www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-idea-of-a-university-today">Humboldtian ideal</a> of academic freedom, and on the value of faculty members who both teach and conduct research. Spreading round the world, this model gave rise to numerous local variations, including in the Anglo-American sphere, which in the 20th century overtook the German-French universities. </p>
<h2>Local variations to similar problems</h2>
<p>Today, the dominance of English-language universities is evident in many different regions of the world. Yet as the article on Japan in this series will illustrate, the mix of internationally circulating university models and national traditions of higher education has produced very different results. Despite pressure to homogenise, the introduction of marketising principles of university management has provoked very different reactions around the world. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-liberal-arts-tradition-failed-to-take-hold-in-europe-35791">Italian historian Andrea Mariuzzo shows</a>, <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n10/howard-hotson/dont-look-to-the-ivy-league">idealisation of elite American universities</a> is nothing new in global higher education. But nor is misrepresentation of the US system in order to justify various national projects. Mariuzzo examines Harvard reformers’ efforts in 1945 to define the balance between general liberal education designed to produce citizens, and specialised instruction supposedly aimed at economic success. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://theconversation.com/japanese-universities-struggle-to-find-their-place-in-the-world-38508">Japanese historian Shigeru Okayama</a> describes how European models of higher education influenced the Japanese approach from its inception. But he also exposes the failures of the private university system there, and the growing divide between English and Japanese language teaching. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/HistoryAndCivilization/People/Researchers/Index.aspx">collective of doctoral researchers</a> at the European University Institute have <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-universities-becoming-a-plea-from-the-future-37783">also provided a view “from below”</a>, explaining how the marketised university is experienced by those who represent its future. </p>
<h2>Learning from our history</h2>
<p>It is undeniable that some of the current challenges to higher education are specific to our times. But others have a long history, despite being widely seen as new. We often hear that the university is globalising. In fact the nation state remains a key player, and global academia remains primarily a space for international competition. </p>
<p>Within this space, all kinds of international honours contribute to national prestige, and individual scholars mobilise international recognition for national purposes. Distinguishing between which reforms are truly new and which are merely presented as such, and grasping the interplay between global trends and national situations will help us think about how to react in the face of today’s challenges. </p>
<p><em>This is the first in our series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/universities-at-the-crossroads">Universities at the crossroads</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Jackson receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust as an Early Career Fellow, 2014-17.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann Thomson is a member of the "bureau" of the Association de réflexion sur l'enseignement supérieur et la recherche", an unaffiliated, non-political group of university teachers and researchers founded to reflect on the situation of higher education and research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Nygard receives funding from the Academy of Finland.</span></em></p>Is intellectual autonomy being sacrificed to an unworkable vision of financial autonomy for public universities?Simon Jackson, Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Modern Middle Eastern History, University of BirminghamAnn Thomson, Professor of European Intellectual History , European University InstituteStefan Nygard, Academy of Finland researcher, University of HelsinkiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/344372014-11-19T13:28:49Z2014-11-19T13:28:49ZCan England ever return to an era of free higher education?<p>It is now as close to a consensus as makes no difference that the current regime for funding higher education in England through high fees paid by students – or repaid by some graduates – is bust. Lord Browne’s assertion when he launched his <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/31999/10-1208-securing-sustainable-higher-education-browne-report.pdf">2010 review of the higher education system</a> that his new “market” represented a paradigm shift was always bombastic. Shrill claims by the Coalition government and its former universities minister David Willetts that it was putting “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/putting-students-at-the-heart-of-higher-education">students at the heart of the system</a>” have now turned to ashes.</p>
<p>But there is <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-five-options-for-student-tuition-fees-that-politicians-have-to-choose-from-32847">no consensus</a> about what should replace the current regime. The Conservatives dream of total privatisation with no cap on fees, and the expensive student loans book off-loaded by the state. Labour mumbles about reducing the cap to £6,000 but offers no guarantee it would provide the extra public expenditure needed to plug the gap. The Liberal Democrats keep their heads well down – and who can blame them after <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8123832/Nick-Clegg-admits-breaking-tuition-fees-pledge.html">their U-turn</a> on the promise to abolish fees entirely. There is little sign of politicians, of any party, riding to the rescue.</p>
<h2>No going back?</h2>
<p>The only thing that everyone in the mainstream political parties seems to agree on is that there can be no going back to “free” higher education as it existed for almost half a century until New Labour broke the taboo and introduced modest fees in the wake of the <a href="http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/dearing1997/dearing1997.html">1997 Dearing</a> report. </p>
<p>Free education is now seen as a pipe-dream. Politicians agree that what fiscal room that might exist now or in the future, and is not needed to fund voter-friendly tax cuts, should be used to support the National Health Service and other deserving public services, not to subsidise the higher education of the pampered middle classes. They, of course, overlap with much praised “hard-working families” – it’s so confusing.</p>
<p>To avoid the inevitable conclusion that the only alternative to charging students or graduates for their higher education is to fund it through general taxation, people tie themselves in knots, devising ever more complicated schemes. <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-can-defuse-the-student-loan-time-bomb-30990">Graduate taxes</a>, tax-deductible fees, hypothecated taxes… At times it feels a little like medieval astronomers doing everything possible to avoid having to admit that the Earth revolves round the Sun, rather than the other way round, by coming up with ever more bizarre calculations.</p>
<h2>NUS roadmap makes good sense</h2>
<p>So the National Union of Students deserves to be congratulated for publishing its <a href="http://www.nus.org.uk/Global/Roadmap%20for%20Free%20Education%20report.pdf">roadmap</a> for “free” higher education. Once the possibility of a return to a tax-funded system is accepted, it seems to make such obvious good sense. As the NUS argues, it is a good deal for students and for the country. Students took to the streets on November 19 to campaign for a return to free education. </p>
<p>In England, students are now likely to graduate with more than £40,000 worth of debt. So, even before they start work, they are saddled with mini-mortgages. No one knows what the longer-term effects of such levels of debt will be on students from poorer backgrounds, although it is hardly likely to encourage them – however generous the bursaries on offer are. Nor is it certain what the impact will be on subject choice. </p>
<p>But we do know the new high fees regime is already having a significant effect on the behaviour of institutions through high-pressure “sales” pitches, guaranteed “success” and perhaps an over-investment in “signature” buildings and hotel-style student residences. Good teaching is getting shunted aside by a nervy preoccupation with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/tick-box-surveys-arent-the-only-way-to-measure-student-satisfaction-28780">“student experience”</a>.</p>
<h2>Status quo unsustainable</h2>
<p>We also know the new high fees regime is a spectacularly bad buy for taxpayers, as <a href="http://www.policyconnect.org.uk/hec/home">another new report</a> by the expert Higher Education Commission has shown. Nearly half of the outlay on state-backed loans to pay the higher fees will never be recovered. Despite the claim by Willetts that this will only become an issue in the distant future, it is actually a burden in the here and now. Publicly generated resources from taxes and borrowing are being used to fund loans and so are not available to be spent elsewhere.</p>
<p>But the most decisive argument in favour of funding higher education out of general taxation is positive not negative. It is a first-rate investment. The <a href="http://www.oecd.org/edu/skills-beyond-school/Education%20Indicators%20in%20Focus%206%20June%202012.pdf">Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has calculated</a> that for every pound invested by the state in higher education, three additional pounds of national income are generated – a three-for-one offer that far exceeds even the most laundered rates-of-return claimed for big projects such as HS2.</p>
<h2>Where the money could come from</h2>
<p>But two rather than three cheers for the NUS roadmap. It makes all these killer points – but then flinches. “Free” higher education should be paid out of general taxation, hopefully on a more progressive basis – good. But this is to be achieved by taxing not “us” but someone else – not so good. The NUS floats all kinds of things – a financial transfer tax, increases in corporation and inheritance tax… with increases in income tax very much a last resort. </p>
<p>The problem is not that the rich shouldn’t pay more tax – of course they should. It is that in 21st-century England tax aversion is an unchallengeable fact. That has to be challenged – head-on and boldly.</p>
<p>Compared with many other European countries, especially Scandinavia, less of the cost of maintaining our public services is now paid for by direct taxation with more paid for by indirect taxes and borrowing. This shift, which began under Margaret Thatcher, was deliberate of course, to make it easier to bribe the electorate with “visible” tax cuts. The effect, also deliberate perhaps, has been to undermine the fiscal foundation of all public services – and to make it much more difficult to sustain “free” higher education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Scott has received funding from a range of organisations in the past including the Leverhulme Trust and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. He is a trustee of the Higher Education Policy Institute and the Council for Defence of British Universities, and Chair of the Council of the University of Gloucestershire.</span></em></p>It is now as close to a consensus as makes no difference that the current regime for funding higher education in England through high fees paid by students – or repaid by some graduates – is bust. Lord…Peter Scott, Professor of Higher Education Studies, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/329962014-10-15T11:25:29Z2014-10-15T11:25:29ZSexist student chant raises wider concern about appraisals of female lecturers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61719/original/tw952gmw-1413308162.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What feedback awaits?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-203936089/stock-photo-business-woman-lecturing-at-conference-audience-at-the-lecture-hall.html?src=F6S2wG7E-j19Me0vmumVSw-1-67">Lecturer via Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The way that newcomers are initiated into a group can reveal a lot about that group’s values. So what does the sexist ditty <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/08/freshers-students-sing-necrophiliac-sexist-violent-chant">recently chanted by freshers students</a> at the University of Nottingham tell us about universities as places to study and work? The rhyme was an overtly hostile statement about women being of use and value only in so far as they serve as sexual objects for men. The chant says that it doesn’t even matter whether women are alive, since even as dead bodies, they can still fulfil a sexual function. </p>
<p>The students who chanted this ditty would doubtless say it was only a joke – they do not really want to rape a dead woman. But such “jesting” constitutes a symbolic statement about the social territory these students are entering, and the terms on which “outsiders” – those sociologist Nirmal Puwar <a href="http://www.gold.ac.uk/sociology/staff/puwar/">describes as “space invaders”</a> – can be included. </p>
<p>Through this and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/oct/10/10-things-female-students-face-university-misogyny-banter">similarly sexist freshers’ activities</a> at other universities, female students are aggressively reminded that this is a culture in which males are dominant and “femininity” is devalued. To question this is to lack a sense of humour, to overreact, be unreasonable, silly, hysterical, in short, to be a “woman”, and so lack the qualification for belonging.</p>
<h2>Marketising performance</h2>
<p>The Nottingham students’ chant <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-29558952">was condemned</a> by the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/08/freshers-students-sing-necrophiliac-sexist-violent-chant">university’s management</a> and the <a href="http://www.impactnottingham.com/2014/10/exclusive-video-students-taught-graphic-chant-in-freshers-week/">student union</a>, who stress that only a small minority of students were involved. But the impact is far-reaching, particularly for female students who have to share halls of residence, lecture theatres, and seminar rooms with male students who may have joined in this chanting. It is also worrying for the female members of university staff who have to serve them. </p>
<p>Now that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/oct/12/have-universities-been-privatised-by-stealth">universities are private corporations</a> as much as seats of learning, student appraisal of their “learning experience” is deployed as a marketing tool, and lecturers are forcefully enjoined by management to ensure that <a href="https://theconversation.com/tick-box-surveys-arent-the-only-way-to-measure-student-satisfaction-28780">students are “satisfied”</a>. Student evaluation of teaching is already significant for promotion and job security, and set to become more so in coming years. </p>
<p>The young men who initiated and participated in the chant at Nottingham and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/oct/10/10-things-female-students-face-university-misogyny-banter">similar sexist fresher activities</a> may be censured as intolerably “laddish” by university spokespeople. Yet in a few months time, as they complete their evaluations of the performance of members of staff, the same university management may treat their opinion as that of a “valued customer”.</p>
<p>Universities have set in place a system which allows female lecturers’ careers to be influenced by their ability to “satisfy”, among others, young men who view women in the terms expressed in this and similar chants. This should give pause for thought about the implications of this marketised system for equal opportunities. </p>
<h2>Baggage of assumptions</h2>
<p>The sexist chanters may have been a small minority, but many students – probably the majority – arrive at university with social baggage that includes a set of assumptions about <a href="http://cfd153.cfdynamics.net/images/journals/docs/pdf/ts/Jul10TSFeature.pdf">gender</a>, age, <a href="http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2014/04/25/higher-education-a-market-for-racism/">racial minority groups</a>, or gay people, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/02/student-evaluations-of-teaching-are-probably-biased-does-it-matter">stereotypes about who has the authority</a> to impart knowledge. These assumptions and stereotypes are not the only basis upon which they evaluate their lecturers’ performance, but it is hard to imagine that they play no role in that appraisal. </p>
<p>In the case of women and racial minority staff, open-ended comments on questionnaires for students to evaluate teaching sometimes makes the role of these stereotypes explicit. In my 24 years of university teaching, I have seen students make sexist remarks on female and gay lecturers’ dress, bodies and “hotness” on such questionnaires, as well as racist comments on black and Asian lecturers’ idioms of speech and accents, and on their qualification to teach on subjects which are in fact their research specialisms. </p>
<h2>Prejudices should be challenged</h2>
<p>But where positive assessment is linked to lecturers who are seen to embody the authority to lecture (they are older, straight, male or white), there will be no “give away” offensive comments to expose such bias. Whiteness, maleness and straightness is unremarkable in a straight white male space – it’s only the bodies that don’t “belong” that get scrutinised as bodies, rather than as academics. </p>
<p>There is, of course, nothing new about the fact that some students freely express overtly denigrating sexism, racism or homophobia – such behaviour has a long and sorry history. Nor is there anything new about gender, race and sexual inequalities in university workplaces. But there are new reasons to be disturbed by these phenomena. </p>
<p>In the context of privatised, market-driven higher education, perhaps the student “customers” won’t want to pay £9,000 a year to have their prejudices challenged. If their prejudices help to shape the face of British universities, it might ensure that they continue to remain a white, straight, male terrain. </p>
<hr>
<p>Next read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/only-17-of-uk-universities-are-run-by-women-why-27474">Only 17% of UK universities are run by women – why?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32996/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia O'Connell Davidson currently holds a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for a project titled Modern Slavery and the Margins of Freedom: Debtors, Detainees and Children</span></em></p>The way that newcomers are initiated into a group can reveal a lot about that group’s values. So what does the sexist ditty recently chanted by freshers students at the University of Nottingham tell us…Julia O'Connell Davidson, Professor of Sociology, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/329042014-10-14T05:18:21Z2014-10-14T05:18:21ZWe must end schools being run by contract – it’s fragmenting the education system<p>The debate about how to build a sound, sustainable system of governance for English schools out of the disarray that the coalition government will bequeath to its successor is gaining momentum. The present situation simply isn’t viable.</p>
<p>The Conservatives have <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-29574125">just unveiled new manifesto proposals</a> that would give more power to eight existing regional school commissioners in an effort to react more quickly to failing schools. Although these commissioners currently only have oversight of academies and free schools, the Conservatives have suggested they could be given powers to intervene in all state-maintained schools that are deemed as inadequate by schools inspectorate Ofsted. </p>
<p>It seems that some recent proposals put forward in a <a href="http://www.ippr.org/publications/whole-system-reform-englands-schools-and-the-middle-tier">report</a> by the left-leaning think tank the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), which attempted to chart a path through the school governance minefield, are already gaining political traction. The report is likely to be given close attention by whichever party, or combination of parties, forms the next government.</p>
<p>But as ways are sought to save this disintegrating school system, we should focus first and foremost on the sudden and dramatic growth of school governance by contract and aim to bring it to an end. </p>
<h2>‘Whole system’ approach</h2>
<p>Although the growth in school autonomy is given a cautious welcome in the IPPR report, it identifies a range of <a href="https://theconversation.com/failing-academy-chains-highlight-hole-at-heart-of-education-policy-23954">familiar problems</a> with the current fragmented system of state-maintained schools, academies and free schools, which all receive public funding. These include over-centralisation, inadequate oversight, complex and unfair admission processes and patchy provision of school support networks. </p>
<p>The way forward, says the IPPR report, is to develop a “whole system” approach to schooling, built around five key elements. Schools would have similar powers to their existing ones but more would be done to promote collaborative activity between schools and there would be regional challenge programmes <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-londons-secondary-schools-have-improved-so-much-28531">modelled on the London Challenge</a>, a policy that worked to boost attainment in London’s schools. </p>
<p>Local authorities would have strong powers over planning the number of available school places, admissions and provision for vulnerable children. Groups of authorities would jointly appoint a school commissioner who would have strategic oversight of all schools, power to commission and decommission schools and to broker a change of provider. </p>
<p>A national regulator would act as a court of appeal against decisions of the school commissioners. The central government would then set the broad framework including the core curriculum, the level of public funding and would monitor overall standards.</p>
<h2>Legal contract</h2>
<p>Under the report’s proposals, it appears that all publicly funded schools, whether academies or state schools, would be run by legal contract – a massive extension of a process that, paradoxically, the report says needs to be reviewed. At present, academies and free schools operate on the basis of a seven-year “funding agreement” and the IPPR’s proposed commissioners would seemingly be expected to apply this approach to all schools under the terms of their remit. </p>
<p>The authors argue that their ideas about “whole system reform” are supported by international evidence, for example from Canada, but most comparable countries don’t run their school systems via legal contracts, nor do they emphasise the need for a diversity of school providers.</p>
<p>Yet a proper “whole system” approach to school governance should ensure all publicly funded schools have a similar legal status based on the principles of public, not contract law. This would involve phasing out the system of funding agreements as contracts come up for renewal and replacing it by a model such as that of the Trust School. </p>
<p>This model, introduced by the Labour government in 2006, has been widely taken up, for example by hundreds of <a href="http://school.coop/about-us/">Co-operative schools</a>. The schools are maintained by a local authority and are supported by a charitable trust. This allows for plenty of autonomy, promotes collaborative structures and enables external partners to be involved in governance and leadership. </p>
<h2>Beefed-up commissioners</h2>
<p>One of the key proposals from the IPPR is for an extra tier of local government built around more local and regional school commissioners. This has distinct echoes of the plan for sub-regional “directors of school standards” <a href="http://www.yourbritain.org.uk/agenda-2015/policy-review/putting-students-and-parents-first">in report prepared for Labour</a> by former secretary of state for education David Blunkett earlier this year. </p>
<p>But the IPPR’s authors, Rick Muir and Jonathan Clifton, have put much more detail on their ideas than Blunkett did. Under their scheme, there would be many more commissioners than the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/increasing-the-number-of-academies-and-free-schools-to-create-a-better-and-more-diverse-school-system/supporting-pages/regional-schools-commissioners-rscs">existing eight</a>, and they would govern all schools, academies or not. </p>
<p>But there are significant problems with their approach. First it introduces another layer of what its opponents would castigate as wasteful bureaucracy. Second a city-wide or sub-regional approach could be seen by parents, teachers and local communities as more remote than existing oversight by local authorities. </p>
<h2>Competition still driving force</h2>
<p>Most significant are the tensions built into the very idea of “commissioner” which is currently so fashionable in education. Increasingly it seems to signify someone charged with promoting a competitive market in the supply of schools through the process of commissioning. </p>
<p>Among the duties of its new-style commissioners, the IPPR proposes that they should ensure a diversity of providers, run competitions for new schools where a need has been identified and follow agreed and transparent procurement processes. The authors don’t seriously consider whether diversity of providers is in the public interest or even wanted by parents, teachers or communities. Nor do they consider the skills or capacity commissioners would need to operate robust procurement processes, which have often proved beyond the means of central government.</p>
<p>In fact in the IIPR’s plan it seems competition would still be the system’s motor, in spite of the lack of evidence of its beneficial effects on educational quality and the likelihood that it would sustain the fragmentation and incoherence that are the hallmarks of the current system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32904/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ron Glatter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The debate about how to build a sound, sustainable system of governance for English schools out of the disarray that the coalition government will bequeath to its successor is gaining momentum. The present…Ron Glatter, Emeritus Professor of Educational Administration and Management, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/302332014-09-11T05:11:37Z2014-09-11T05:11:37ZWho benefits from huge federal subsidies to US for-profit colleges?<p>A number of high-profile cases have put for-profit higher education in the US under the spotlight in recent months. In July, Corinithian Colleges, one of the largest for-profit providers in the country, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jul/28/corinthian-colleges-for-profit-education-debt-investigation">agreed to sell 85 of its campuses and close another 12</a> after a number of investigations into its finances and marketing. </p>
<p>This followed a case brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s <a href="http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/cfpb-sues-for-profit-college-chain-itt-for-predatory-lending/">against ITT Educational Services</a>, accusing it of predatory student lending. Each institution has over 70,000 students and annually receives over US$1 billion in federal financial aid. </p>
<p>Public policy debates surrounding for-profit higher education are less about whether it can actually be profitable – <a href="http://www.wcvb.com/money/forprofit-education-stocks-on-fire/27922708">because many providers are doing well</a> – than about who profits. But what is forfeited when the higher education system subsidises these for-profit colleges, also known as proprietary institutions?</p>
<h2>40 years of expansion</h2>
<p>For-profit higher education has dramatically expanded in the last 40 years in the US. Between 1970 and 2009, enrollment in for-profit, degree-granting institutions <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/lkatz/files/dgk.pdf">grew by more</a> than 100-fold to 1.85m students, nearly 10% of all enrollments. This was compared to a 2.4-fold increase in not-for-profit higher education. From 2000 to 2009, degree and non-degree-granting enrollments tripled in the for-profit higher education sector, versus a 22% increase in not-for-profit higher education. </p>
<p>Before President Barack Obama’s election, for-profit higher education received bi-partisan federal support, evident in the continuation of rules that underwrite a business model dependent on federal subsidy. </p>
<p>Under the 90/10 rule, introduced in 1992, for-profit institutions cannot receive more than 90% of their revenues from federal student financial aid – that does not include federal aid for veterans’ benefits. But <a href="http://capseecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ForProfit_Nimble-Critters_Feb-2012.pdf">many of the largest for-profit</a> providers such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan, receive over 80%. The sector as a whole receives 73.7% of its revenues from this source. These “for-profits” really are “for (federal) subsidy” institutions.</p>
<h2>Higher debt and lower results</h2>
<p>All this has come amid reduced public funding for public higher education and widening gaps between escalating tuition and limited grant aid that has contributed to massive student debt (over 1$ trillion) and default. In this context, is near-full federal subsidy of for-profits a prudent use of public monies? </p>
<p>Students in two and four-year proprietary institutions are <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013165.pdf">far more likely</a> than those at public two and four-year non-doctorate and doctorate-granting institutions to take out student loans, and more likely to accrue higher debt. </p>
<p>Completion rates for BAs are <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/lkatz/files/dgk.pdf">much lower</a> in four-year for-profits than public universities, as are levels of satisfaction with academic programmes. </p>
<p>Employment outcomes are poorer. And, controlling for individuals’ characteristics, students at for-profit two-year and four-year colleges are 26% and 16% <a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/review_of_higher_education/v037/37.2.hillman.html">more likely to default</a> than those going four-year public colleges. </p>
<p>Such economic and educational outcomes are even more problematic given that proprietary institutions enroll <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/lkatz/files/dgk.pdf">disproportionately high numbers</a> of low-income and minority students. There is a substitution effect – at the public purse’s expense. For-profit institutions have <a href="http://www.ihep.org/assets/files/publications/m-r/Portraits-Low-Income_Young_Adults_Attendance_Brief_FINAL_June_2011.pdf">increased their share</a> of poor students, from 13% in 2000 to 19% in 2008, as the proportion of such students in public four-year institutions decreased, from 20% to 15%.</p>
<h2>Tightening of controls</h2>
<p>To be sure, there is great diversity in the for-profit higher education sector. Yet, almost all the growth is in for-profit chains such as the University of Phoenix and Laureate International Universities that operate across many states or even countries, with most enrollment online. </p>
<p>The focus of recent government actions and proposed regulations relate not just to the sector as a whole, but also to some of its biggest for-profit chains. One of the Obama administration’s initiatives is an effort to <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2012/gainfulemployment.html">promulgate a “gainful employment” regulation</a>, denying federal financial aid to for-profit institutions (and not-for-profits’ vocational programmes) that have high default rates or average graduate employment insufficient to repay student loan debt. </p>
<p>That stems from the existing data on debt and default and from concerns about institutions’ fraudulent reporting, marketing, and recruiting.</p>
<p>The initiative is an executive action by Obama, so doesn’t need to pass through congress. The Department of Education is now preparing to implement the regulations after receiving comments from across the sector. </p>
<h2>Impact on the public HE sector</h2>
<p>More than such abuses, and the direct costs of publicly subsidising proprietary higher education, there are indirect costs and effects too. For-profit institutions not only take monies out of a financially strapped public sector, they also drive public universities towards privatising practices of <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Academic_Capitalism.html?id=A-7bFoyY8wcC">“academic capitalism”</a>. These <a href="http://www.aft.org/pdfs/highered/academic/june04/Rhoades.qxp.pdf">include</a> escalating tuition, spending relatively more on marketing, recruitment, management, and (often failed) revenue-generating initiatives, and less money on instruction.</p>
<p>So who profits, even if some for-profits fail? Private shareholders, not public stakeholders. That profit is extracted at the expense of the public purse, and particularly of the least advantaged populations. </p>
<p>Perhaps most destructive, though, is a privatised system’s forfeiture of responsibility and commitment to the broader public interest over the interests of the would-be private firm. That pattern is now too often heard and seen in the discourse and practices of managers at public universities too. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article is part of series on for-profit education. Read the other <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/for-profit-education">articles in the series here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30233/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Rhoades does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A number of high-profile cases have put for-profit higher education in the US under the spotlight in recent months. In July, Corinithian Colleges, one of the largest for-profit providers in the country…Gary Rhoades, Head, Department of Educational Policy Studies & Practice, and Professor and Director, Center for the Study of Higher Education, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/305532014-08-22T05:15:46Z2014-08-22T05:15:46ZUniversities at risk of dumbing down into secondary schools<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/57041/original/m7wq9z8w-1408614497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hanging on every word. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nottinghamtrentuni/6253542464/sizes/l">Nottingham Trent University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the current rush to achieve the highest student satisfaction and best positions on university league tables we are at significant risk of dumbing down what’s being taught at universities. At both traditional red brick and modern institutions, there is a serious rift between the general direction of university education policy and what’s actually going on in lecture halls and seminar rooms. </p>
<p>We are becoming too focused on satisfying the student customer, turning our universities more into secondary schools rather than places of academic challenge and critical thinking. To paraphrase Yeats, university education must stop filling student’s buckets and start lighting their fires. </p>
<p>Universities increasingly measure success in terms of staff contact hours, student pass rates, student retention and student satisfaction. Due to government concerns about foreign students we <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-lecturers-must-remain-educators-not-border-guards-23948">are also required</a> to spend teaching time taking student registers for all classes as “truancy” becomes a major problem. </p>
<p>As a university teacher keen to ignite the fire of learning within my students, I make the assumption that because students have chosen to do a course, they are interested in attending classes. But as they are now paying customers, this brings a whole set of new student expectations in terms of the role of the staff, an acceptable workload and what represents good value for their student fees.</p>
<h2>Not all about contact time</h2>
<p>Tuition fees have created a culture where <a href="https://theconversation.com/students-arent-customers-or-are-they-13282">many students and their parents feel they have bought their right</a> to a degree. This is a dangerous by-product of a flawed government policy. Alongside serious cuts in higher education, staff become seen as the principal vehicle to deliver the degree. If the student fails, both students and university management see it as the staff’s fault. </p>
<p>A good indicator here is the amount of contact time between staff and students. The inbuilt assumption for students and the public is that more staff contact equates with better value for money. In my experience, more contact simply creates a dependency culture where the lecturer merely fills the “bucket” of the student in a highly structured timetabled week, rather than igniting the spark that leads to substantive independent and critical study. The lecturer is there as an enabler to support and illuminate their journey of discovery. </p>
<p>Of course, contact time varies depending on the course, but in my opinion, for a discipline like mine in environmental planning, if a student has more than 20 hours of contact per week this minimises the time for self-discovery and wider reading. This fuels a dumbing-down cycle where assessments become less demanding given the restricted time a student has for independent work. I have been forced to simplify past assessments to “fit in” with this new delivery model. </p>
<p>This also creates a student-led culture where modules are compared against each other in terms of workload meaning that more demanding and multi-faceted assessments are discontinued in favour of a simple 2,000 or 3,500-word essay.</p>
<h2>Student surveys warp teaching</h2>
<p>The way staff are appraised exacerbates this problem and reduces quality. Student performance targets in modules are regularly used as dubious proxies for indicators of teaching quality. Pre-set retention rates act as staff module targets. Consequently, as a student progresses through the system, failing becomes less of an option. </p>
<p>On top of all this we have the <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/lt/publicinfo/nss/">National Student Satisfaction Survey</a> which asks final year undergraduate students (postgraduate students are excluded) to assess their satisfaction with courses. This creates huge institutional pressure and incentives for students to maximise response rates and positive assessments. Failing students rarely provide that. </p>
<p>Personally, I have been involved in an urban planning programme that achieved 76% satisfaction rate in 2012, 100% satisfaction rate in 2013 and 76% in 2014. Our intelligence tells us that a group of disaffected students were primarily the cause of the lower scores as little substantive change has occurred in the teaching team and assessment. But we are certainly not complacent. We put 100% into ensuring our courses and modules are fit for purpose, challenging and relevant for the planning profession our graduates enter. </p>
<h2>More of the personal trainer</h2>
<p>In my 26 years of teaching, I am acutely aware of the dumbing down of material that is now taught due to these institutional drivers of change. We need to confront this damaging cycle for the benefit of students and staff. My argument is that the lecturer needs to be seen in a different role: as a personal trainer that one might use in a gym. Here people (clients) pay for the training session but the practice and gains or losses are up to the client themselves. People are trained to become motivated to discover and be challenged. </p>
<p>We also need a stronger peer review system of teaching quality, putting back the academic skills into degree programmes rather than relying solely on student assessments which increasingly favour those who deliver easy and simple-to-digest material – “filling the buckets”. </p>
<p>I really fear that higher education is moving down a slippery slope where the fetish for the best ratings and indicators ensures that we merely hold students’ hands, rather than ignite interest in their own studies.</p>
<p>By lighting their fires we would prepare our students for the harsh realities of the work environment which increasingly requires independent and critical thinkers and doers who will become the future managers and leaders of tomorrow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30553/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alister Scott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the current rush to achieve the highest student satisfaction and best positions on university league tables we are at significant risk of dumbing down what’s being taught at universities. At both traditional…Alister Scott, Professor of Environment and Spatial Planning, Birmingham City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/272932014-06-09T04:42:04Z2014-06-09T04:42:04ZMore regulation still needed to prevent ‘cashpoint colleges’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50487/original/jf8n34sz-1402046737.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C70%2C1022%2C610&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fees for nothing. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/xtrah/4853491803/sizes/l">ShuttrKing|KT </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Although the independent higher education sector is small in England, it is growing – and gaining some negative publicity along the way. Without primary legislation to more effectively regulate the newly marketised sector, which <a href="http://www.policyconnect.org.uk/hec/research/report-regulating-higher-education">I led calls for in a report to parliament last year</a>, more “scandals” are likely to be uncovered in the sector, even if these do not provide the full picture. </p>
<p>Secret filming at the London School of Science and Technology as part of an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/21/london-college-funding-students-cannot-learn">investigation into “cashpoint colleges”</a> by The Guardian, has suggested that students apparently had to do little studying to receive awards in return for fees. </p>
<p>This seems to reinforce the views of some that most of these new providers are little better than “<a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16c6064a-4a9c-11e0-82ab-00144feab49a.html#axzz33qeMTIVo">bogus degree mills</a>” that should never be allowed to start in the first place. The <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10849889/Probe-launched-into-waste-of-money-at-cashpoint-college.html">National Audit Office has been asked to investigate</a> the allegations. </p>
<p>Current government plans are that independent, non-publicly funded higher education institutions should be encouraged to expand in numbers and standing – not least to offer wider choice to students. Behind this lies an aim, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/10198076/David-Willetts-our-privately-funded-university-revolution.html">set out by higher education minister David Willetts</a>, that competition from newcomers will encourage those traditional institutions that receive government funding for teaching and research to be more responsive to the student market.</p>
<h2>Struggle for respectability</h2>
<p>But without elite private universities of the kind found in the United States, this new sector is always liable to struggle for respectability. The absence of promised legislation by the government means that we lack a systematic regulatory framework that would more rigorously weed out the bad apples and also confer an element of equal standing for the others with their publicly-funded counterparts. </p>
<p>Dubious admissions practices in a few US private colleges have created <a href="http://www.harkin.senate.gov/help/forprofitcolleges.cfm">quite a stir in the US Senate</a> and the wider media. They have done little to promote the credibility or trustworthiness of the sector there. Could this be spreading across the Atlantic? Or perhaps commercial markets and the “public good” characteristic of higher education like water and wine – are best never mixed. </p>
<p>Most students in this new independent sector are concentrated in a few large institutions around London. We know little about them and the government has only recently bothered to collect annual data. In 2013, it <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/207128/bis-13-900-privately-funded-providers-of-higher-education-in-the-UK.pdf">published analysis identifying 674</a> privately funded higher education providers, with an estimated 160,000 students. </p>
<p>But many are usually new or recently emerged out of other entities and are difficult to track. The Higher Education Funding Council for England is setting up a <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2013/news83207.html">register of “recognised bodies”</a> but it is not yet in a position to get anywhere capturing all such providers. </p>
<p>Very little is known, especially about overseas institutions who have arrived in this country to offer non-UK degrees. At the very least, some process of registration as a higher education entity for these transnational bodies would be a start in offering a level of UK consumer protection. </p>
<h2>Meeting unserved demand</h2>
<p>We do know that this growing sector is very heterogenous – whether in terms of size, what they offer, the fees that are charged, the awards available, and most likely the quality of the provision. The major players are the six recognised entities. Four are charities: Regent’s University London, the University of Buckingham, ifs University College, and Ashbridge Business School. There are also two for-profit companies – BPP University and the University of Law. Kingston University researcher <a href="http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ihe/article/view/5523/4918">Steve Woodfield’s recent article</a> offers a more comprehensive account. </p>
<p>Yet the sector as a whole appears to be strong in promoting access to students who would not typically go to more traditional institutions. Woodfield’s research found that around two-thirds of students are over 25, around the same proportion are in employment, and many have family responsibilities. A sizeable tranche of overseas students is also a feature. </p>
<p>It is hard not to think that the vast majority of these colleges are meeting a need of some kind that is not being met elsewhere. Mostly, it is in providing professional-type courses in information technology, the arts, law and various business subjects. A number of vocational sub-degrees are on offer, including those examined by large private companies such as Pearson and EdExcel. </p>
<p>To date, large successful conglomerate companies have yet to enter the field in the UK to any real degree. If they did they could use their brand leverage to help the independent colleges compete with a different model to that of the conventional providers. </p>
<h2>Not the Wild West</h2>
<p>The government’s regulatory thrust is to ensure a gradual if piecemeal progression to a “level playing field” for all providers. The newer entrants are thus encouraged to take on the practices and symbols of the traditional sector. They are seeking degree-granting status, university title and, perhaps most crucially of all, access to publicly-funded student loans.</p>
<p>Yet whether this means that all providers should eventually be subject to exactly the same regulation is by no means clear given the lack of recent governmental responses on these issues.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, all institutions that provide courses leading to UK awards (including here and abroad) are regulated for quality. This really is not the “Wild West”, despite the impression given by the recent Guardian investigation. </p>
<p>Educational oversight and quality assurance is operated by the Quality Assurance Agency. Programmes for professional bodies are regulated by the <a href="http://www.hebetterregulation.ac.uk/OurWork/Pages/Professional,StatutoryandregulatoryBodies%28PSRBs%29.aspx">relevant professional, statutory and regulatory bodies</a>.</p>
<p>Controls are also in place over the designation of university title and degree-awarding powers, the ability to offer degrees in collaboration with universities and colleges that have degree-awarding powers, and over access to student loans. </p>
<p>Yet gaps in the regulatory coverage of the sector remain. Unlike for the publicly-funded sector, it is only a voluntary requirement for independent institutions to provide data to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, and to submit access plans to the Office for Fair Access. Membership of the Office of the Independent Arbitrator is also voluntary.</p>
<p>The most vociferous calls for new regulation – and more controls – come from the larger new independent players, as shown in the evidence provided to the <a href="http://www.policyconnect.org.uk/hec/research/report-regulating-higher-education">recent inquiry on regulating the sector</a> by the Higher Education Commission. They know that without it, everyone is likely to be tarred with the same brush.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger King was the co-chair of the Higher Education Commission inquiry 'Regulating the new landscape of higher education'.</span></em></p>Although the independent higher education sector is small in England, it is growing – and gaining some negative publicity along the way. Without primary legislation to more effectively regulate the newly…Roger King, Visiting Professor, School of Management, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/263832014-05-14T03:22:26Z2014-05-14T03:22:26ZCreating a quasi-market in higher education in Australia<p>The introduction of the demand-driven system for undergraduate places in 2012 saw the differences between the government regulated world of public universities and the market-driven world of international and postgraduate education diminish. With the federal budget that difference has almost disappeared.</p>
<p>In the demand-driven system, domestic students wanting to attend university can choose which university and which program they wish to take, subject to meeting the entry criteria. The government will now extend this open access to diploma and associate degree places.</p>
<p>Access to government funding for these undergraduate and sub-degree places will be extended to non-university higher education providers both public and private.</p>
<p>As a result, Australia’s public universities will now operate in what can be described as a <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2234441?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103981017967">quasi-market</a>, rather than as public universities funded by federal government.</p>
<p>Continuing cuts in the government subsidy per higher education place have accompanied greater access to higher education. It is a small step from an open system of higher education to a market system of higher education, when governments are unwilling or unable to fund an exponential rise in total funding to higher education. Our public universities will now operate in a ‘quasi-market’ which is uniquely Australian. </p>
<h2>Student subsidies invest in more than just students</h2>
<p>Offering government subsidies to a larger number of higher education providers is likely to increase the number of subsidised students. This increases pressure on government to reduce the subsidy per place.</p>
<p>Many non-university higher education providers have lower costs than public universities, having less costly infrastructure, less costly staff, and no requirement to provide funding to support research and higher degree students. Nor do they typically support scholarships for students or maintain costly facilities such as museums, art galleries, or sporting facilities open to the community. Most are clustered in capital cities and do not support regional provision.</p>
<p>Currently the government subsidy for an undergraduate place varies by field of study, covering differing proportions of the total cost. Most importantly this subsidy includes support for the research and higher degrees undertaken in public universities, as well as the maintenance of their campuses and related cultural and sporting facilities.</p>
<p>Funding for teaching, government subsidies and student fees, also supports research within public universities. Research is principally conducted by academics with responsibilities for teaching and research and these staff are paid largely from student fees and subsidies.</p>
<p>In other words, the current government subsidy for undergraduate degrees in universities is supporting a range of public activities beyond educating undergraduate students. The government is investing in the social good of community and the research and innovation of this major engine of the nation’s research.</p>
<p>The logic of the “quasi market” created by government in the higher education sector, demands the funding subsidy allocated should reflect the service being purchased. Otherwise the government is subsidising a range of activities that it may not wish to purchase from all higher education providers.</p>
<h2>Government funding and deregulation of fees</h2>
<p>Universities get their funding principally from two places: government funding and student contributions or fees. Australian domestic student contributions in public universities are already high by OECD standards.</p>
<p>The federal budget contends that student contributions could and should be higher, given the benefits graduates gain from tertiary education.</p>
<p>In the logic of a “quasi-market” for undergraduate places with different government subsidies among providers, student contributions shouldn’t have to be the same among providers either. If the government can purchase only those services it requires, why should a student be required to pay the same contribution for a higher education institution that is offering a full campus experience as for one that is not?</p>
<p>Variation of student contributions or fees already occurs in the full-fee domestic postgraduate area in Australia. Here the students have access to deferred contributions through HELP so that they do not need to pay fees upfront. </p>
<p>Public universities will now, along with private providers, have the ability to set the price for their education at a level that will allow them to maintain the range of services consistent with their mission. This will produce diversity in fee levels - although inevitably many may be higher than the previous student contributions.</p>
<p>Australian public universities have already been operating in open markets for international students and nationally for domestic fee-paying postgraduate students. In these markets the student chooses the university and the university sets prices for places and determines the number of places it is willing to provide.</p>
<p>Australian universities set different fees among themselves and across the degrees they offer. They moderate fee increases consistent with their judgement of what is appropriate and the market circumstances in which they find themselves. For example when the Australian exchange rate increased and with it the cost to many international students of the fees set by Australian universities, most universities moderated or reduced the fees or the fee increases proposed.</p>
<p>From 2016 fees set by Australian universities for new domestic undergraduates will differ across universities, and the responses of students will change the shape and nature of higher education in Australia. </p>
<p>Apart from the continuation of HELP, a much larger investment in scholarships for students to ensure that the disadvantaged are able to access education on their merits is necessary. The scale of scholarship provision will need to increase substantially because the changed arrangements for repayment of HELP and the higher fees that will occur in many degrees will make the burden on graduates more onerous. </p>
<h2>Markets and regulation</h2>
<p>Markets in public services do not just happen. Governments create them. And the circumstances of their creation are very important for the effectiveness of their operation and to avoid unintended negative consequences.</p>
<p>In the 1980s government allowed public universities to operate in international education markets. The operation of this market in Australian higher education has changed with the creation of more sophisticated regulations, but the quality of education and outcomes for international students is high.</p>
<p>In contrast, a change in the rules of the market in vocational education for new vocational education providers saw various quality difficulties emerge, due to a weak regulatory regime.</p>
<p>In extending government subsidies to a range of higher education providers beyond those traditionally charged with this role, government relies on the regulatory regime to underpin standards and must set a price that reflects the public service they intend to purchase.</p>
<p>In opening access for undergraduate and associate degrees government has recognised the differing requirements of universities and provided for differentiated government subsidies.</p>
<p>In deregulating student fees from 2016, the government has allowed universities the autonomy now available to non-university higher education providers to set the price for the student contribution. To do otherwise in the face of substantial cuts to government subsidies would have devastated the university sector in which Australia has invested so much and from which so much is gained in economic and social prosperity. Without the autonomy to set fees combined with the obligation to extend support to students through scholarships (both government and philanthropic), the new market would undermine equity. </p>
<p>This newly created ‘quasi-market’ will change profoundly higher education in Australia. The outcomes are now beyond the control of government. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Gardner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The introduction of the demand-driven system for undergraduate places in 2012 saw the differences between the government regulated world of public universities and the market-driven world of international…Margaret Gardner, Vice-Chancellor, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/257112014-05-07T20:38:15Z2014-05-07T20:38:15ZWhy markets can’t deliver excellence and equity in schools<p>Australian education policies frame schools as ideally “<a href="http://www.mceecdya.edu.au/verve/_resources/national_declaration_on_the_educational_goals_for_young_australians.pdf">excellent and equitable</a>”. It is an alluring vision that very few Australians would argue against. The problem is, it is simply a myth in our current system. </p>
<p>It is a myth because instead of providing opportunities for schools to be better and fairer, governments on both sides advocate for market-based reforms in education. The problem is, markets don’t produce equity: they produce hierarchies and exacerbate inequalities.</p>
<p>Excellence and equity can mean many things, but the terms have taken on narrow meanings in the current debate. “Excellence” means student achievement in high-stakes global tests, including the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa/">Program for International Student Assessment</a> (PISA) and <a href="http://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/naplan.html">National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy</a> (NAPLAN), and “equity” means socio-economic and other background factors have no bearing on student performance. Unsurprisingly, <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-australian-education-highly-equitable-20815">no truly ‘equitable’ systems exist</a> by this measure.</p>
<h2>The marketisation of Australian schools</h2>
<p>The highest-performing and most equitable nations are those with higher levels of social and economic equality, an absence of high-stakes tests, and a highly educated and talented teaching workforce, <a href="http://store.tcpress.com/0807752576.shtml">such as Finland</a>.</p>
<p>Australia, however, has not followed the lead of high-performing nations, but has instead adopted market-based reforms, even though these have <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/08/pisa-education-test-scores-meaning">proven deeply unsuccessful</a> in the USA and the UK.</p>
<p>Common market-based strategies are: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Giving schools greater responsibility for self-management, marketing and recruitment</p></li>
<li><p>High-stakes tests and the public ranking of school performance data, which promote competition between schools</p></li>
<li><p>Increased alignment of senior school curricula with industry and economic needs</p></li>
<li><p>Competitive programs that require schools to compete for funding</p></li>
<li><p>Public-private partnerships to fund the building and maintenance of schools</p></li>
<li><p>Introducing performance-based pay for teachers</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These reforms are known as <em>quasi-marketisation strategies</em> as they promote market-like conditions but remain tightly regulated by governments.</p>
<h2>Why excellence, equity and markets don’t work</h2>
<p>There is compelling evidence to suggest marketisation does not make schools excellent and equitable. The reasons are many, but here I will draw attention to four.</p>
<p><strong>1)</strong> Marketisation positions schools to compete against each other. </p>
<p>Rather than working collectively for all young Australians, public schools are required to fight for limited resources and for the most talented teachers and students. </p>
<p>Competition has been significantly amplified by the publication of student performance data through <a href="http://www.myschool.edu.au">My School</a>. This has allowed for the collation of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01596306.2013.770253#preview">crude league tables</a> and has seen good NAPLAN scores become valuable marketing strategies for schools. </p>
<p>While a heightened concern with achievement can have benefits, it also has <a href="http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fojs-prod.library.usyd.edu.au%2Findex.php%2FIEJ%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F7456%2F7815&ei=HpddU8-MJMm0kgX0jIDwCg&usg=AFQjCNG_Q-Be2zCCBeh19TwYpsxTxmeQHQ&sig2=omptLcLCcZfDPm2w8QPQTg&bvm=bv.65397613,d.dGI">a range of negative effects</a>. These include the creation of unforgiving performance cultures, which result in teachers spending more time “working for the numbers” than delivering pastoral care or addressing issues of equity and inclusion.</p>
<p><strong>2)</strong> In a market of competing schools, low-performing and high-needs students become liabilities. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02680939.2010.493229#preview">Research I have conducted</a> shows high-performing public schools engage in complex “selection and rejection” practices to attract the highest-performing students and “weed out” under-performing students during year 10.</p>
<p>This is because high <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Tertiary_Admission_Rank">ATARs</a> are central to school marketability, which means low performers risk tarnishing a school’s brand value. </p>
<p>Schools go far and wide to attract top students. Many public schools, for example, engage in marketing tours to China to attract full-fee paying students who generate additional income and are also viewed as academically talented. </p>
<p>Put simply, rather than offering equitable opportunities for all, schools sift and sort students like produce in a marketplace to ensure maximum returns. </p>
<p>In this sense, market-based reforms are effective for producing excellence, but <em>not</em> excellence for all. </p>
<p><strong>3)</strong> Principal autonomy over hiring and firing teachers – strongly promoted by the Coalition’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/independent-public-schools-a-dangerous-reform-path-22684">Independent Public Schools</a> initiative – produces a marketisation of human resources, which can have negative effects for disadvantaged schools.</p>
<p>This allows principals in high-performing public schools (typically in socially advantaged areas) to lure the most talented teachers away from low-performing public schools (typically in disadvantaged areas).</p>
<p>The long-term effect will be a form of reverse snowballing, whereby the most talented teachers drift upwards to advantaged and high-performing schools, and the least talented teachers sink downwards. The cream of the crop will rise to the top, as the power of the market widens existing hierarchies.</p>
<p><strong>4)</strong> Rather than producing greater diversity and choice in education, <a href="http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jped.2012.3.issue-2/v10159-012-0014-8/v10159-012-0014-8.xml?format=INT">markets actually produce greater <em>similarity</em></a>.</p>
<p>Pro-market reformers argue schools should flexibly tailor education to local communities, allowing clients (parents, students) choice in markets that offer different products to different individuals. </p>
<p>However, in a market in which “excellence” is highly standardised and means either high NAPLAN scores or ATARs, schools find themselves “chasing the same pot of academic gold” rather than tailoring provision to diverse needs. </p>
<p>Young people are sandwiched, therefore, into the same cookie-cutter model of excellence that schools must adopt to retain market competitiveness.</p>
<h2>A new political imagination?</h2>
<p>Economics teaches us that in any market, there are winners and losers. In a marketised education system, there is no exception.</p>
<p>Political philosopher <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/whatmoneycantbuy/MichaelSandel">Michael Sandel is correct</a>, therefore, in arguing that while markets might be effective mechanisms for governing <em>some</em> aspects of contemporary life, there are serious moral issues associated with extending their reach into spheres of public life that are central to the production of democracy, such as schools. </p>
<p>Policy makers who are truly committed to egalitarian principles should look beyond markets as solutions in education.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn C Savage does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australian education policies frame schools as ideally “excellent and equitable”. It is an alluring vision that very few Australians would argue against. The problem is, it is simply a myth in our current…Glenn C Savage, Researcher and Lecturer in Education Policy, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.