Aspirations

Keynote Address
Education 98 Forum
17 March 1998

It may seem strange to start a day devoted to Marketing and Strategic Planning with a qualitative discussion under the romantic-sounding title of ‘Aspirations’. There is, however, more than one reason for beginning in this way.


There is the practical point that all strategic planning must take place within the context of shared goals. Moreover, there is the danger that a system under stress becomes inward looking and concentrates on self-preservation, forgetting, perhaps, why it should exist in the first place.


Whatever the finer points of the constitutional arguments, there is no doubt that Australia, approaching the millennium, seeks to make a powerful symbolic affirmation of an independent self. Success requires sensitive reconciliation with a variegated history and requires also creative intellectual leadership determining the future. What institutions has society established to preserve and re-evaluate its culture; to challenge its current habits of thought; and to engage in fearless exploration of the future? Our universities must be central to our ambition for a coming of age.


In fact, the quality of Australian Higher Education is in decline and we are at risk of becoming second rate.

Let us postpone the analysis of that statement for the moment.

Throughout the world vastly increased numbers of students are seeking university education. They aspire to intellectual emancipation, social mobility and financial self-betterment. This is often categorised as selfish behaviour, but university education provides an opportunity to develop one’s talents in order to contribute more effectively to society and many are so motivated and proceed to return the public investment with interest.

Business and industry value universities first for their training role, but their aspirations are complex. While it is convenient to slot in an employee with immediately useable skills and nobody wants to hire a recalcitrant smartass, we are repeatedly exhorted to produce self-confident articulate graduates with a capacity for independent thought and adaptability. The commercial world, certainly in the US and the UK, looks to universities as engines of R & D and as repositories of technical expertise across the full range of disciplines.

Government expects universities to provide advice and advisors for policy development, for statutory authorities, for commissions of review and so on.

The universities themselves jealously guard their autonomy and have their own aspirations. The highest of these is the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the human condition and of the world around us. Although knowledge can be relative, the pursuit is absolute and brooks no compromise. Standards are international and we must be in constant contact with the hot spots of activity.

Australian reality

If we compare institutions of similar size, say Sydney or Melbourne, with corresponding universities such as UCLA or Keio in Japan, we find that the overseas annual funding is three to four times greater. Part of the background research for the Dearing Report compared certain Australian universities with those in Canada and the UK (not Oxford or Cambridge) and found that funding here is around 75% to 80% of those international comparators.

An optimist might claim that this demonstrates the commendable efficiency of the Australian system, but our competitive position is clearly unsustainable in the long term unless there is a funding change. It is important, moreover, to understand that these comparisons pre-date the cut-backs by the present government. Because no supplementation for necessary salary increases was provided, the further efficiency dividend extracted can be estimated as 15% to 20%, depending on coursework graduate student capacity to take up fee places.

Of course every university has worked hard to achieve yet more efficiency and to seek out additional sources of income but, at least in the short term, as we try to adjust, there is an inevitable quality decline. This may take the form of postponed upgrade and maintenance, crowded classrooms, reduced tutorials, limited support for staff development, reduced funding for quality initiatives, delayed appointments, but throughout the higher education system there has been a necessity for cuts which go beyond self-improvement.

Obviously we must work to find ways to reverse these trends but, before I discuss these, let me spend longer on an analysis of the status quo.

Universities are concerned both with total funding - which maintains existing staffing establishments and forward commitments - and with funding per student - which corresponds to quality. Government is, without question, concerned with total funding outlay and is, of course, tempted to provide as many places as possible within a fixed envelope.

Government funding treats all universities equally except in two respects. Less than 5% (and falling) of operating grant is the so-called Research Quantum which rewards competitive performance in research. There is also an historic trace of weightings for the relative cost of disciplines (e.g. dentistry costs more than tourism).

There has never been a clear policy on what is meant by equitable access. Some interpret this as meaning that all universities should offer the same quality of education experience and degrees of the same perceived value. This is clear in some submissions to the West Review, in which some universities have argued for tight regulation to prevent tall poppies breaking from the pack. The complaint is that their graduates do not accede to the most influential positions in business and society.

I make no secret of my view that, if Australia insists upon 36 public universities of equal standing, then the achievement is possible only through dumbing down. It is relevant to note that students with TERs in the 90s have chosen to pay full-fees in my university this year, while fully subsidised government places were being offered elsewhere for those who attained TERs in the 30s.

Let me emphasise that I am aware of the modest position my own university occupies on the world stage, but I have no desire to take out an injunction to prevent the ANZ Bank from advertising its belief that Harvard is the leading university in the world.

I can understand - even empathise - when colleagues argue that government funding should continue to discriminate against the established universities, but I see red when this extends to advocating restrictive practices.

In fact I have very little appetite for squabbling over government funds, because I believe - a belief reinforced by the bipartisan birthing of the Dearing Report - that no Australian government of either complexion will increase higher education funding enough to make us internationally competitive.

There is an immediate danger, however. We have a new round of enterprise bargaining scheduled to begin later this year. If the present government stands back once more from salary supplementation, then I believe that chaos will reign. This country will then destroy an export industry - more significant than many agricultural staples - and invent the millennium brain drain.

Let me come back to the present. It is only now that we are beginning to see the effects of the Vanstone changes. The lowering of the income threshold for beginning HECS repayments has denied the deferment option to many in employment and has, in my opinion, caused a fall in mature age applications. General Science enrolments are a disaster this year. We all know that there is an underlying downward trend, but the irrationally high level of cost of Science under differential HECS has compounded the problem.

Universities made great efforts this year to compensate for federal cuts by increasing overseas student numbers. The Asian financial crisis, possibly Pauline Hanson, and government hikes in visa processing charges have interfered with that. It appears that the net result will be that numbers remain approximately the same as last year, but that is a serious shortfall against budget plans. Despite the instability, the optimist can, of course, say that the relative fall of the Australian dollar makes us relatively more attractive than the US or UK, so we should achieve a larger share of a shrinking market. If, however, the quality of what we offer is diminished, then the vision clouds once more.

The report of the Minerals Council of Australia taskforce recently advocated an industry-funded rescue package of $20 million to save university education of geoscientists. Salaries are hopelessly uncompetitive, with new graduates sometimes earning more than senior lecturers, and there are too many small ineffective departments. A similar analysis could be made in many other fields.

Checklist

Before we proceed to make suggestions for improvement let’s check off our current performance against our aspirations.

To obtain a university education one must stay out of the full-time workforce, support oneself and incur a HECS debt. The deferred nature of that payment is the good feature which encourages social mobility. Otherwise our track record is poor and much of the disadvantage occurs already at high school, a fact reinforced by our practice of then rationing places at university on the basis of school performance. It is difficult to invent a fairer alternative, but I am puzzled by the behaviour of those who send their children to private schools then argue against over-quota fee-paying places at university on equity grounds.

Students are torn between the opportunity for intellectual development and the need to earn a meal ticket. At its crudest this produces pressure for vocational programs of a severely utilitarian short-term nature and, more subtly, has led to an explosion of double degrees where one leg nourishes the soul and the other moves one up the employment queue. A well-designed university course should balance these features in any case - but many of today’s students (and employers) require the written evidence of a combined title.

It is difficult to decide, on the basis of satisfaction surveys, how well we meet student aspirations. Currently published data show that mature age students and those in smaller institutions express a higher level of comfort. Some studies suggest a negative correlation between a research-based environment and perceived quality of teaching, but I recall as a student that those of us who were high-achievers had quite different rankings of our teachers than had the majority of the class. I am deeply suspicious of ‘quality’ measures based only on popular polls.

To my mind effective access incorporates the opportunity for the most able, independent of means, to study in what they consider to be the most stimulating environment. The old system of Commonwealth Scholarships, however, has no adequate replacement and we have been afraid to differentiate universities.

Employers have had even their training aspirations dashed, particularly in areas where our industry most seeks recruits. Academic salaries are derisory in competitive terms and we cannot afford the latest equipment on which to train our students. In R & D it has recently been claimed that the university contribution is minimal and research support funds should be redirected to industry itself.

Our staff nevertheless produce a commendable 2% of the world’s research literature, but there is citation evidence to suggest that the impact may be declining.

Action

What can we do? We must be realistic about what we can achieve with a low population base. In particular, we cannot sustain 36 public universities with more or less identical mission statements. That does not imply that we should drive some institutions to the wall. Nor does it mean that we should artificially channel funds to a few privileged oldsters. Nor does it mean that we should discourage pockets of excellence wherever they develop throughout the system.

It does mean that we should overhaul funding mechanisms and, in my view, that requires an element of market exposure. I favour a system in which there is anchor government funding to stabilise the system and in which universities are free to raise fees at their own discretion. This would require both scholarship support and deferred payment options. It would require also a government commitment to a realistic level of public funding.

In the last regard let me say that one of the debilitating influences on universities at present is a half-cynical, half-naive view that one must demonstrate helplessness in order to force government to fund the system adequately and that any successful self-help will simply provide an excuse for further cost-cutting.

While we must convince government to make adequate provision (the amount in question exceeds present levels!) I believe also that we can never achieve our aspirations without income generation from the private sector.

We know that business is prepared in invest where it has perceived training needs or requires the development of research infrastructure. A concrete example of the latter in the case of my own university is the provision and development of technical support for the Stock Exchange. We can forge links which produce fully or partially funded chairs in areas of industry need and arrangements whereby we can acquire and test state-of-the-art equipment while using it also for training.

The paymaster will, of course, always seek to call the tune. This threatens a culture in which one considers universities an unconditional good, to be provided with taxpayers’ money and full collegial autonomy. There is, I admit, a danger that cash-strapped universities will undercut each other in provision of services and in establishing weak protocols for collaborations and external links - but the challenge is to learn to handle these relationships well, not to eschew them.

There is the reverse danger that universities will not deliver on time with realistic pragmatism. While the internal debate over private sector involvement rages, this is a serious consideration. In addition, not all discipline areas are appropriate for such involvement, yet they form a vital part of our organisation and are fundamental to our aspirations. This implies an internal taxation regime and requires management of social redistribution of income. The difficulties are obvious but the challenge must be accepted.

Benefaction is much more a feature of the American system than ours. A prerequisite is a highly differentiated collection of universities in which alumni loyalty relates, at least in part, to the network benefits which belonging confers. Nobody is motivated to give to the branch Post Office of their choice and a ‘uniform’ national system deadens philanthropy. Taxation laws encourage benefaction in the United States and should do so here. Instead, the exposure draft of the West Review contained the absurd proposal that we should be taxed on our assets. "Don’t give an urn to the Nicholson Museum. You may bankrupt Sydney Uni."

Although the aspirations I have enunciated are traditional, the route to achieving them is not. As with any change, progress has industrial relations implications and I do not believe that we have developed in Australian universities the kind of management-union relationship which we now require. At the University of Sydney we have created a new position of Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Employee Relations) with ambitious goals. Aware of the effect on staff morale of recent and future change, we seek to build a non-confrontational and constructive relationship over time.

Conclusion

Normally I spend most of my time talking up my university and Australian universities in general. There are very real achievements about which one can boast. Today I have chosen to warn of the urgent need for further change and to state my belief that our high ideals cannot be achieved by means of a pure public sector model. Means can and should be debated and are always negotiable. I pray that no-one challenges the ideals.