Private higher education: challenges for Australia and beyond

Among the chief characteristics of the post‐industrial society are ambiguity and paradox. In Australian higher education, as in other sectors of Australian Society, these have found expression in individualism, private initiative and entrepreneuship.

The ‘privatization’ of higher education now includes the imposition on enrolment charges, the re‐introduction of ‘full cost’ fees, especially for private overseas students, moves towards the deregulation of salaries and conditions of employment of academic staff and the establishment of new ‘self‐contained’ and ‘hybrid’ private higher education institutions.

In response to these developments, debate has tended to centre upon a number of mythologies which inter alia assert that private higher education is new to Australia, that it is foreign to the Western academic tradition and that such education avoids the employment of public funds. Moreover, it is claimed that while private higher education is ipso facto elitist, it will, through competition, result in a more effective and efficient public sector.

The above mythologies are examined in the light of past, present and proposed developments in Australian higher education, with particular note being taken of the establishment of the Bond University in Queensland.     

Management as ideology: the case of ‘new managerialism’ in higher education

The paper explores ideological conceptions of management, especially ‘new managerialism’, with particular reference to their role in the reform of higher education. It is suggested that attempts to reform public services in general are political as well as technical, though there is no single unitary ideology of ‘new managerialism’. Whilst some argue that managers have become a class and have particular interests, this may not be so for all public services. The arguments presented are illustrated by data taken from a recent research project on the management of UK higher education. It is suggested that managers in public service organisations such as universities do not constitute a class. However, as in the case of manager‐academics, managing a contemporary public service such as higher education may involve taking on the ideologies and values of ‘new managerialism’, and for some, embracing these. So management ideologies do seem to serve the interests of manager‐academics and help cement relations of power and dominance, even in contexts like universities which were not traditionally associated with the dominance of management.     

The university,democracy and the public sphere

This article takes a historical approach to the rise and fall of the public university, relating its fate to specific developments in public policy. Particular attention will be paid to the United Kingdom since it has developed an explicit drive towards the marketization of higher education in the context of an earlier commitment to public higher education, although the latter was initially first developed in the United States. Both countries are typically characterized as liberal policy regimes and therefore the article considers how wider social structures are implicated in recent changes to higher education. In particular, the article addresses how the functions of the university and its corporate form are being transformed and relates this to wider developments in the nature of the corporation and the relation between business and citizenship (or market and democracy).     

Managing the state and the market: 'new' education management in five countries

Within the field of education management studies, recent reforms promoting devolution and choice are often seen to provide exciting new opportunities. It is claimed that the 'new'education management, with its emphasis on site-based decision-making and consumer accountability, will enable headteachers and principals to 'take control' of their schools and make them more productive environments in which to work and study. However, our review of research findings from five different countries that are putting in place devolution and choice policies suggests that these new opportunities are more illusory than real. Positioned between the competing demands of the state and the market, school managers are becoming increasingly isolated from colleagues and classrooms — leading to a growing divergence between the managers and the managed. The paper considers the implication of recent developments for managers in general and for women managers in particular and concludes by discussing the relationship between the personalisation of responsibility and the legitimation of crises within the state and public education.     

General Education,General‐Technical Education and Integration

Summaries

English

Answers to questions pertaining to general education and basic subjects, as well as to vocational education (general‐technical education in particular) and the principle of integration cannot be reduced to formal speculations or to bare definitions, no matter how elegant and correct. In our era, which is the era of logic and of data‐processing, of automation and computers‐‐the analysis of the question of general and general‐technical education and the corresponding basic subjects of contemporary education must have the qualities of logical and epistemological necessity. The renaissance of formal and mathematical logic in contemporary general education and the inroads made by these subjects into the content and structure of contemporary vocational training‐‐are facts and trends without precedence in the history of education and school. Other developments from which there can be no retreat are the inclusion of data‐processing into the content and structure of the general education school, and the heavy reliance on mathematics in the process of vocational training, combined with elements of cybernetics, formal and mathematical logic, and science of management and control. Also, the time has come for a new principle of teaching, the principle of integration.     

Changing Research Perspectives on the Management of Higher Education: Can Research Permeate the Activities of Manager‐Academics?

The paper considers whether, and if so how, research evidence can permeate the world of higher education (HE) management in publicly funded institutions. The paper explores the author's experience of two recent research projects (1998–2000 and 2004) on aspects of managing UK HE institutions and issues arising from the preparation of the HE element of a third study of leadership and public service change agendas in education and health during 2004. Despite the topicality in education and other public services of debates about evidence‐based practice, there is little indication that this debate has permeated HE management qua management. The paper utilises Bourdieu's work on academics and social and cultural capital to explore why manager‐academics may resist taking the findings of research seriously in relation to their own work. It is suggested that, where there is reluctance to learn from research, this may reflect the changing nature of HE, the status of HE research as an academic field and form of academic capital and the relative paucity until recently of training in management for most UK manager‐academics.     

Threshold assessment and performance management: modernizing or masculinizing teaching in England?1

The paper reports on aspects of an ESRC project, ‘The impact of Performance Threshold Assessment on teachers' work’ (ESRC R000239286). The paper begins by explaining the nature and technology of Threshold Assessment, and its location nationally within the performance management system recently introduced into schools in England. We review the monitoring procedures adopted for Round 1 of Threshold and draw attention to the limitations of such statistical data as are available. We locate Threshold within recent international developments characterised by managerialism and the culture of performativity that have increasingly come to dominate both the nature of policy‐making and definitions of ‘professionalism’. Drawing on interview material gained from thirteen case studies carried out in primary and secondary schools and in Local Education Authorities, we analyse the ways in which Threshold Assessment carries different significance for women and men teachers, heads and threshold assessors. We conclude that the new policies represent a further step towards the masculinization of education.     

历史、理论和实践视角下的英格兰小学绩效管理

过去的15年里,发达国家的公共事业管理,尤其教育管理发生了很大变化。公共部门逐渐采用了私立部门的一些管理原则和方法,如引入绩效管理。英格兰小学绩效管理始于20世纪80年代撒切尔政府在全国公立教育系统内启动的一项针对学校管理和课程的改革,2000年绩效管理终以法令形式确立下来。目标设定理论被广泛应用于英格兰小学绩效管理目标的设置。在应用这一理论设置绩效管理目标时需要从理论上对以下三个问题作出探讨：在设置目标时是以结果为导向,还是以过程为导向,或是二者兼顾;考虑英格兰小学的实际情况,“难实现的或有挑战性的目标能激励人们取得更好绩效”这一原则能在多大程度上适用;当面临不确定的管理环境时,目标设定理论的适用性有多大。实践中,在确定绩效考评的考评内容,可考评内容以及考评主体时可能面临一些困难,并且还可能产生无效考评结果。     

Restructuring Teacher Education,the National Interest and Globalisation

This paper argues that the repositioning of Asian countries as new ‘centres’ for world trade and commerce and the transformation of Australian society and economy to accord with this global consolidation, includes a general restructuring of all levels of Australia's ‘education industry’ and specifically the (re)forming of its initial teacher and professional‐education programmes. The need for such reformation arises in part from the restructuring of the work of teaching based on a broader definition of the people and educational settings that are involved in the teaching/learning process, a reworking of this teaching/learning process, the higher status given to certain substantive areas of study, such as languages other than English, and the management of education along corporatist lines. This paper suggests further that teacher‐education programmes should also provide students with the resources to critically analyse these changes, giving consideration to issues such as identity, the impact of new technologies on culture and learning, the use of language in promoting particular discourses, and the repositioning of education as a tool for economic reform.     

On Performance in Higher Education: Towards performance governance

Tertiary Education and Management - The paper has a conceptual nature, and will depart from the literatures on performance management in general and public management in particular and confront...     

Oral Communication Skills in Higher Education: Using a Performance-Based Evaluation Rubric to Assess Communication Skills

This study used The Competent Speaker, a rubric developed by the National Communication Association (S. P. Morreale, M. R. Moore, K. P. Taylor, D. Surges-Tatum, & R. Hulbert-Johnson, 1993), to evaluate student performance in general education public speaking courses as a case study of student skills and programmatic assessment. Results indicate that students taking the general education public speaking course are below satisfactory standards on five of the eight competencies defined by the National Communication Association and are above satisfactory standards on two of the eight competencies. Implications for this particular program, other communication departments, and communication across the curriculum in general education are discussed. We also offer suggestions for those in other disciplines or educational settings in the use of performance evaluation rubrics for assessing other student skills/knowledge and for training new teachers.

Financing higher education in Pakistan

A recent shift in the allocation of public expenditure towards higher education prompts several questions: Is this allocation economically justified? Are these resources well utilized? Is there significant cost recovery of these expenditures? If not, who benefits from the subsidy these expenditures represent? Are there alternative means of financing higher education? This paper attempts to provide answers to these questions, which can be briefly summarized as follows: Estimates of social rates of returns do not support the reallocation of public expenditures away from primary towards higher education; low retention rates and high failure rates suggest that the internal efficiency in the utilization of these expenditures is low; currently, almost all public expenditures on higher education represent a subsidy; given the tax burden and enrollment ratios by income group, the lower income groups seem to be gaining most from these subsidies; a start has been made at private sector higher education with the opening of two professional universities, but the prospects of general universities currently opening appears to be dim. Pakistan has a well designed loan program in operation although its quantitative impact is currently limited.     

Education reform and managerialism: comparing the experience of schools and colleges

This paper explores the organizational and management consequences of the changing policy environment facing public sector education in England and Wales over the past 10 years. In particular it considers how far arguments about the replacement of older ‘bureau-professional’ forms of organizational order by more ‘managerialist’ forms in the public sector in general can be applied to the specific case of education. The paper begins by reviewing the major policy changes that have affected schools and colleges since 1988. Drawing on published studies from these sectors, it then considers a number of themes: changing roles of senior and middle managers; changes in managerial and organizational culture; and changes in specific aspects of management. Emphasizing the tentative nature of the evidence, the paper identifies some common trends which imply a movement towards managerialism in many institutions. However, it also identifies areas where the position is less clear and suggests a number of factors which may explain differences of experience. It emphasizes the importance of not reifying a previous ‘golden age’ of collegiality and concludes that what is being experienced is a complex and dynamic process of adjustment between old and new organizational and managerial forms.     

A Gender Agenda: women and family in the new ERA?

This paper explores the relationship between the Conservative ‘educational reforms’ in the 1980s, which purported to give parents more democratic rights as consumers and participants in education, and changes in family life in Britain. It focuses on those demographic, familial changes, in particular in gender relationships, towards mothers having more public and private responsibilities for children and their education. It looks at whether these changes in family life have, in fact, been taken account of in ‘educational reforms’. It asks the question about whether ‘education reforms’ which give more democratic rights to parents in general allow for more democratic rights for women as mothers, in the contexts of lone motherhood, maternal participation in paid employment and adult/higher education. On the other hand, are the implications of such education changes to increase the private responsibilities, rather than democratic rights, of motherhood? Although family is on the education policy agenda, it is not clear that gender is on the agenda.     

Teacher representation in news reporting on standardised testing: A case study from Western Australia

News media coverage on education plays a “uniquely important role in shaping public opinion”, can influence educational policy, and can affect and concern teachers. Yet, research examining how teachers have been represented in the news is scarce. What is particularly scarce are investigations with a historical dimension. The study reported in this paper is offered as a contribution towards rectifying the deficit and pointing the way towards one of a number of avenues of research that other scholars in the field could take for various contexts (including different countries) and time periods. It is part of a much larger study whose aim was to provide a historical analysis of The West Australian newspaper’s representation of teachers in its reporting of five major educational developments in the State of Western Australia that were the subject of sustained coverage at various times between 1987 and 2007. The specific topic which is the focus of the analysis presented in this paper is “standardized testing”.     

Distribution of public education spending for the poor: The case of yemen

This paper explores the issue of how a country for which the prioritization of public spending towards poverty reduction is a key policy concern can monitor the distributional effects of public spending. Employing standard benefit-incidence analysis, this paper empirically examines how public education spending is currently distributed in Yemen. It also considers the extent to which the distributional benefit to the poor should and can be improved, focusing on possible changes in cost sharing for higher education and on associated changes in budget allocations. The findings support the government’s decision to increase cost sharing while maintaining a high overall level of public education spending and provide a benchmark from which to monitor the impact of this and other education spending decisions on the poor.     

Comparing HE policies in Europe

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for a comparative analysis of Higher Education policies that enables us to investigate the explanatory power of structural characteristics of politico-administrative systems. The policies that are studied aim at improving the efficiency and quality of institutional performance. The paper focuses on policy trends in higher education in the eight countries in the study. It discusses how the literature on comparative political and administrative systems can help formulate assumptions about public policy making and policy change. The ideas that are developed are then applied to public reform policies in general and in the area of higher education in particular, followed by a test of the assumptions on available data on reform outcomes in the countries involved. The data indicate that a comparative politico-administrative perspective is potentially useful with regard to explaining cross national variation in higher education reform policies in Europe.     

From State Control to Governance: Decentralization and Higher Education in Guangdong, China

In China there has been a strong trend to diversification and decentralization of education in the post-Mao period. This paper examines how the policy of decentralization has affected the governance of universities in Guangdong. More specifically, the paper focuses on reform of the financing and management structure, the merging of universities, and joint development programmes to enhance competitiveness. Despite these changes, the state's role as a regulator and overall service coordinator has been strengthened rather than weakened under the policy of decentralization. This paper not only examines the recent developments in Guangdong's higher education but also analyses such developments in light of the global trend towards decentralization in educational governance.     

The public/private divide in higher education: A global revision

Our common understandings of the public/private distinction in higher education are drawn from neo-classical economics and/or statist political philosophy. However, the development of competition and markets at the national level, and the new potentials for private and public goods created by globalisation in higher education, have exposed weaknesses in the traditional notions of public/private. For example, (1) the statist notion that higher education is always/already a public good blinds us to its role in producing scarce positional private goods, even in free systems; (2) because there is no global state, both statists and neo-liberals model the global higher education environment simply as a trading environment without grasping the potential for global public goods in education – goods that are subject to non-rivalry or non-excludability, and broadly available across populations, on a global scale. Yet higher education in one nation has the potential to create positive and negative externalities in another; and all higher education systems and institutions can benefit from collective systems e.g. that facilitate cross-border recognition and mobility. The paper sets out to revise public/private in higher education. Rather than defining public/private in terms of legal ownership, it focuses on the social character of the goods. It argues that public/private goods are not always zero sum and under certain conditions provide conditions of possibility for each other. It proposes (a) units in national government that focus specifically on cross-border effects; (b) global policy spaces – taking in state agencies, individual universities, NGOs and commercial agents – to consider the augmentation, distribution of and payment for global public goods. This paper has been adapted from a keynote address to the Conference of Higher Education Researchers (CHER), University of Twente, Enschede, 19 September 2004. The CHER conference was focused on the public/private question. Warm thanks to Erik Beerkens, Jurgen Enders, Marijk van Wende, Ben Jongbloed, Guy Neave, other colleagues who took part in discussion at the CHER conference, and the reviewers for Higher Education.