Food for Thought: the year-end feast
You could be forgiven for worrying that many key debates in higher education rarely seem to move on, and that 2025 will bring the same old talk.
We shouldn’t accept that this is inevitable! The perfect antidote is more exploration and consideration of that which is little discussed or unsaid. So in a change to the format, we’re sharing a list of nine points to ponder.
2024 has been turbulent for Australian higher education – between a Universities Accord report, proposed caps on international student enrolments, and myriad other issues along the way – so we’ve looked for debates that might help us to tease out better what it means to celebrate and advance the higher good of universities.
What if there were incentives to provide students with only the minimum amount of education to serve their needs?
HE providers have strong incentives to recruit as many students as possible, to charge them as much as possible for their education, and to keep them in education for as long as possible. But these incentives serve institutions rather than students. What would it take for us to have a system where everyone - students, governments, and institutions - celebrated and rewarded students achieving their goals with the minimum required education?
Students would need to define their goals, be that what it takes to progress to the next part of their education, into a fulfilling job, or some other measure of personal wellbeing that they decide. With some sense of personal accomplishment - and not some government mandated assessment of a ‘good’ outcome, for which the answer will always be ‘maximum economic utility’ over anything else - we can have a better, and more personal system.
It will take confidence in providers that, in the long run, their reputation as a place where students derive success will be a driver of further student attraction. To be the institution which doesn’t just serve large size pizzas but offers education by the slice, with different toppings, and no extra charge for the gluten free base, will require reorientation of the delivery model. But a reorientation which would mean delivering on a mission of providing the best possible outcomes for the most people.
To get universities to serve the national interest, to cater to the needs of the full diversity of students, and to meet community interests, we need different incentives. Could governments offer institutions success fees to act as bonuses for efficient and effective delivery? Perhaps we could align performance measures with meaningful funding to drive not just better outcomes, but faster ones. If students can get to their destination optimally quicker, that reduces the opportunity costs of education and improves their return on investment.
Failing to discuss the issue of learning volume and speed to exit is a disservice to students, and to the system at large. It’s time we thought of new and better ways of providing education.
What if Australia had more ambition for its higher education system?
By any global standard, Australian HE is pretty great. We have largely well-funded universities, a creative private HE system, improved participation by students from traditionally under-served communities, top quality and impactful research, and (mostly) good working conditions. All of these dimensions could be better, particularly providing our lowest-paid and early career staff with greater security and pathways to more sustainable employment. But, in the main, the system is in good shape when we consider the global benchmarks.
The success of the system is underpinned by (mostly) reasonable standards and regulation, and by enough funding to get a job done. Our universities have been able to invest in infrastructure, both physical and digital. For all the talk of universities as ‘part of the problem’ among politicians and policymakers, there is still significant respect for expertise and recognition of the value of institutions.
While we have a high floor, is our ceiling too low? For the most part, the very best provision in Australia doesn’t reach the standards of the best in the world. We’re not the destination for the true cream of global talent. We can talk up our rankings performance all we like but, if the most impactful education and most ground-breaking research are found elsewhere, we need to try harder. A lot harder.
It’s always a challenge to see what it means to be better when the points of comparison are local. Our university leaders - not necessarily those in the C-suite jobs, but research and education leaders across institutions - need to spend more time in great institutions around the world. That doesn’t mean heading just to elite private universities on the US East coast or lionising the California system, though it might, but it does mean engaging critically with what great practice looks like in China, Singapore, Germany, Denmark, and other destinations. We can (and do) take a lot from the US and UK, and we can actively look further afield too.
We should celebrate a great HE system in Australia. We should also see how we can raise the ceiling through approaches, cultures and ambitions that seek to build on this brilliant foundation.
What if we enabled an academic career system that was truly fulfilling?
If we ever talk about academic careers in Australia, it’s at the margins. A question of marginal gains in an enterprise agreement, or opening up a few new positions - or types of position - here and there. There’s seemingly zero interest in a conversation about what it means to be an academic, why we have them, the role they play not just in their institutions but also in broader society. How do academics connect us to knowledge? Connect us to the world? Academics in Australia endlessly fight against the weight of the resources mindset.
Institutions focus too much on pay, and too little on building the conditions in which academic careers are forged, nurtured, enabled to flourish. That means proper time allocations to achieve all the expectations of the role. It also means accountability for performance, and not just research outputs. For too long, weird management has pervaded academia and it’s time that toxic cultures became a thing of the history books and not the source of non-disclosure agreements.
Being a senior academic has probably always been more satisfying than a junior one. The gulf is widening though and it’s hard to recommend an academic career to anyone. If you want great doctoral training, you often have to look beyond Australia. Want to have the conditions for success as an early career academic? It’s hard going in most systems but particularly bad here in Australia. Disincentivising casualisation might help, but it will also fuel a loop-hole finding industry.
If we’re going to fix the leaky pipelines of academic careers, the Australian sector needs a global vision for the future of the academic profession. We need to celebrate the hard work done by those who carry the burden of teaching students and empowering them to succeed in life and work. Universities boast about our researchers who have little interaction with students but not those who do the teaching. We also need to know how the academic profession develops with third-space professionals, how we break the glass/bamboo/Chesterfield ceilings, how we remain attractive in the global competition for talent. This isn’t a question for side dishes but for the main course.
What if we stopped complaining that no-one loves universities?
This year we’ve had far too much bloviating about how the sector has lost its ‘social licence to operate’. On the one hand, it’s an exercise in self-flagellation for the effects of a marketised system which has directed our universities to pursue the unrelenting cycle of growth, surplus, investment in research and facilities, more growth please. On the other hand, it’s a complaint that the sector is misunderstood and if only the scales would fall from the unbelievers’ eyes then order would be restored.
We absolutely do need to hear the complaints. We need to accept the challenge that teaching might not be good enough, or as consistently good enough, for students. We should also accept that research needs to serve a public good and that the taxpayer is owed some explanation for where its money went. We also need to hear that universities driving migration policy has some externalities in communities and isn’t a cost-free policy. But the time taken to list these issues might be better spent getting back-to-basics and delivering the academic job at hand.
We need to reset both narrative and action. It’s much easier to talk of third mission activities driving more community benefit than it is to realign activities to generate maximum community benefit. Australian universities are public institutions which should serve a public good. If that means responding to need - hunger, mental health support, cultural and physical safety - then they should get on and do those things with conviction rather than complaint.
Being closer to community - both formally ‘within the walls’ and at large - is essential for knowing where and how universities can actually help. That is the basis of building respect, of being valued. It may be hard to hear the truths of how we’re seen right now but, unless we reset for authentic and generous academic collaboration, the case for continued existence will be lost.
What if we were honest about weak leadership?
Boosterism is a thing. People want space to be self-congratulatory. And that’s great, and human, and helpful. But sometimes the Emperor is literally walking around starkers and that needs to be said out loud.
The issue is structural. No effective accountability measures, jobs for mates, absent performance assessments at any level of leadership, continued failing upwards, secrecy around the worst behaviours, enterprise agreements that encourage even the most courageous of leaders not to tackle poor performers or toxic high performers. Because it’s just too hard and will take too long and everybody will be even more miserable than they are now.
One of the most egregious dimensions is the unwillingness to be embarrassed by recognising that the wrong appointment has been made and that we need to start again. Some situations can be salvaged. They’re not going to be fixed with another leadership course, some coaching, compliance modules, or a 360 review. These may be helpful at times, but unless there is a basis of humility then they’re just performative dross. Some people, some teams, will find ways of changing to more collaborative leadership models. Not all will make it. At that point, decisive action is required from the top.
Get governance right with accountability for performance. Celebrate and reward honesty and humility rather than arrogance and hubris. Effective and sustained change in the HE sector is only going to be achieved when the egomaniacs are sidelined and we support different kinds of leaders to succeed. It’s not going to be easy, and will require a level of introspection not usually present in HE. Academic critique provided feedback loops which slippery commercial posturing does not. We are surrounded by unprecedented uncertainty and unlocking the potential of leadership could have a transformational effect on the sector.
What if we were serious about targeting research efforts?
Research is expensive, and in a small country playing in a large global pool it is probably too thinly spread to achieve the most impact. We should talk about whether there’s a need for every institution to pursue doing everything. We know it’s not as stark as that, and that there is some focus across the whole system including institutions that have greater depth in fundamental research, and those which look to applied dimensions.
The distribution of activity is great for Australia. There are research jobs in universities across the country. There are greater opportunities to connect that research to the teaching needs of students in each institution.
We need to get real though. The connection of research to teaching is often weak, honoured more in rhetoric than observed in practice. Not everything that’s funded is good, or good enough. The country’s research system isn’t that big, and it can’t sustain everything.
As universities’ surplus from international student revenue is threatened (or at least the unrestricted growth in that revenue), it’s the appropriate time to ask if we can have a better planned system for research investment which targets country- and regional- level benefits. Maybe we need more-mission led research as well as investigator-driven activity. Maybe we need to focus our investments where Australia has a distinctive contribution to make to the world’s sum of knowledge. The current system doesn’t look sustainable, so rather than see it wither and waste, let’s have an active discussion about how to make it better.
What if we had a unified approach to data infrastructure?
There are shared approaches which are designed in pursuit of cost saving. All well and good, and why not try and maximise the impact of limited resources? That’s not the only reason that we need to pursue collaborative activities. Let’s also imagine that we could serve students better if we had unified ways of working with their data.
For a start, there’s the basic information required to enrol students as well as additional demographic information which students hold that can assist institutions in setting them up for success as they are transitioning into university study. Think: entering uni with a pre-existing (mental) health condition or disability, identifying as a First Nations student, having parents that did or didn’t go to university, or having grown up with foster parents, being a carer or a full-time worker. Then there is dispositional information which could also be hugely important, e.g. feeling not well prepared or not confident to commence study, having low digital literacy or no idea what to do upon graduation. Currently, this information is collected in inconsistent and idiosyncratic ways across the sector, often in systems that students find near impossible to navigate by themselves, that are patched-up with more programmed bandaids than anyone ever bothered to write down in a central place, and identifying best-practice requires a genuine leap of faith.
There’s also the eternal pursuit of a system for recognising students’ prior learning. While the Government’s wheels turn slowly on a skills passport, how about the sector get together and help the development of systems which collate consistent information about students’ performance and make that available with ease? Don’t wait for big-US-tech to load yet another platform, Aussies have a storied track record of shooting innovation from the hip.
Thinking bigger, imagine that we could use a unified data system to understand - at scale - students’ experiences and performance as the basis for building effective interventions. That would require two basic conditions which big-tech has already solved: first, that we have the right permissions and informed consent in place for students; and that we start with the premise that the data are not owned within the confines of an institution but exist for the greater benefit of students and the system as a whole.
Data infrastructure might not be the sexiest topic in HE. Yet, there needs to be space for the boring but important issues, the ones which will pay off long term even if they require significant efforts and investment up front.
What if we actually cared about students’ educational outcomes and how to achieve them?
If we really cared about teaching, and the role of teaching in a higher education, it wouldn’t be an afterthought in institutional thinking and strategies. We all know that the best educators are genuine inspirations, offering the guidance and insight which can last a lifetime. How do we create the conditions where great teachers want to do their best work in HE? Why can’t it be normal for those with the aptitude and enthusiasm for teaching being supported to deploy those skills in HE?
We need to celebrate teaching, and to implement proven mechanisms for recognising individual efforts. And we need to modernise teaching in HE to recognise and reward collaborative teaching approaches. We need to accept that teaching in the 21st century requires a complex set of skills which can be obtained in multiple ways. Yes, PhDs are a very important qualification for teaching in HE. They’re not always necessary, and they’re not usually sufficient to make a good teacher, let alone an excellent one. Life and professional experiences are massively valuable too. More important would be formal professional teacher training to develop pedagogical skills and affirm the standing of the work. Students benefit considerably and are often more engaged by learning from teachers with life and professional experiences beyond academia.
Teachers are essential. So too is a focus on the impact of teaching on students. A focus on outcomes, not just inputs, means that we can pursue efficacy and use that to refine methods and approaches of teaching. It shouldn’t be a radical notion to say that evidence should inform the professional delivery of education in universities.
Developing, celebrating and incentivising excellent university teaching is vital for the future of the sector.
What if we have a depth in the discourse about HE and not just a surface engagement?
HE policy in Australia has become too hand-to-mouth, too devoid of meaningful engagement with the actual issues affecting the country, its students and its communities. Prime-time media is important to reach outside campus walls, but is not an end in itself. When governments focus on short-term issues like temporary debt relief - rather than addressing the costs of study, student support, and the resources to deliver high quality education - they were in the wrong part of the debate.
How do we do it better? The sector needs to stop whingeing, and stop simply stating its self-serving positions as if saying it often enough will secure change. Three per cent of GDP devoted to R&D might be the right level, but why? We need to explain these positions in terms of outcomes, and also recognise the fundamental gaps when it comes to securing support. If politicians and policymakers don’t believe that research is inherently good, there’s no point asking for more money.
The HE sector is uniquely placed to do the work to articulate what a better system could look like. Our universities have the convening power to have the necessary debates with government, industry, and civil society. We have the students agitating for better futures. We have the academics with the knowledge and skill to design better systems. With all these resources, let’s get over the complaints and focus on great solutions.
About
The Higher Good is a space in which interesting and impactful ideas are shared for the benefit of the Australian tertiary sector. It is all about public good. The space it fills sits between immediate news, which is well-served, and considered research on the sector which takes a longer view and which is also rarely timely. It is critical commentary with purpose.
The Higher Good explores issues from a range of perspectives recognising that few issues have a single answer. It draws on a diverse group of contributors – people who take pleasure in the exploration and communication of ideas which are both important and urgent.
The Higher Good aims to provoke, but not to court controversy for its own sake. It seeks to prompt reflection and reaction, debate and dissent.
Contributors
This collaborative article was written by Ant Bagshaw, Angel Calderon, Hamish Coates, Gwilym Croucher, and Nadine Zacharias.
Get in touch if you’d like to contribute to the dialogue and/or contribute to a future piece: info@thehighergood.net