Reforms in Higher Education [1 ed.] 9781847142191, 9780304328925

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ducational Dilemmas: Debate and Diversity Volume Two

Educational Dilemmas: Debate and Diversity Volume One: Teachers, Teacher Education and Training Volume Two: Reforms in Higher Education Volume Three: Power and Responsibility in Education Volume Four: Quality in Education

Educational Dilemmas: Debate and Diversity

Volume Two

Reforms in Higher Education Edited by Keith Watson, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil

CASSELL

Cassell Wellington House 125 Strandd London WC2R OBB

PO Box 605 Herndon VA 20172

© Keith Watson, Celia Modgil, Sohan Modgil and the contributors 1997 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. First published 1997 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-304-32892-8 Typeset by York House Typographic Ltd, London Printed and bound in Great Britain by The Bath Press

Contentss

Acknowledgementss Abbreviations and Acronyms Contributors Tradition and Change in Higher Education: Have the Managers Triumphed over the Academics? Keith Watson, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil

vii viii xi

xv

Part One: The Purpose and Role of Higher Education 1 Reinstating the Idea of Higher Education Ronald Barnett Response to Ronald Barnett Ian McNay 2 University = Diversity; Pragmatics > Dogmatics Ian McNay Response to Ian McNay Ronald Barnett 3 Diversification and Elitism in Mass Higher Education Chris Duke 4 Rationalization and the Modern University Jennifer Jarman and Robert M. Blackburn 5 Is Small Still Beautiful? In Defence of Collegial Institutions of Higher Education David Blake 6 Learning Skills and Skills for Learning Joyce Barlow Part Two: The Changing Management Culture of Higher Education

3 12

14 20

23

33

47 57

7 The Culture of Political Correctness Roger Homan 8 The Management of Change in Higher Education Myra McCulloch 9 Judging Quality in Higher Education: Towards Bureaucratic Conformity Clem Adelman 10 Formal Funding in Higher Education: Neither Centralized nor Decentralized David A. Turner 11 Principals, Agents, Producers and Consumers in Higher Education Gareth Williams 12 From Policy to Practice: Staff Development in Higher Education the Key to the Effective Management of Change Bryan J. Cowan 13 Travellers in a Strange World: Inequality and Discrimination against Women Academics and Its Negative Effects on Higher Education Barbara Bagilhole Travellers in a Strange World: A Response to Barbara Bagilhole Myra McCulloch 14 The Role of Teacher Unions in Higher Education John Clay

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75

84

92

105

115

128

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Part Three: International Perspectives on Higher Education Reform 15 Educational Reform in the United States and the Former Soviet Union: Common Errors in State-directed Reform Efforts Hugh D. Hudson Jr and Alan J. Hoffmanan

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Contents

16 Mobility or Brain Drain? Eye on International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe Sylvia G. M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis 17 Reforms in Higher Education in Malaysia Molly N. N. Lee 18 Reforms in Higher Education: Culture and Control in the Middle East K. E. Shaw 19 Crisis in the Public Universities in Kenya Daniel N. Sifuna 20 Revitalizing University Education in Africa: Addressing What Is And What Is

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Not an Issue from Kenya's Perspectivee Okwach Abagi 21 Markets in a Socialist System: Reform of Higher Education in China Cheng Kai-ming 22 The University in Africa: Evolving Roles and Responsibilitiess Alison Girdwood 23 Limits to Change in University Education in Polandd Keith Brumfitt

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219 Name Indexx Subject Indexx

267 273

Acknowledgements

The editors wish to acknowledge that Chapter 6, by Joyce Barlow, given at the CoFHE Annual Study Conference in Edinburgh, April 1995, and to be published in the Conference Proceedings, appears here by kind permission of CoFHE. Chapter 22, by Alison Girdwood, also appeared in Tom Schuller (ed.), The Changing University (Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press, 1995), pp. 93-104. This chapter is published here by kind permission of Professor Schuller and the Open University Press.

The editors also wish to express their gratitude to the following people who have made these volumes move from an idea to a reality: to Naomi Roth for her unstinting support and encouragement; to all the contributors who have joined in the spirit of this venture; to the copy-editors who have worked so hard and speedily; and, above all, to Margaret King for all her labours in typing and sifting through scripts, for her good humour in times of frustration and for her work in compiling a database for these volumes.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

AAU

ABRC

AFC APEL APR APU ASEAN ASTMS ATCDE

ATTI AUCF AUT CATS CBI CEE CERC CHE CHEPS CNAA CoFHE

CPSU

Academic Audit Unit; Association of African Universities Advisory Board for the Research Councils Association for Colleges accreditation of prior learning from experience age participation rate Assessment of Performance Unit Association of South East Asian Nations Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs Association of Teachers in Colleges and Departments of Education Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions average unit of council funding Association of University Teachers credit accumulation and transfer system Confederation of British Industry Central and Eastern Europe Continuing Education Research Centre Commission for Higher Education Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies Council for National Academic Awards Colleges of Further and Higher Education Group, Library Association Communist Party of the Soviet Union

CSFR CSUP CUA CUCO CVCP DDR DENI DES DFE EGA EFTA EHE ERA ERASMUS

ERIC ESRC EU EURACE FE FEFC FEU GCE GCSE GDP GNVQ

Czech and Slovak Federal Republics Committee of Scottish University Principalss Conference of University Administratorss Commission on University Career Opportunity Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals German Democratic Republic Department of Education, Northern Ireland Department of Education and Science Department for Education Economic Commission for Africa European Free Trade Area Enterprise in Higher Education Education Reform Act European Community Action Scheme for Mobility of University Students Educational Resources Information Center [USA] Economic and Social Research Council European Union European Academic Research further education Further Education Funding Council Further Education Unit General Certificate of Education General Certificate of Secondary Education gross domestic product General National Vocational Qualification

Abbreviations and Acronyms ix

GOK HE HEFC HEFCE HEI HEQC HESA

HMI HMSO HOD IAEA IDA IEA

IEPR IFM IIEP ILO

IMF ISR IT JEP LEA MARDI MASN MCC MIER

MNC NAB NATFHE NC NCATE NCC

Government of Kenya higher education Higher Education Funding Councils Higher Education Funding Council of England higher education institute Higher Education Quality Council Higher Education Statistics Agency Her Majesty's Inspectors/ Inspectorate Her Majesty's Stationery Office head of department International Association for Educational Assessment International Development Assistance International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement Institute of Educational and Psychological Research international faculty mobility International Institute for Educational Planning International Labour Organization International Monetary Fund Institute for Social Research information technology Joint European Project local education authority Malaysian Agriculture Research and Development Institute maximum aggregate student number Marylebone Cricket Club Malaysian Institute of Economic Research multinational corporation National Advisory Board National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education National Curriculum National Council for the Assessment of Teacher Education National Curriculum Council

NCE NCVQ NESIC NFER NGO NHS NIER NUS NUT NUU NVQ ODA OECD OFSTED ONC OU PCFC PGCE PORIM PRP QUB RAE RIHED RRI SCED SEDA SHEFC SME SOED SRHE TA

National Commission on Education National Council for Vocational Qualifications National Education Standards and Improvement Council National Foundation for Educational Research non-governmental organization National Health Service National Institute for Educational Research National Union of Students National Union of Teachers New University of Ulster National Vocational Qualification Overseas Development Administration Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Office for Standards in Education Ordinary National Certificate Open University Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council Post-Graduate Certificate of Educationn Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia performance-related pay Queen's University, Belfast research assessment exercise Regional Institute of Higher Education and Development Rubber Research Institute Standing Conference in Educational Development Staff and Educational Development Association Scottish Education Funding Council small and medium-sized enterprisess Scottish Office Education Department Society for Research into Higher Education teacher assessment

x Abbreviations and Acronyms

TAPE TCCB TEC TGAT TOKTEN TQA TSC TTA TUC TVEI UASU UCAS UCoSDA

technical and further education Test and County Cricket Board Training and Enterprise Council Task Group on Assessment and Training Transfer of Know-how through Expatriated Nationals Teacher Quality Assessment Teachers Service Commission Teacher Training Agency Trades Union Congress Technical and Vocational Education Initiative Universities Academic Staff Union Universities and Colleges Admissions Service Universities' and Colleges' Staff Development Agency

UDACE UFC UGC ULIE UN UNAM UNDP UNESCO

UNICEF USDTU USDU

Unit for the Development of Adult Continuing Education Universities Funding Council University Grants Committee University of London Institute of Education United Nations Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico United Nations Development Programme United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization United Nations (International) Children's (Emergency) Fund Universities' Staff Development and Training Unit Universities' Staff Development Unit

Contributorss

Dr Okwach Abagi lectures in the Department of Educational Foundations and coordinates the Department of Development Studies, Kenyatta University. He is a sociologist of education with a doctorate degree from McGill University. He teaches sociology of education, comparative education, research methods in education, contemporary issues in education, and gender education and development at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His research areas include: policy issues in education, classroom interactions, and gender issues in education, within which he has published widely. He has received research awards from the African Academy of Sciences and the Association of African Universities. Professor Clem Adelman has researched and published in the area of higher education since 1976, when he moved from the University of East Anglia to Reading. His research publications are diverse: methodology to music education, history to pedagogy, play to policy. He has conducted a substantial amount of research, evaluation and development work in the USA and Europe. He is a saxophonist of some note. Before being appointed in the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University in 1991, Barbara Bagilhole worked for five years as the Principal Research Officer in a Department of Equal Opportunities and Race Relations in a radical local authority. She has continued her interest in equal opportunities at university through teaching and research. Her recent work includes a book on women in the civil service, Women, Work and Equal Opportunities, published by Avebury, and a research project for the Department of Health on 'black' and ethnic minority women in the NHS. Joyce Barlow's current post is Educational Devel-

opment Adviser in the Teaching and Learning Unit at the University of Brighton. She has been working with academic staff for the past twelve years, encouraging the adoption of more effective ways of teaching, learning and assessment, and moving the emphasis away from teaching towards students as learners. Her career pattern prior to this included six years spent teaching English at the Universities of Cologne and Munich. She then pursued a career in academic librarianship, including working as a subject specialist in education and educational technology at the Open University. Joyce is very active in the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) and was the first person to be awarded a Fellowship of SEDA. She is also Chair of the SEDA Conference Committee and is responsible for the mounting of two (inter)national conferences each year. Recent publications are directed to student induction and staff development through project work. Ronald Barnett is Professor of Higher Education and Dean of Professional Development at the Institute of Education, University of London. His books include The Idea of Higher Education, Improving Higher Education: Total Quality Care and The Limits of Competence. He is Editor of Studies in Higher Education. Robert M. Blackburn is a Reader and Chair of the Sociological Research Group in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, and a Fellow of Clare College, in the University of Cambridge, England. He has written extensively on many aspects of social inequality and work. In addition to education, his books and articles have focused on social stratification, gender and employment, tradeunionism, labour markets and the experience of work. He has previously collaborated with Jennifer Jarman in research on higher education and on

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Contributors

gender segregation in employment. They are both editors of Cambridge Studies in Work and Social Inequality. David Blake is Dean of Education and Social Studies at Chichester Institute of Higher Education. He previously worked in primary schools before taking up a post in initial and in-service teacher education at New College, Durham. His research interests are higher education and teacher education policy. Keith Brumfitt is the Co-ordinator of Secondary Education in the School of Education at the University of Brighton. This role involves responsibility for secondary teacher training courses. His background is in business education and he is author of a number of texts used by business studies teachers. He is currently working, with Dutch colleagues, on a curriculum development project with three universities in Albania. Cheng Kai-ming was a mathematician by training. He was a physics teacher and a school principal before he studied for a doctorate at the University of London Institute of Education. He works in the areas of educational administration, planning and policy analysis, and his recent research projects concentrate on mainland China, working as consultant for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP and the HEP. He is a Fellow of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration. He is Professor of Education at the University of Hong Kong and is currently Dean of Education. John Clay is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Brighton. He has been a union activist for over twenty years and has been a member of the NUT and MSF (formerly ASTMS). He is currently a member of NATFHE. Dr Bryan J. Cowan is currently acting Director for academic staff development at the University of Reading, responsible for the management development of academic staff. He is also co-director of master's programmes in educational management, catering for both UK and overseas students. Dr Cowan's principal research and consultancy inter-

ests lie in the training of headteachers (in a number of countries, including sub-Saharan Africa and Spain), the marketing of schools and the development of staff in higher education (within the UK, South Africa and China). Chris Duke taught history, sociology and adult education at the then Woolwich Polytechnic (now University of Greenwich) and the University of Leeds before becoming foundation Director of Continuing Education at the Australian National University in 1969. He returned in 1985 to become foundation Professor of Continuing Education at the University of Warwick, where he became ProVice-Chancellor in 1991. Author of many publications in the field of nonformal, higher and continuing education, he is Vice-Chair of the Universities Association for Continuing Education, having previously been Secretary for five years. He has also served as Secretary-General of the Asian and South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education and Associate Secretary-General of the International Council for Adult Education. He has edited the International Journal of University Adult Education for 25 years. In 1996 he was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and President of UWS Nepean. Alison Girdwood was formerly a senior member of the Registrar's department in the University of Edinburgh. She is now a Research Officer in the International Centre for Higher Education Management at the University of Bath. Her research interests lie in higher education and the implementation of change, and quality assurance in higher education. She is currently undertaking research at the University of Ghana. Alan J. Hoffman is Professor of Middle/Secondary Education and Instructional Technology at Georgia State University. Former Executive Director of the Georgia Center for Citizenship and Law Related Education, Professor Hoffman specializes in social studies education. In addition to numerous articles on social studies education, he is the coauthor of Social Studies and the Child's Expanding Self and co-developer of the 1979 and 1983 Scott Foresman Social Studies textbook series.

Contributors xiii Roger Homan took his master's degree in government at the London School of Economics and his doctorate in sociology at the University of Lancaster. Since then he has lectured in various of the social sciences and is now Principal Lecturer in Education at the University of Brighton. His publications include journal articles in politics, the sociology of religion and pedagogical issues in religious and political education. His most recent work The Ethics of Social Research is published by Longman. Hugh D. Hudson Jr is Professor of History at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. A specialist in Russian social and economic history, Professor Hudson has written extensively on the problem of 'modernization' in Russia, including the role of education in the transformation of society. His most recent book, Blueprints and Blood: The Stalinizationn of Soviet Architecture, 1917-1937, focuses on the political and cultural problems associated with the education of architects.

Myra McCulloch is Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Reading with particular respnsibility for teaching. Her research interests are in organization theory, particularly the organization and management of higher education institutions. The development of policy in the field of teacher education and the delivery of equal opportunities through education are special interests. Ian McNay is currently Professor and Head of the Centre for Higher Education Management, an R & D centre which pursues research, consultancy and teaching and generates income for Anglia Polytechnic University. He had previously worked in a variety of roles in adult further and higher education, in Belgium and Spain as well as the UK, where previous affiliations include the Open University and the, then, Bristol Polytechnic. He edited Visions of Post-compulsory Education (SRHE/ Open University) and was the author of two research reports published by Longman, Coping with Crisis and Learning to Manage.

Jennifer Jarman is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology and Social Anthropology Department at Dalhousie University, Canada. She is interested in social inequality in its various forms - particularly gender, ethnicity and class. She has concentrated on issues relating to the formal work sphere, and is currently interested in the linkages between higher education and work. She has published articles on pay equity policies, measurement issues with respect to occupational gender segregation, trends in gender segregation and inequalities in access to universities. She has previously collaborated with Robert Blackburn in research on higher education and on gender segregation in employment. They are both editors of Cambridge Studies in Work and Social Inequality.

Sohan and Celia Modgil studied at the Universities of Durham, Newcastle, Manchester, Surrey and London (King's College and the Institute of Education). In addition Sohan Modgil spent a period of time at the University of Geneva. They have written, edited and co-edited books on Piaget, Kohlberg, Eysenck, Jensen, Chomsky, Skinner; on controversial sociologists such as Giddens, Goldthorpe and Merton; and in the fields of multicultural education, cultural diversity, and education and development. Celia Modgil has served as Head of Initial Teacher Education as well as Deputy Head of the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Sohan Modgil is Reader in Educational Research and Development at the University of Brighton.

Molly N. N. Lee is an Associate Professor of Education at Universiti Sains Malaysia, where she teaches sociology of education and science teaching methods courses. She has written a number of articles on education in Malaysia concerning higher education, private education, science education, teacher education, school curriculum, and language policies.

After teaching in schools for nearly ten years, Dr K. E. Shaw has worked in teacher education for over 30 years. His PhD is from a School of Management. He has published widely in the fields of curriculum and management, and has taught in the USA, Australia and Africa. He has carried out funded research for the Schools Council and the Manpower Services Commission. His current interests

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are in government policy, together with the evolution of the secondary and higher education systems in the UK. He has a research interest in higher education in the Middle East, particularly in the Arabian Gulf states. Daniel N. Sifuna is Professor of Education and past Chair of the Department of Educational Foundations at Kenyatta University. He is also Chair of the Educational Research Network in Kenya. Included among his special honours and awards is the 1992 United States Information Service Textbook Research Award. The recipient of a number of research grants, he has also published eight books and numerous chapters and articles. Dr David Turner is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education and Community Studies at the University of East London. His teaching includes aspects of the governance of education, and comparative studies in education. His earlier career included training as an engineer, and nine years of teaching science in secondary schools. From that background, he brings an interest in the application of techniques of mathematical modelling to the study of education. This is exemplified in the area of the funding of higher education, within which he has a number of publications. He has been an active member of the World Education Fellowship, and edited the New Era in Education from 1988 until 1993. This activity is part of a broader interest in the development of progressive education. He is also a member of the British Comparative and International Education Society, the Comparative and International Education Society, the Comparative Education Society in Europe and the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers. After graduating from Groningen University in 19800 Sylvia G. M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis was appointedd researcher/lecturer in Transcultural Education at the same university/MO-B. She was Director of the Office for International Relations at Tilburg University between 1988 and 1993, and held a similar position at the Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden from 1984 to 1987. From 1993 until 1996 she was Senior Researcher of Inter-

national Programmes at Tilburg University, where she empirically investigated processes of international faculty mobility. Since 1980 she has been management consultant for international firms such as Digital Equipment and Vendex International, some European universities and the Dutch Ministry of Welfare. She has co-authored two books and about thirty articles on cultural and international dimensions in industry and higher education. In 1996 her doctoral thesis on 'Academic pilgrims' was published by Tilburg University Press. She was a member of the Working Group Mid-Term Staff Mobility, a joint initiative of the EU Task Force, the CRE and the Liaison Committee, and coordinator of the Evaluation Committee of the Med Campus programmes (subject areas dental health, regional economics, computer sciences) in Brussels (1994-95). In 1996 she was appointed Director of UETP (University Enterprise Training Partnership) Zuid-Nederland. Keith Watson is Professor of Comparative and International Education at the University of Reading, where he is also Director of the Centre for International Studies in Education, Management and Training. After serving with the British Council in several countries he moved to Reading in the mid-1970s. He is author of Educational Development in Thailand and Education in the Third Worldd and has numerous other books and papers in his name. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Educational Development. Gareth Williams is an economist by background. He is now Professor of Educational Administration at the Institute of Education, London University. Earlier in his career he worked at Lancaster University, London School of Economics, Oxford University and the OECD. He has written widely of issues in the economics and finance of education and on higher education policy and management. In addition to his academic work and studies of British education policy he has wide experience of consultancy in many parts of the world for the OECD, World Bank, UNESCO, ILO and European Commission among others.

Tradition and Change in Higher Education: Have the Managers Triumphed over the Academics?

KEITH WATSON, CELIA MODGIL AND SOHAN MODGIL The present volume is one of a series of four which looks at the educational dilemmas that face governments, professional educators and practising administrators in the light of the debates, disagreements and diverse opinions regarding many current educational issues and reforms. As far as possible, examples and contributors provide an international perspective to the debates. The idea for the series began some years ago, but to bring it to fruition has taken some considerable time. In many countries of the world there have been, and still are, rapid and fundamental changes in society, the economy and education, both in terms of purpose as well as in terms of shape and delivery. Many of the problems faced by individual countries have resulted from global economic pressures and changes, often originating from the policies of multinational corporations and international agencies (lion, 1994; Kennedy, 1993; McGinn, 1994; Watson, 1995). Many of the educational solutions to perceived local problems are often remarkably similar either in terminology or in effect (see for example Turner, 1993; UNESCO, 1993; World Bank, 1994, 1995). As a result governments throughout the world are faced with a series of educational dilemmas resulting from these pressures and changes. A few of these can be illustrated as follows: how to exert greater government control while at the same time allowing for local autonomy at institutional level and allowing for the individual development of pupils within the school system; how to spread the burden of finance for an ever-expanding and changing system within increasing resource con-

straints (in the richer countries the emphasis is on diversification and training, in the poorer countries it is still on meeting the demand); how to maintain political unityy in the face of growing ethnic and cultural diversity; how to reform the curriculum and assessment procedures while at the same time raising academic standards; how to improve the management and efficiency of education through greater parental and community involvement in the decision-making process. During the past few years the British government has, as one example, introduced a number of apparently very radical proposals for educational reform restructuring examinations, changing the balance of control between the central government, local government and the community, industrial involvement in the running of schools, new ways of financing schools and universities, the autonomous management of institutions, etc. These culminated in the 1988 Education Reform Act. Many of the reforms have aroused strong opposition and heated debate. Yet how far these reforms are radical, and how far they are part of an ongoing internationall debate about resolving crucial education dilemmas has never been adequately addressed. It is interesting to note that the British government used comparative educational studies to justify loans at higher education level and the introduction of a common curriculum at school level, but it has chosen to ignore other lessons that could be learnt from comparative studies especially in the area of teacher training. The levy of an education tax on industry to pay for technical

xvi Keith Watson, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil education, as for example happens in France and Sweden; the accountability of locally elected school boards, as happens in the USA and Canada; community finance for all post-primary schooling, now being developed in many Commonwealth countries, are all other examples of where ideas could be borrowed and lessons learnt from comparative studies. Ironically the British government could have strengthened its arguments from such data. Equally surprising has been the reluctance to recognize the likely effects of a free European market on educational provision, especially in areas of the National Curriculum. Yet Britain is not alone in seeking to improve the quality of educational provision by reforming nearly every aspect of the education system from parental involvement on governing bodies to the reform of higher education, from an emphasis on technical and vocational studies to the restructuring of teacher education. It is frequently argued that these policies have come about as a result of the influence of the radical Right (for example Chitty, 1989; Flude and Hammer, 1990), but many of the current changes are not unique to this country. Japan is looking afresh at its teacher education, the role of parents in school and the place of testing and assessment. For some years France has been seeking to devolve greater power to headteachers in schools while at the same time it has been modifying its national curriculum. In the USA not only has there been a growth of 'magnet' schools and private schools, especially amongst religious groups, but there is growing concern that the push for multicultural education is likely to endanger the unity of the nation. While all the developed countries are concerned about how best to continue financing the ever-growing educational industry many less developed countries have already begun experimenting with novel approaches: community finance, fees, loans, 'bonding' and the like (see for example Bray and Lillis, 1988; Watson, 1991). The point is that educational systems throughout the world are either in crisis or in ferment and there is no common agreement about how best to deal with the issues confronting governments and professional educators. These are exciting times and there are many legitimate disagreements and viewpoints.

The aim of this series of books, therefore, has been to explore these disagreements and debates in educational circles, as well as the dilemmas facing many governments and policy-makers from a variety of perspectives, and, wherever possible, incorporating an international and comparative perspective. There are thus single authored overviews, joint chapters incorporating a general agreement on differing perspectives, joint chapters in the form of a dialogue between differing academic contenders, and position chapters leading to critical responses. The latter approach has been encouraged. The variety of presentations reflects the range of issues and approaches felt to be most appropriate by the authors. As far as possible the editors have sought to attract an international authorship providing international insights on the educational issues and dilemmas concerned. Interest in the series has been immense and the authorship, already large, could easily have been increased by another 50 per cent. Unfortunately it is a comment on our times that many interested academics simply felt that they did not have the time to contribute because of pressures of work and other commitments. The fact that so many have worked so hard to contribute is both a measure of their interest and enthusiasm and a result of some cajoling from the editors! But for all those who have contributed there is a united sense of gratitude that time has been set aside from already very busy schedules to become involved. The broad areas of these four volumes - teachers and teacher education, the reform of higher education, the control of education, and quality in education - were finally selected by the publishers as being the most pertinent issues facing many countries during the 1990s. It is to these that we now turn.

Legitimate areas of debate Central to the debate in many countries have been legitimate concerns about the purposes of education. Should education be confined to school and

Tradition and Change in Higher Education

college levels only, or should it involve adults learning throughout life? Should it be a training for specific employment opportunities, for survival in an increasingly harsh economic climate, or should it, as many of the great educational philosophers have argued over the years (UNESCO, 1994) and as most national statements of educational goals and purposes imply, be for the development of moral, social, intellectual, aesthetic and physical development of the individual, irrespective of his or her station in life? Closely linked with these concerns have been related debates about the content of education. These have ranged around whether or not there should be a common, or core, curriculum, the centre of much educational argument in Australia, England and Wales, and the United States, or whether there should be a nationally prescribed curriculum but with local flexibility. In any case, who should have the ultimate say over the content of individual subjects on the curriculum - subject specialists, curriculum planners, teachers, business people/industrialists, politicians or parents, or some combination of any or all of these — has also proved to be controversial. As several chapters, in Volume 4 particularly, imply, there is considerable disagreement about individual areas of the curriculum. While these debates have ranged from the heated and esoteric to the political and philosophical, by far the majority of the world's nations have neither the inclination nor the financial wherewithal to implement fundamental curriculum changes. Their concerns have focused on issues of quality: quality of provision, quality of teaching, quality in terms of efficient use of scarce resources, the quality of the graduates from the different levels of the system. As several authors in Volume 4 highlight, this interest has spawned a whole new literature appertaining to quality in education, most of the original material emanating from an industrial or business environment. Perhaps this is not surprising since many governments have recognized both the financial costs of a national education system and the need to ensure that costs are kept under control, but also there is a belief that part of the quality issue is the efficient, and effective, use of increasingly limited

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resources. In a number of countries this has led to moves to decentralize educational administration, ostensibly on the grounds of increasing parental and community involvement in local decisionmaking as well as participation in the running and administration of schools, but in reality it has been a back-door way of encouraging, some would say of forcing, local communities to make a greater financial contribution to the education of their children. This is nowhere truer than in higher education. At the school level, however, it has been assumed that greater financial and administrative responsibility at local, and especially at institutional, level would lead to greater managerial efficiency, improved effectiveness of the process of schooling, and ultimately to the improved quality of the whole educational process (Lockheed and Verspoor, 1990). This has certainly been key to the thinking of several Canadian provincial governments as well as the governments of the UK, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and New Zealand. Some of these issues, and the fallacies behind them, are addressed in Volume 3. For many politicians and educational theorists, however, quality improvement is not measured in terms of administrative reform or institutional management autonomy but in terms of outcomes. As a result assessments, examinations and the place of testing in schools is put under the microscope as a number of chapters in Volume 4 highlight. But it is very clear that, in this area alone, there is considerable scope for professional disagreement and debate. Curriculum control, raising academic standards through administrative and financial reforms and the extension of standardized tests, introducing criteria for a quality audit of both individuals and institutions - these are only a few of the educational concerns confronting most governments. For the majority the bottom line is the amount of the national budget that is, or can be made available for education, where savings can be made and where additional revenue can be raised. One major area is to allow the development of private institutions or even to encourage fee paying in the state sector as encouraged by several World Bank staff (see for example Psacharopoulos, 1990).

xviii Keith Watson, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil Probably in no other educational area have the issues of privatization and fee paying been so acutely felt, and so hotly debated, as in higher education (see World Bank, 1994; Buchert and King, 1995). In nearly every country of the world higher education has come under scrutiny during the past few years. New types of institution have been developed, and debates about the place and purpose of higher education, whether as a training ground for specific areas of employment or as a training ground for the intellect alone, have been endemic. This is partly because of the rapid expansion of universities and other tertiary-level institutions since the 1960s, partly because many graduates, who are no longer guaranteed employment in the public sector, have found it difficult to obtain meaningful employment for which they believe that their training and experience qualify them. As a result increasing numbers of students clamour for the next, higher level of education at master's or postgraduate standard. This diploma escalation, and its knock-on effects on employment, has been critiqued elsewhere (Dore, 1976; Oxenham, 1984) but the cost of higher education, compared with both primary and secondary levels, especially in less developed countries, and especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (Hinchcliffe, 1985; World Bank, 1988), has more gradually been seen as a block on quality improvement because of the withholding of resources for primary education. Attempts at reforming the financial and administrativee structures of higher education, government intervention in introducing new managerial techniques and quality audits, and the implications of these changes for both academics and administrators are addressed in Volume 2. At the root of every education system, irrespective of level or type of institution, is the teacher. As a body, teachers consume between 75 per cent and 95 per cent of the education budget. For each year of service they become more expensive. This principle applies in all societies, rich or poor, capitalist or socialist. The only problem is that in many poor countries neither the government nor the local communities can afford to pay them adequate salaries. In many parts of the world, therefore, there has been, and still is, a fundamental requestioning of the role of the teacher and the

place and content of teacher preparation. There are widespread disagreements about both these broad areas, some of which are addressed in Volume 1. In the Anglo-Saxon world the debate concerning the teacher's role and status has revolved around that of professionalism. How far is teaching seen as a 'profession' and how far, as a result of government intervention in the way schools are managed and financed, are teachers being deskilled and demotivated? By opening up schools, colleges and universities to market forces, and by treating them as business organizations, is there not a danger that commercial principles, as opposed to academic ones, become the predominant ethos? And if this happens what effect will it have, or should it have, on teacher preparation? Much of the debate about teacher preparation has revolved around location and content, both in the industrial world and in the developing countries. Should training be prior to teachers commencing their teaching in a school, or should it be in-service while teaching; should it be based firmly in higher or tertiary education, either through specialized teacher training institutions or through university departments of education, or should it predominantly take place in schools, as is being advocated in England and Wales? Should teacher preparation focus on pedagogical training or should there be a considerable input of general education and theory? There is considerable professional disagreement at both a philosophical and a political level over these quite legitimate questions as the debates in Volume 1 highlight; but as the chapters showing some of the developments in differing countries also indicate, the issues that confront those involved in teacher preparation in the United Kingdom are mirrored elsewhere: teacher preparation is in a state of intellectual ferment. So of course is the whole approach to the provision of education. For decades schooling was. regarded as a public service to be funded by the State, with varying degrees of uniformity and cooperation. In many countries this is no longer the case as chapters in Volume 1 and Volume 3 illustrate. Principles of managerialism, market competition, parental choice and consumer (or customer) rights have seen to that. Schools are being regarded as commercial propositions, business or-

Tradition and Change in Higher Education

ganizations competing against one another for customers and clients - pupils and parents. No wonder there is such a heated debate; many long-held beliefs and assumptions about education are being forcefully challenged, and many people feel decidedly uncomfortable as a result. The above paragraphs have only briefly touched upon a few of the debates and controversies that currently affect educational development in many countries of the world. We will now turn to the more specific issues raised in the current volume.

Tradition and change in higher education Part One contains articles directed towards the purpose and role of higher education. Ronald Barnett opens Part One, The purpose and role of higher education', by asking whether, in a mass higher education system, it is the case that anything goes so far as the definitions of 'university' are concerned. His chapter argues to the contrary despite alternative readings being suggested by the contemporary situation. Postmodernism, for example, denies that any one perspective and set of definitions can claim supremacy. But a university has, presumably, still to be an institution connected in some way with the advancement of critical reason, even if all kinds of interpretations of critical reason are now available to us. Secondly, Barnett continues, the university can be understood as a site of multiple discourses. But discourses, if they are to come into some kind of rational accommodation with each other, have to abide by some set of elemental rules of rational discourse. The university cannot be neutral in what it is to communicate in rational terms. Thirdly, the development of the university as a key institution in a learning society calls for certain kinds of personal and institutional qualities including those of engaged inquiry, formative evaluation and imaginative reconstruction. Accordingly, Barnett concludes, the university of the modern age is not a matter of anything goes. Gen-

xix

eral responsibilities do attach to the idea of the university, ideas which reflect the history of the university but which are reinterpreted for a new age. Ian McNay argues for universities as organisms adapting to changes in their environment. He resists exalting any one model and draws on historical manifestations and international examples to illustrate the diversity of form and meaning of 'university'. With respect to diversification and elitism in mass higher education, Chris Duke considers the core dilemma is how to move from an elite through a mass and towards a universal model of higher education without devaluing a good into cheap goods. Diversification may provide an attractive solution, as the expansion of the system triggers new anxieties about mass intake diminishing quality. Higher education exercises several significant social functions. Duke reflects that these include selection, grading, qualifying and accrediting students; socializing and affording a rite of passage into adult life; preparing for working life through knowledge and skill acquisition; preparing for lifelong learning in a context of continuous change; and keeping a rising proportion of young people out of an over-provided labour market. As adults have become a majority within higher education some of these functions, notably socialization, tend to be changed. Duke continues to reflect that in a crisis of confidence about higher education and quality, diversification offers a tempting route to retain selectivity and a measure of privilege. Some modes of attracting new resources into higher education are likely to reinforce this. Duke concludes that a more desirable form of diversification may, however, be within rather than between universities, or regional higher education systems, providing access, choice and diversity within regional 'community universities'.. Jennifer Jarman and Robert Blackburn in the comparative contexts of Britain and Canada explore the dilemmas faced by academic staff in the current climate of restructuring and cost-cutting. Focusing on three main identifiable developments, Jarman and Blackburn discuss the trend towards management styles, structures and ideas

xx Keith Watson, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil borrowed from the private sector and highlight the irony that hierarchical management styles are being adopted despite the fact that they have been challenged as inefficient in the private sector. They further explore the consequences of the greater number of university-corporate linkages that are shaping staff interests and research, and express the concern that short-term thinking will come to dominate research agendas at the expense of more productive, long-term research strategies. The consequences of the changes for the educational experiences and goals of students, who constitute one of the key constituencies of the university, forms the third consideration. With reference to notions of collegiality and scale in higher education, David Blake emphasizes that government policy and emerging forms of higher education in England and Wales have favoured large-scale organizations, in the main organized hierarchically and bureaucratically. There has been a move away from smaller institutions and a loss of the collegial traditions associated with them. He argues, with reference to comparative studies, that a collegial tradition remains a significant aspect in academic communities and that its best features should be preserved. In reforming higher education in the future, it would be mistaken if the voice and values of the collegium were ignored. Part One concludes with a paper by Joyce Barlow focusing on learning in higher education. Barlow explores the principle of skills development alongside knowledge acquisition, and the role of higher education as a preparation for lifelong learning. Part Two recognizes the changing management culture of higher education. Included in this Part is a paper by Roger Roman addressed to the culture of political correctness. Roman draws attention to the Gould report (1977) on practice in higher education. Roman notes that discussions have often centred upon allegations and justifications of political bias, typically, the debate being conducted between 'the Left' and 'the Right'. Roman stresses that his paper makes no contribution to that debate, least of all as an attempt to adjudicate it. Rather, he offers a microsociological analysis of the cultural milieu in which desirable

views are made to prevail. He argues that the existence or otherwise of bias cannot be demonstrated on the basis of proportions of content, such as texts, but on a perspicacious and critical view of pedagogical styles and dominant alliances. It is a matter not of booklists but of social climate and disposition. Roman considers this has implications for those who visit educational institutions with a view to monitoring bias, and it is recognized that they may be unlikely ever to see what they are looking for. Myra McCulloch's chapter seeks to examine, using the model of loose coupling developed by Weick (1976) and Orton and Weick (1990), the interaction between the university and its external environment. It uses the introduction of academic audit and assessment as an example of significant change introduced by external forces, and reflects upon the strategies and mechanisms which may be employed by the university in response. McCulloch examines assumptions about organizational structures and priorities which the methods of assessment and assurance of teaching quality imply and considers how accommodation of external requirements, maintenance of institutional stability and development of organizational ethos can be sustained. Clem Adelman continues the theme of the public accountability of universities. He notes how the diversity of institutional policy such as mission, equity and the integrity of scholarship and professional preparation has been forced towards conformity in the attempt to meet centrally decided criteria of'quality'. He contrasts the position in England with that in the USA in respect to institutional accreditation and student evaluations of their programmes. In continuation, the next step of the accountability process is considered by David Turner, who reviews a number of systems of higher education to explore the different ways in which funds are allocated to individual institutions. Special attention is paid to those systems which allocate funding according to the application of strict, normative rules, or formulae. Turner expands that the focus of this review of current practice is to highlight the variety of ways in which funding decisions can be made; systems vary as to what is

Tradition and Change in Higher Education xxi funded (inputs or outputs), how policy goals are incorporated or encouraged by funding procedures, and even the part which formula calculations play in the political process of allocating public resources. However, within this variety, a trend towards the use of output funding which is used to steer institutions towards centrally set targets can be identified. This trend is most obvious in Western Europe, but can also be seen elsewhere. Turner then goes on to identify possible responses on the part of institutions faced with such funding arrangements. The argument is developed that the eventual outcomes for the system of higher education are not the result of centrally adopted policies, nor the result of locally made decisions, but of the combination of decisions made centrally and locally. Higher education systems worldwide are being exposed much more directly to market forces in the form of both private finance and government formulae which attempt to simulate markets. Gareth Williams' paper explores the background to the changing emphasis and provides evidence from several countries showing the extent of 'marketization'. Using mainly UK experience to examine the effect of exposure to market forces on the organizational behaviour of universities and colleges, the paper concludes by pointing to the paradox that, although market forms of funding are intended to free universities from bureaucratic control and increase their autonomy, one of the consequences has been increased governmental concern with quality regulation of processes and outputs which may be more oppressive than former control of inputs. If higher education establishments are to thrive in a competitive environment, define quality in meaningful terms, encourage better standards of student learning, while adopting positive attitudes to innovation, Bryan Cowan promotes the view that staff need to be given the opportunity to develop appropriate creative learning skills. From such a basis, he argues, they can more confidently confront an unpredictable future. Cowan questions whether national and local commitment in some institutions to the development of higher

education staff has increased since the early initiatives of the 1960s. Barbara Bagilhole focuses on the fact that men make up the vast majority of academics in British universities and are particularly predominant in the higher grades. Bagilhole states that all the statistical evidence points to the fact that a reason for this situation is that discrimination exists in the academic profession against women. She reports on a study which was undertaken with the intention of contributing to the understanding of this phenomenon through the perceptions and experience of women academics themselves. She then explores the negative effects of male-dominated universities on higher education as a whole. In response to Barbara Bagilhole, Myra McCulloch suggests that the status quo to which Bagilhole is opposed is neither so monolithic nor so resistant to change as is suggested; the acceptance of the possibility of change is the first step. Awareness of the power of the individual and the group to create change is the next. McCulloch proposes a strategy for using the power of tradition to promote equality of opportunity through a consideration of the paradoxical roles of the bureaucracies in universities. The last decade and a half has been a traumatic time for trade unions, writes John Clay. Organized labour and teacher unions in the higher education sector have not been immune to these changes. The dramatic changes that have taken place have to be considered in the context of the profound shift in electoral politics towards the Right with the accompanying drift towards individualism. Clay identifies that the way former public-sector higher education institutions are governed has led to a culture of corporate managerialism with new hierarchies being established. Furthermore, the widening of access and the greatly increased student numbers accompanied by a decrease in unit resource for expenditure have placed strains and stresses on working conditions of staff. The current debate on 'quality', riddled with the rhetoric of the supermarket and often simplistically equated with value for money, needs to be countered.

xxii Keith Watson, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil

Clay continues that the changes in the structures and processes of higher education continue to be initiated and implemented from the centre to the periphery. He considers that this 'top-down' model devalues and denigrates the roles and functions of staff whose prime responsibility is to maintain and enhance the academic potential of the different communities to which they belong. Clay emphasizes that the challenges facing teacher unions in shaping the debate about the future of higher education are considerable. They have a pivotal role to play at both national and institutional levels in re-establishing a sense of community and organizing collective action. It is in this spirit that John Clay seeks to explore the future of trade unions in education; especially in what was formerly the public sector of higher education. Part Three widens the orientation and provides further insight by incorporating contributions which discuss higher education reform in a wide range of countries. Hugh Hudson and Alan Hoffman describe how economic competitiveness was the most significant factor in the state-sponsored educational reform efforts in both the US and the former USSR during the 1980s and early 1990s. But although government officials in the two countries had convinced themselves that the route to educational reform lay in the subordination of education to the needs of industry, their 'reforms' remained highly problematic and their efforts largely ineffectual in changing educational practice. Hudson and Hoffman comment that in addition to failing to involve members of the education establishments in the initial formulation of policies - and in fact using educators as whipping boys - officials in both countries lacked the experiential basis for understanding the endemic problems in their respective systems. In the US this resulted in a 'reform consensus' package of goals that lacked philosophical coherence and was largely unachievable within the time frame established. Hudson and Hoffman continue to recount that Russian officials meanwhile advocated education as a vehicle for integration of a market oriented economy, an approach best described as 'palpable nonsense and very dangerous' in a responsible democratic soci-

ety; furthermore, they again promoted policy largely in a 'top-down' direction, raising once more the question of how 'responsible' and 'democratic' the new regime truly was. Given these scenarios in Russia and the US, Hudson and Hoffman suspect that the current reform efforts in both countries will soon need to be replaced by some 'Goals 2025' or even 'Goals 2050'. In the context of Central and Eastern Europe, Sylvia van de Bunt-Kokhuis describes how the recent political and economic changes have had a considerable impact on higher education systems. In a timespan of less than a decade, fundamental changes in such areas as access, curricula, and certification are being undertaken or are to be expected. Many institutions have to overcome a 40-year-old tradition of bureaucracy, centralization and inefficiency. Sylvia van de Bunt-Kokhuis emphasizes that academics in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the West, play a catalyst role in the enforcement of the reform movements through international knowledge-exchange. Molly Lee provides a Malaysian case study which analyses the issues relating to autonomy and accountability; equity and quality; general and specialized education; and the balance between research and teaching in institutions of higher learning. K. E. Shaw notes the rapid increase in the number of higher education institutions in the Middle East in recent decades. There is a measure of agreement that reform and change is needed. Shaw promotes the view that groups in society struggle to control not just economic but also cultural power, not merely real but also symbolic goods. Contestations between governments and the intelligentsia in higher education reveal some aspects of the struggle; but Shaw reflects that in the Middle East they are muted because of the marginalization of the intelligentsia and their incorporation through government employment. Shaw considers developing higher education systems in relation to the tasks of nation building and research, in addition to the prevailing function of certificating instrumental technicians and ideologues. In the last one-and-a-half decades, Kenya has experienced unprecedented expansion in univer-

Tradition and Change in Higher Education xxiii sity education. It now has five full-fledged universities with a student enrolment of about 40,500. Daniel Sifuna notes that the rapid expansion from one to five universities has precipitated a major crisis in the areas of autonomy and academic freedom, as well as budgetary issues which have resulted in a serious decline in the quality of education. Sifuna's paper highlights the fact that according to university acts which established all the public universities, they are expected to enjoy autonomy and academic freedom. In practice this does not take place. The President of the country, who is also the Chancellor of all public universities, appoints and dismisses Vice-Chancellors and senior administrative personnel. The government also nominates most members of university councils, the highest governing bodies of the universities. Under this system, Sifuna identifies that government views have become particularly dominant in council deliberations and have seriously undermined universities' autonomy and academic freedom. Beyond universities' governance, the government has also infiltrated university affairs by secretly running an intelligence network among students and academic staff. Sifuna also observes that the Structural Adjustment Programmes, coupled with unplanned expansion, have created a major financial crisis in the operation of public universities. There is no systematic way of allocating government grants to the different universities. The consequence of these problems, Sifuna contends, is a sharp decline in the quality of education provided by the public universities. Okwach Abagi's paper is 'paired' with, and is a reaction to, Sifuna's article. Abagi states that it can be confidently concluded from recent studies and writings that many public universities in Africa are living in a period characterized by political, economic and educational crises. Abagi outlines that the issues as the year 2000 is approached hinge on three questions: (1) How can universities develop themselves so as to move away from government control? (2) What sorts of goals should be set by African governments on higher education? Does the government of Kenya, for example, know what kind of university is relevant for our national development? and (3) What kind of public uni-

versity is affordable? Abagi concludes that institutions of higher learning should be left to develop a culture of their own; left to become self-reliant, innovative, confident and flexible. Cheng Kai-ming describes how China's higher education operated under a rigid bureaucracy, with a highly centralized administration and as a means of strict manpower planning. The system began to collapse when financial and personnel autonomy were introduced to the work units and when private individuals were allowed to operate business and industry. Cheng recounts that the first attempts at reform started in the early 1980s when some higher education institutions started accountability systems among their members, such that performance merits replaced political loyalty as the measure for excellence. Higher education institutions were allowed to generate their own income. However, Cheng comments, alternative sources of income have weakened the control by the central authority, but have made higher education highly reliant on the local economy, and therefore led to tremendous disparity among institutions and among regions. An even more fundamental overhaul started in the early 1990s when fee-charging was introduced and graduate job-allocation abolished. Cheng concludes that all these changes may prove emancipating for the young intellectuals, although unprecedented financial barriers may emerge for students from poor families. Alison Girdwood's chapter looks at how universities were established in Africa and some of the Commissions and Inquiries that have looked into their role and the conditions prevailing in the 1990s, especially in the light of recent World Bank recommendations, and highlights some of the tensions and dilemmas affecting university administrators and politicians. It ends with the hope that African universities will be able to sever their links with the UK and French host institutions and become truly autonomous. Moving from the general to the specific, Keith Bmmfitt informs us that in 1992, the TEMPUS Office of the European Union awarded a consortium of Dutch, British and Polish Institutes of Higher Education and Universities funding for a Joint European Project (JEP). This project lasted

xxiv Keith Watson, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil for three years and involved the development of two institutions of higher education within one city in Poland. Brumfitt considers the nature and style of university education and outlines the dilemmas facing one particular university. He explains the nature of the project undertaken, outlining problems and insurmountable difficulties. He refers to models of vocational education from the UK and the extent to which they have applicability within a Central European economy in the midst of dramatic change. He also considers how some of the dilemmas in implementing change in university education arose and how these can be approached to ensure a greater degree of success.

Referencess Bray, M. and Lillis, K. (eds) (1988) Community Financing of Education: Issues and Policy Implications in Less Developed Countries. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Buchert, L. and King, K. (eds) (1995) Learning from Experience: Policy and Practice in and to Higher Education. Paperback no. 24. The Hague: CESO. Chitty, C. (1989) Towards a NewEducation System: The Victory of the New Right? London: Palmer Press. Dore, R. (1976) The Diploma Disease. London: Allen and Unwin. Flude, M. and Hammer, M. (eds) (1990) The Education Reform Act 1988: Its Origins and Implications. London: Palmer Press. Gould, J. (1977) The Attack on Higher Education: Marxist and Radical Penetration. London: Institute for the Study of Conflict Hinchcliffe, K. (1985) Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The World Bank. lion, L. (1994) Structural adjustment and education: adapting to a growing global market. International

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Journal of Educational Development,, 14 (2), 95-108. Kennedy, R. (1993) Preparing for the Twenty First Century. New York: HarperCollins. Lockheed, M. and Verspoor, A. (1990) Improving the Quality of Primary Education in Developing Countries. Washington, DC: The World Bank. McGinn, N. (1994) The impact of supranational organisations on public education.. International Journal off Educational Development,, 14 (3), 289-98. Orton, J. D. and Weick, K. E. (1990) Loosely coupled systems: a reconceptualisation. Academy of Management Review, 15 (2), 203-23. Oxenham, J. (1984) Education v. Qualifications. London: Allen and Unwin. Psacharopoulos, G. (1990) Priorities in the financing of education.. International Journal of Educational Development,, 10 (2), 157-62. Turner, J. (ed.) (1993)TThe Reform of Education to Meet Local and National Needs. University of Manchester, pp. 347-68. UNESCO (1993) World Education Report 1993. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (1994) Thinkers on Education, 4 vols ed. Zaghoul Morsy. Prospects, XXIV, 85/86, 87/88, 89/90, 91/92. Watson, K. (1991) Alternative funding of education systems: some lessons from Third World experiments. Oxfordd Studies in Comparative Education, 1, 13-146. Watson, K. (1995) Educational provision for the 21st century: who or what is shaping the agenda and influencing developments? Southern African Review of Education, 1 (1), 1-16. Weick, K. E. (1976) Education organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 1-19. World Bank (1988) Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: The World Bank. World Bank (1994) Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience. Washington, DC: The World Bank. World Bank (1995) Priorities and Strategies for Education: Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Part One The Purpose and Role of Higher Education

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1

Reinstating the Idea of Higher Education

RONALD BARNETT Introduction The question in front of us is quite simple: in higher education, is it the case that anything goes? I shall argue that it does not. We have entered an age of mass higher education. Perhaps unwittingly in many quarters, perhaps without any degree of clarity over its educational implications, and doubtless with unevenness across the system; but the statistics are clear. On Trow's (1994) well-accepted definitions, where a mere 15 per cent age participation rate (APR) qualifies as a mass system (and a 40 per cent rate qualifies as universal), the UK system - with its student population of well over one million and its 30 per cent APR1 - is rapidly advancing beyond a mass system. It is not just a matter of numbers of students. The UK now has 152 higher education institutions,2 most of which have seen sizeable expansion over recent years. With expansion has come a general acceptance of diversity in the system. As the higher education quasi-market is fostered, institutions are encouraged to identify and proclaim their distinctive missions. So the mass higher education system spawns different meanings of 'higher education'. In the process, the idea of 'higher education' undergoes paradoxical shifts of both transparency and opaqueness. The notion of higher education is opened up for interpretation and so made transparent: institutions examine their understandings of 'higher education' and what was taken for granted - the idea of higher education itself - is made transparent.

But the very process of deliberate interpretation is heralding a new stage of opaqueness. Precisely because each institution is invited to declare where it stands, to make explicit its values and purposes, the idea of higher education as such vanishes. Anything goes. There are no boundaries to what is to count as higher education. Providing it can form a coherent account of itself, of its activities and aspirations and - what is perhaps even more important - can be seen to prosper, an institution of higher education has carte blanche to determine its sense of higher education. To put things this way is, of course, a caricature; or so it may be urged. For things are not like this. Neither does any institution determine for itself entirely anew what kind of institution it is to be as we approach the new millennium. Nor, on the other hand, do institutions feel strait]acketed into falling in with a determinate core to what it is to be an institution of higher education. Philosophically and sociologically, things are more messy. Philosophically, we are more in the realm of Wittgenstein's portrayal of 'games' (Wittgenstein, 1953). We can recognize a game when we see it but that does not mean that there has to be any single attribute that all games share. Conceptually, each overlaps with some others; but at no point do they all overlap with each other. Sociologically, institutions inherit traditions, and are subject to a wide range of external influences. Again, these traditions and influences have greater or lesser similarities across the system. Their intellectual projects vary, their clienteles vary, and the curricular offerings set before those clienteles vary. So there should be no reason to expect that institutions

4 Ronald Barnett taking themselves to be in the general enterprise of 'higher education' should have anything in common. In what follows, I want to repudiate this line of thinking. In doing so, I want to muddy the waters by drawing into our discussion three concepts which have different kinds of contemporary force: postmodernism; the learning society; and discourse.

The university: harbinger or symptom of postmodernism? The postmodern age is not so much one in which anything goes as one in which nothing in particular goes. That is to say, there are supposed to be no large ideas, values or projects which can reasonably be expected to have a prior claim on our attention as human beings. In Lyotard's now quickly famous adage, the postmodern is characterized by an 'incredulity towards metanarratives' (Lyotard, 1984). No longer a striving for equality, or emancipation or reason or truth, can or should unify our efforts as human beings. No longer are we made human through allying ourselves to such grand and universal themes. If this is so, then higher education is in a bad way. For each of the four themes just mentioned could serve as a leitmotif of the university in the modern age. Indeed, the university can be construed precisely as the embodiment of modernity, as the institution par excellence in place to sustain these grand themes of modernity. If we are now to put these themes aside, if we really have entered the postmodern age, the function of the university seems to be in jeopardy. Derrida, as one of the central postmodernists, has recognized the dilemma, but short of vague talk of identifying 'a new responsibility' for the university, has failed to supply any kind of adequate replacement (Derrida, 1992). Of course, the postmodernists are as much rhetoreticianss as they are analysts. They proclaim the kind of society that they seek as well as offering an

insight into its emerging patterns. They are philosophers, offering new conceptual imaginings as well as being sociologists, unravelling the existent as it changes before us. And in its sociological sense, the idea of the postmodern may have more worth in understanding the modern university. After all, as we noted, across the Western world at least, we are in an age of mass higher education. And mass higher education is characterized by difference. It underlines difference; it encourages difference; it sponsors difference. As we noted, too, some are getting nervous about the way in which difference is suddenly proliferating. Are there no limits to the contemporary forms of higher education? Are institutions calling themselves universities in the year 2000 going to be recognizable as universities against, say, the sense we possessed in the 1960s? In addition, the changes are accompanied by difference within the system at any one point in time. In the year 2000, is there any reason to expect that the University of Cambridge (say) will have any significant point of similarity with the other university in the same town? The question, to repeat, is asked sociologically and not philosophically. It is asking what is likely to be the case and not what ought to be the case. It springs from a recognition that, as a matter of fact, difference is coming to characterize our institutions of higher education. There should be no shirking the matter. It is an inevitable concomitant of a mass higher education, especially one accompanied by emerging markets, albeit controlled by government agencies. Mass markets generate different patterns of consumption and provision. To pretend otherwise or to attempt to halt the drift towards difference is to play Canute. Nor is this move to be regretted even from an educational point of view. It is perhaps pretentious to suggest that the university was a postmodern institution before its time, but the idea has plausibility. Indeed, it could be pushed further. The university, through its tendency to proliferate forms of understanding, is a dominant force for the appearance of postmodernism. In the postmodern world, there are no supreme forms of knowledge. Instead, cognitive charity is its hallmark. Let all

Reinstating the Idea of Higher Education

forms of knowledge and understanding feel that they have a place in society. Postmodernism is supremely tolerant, cognitively speaking. All this seems to be characteristic of the university, and has been so in the Western world for some time. Now, in the UK, we have courses of study covering literally hundreds of subjects, from underwater studies to consumer protection, from baking technology to band musicianship (CRAG, 1994). More deep-seatedly, the university has become a giant warehouse holding contrasting cognitive worlds, with quite different sets of values, traditions, relationships to society, to action and to personal development. Anything goes in the university, so it would seem; and not as a reflection of postmodernism but as its harbinger. The university is a necessary condition for the emergence of postmodernism. The theory of postmodernism was a university-based creation (specifically from the French universities); but the societal configuration now being termed postmodern is at least surely aided by the prior presence of a peculiarly postmodern social institution, the university, whose mission is to sponsor new lines of inquiry and of coming to know the world. The symmetry is beguiling. The cognitive tolerance characteristic of the emerging postmodern society does seem already to be present in the university. It seems as if the modern university is prepared to embrace just about any form of inquiry. There may be some minor pragmatic considerations about whether the line of inquiry will attract students, or research grants, or suitably qualified staff, but in principle it appears that the message is: 'have idea, will travel'; and literally so, as the global market in higher education develops apace and individuals (both staff and students) are head-hunted across the world. Two caveats can be entered here against this apparent symmetry. Firstly, there are doubts that we have reached or even will reach a state of thorough-going postmodernism (Giddens, 1990). In many ways, the world is still struggling to acquire the features of modernity. We see this in higher education, in which state agencies are developing systematized ways of monitoring and evaluating the performance of higher education

5

institutions, are persuading institutions to orient their programmes of study towards the world of work (notably under the label of 'enterprise') and are encouraging institutions to become organizations, seeing their staff as human resources to be managed. All these are features of modernity, for they are all examples of a Weberian instrumental rationality of means being taken systematically to pursue society-wide ends. The incorporation of the universities into the apparatuses of the state and their newly acquired organizational characteristics signify that the university is (at least, some would say) entering the modern era. The second caveat against the apparent symmetry between the university and postmodernism is that unifying ideas of what it is to be a university remain stubbornly present. Institutions understanding themselves as universities or as part of universities may not necessarily teach undergraduates (witness All Souls College in Oxford) or even give a high profile to research in their mission (witness the University of Central England at Birmingham): to that extent, there is a diminishing number of attributes which are to be found in every university. Yes, presumably there is in all such institutions a definite allegiance to a belief in the life of reason, of debate, of personal development through inquiry, of reflection, of an understanding rooted in a first-hand experience of the relevant literature, of a sense of the provisionally of what passes for truth and so forth. We cannot be in the presence of a university unless we are also in the presence of a determined identification with the life of critical reason. I shall come back to these points. I lodge them here only as caveats against the claim that so far as the university is concerned, in a postmodern age, anything goes. Neither is postmodernism yet with us as a defining characterization of society, nor is the university, with its thousand years of history, ready to cave in to such a limited view of itself. If taken seriously as a characterization of the university, postmodernism would rob the university of its historic function as a institution systematically in the business of sustaining and developing organized critical reason.

6 Ronald Barnett

The university and discourse 'Discourse' has recently become a powerful concept in social theory and social science, and not all of its interpretations are relevant here. Certain of its dimensions, however, helpfully illuminate the issue at hand. 'Discourse' embraces not just language as such: it has become a much more embracing concept, referring to forms of life, to embedded interests, to power structures and to ideologies. Discourse arises out of, and partially constitutes, social institutions. In these senses, a modern university embodies not one discourse but several. The multiuniversity finds a place, if not exactly a home, for many discourses. The disciplines, with their separate languages, interactions with the world they are seeking to understand, and forms of life by which their adherents communicate with each other, are immediately obvious examples. But discourse is to be found in much more subtle ways in universities. It is to be found, for example, in the agendas and activities of the different interest groups within the academy. Those who espouse the new managerialism, whether in harder or softer form (Trow, 1994), the professoriat intent on retaining its traditional sphere of freedom, the staff developers intent on seeing a more professional approach to teaching, and the members of a field of professional education advocating a thoroughgoing competency approach to curriculum design can all be understood through the comprehensive concept of discourse. Such actors are partially constituted by the discourse they assume, and the discourse embodies interests, an ideology, and an incipient hegemonic orientation. The discourses, of course, are also competitive one with another; they may even seek to displace the other discourses. The university has become a site of competing discourses. But competing discourses in the university are to be found at more subtle and more embedded levels still. They reside in the ideologies typifying the modern university as a key institution in an era of late modernity. These ideologies go under such

large themes as: research, access, accountability, employability, efficiency and sheer survival. Such themes are only rarely, if ever, made explicit and become the focus of a debate. The encouragement to produce and promulgate a 'mission statement' just may serve to make transparent such grand themes, but normally only in a desultory way. For again, these embedded themes are reflective of deep-seated discourses serving quite different political and social and, indeed, philosophical agendas; 'philosophical' because they embody (old and new) rival conceptions of human being. The modern university, then, is saturated by alternative discourses. If not exactly fragmenting under the burden as the discourses collide with each other, slide by each other, and simply attempt to go their own way, the university appears to be a centre which will not hold in any serious sense. We seem to be back where we were earlier. The modern university has no unifying centre. Its actors speak no common language, stand for no common form of life, extract no common sense of identity from being its members and feel themselves to be under no common responsibility to its future maintenance. To think this, however, is to mistake the analysis just offered. One apparent way forward is to urge that all institutions calling themselves universities stand for, maintain and - especially through their teaching functions - positively advance the life of reason. If there is a unifying thread to the university in the modern age, it is that of the life of reason. Perhaps; but to leave it like that is to duck the main issue. What is to count as the life of reason? Can the expression be filled out in such a way as to command universal agreement across a mass higher education system? Is there, at any serious level, anything amounting to a universal discourse of reason? Unless an account along these lines can be worked out, we seem to be in the realm only of multiple discourses, rather than of any kind of unifying discourse of reason. My view is that the work of Jurgen Habermas supplies an answer (Habermas, 1984). For him, a fully rational discourse is one in which participants in a discourse, in the act of communicating with each other, are implicitly raising validity claims. Habermas considers that validity claims

Reinstating the Idea of Higher Education 7 fall essentially into three kinds, those claiming a purchase on the external world, those claiming an appropriateness to the context in which the utterance is made, and those claiming sincerity on the part of the speaker. At other times, Habermas has also suggested the presence of an implicit coherence validity claim. In short, given any speaker claiming to be participating in a rational discourse, he or she is making claims of validity, appropriateness, sincerity and coherence. Habermas equivocates over whether the same utterance yields all four validity claims at the same time; generally, I think he does not hold that view. However, I want to hold that any speaker claiming to be participating in a rational discourse is at the same time, at least implicitly, opening herself to questioning in all of the four domains of communication. Texts attempting to pass under the heading of rational can be scrutinized at any one time by means of the following four tests: (1) Is the world really as you say? (testing the validity claim); (2) Is the form of the utterance fully appropriate to the context? Is it likely to be understandable by participants in the field? (testing the appropriateness claim); (3) Does the speaker mean what she says? Does she believe it to be true herself? (testing the sincerity claim); (4) Does the whole thesis we are being offered hang together? Are the central propositions consistent with each other? (testing the coherence claim). My claim here, then, is that there is such a thing as a rational discourse, independent of particular discourses which conform to such a general format. Insofar as universities claim to be in the business of upholding rationality, it must be in respect of their providing secure fora where human systematized communication of this form can take place. I make two qualifications to this statement. The first qualification is that, prima facie, this thesis lays itself open to the charge: that is your view of rationality. But what counts as rational is itself problematic and does not yield universal criteria.

This charge takes a strong form and a weak form. The strong form comes out of the philosophy of the social sciences through the work of Winch (1958). Drawing on anthropological perspectives, Winch would deny that there are context-free criteria of rationality, since what counts as rational is precisely given in and through a form of life. Interestingly, Habermas recognizes the Winchian argument but, to my mind, does not adequately deal with it. In one sense, Winch's argument is an Exocet through the Habermassian schema: societies, including primitive societies, can and doubtless do develop their own sense of what makes sense. But making sense is not the same as being rational. Being rational in a Western university imposes certain binding commitments to a willingness to be interrogated according to the four criteria outlined earlier. The weak charge against the Habermassian perspective is that of the postmodernists, that to lay down such a set of criteria is tantamount to a form of totalitarianism and is especially otiose in an institution intending to be open to potential new claimants to the realm of argumentation. This is a weaker charge because it mistakes the character of the thesis. The thesis is that the four validity claims are not an arbitrary or even a stipulative definition as to what is to count as rationality but are a reading off of the constituents of what has evolved as rational discourse in our culture. To say that the four validity claims are inherent in the life of reason is not to lay down the law ex cathedra but is to remind the academic community of the code of behaviour it has signed up to. An observation on all this is that the four validity claims, which also serve as criteria by which putative claimants to the rational life can be tested, are by no means exhaustive of ways in which we might evaluate knowledge claims. Proffered accounts can be assessed for their economy, rigour, accessibility, precision, simplicity, elegance, wit, profundity, originality, sweep, discrimination, reflexiveness and so on. The four validity claims do not supply a comprehensive framework by which the rationality of a discourse may be judged. It follows that there is no simple sliding scale of rationality. In principle, what we might

8 Ronald Barnett look for is some kind of histogram of rationality, in which different discourses and offerings within them were assessed against the possible measures. But that is beside the point here. For all that is being insisted on is that, minimally, a rational discourse of the kind that might claim a home in our universities has to be one which embeds the four validity claims. Again, this is not a matter of imposition or fiat; it is a matter of calling attention to what a rational discourse is in a Western university.

Universities in the learning society I have been arguing against the view that anything goes in working out our definitions of what it is to be a university in the modern age. Positively, I have been suggesting that there is a universal core to what we take a university to be, even across the varied forms of institution to be found in a mass higher education system. In the first part, reflecting on the idea of postmodernism, the argument took an essentially sociological form: as a matter of fact, there remains a common foundation to higher education which can be summarized as an allegiance to the life of reason. The second part took that point further, in taking a philosophical turn through reflecting on the notion of discourse: despite the many discourses to be found in the modern university, what counts as a rational discourse is, ultimately, not arbitrary but a matter of submission to universal validity claims. I now want to bring my reflections to a close by striking a deliberately normative pose. I want to pick up the earlier allusion to Derrida and develop some remarks about the responsibility of the university in late modernity. And I shall do so by placing my reflections in the context of the emerging debate about the learning society. Of course, reflections on the place of the university in the learning society both could take a purely analytical character and could endorse the view - which I have been combating - that any-

thing goes. The line of argument could be that, by definition, the learning society would characteristically sponsor any and every kind of learning. Indeed, with its having an interest in learning as such, new kinds of learning would open up in the learning society. Universities, as a set of key institutions in a learning society, would be agents for promoting experimentation in learning, both in our conceptions as to what is to count as learning as well as delivery systems for learning. Accordingly, any kind of universal definition of learning to be accepted by all universities would be anathema to the learning society. In universities within the learning society, anything goes as a matter of definition! This argument has substance to it; but it is misdirected, for it could frustrate efforts to be fully effective in bringing about the learning society. In what follows, I want to argue this point not by confronting the argument just made directly but instead by sidestepping it with a normative tack. Amongst its many interpretations, a learning society is one which takes learning about itself seriously. All societies learn. That is to say, they develop their technological and communicative capacities so that they are able to react to situations with a wider repertoire of possible responses. The learning society takes learning a step further, however, onto a metalevel of learning. The learning society is interested in its learning as such. It invests in developing its technological and communicative capacities. It looks to develop greater rationality in its collective decisionmaking. It reflects upon itself, learning about its decision-making and communicative capacities. A shorthand for all this is that education becomes big business, not as a system for the compulsory education of young people but as a means of developing society's reflective capacities in its people, especially - through continuing professional development - among those who remain in the labour market. The question arises, therefore, how are we to understand the university against this sense of the learning society? The answer must surely lie in

Reinstating the Idea of Higher Education 9 extrapolating the responsibilities opening up for the university which such a society presages. The learning society is obviously a society characterized by change, but it is not just change per se. The idea of learning implies a society that is in control of itself. Change is controlled change. The control is of two kinds, before the event and during the event. First, society puts in hand inquiries to learn about the situations facing it to which it wishes to respond. In this way, decision-making is informed, based on a collective learning directed to the task in hand. Secondly, the subsequent policies or actions are made subject to evaluation. The society learns about the implementation of its policies. Seen in this way, universities have major responsibilities in bringing about the learning society. The responsibilities are at two levels and in two directions. Universities have the tasks and the responsibilities of providing information, ideas, schemas for action, theories, and imaginative scenarios which can assist the learning society in developing more informed decision-making. They can also assist in evaluating the policies, the technologies and the social institutions which are put in place. This is a direct involvement in the formation of the learning society arising through the university's functions of research and development. In addition, the university can assist the ushering in of the learning society indirectly through its teaching function. To point simply to its task in bringing about learning in this context is naive. More to the point is to extrapolate the kind of learning required to promote the learning society. Three kinds of capability are called for: (1) reflective and critical capabilities, including being self-reflective and self-critical; (2) communicative abilities, with students being enabled to acquire a repertoire of communicative modalities, to communicate with different audiences with different media in different social settings; (3) formative, imaginative and constructive capacities, developing the capacity for frameworks of action. As an aside, it should be noted that these capacities are not to be confused with either the transferable skills of the Enterprise Initiative or the com-

petences of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications. The pragmatic and operational components of these forms of learning are not to be seen - as in those frameworks - as a form of technicism and strategic action but rather as forms of social interaction and understanding. The hermeneutic, reflective and critical components call up quite different forms of human interaction from those residing in the current frameworks of the state bureaucracies. The university, then, in and for the learning society, is one which purposefully takes it as an axiom that it is in business to help enhance the learning qualities of the learning society. The old dichotomy of knowledge for its own sake versus knowledge for the world of work is understood here to be quite an inadequate way of capturing the relationship between university and society. What we have here is a new idea of the university, but which yet retains the central traditional principles of its being. The university both retains the task of searching for new knowledge and understanding in all its forms and retains its autonomy to fulfil that role. But the university pursues these tasks in the wider pursuit of providing knowledge services to society and of offering a critical but constructive commentary on society. In this latter role, it also retains and, perhaps for the first time, institutionalizes its long-advanced critical function. So the university in the learning society has large responsibilities, of inquiry, of communication, of education (much more broadly conceived than hitherto), of systematic reflection and of constructive proposal. The role, accordingly, can be read as one of bringing about a more rational society.

Conclusions I have been arguing that, even in an age of mass higher education, of institutions pursuing their own mission, of pursuing all kinds of incomegenerating ventures, there is an idea of higher

10 Ronald Barnett education that can reasonably be held to apply to all institutions calling themselves 'university'. It is not the case that anything goes; there are boundary conditions to the interpretation of 'university'. The argument has had three prongs, conceptual, empirical and ethical. That is to say, there are limits to the interpretations we can give to the concept of the university; there remains a stubborn core to the form of life we take to be characteristic of the university; and, lastly, now opening up in the learning society is a set of responsibilities that should demand the attention of the university in the modern age. It will have been evident that there is a common thread to these reflections, across the three sets of logics at work. That common thread is that of the life of reason, specifically of critical reason; and what it means to take the life of reason seriously. It contains both ethical and pragmatic logics, which cannot be sidestepped by an institution calling itself a university (unless it is content to forfeit its right to the title). It should be clear that nothing here is intended to deny the legitimate right of universities to conduct themselves in quite different ways. On the contrary, the learning society will value a 'difference' of that kind. In the learning society, all kinds of discourse will find a home, having many different kinds of purpose. Theoretical, pragmatic, technological, hermeneutic, operational, therapeutic, professional, administrative, aesthetic, problemsolving, and policy-forming: all these discourses and more will find a home across higher education. And such range of discourses reflect quite different, even antagonistic, ideologies. Some universities will wish to promote strategic rationality; others a communicative rationality: others, a more purely critical rationality. As a result, the relationships to society of different universities - and different groups within them - will differ profoundly. Yet, notwithstanding these differences of discourse - reflected also in the surface functions of the institution such as the balance between research, development, community service and teaching - there remain deep-seated and funda-

mental claims on the university qua university arising from its ineradicable connection with reason. Once an institution is identified through its connection with the life of reason, profound consequencesflow.One cannot - in any seriousness have a little bit of reason. One cannot choose coherently to be rational on Mondays and Wednesdays. The life of reason is binding. It imposes severe demands. Taken seriously, it extracts a heavy price. By way of summary of the position taken here, those demands on the university are: (1) That the life of reason be fully engaged. This injunction bites not only on the university's overt functions in teaching, research, development, consultancy and scholarship but also in its inner operations. Universities have to show that they are rational organizations internally. (2) The life of reason is essentially a form of life in which claims and operations open themselves up to inquiry and evaluation. Claims and operations can - in a postmodern world and in an era of mass higher education - be tested against a number of criteria or validity tests. The essential point remains, however, that any utterance or text is understood to invite the rejoinder: 'But is that really so?' (3) The life of reason is inescapably reflective. As such, it has much to offer the learning society in its formation. Universities have the potential not only to hold up to rational scrutiny public policies - as they bear on the natural, social and aesthetic environments - but also to assist in the framing of ever more rational possibilities for societal action. I believe that, despite their different and even competing missions in a market-led environment of mass higher education, and of competition for new sources of income, these three axioms are well understood by any institution wishing to call itself a university. These axioms form a grid of demands to which the modern university must yield, albeit interpreting them in its own way:

Reinstating the Idea of Higher Education

Reason Reflection and evaluation

Imaginative construction

(1) Inquiry (2) Teaching (3) Internal operations

All universities should and will be able to locate themselves, to some extent, in all of the box spaces. All universities can, accordingly, understand each other as universities. As we enter the new millennium, the university carries its heritage of the past millennium, reinterpreted and reinstated for a new age.

Notes 1 Total student enrolments in higher education for 1992 were 1,341,400; the APR for Great Britain in 1992 was 28 per cent (rising from 23 per cent in 1991) (HESA, 1995). 2 As set out in table 10 of the HESA statistics (1995). The figure of 152 institutions includes 84 universities

11

(counting federal universities such as London and Wales as single institutions).

References CRAG (1994) Directory of HE Education, 1994-95. Cambridge: Hobsons Publishing. Derrida, J. (1992) Mochlos; or, The Conflict of the Faculties, in R. Rand (ed.), Locomachia: The Conflict of the Faculties. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, Vol. I. Cambridge: Polity Press. HESA (1995) Higher Education Statistics for the United Kingdom, 1992/93. Cheltenham: Higher Education Statistics Agency. Lyotard, J.-F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: University of Manchester Press. Trow, M. (1974) Problems in the transition from elite mass higher education, in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Policies for Higher Education.. Paris: OECD. Trow, M. (1994) Managerialism and the Academic Profession:: Quality and Control. London: Open University Quality Support Centre. Winch, P. (1958) The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge. Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.

Response to Ronald Barnett

IAN MCNAY A 'life of reason' in a 'learning society' based on 'rational discourse'. 'An institution systematically in the business of sustaining and developing organized critical reason.' Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? But remember that Thomas More's Utopia was based around similar principles and was a rigid, arid, frightening society. So, not so wonderful. But don't worry; life, and universities, ain't like that. Let me give you one example. Chin and Benne (1976) outlined three strategies for achieving change. Two were normative-re-educative (appeal to the heart), and power-coercive (appeal to the body). The third, rational-empirical, appealed to the brain. It was summarized as follows: Things get done because, when presented with clear objective information and argument, people will decide in a rational way - for example, if you undertake research, present findings and carefully constructed solutions, then everyone will agree to the presented solution. (Miller etal., 1986)

Does anybody recognize that? It is not the norm in universities. The political imperative will normally take precedence over every professional input, and universities are emotional places, with feelings not confined only to fans of Lawrence or Leavis in the English department. So, go to the person with the purse strings and bargain, plead, threaten or, in the jargon, 'apply the lessons of exchange theory'. Ron Barnett's view of a university is insubstantial, verging on ethereal; but universities are earthy. Discord displaces discourse in their political life. There have been some notable disputes

(not disputations) within disciplines (psychology comes to mind). There is conservatism bordering on protectionism, resistance to challenge and renewal which didn't disappear with Galileo or the alchemists, or even the 'monkey trial' in Tennessee earlier this century. It lives on in the prejudices of Research Council Committees colonized by a subset of the disciplines covered, or in the slow, externally forced, recognition as legitimate of applied research within the UK assessment exercise. This is ideology not philosophy; it generates high emotion and is low on reason. 'Learning societies'? Huh! One head of a Cambridge college once remarked that she had always believed that the more intelligent people were, the better they adapted to the need for change. She had seen that at corporate level Cambridge proved the opposite. In work with staff in universities I use a questionnaire to assess their institutions as learning organizations. It explores openness, responsiveness, acceptance but not accentuation of negatives, commitment to innovation, and the extent to which learning, institutional and individual, is normalized and systematized. Few institutions score over 70 per cent; many score under 50, even from those who lead them. Suggestions are encouraged but not rewarded; the time needed to do a job excludes any calculation of the learning needed to do it, or do it well; and committee decisions and those of managers rarely recognize the primacy of learning as the objective of the institution. And if that's not what defines a university, what does? We neglect it at our peril, but neglect it we do. Manchester United pic now generates more

Response to Ronald Barnett 13 money from off-the-field activities (souvenirs and so on) than from activities on it, and has twice as many3 staff working in this area as in playing and in coaching and developing footballers. Resource imperatives, external demands and the political drives of senior managers may also be diverting universities from their core business.

References Chin, R. and Benne, K. D. (1976) General strategies for

effecting changes in human systems, in W. G. Bennis et al. (eds), The Planning of Change. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Miller ' J- et al ^1986^ Preparing for Change. London: Longman for FEU.

2

University = Diversity; Pragmatics > Dogmatics

IAN MCNAY The idea that you can have mass university education is completely mad. It seems common sense to suppose that we should only have university programmes for a very small proportion of the populace. A. H. Halsey (1987) When / use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less. Humpty Dumpty, quoted in Lewis Carroll (1872) In this chapter I wish to argue against Halsey. The meaning he attaches to university is a lesser meaning; I argue for a greater one. His meaning is exclusive; mine is inclusive. The paradigm Halsey had in mind was, I believe, myopic. It developed from a cloistered, intramural perspective of a very particular and, I shall argue, atypical university. It is a romantic exaltation of a supposed golden-age tradition which, in vaunting its quintessentiality, cannot see far into history and lacks the breadth of vision to embrace comparative contemporary alternative models. Yeatman (1995) sees the model as patriarchal and colonialist - though she also has gender-based reservations about the emergent entrepreneurial model. Halsey's view of the university is that of an academy, perhaps built on Leavis, who saw a university as a focus of humane consciousness amid the material pressures and dehumanising complications of the modern world; a centre where, faced with the specialisations and distractions in which human ends lose themselves, intelligence, bringing to bear a mature set of values, should apply itself to the problems of civilisation. (Leavis, 1943)

Part of the issue in defining a university is that many of the prestige models have neglected that last clause and have pursued an internal agenda rather than one which breached the ivory towers. Those in the UK who have applied themselves have been despised in the way that the nobility despised 'trade'. The imbalance of treatment between basic and applied research in successive assessment exercises was underlined in 1992 when the former polytechnics were included, committed as they were to relevance as well as rigour, and working actively with professionals in the field. It echoed a debate on quality I had in the early 1980s when the University of Salford had severe cuts in its budget imposed by the UGC. Chair of the UGC, Edward Parkes, when I interviewed him, described Salford's engineering courses as 'bloody old-fashioned". John Ashworth, then Salford's Vice-Chancellor, acknowledged that they were not research leaders, which he suggested was Parkes' basis for judgement. 'But', he said, 'our engineering graduates are already ten years ahead of their employers: if they were any further ahead, they wouldn't get jobs, and we have the highest percentage of engineering graduates in jobs of any university in the country.' He had moved some way towards the balance between Adelman's two polarized models: The Mirror University uses the current values offf society to assess itself; the Mission University develops a mature set of values from which to assess and direct society. (Adelman, 1973) Part of my problem with the Oxbridge model off Halsey is that the 'maturity' risked falling into

University = Diversity; Pragmatics > Dogmatics 15

senility. With Leavis' detachment came not disinterest but a loss by academics of a hold on the reality of the large proportion of the populace who, through taxation, supported their reflection in tranquillity. In the UK, the influence of Oxbridge over other universities in the inter-war years, and, after the war, on secondary school provision, was inimical to the development of balanced provision, and continued to dominate the mind-set of policy-formers and -makers long after the paradigm had become obsolescent. One must make a partial exception of Halsey himself, given his role in setting up educational priority areas, but his later views of further and higher education were often one-eyed, as the opening quotation showed. Those who look to a former golden age of the university have a problem: Why stop at a particular point to freeze development? The University of Oxford was pretty complacent in 1851 when faced with the prospect of a Royal Commission: Two centuries ago - in 1636 - the University revised the whole body of its statutes, and the academic system of study was admirably arranged at a time when not only the nature and faculties of the human mind were exactly what they are still, and must, of course, remain, but the principles also of sound and enlarged intellectual culture were far from being imperfectly understood. (Quoted in Maclure, 1979)

At that time, Oxford was slowly emerging from over 100 years in the doldrums of corruption, debauchery, low standards (Perkin, 1984), and negligible scholarship. In the sixteenth century it had been something of a finishing school: John Donne went up in 1585 at the age of 12. Going back even further, to Bologna and Padua in the twelfth century, we have an organizational model which might appeal to today's market-oriented liberals, where the students' guilds were the employers of the academics and could exercise sanctions over them. Today, it is research which is used in the UK to locate universities in a rank order. Yet this tradition is relatively new, imported from the USA, where the Humboldtian model was adapted from Germany. It was the Scottish universities that led the way in establishing chairs whose holders then became leaders of single-discipline departments

(Perkin, 1984). Research flourished in universities only after state funding was put on a systematic footing with the establishment of the UGC in 1919. The PhD arrived between the wars, and the campus residential tradition spread after the war with major capital spending and, for full-time students, mandatory grants following the 1962 Anderson Committee. At that point, the Robbins Committee (1963) set out a manifesto which many still take as a defining statement of what a university is. Yet most of its recommendations were not accepted, and it was the character of universities which led to an alternative system more attuned to the country's needs (Weaver, 1994). Robbins saw universities as small - 3000 students was a modal size postulated. Criteria set by the Higher Education Quality Council now have 4000 as a minimum threshold. The Dawkins reforms in Australia also saw size as an important factor. HEQC also sets breadth of curriculum portfolio as a criterion, as does the '21-1 Project' currently under way in China. In the plateglass universities of the mid-1960s there was less curriculum coverage than had been normal thereto. There was a conception of full-time study as the norm - the statutes of the University of Leeds when I graduated in 1966 required two years' full-time residential study as a minimum qualification. This differed from the muchvaunted traditional German system with peripatetic professors and students, with embryonic credit transfer. The famous Robbins principle came close to abandoning numerus clausus and moving towards the tradition of the European mainland, but the commitment to accept students at threshold qualification levels was never honoured by the then universities, and the qualification basis of the principle was undermined and later abandoned because of the evidence of performance by entrants who had non-standard qualifications, if any (Bourner and Hamed, 1987). There is no common international standard of university education, either at entry or exit. Those from Britain with a good A level in maths can get two years' advanced standing in the subject even at a prestigious institution such as the University of California at Berkeley. In the UK, an 'accelerated degree' now crams 90 weeks of study into

16 Ian Me Nay two calendar years; in Scotland, entry levels differ from the other countries, with consequently longer courses. Within the European Union the length of an initial qualification recognized as of degree level varies from four to seven years. Between the designation of the 'Robbinsrelated' universities in the 1960s and the wave of polytechnic conversions in the 1990s, three universities were established in the UK. They provide evidence for my thesis about embraciveness in giving meaning to that term. All three raised questions about the nature of a university. The Open University, as with the new green-site campus universities of the early 1960s, was chartered as a university before it recruited any students. It retained its Academic Advisory Committee for much longer, perhaps because it challenged the full-time, residential campus-based, singlediscipline tradition which had developed rapidly in England particularly after the war. There was much early scepticism about academic rigour, controls, etc. Now it sets standards for newly popular models of curriculum design and delivery. It remained outside the ambit of the UGC/UFC, who had difficulty reconciling it with their 'norms' for funding: members didn't feel it was 'one of us'. The HEFCE has embraced it, as part of its responsibility for a more diverse set of institutions. The University of Ulster is the phoenix arising from the only case this century of a UK university having its charter withdrawn. It foreshadowed the recent 'redefinition' of universities on the UK mainland, and, possibly, future mergers between different institutions. In Northern Ireland there was a lesser anomaly in funding between the polytechnics and the universities - both were funded directly by the Department of Education, Northern Ireland (DENI). The New University of Ulster (NUU), one of the green-field/plate-glass universities of the 1960s, had not grown as planned. A review group set up by government under, now, Lord Chilver, recommended diversification of its role with more continuing education and mature students. It rejected merger with either of the Belfast institutions because it feared overconcentration of provision in the city and believed a split-site campus would be expensive and difficult to manage. The government's reply was pub-

lished simultaneously with the group's report and offered two alternatives: merger with Ulster College, the Northern Ireland Polytechnic, or closure of NUU on economic grounds. In the merger, accepted with acrobatic alacrity, it saw the two institutions as complementary with a combination of the stronger features of each as of major benefit to Northern Ireland: it emphasized the 'practical and vocational emphasis' of the polytechnic and the 'strongest [unspecified! academic aspects of NUU'. It didn't want the new institution 'to be preconditioned by any particular conception of roles' nor to offer 'any less wide a range of levels of study or courses than is at present available in NUU and the polytechnic'. So ... a university offering part-time ONC courses! There was, of course, the need not to challenge Queen's University, Belfast (QUB) in this clear distinctive (but not preconditioned) role: The role of QUB as a traditional university centre of scholarship is clearly endorsed in the Review Group's Report: while this is without detriment to the need for QUB also to maintain and develop vocational courses, it gives a particular academic emphasis to the totality of QUB's work. A new institution which incorporated the particular applied and technological emphasis of the polytechnic would be a valuable counterpoint. (DENI, 1982)

That sounds like a re-vamped polytechnic like those which two years earlier had argued in vain for independence from LEAs, not even university status, but The government believes that it will be appropriate for the new institution to be a university, rather than a polytechnic ... As a university, the new institution will operate under a charter. The government believes that it would be appropriate for the terms of the charter to reflect the particular practical and technological emphasis which is envisaged for the new institution. (DENI, 1982)

No reasons for the first 'belief were given; on the mainland, the post-1992 universities do not have charters. The New University of Ulster was economically and educationally non-viable, according to the government. It was, however, much bigger than my third example. The University of Buckingham, when it got its charter, had under 1000 students, the majority from overseas, following a narrow

University = Diversity; Pragmatics > Dogmatics 17

range of courses. Buckingham had withdrawn from negotiations with the CNAA when it became clear that it would not satisfy the Council's requirements for institutional validation. It would have fallen well short of current criteria operated by HEQC, which lay great emphasis on established, proven standards. The decision to award a charter was made by the Privy Council at the Ozymandian apogee of Margaret Thatcher, now its Chancellor. It shocked the academic world and may have contributed significantly to the movement to re-title the polytechnics. It may be argued that Buckingham is exceptional:

versities in China come under local or regional authorities, a model rejected recently in the UK. The role of universities in national life is one that has been lost in England. This is less so in the rest of the UK, where national identity is more strongly asserted. It is a feature of universities in many other parts of the world.

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in terms of size, yet it is bigger than some colleges in federal university systems which enjoy considerable academic autonomy; • in terms of subject coverage, yet many prestige institutions, e.g. in France, have coverage which is just as narrow. In China, universities may have over 20 departments without spreading beyond applied science and technology; • in terms of standards, yet these are regulated in the same way as others, with external examiners drawn from prestige, traditional establishments, and with recognition by professional bodies such as the Law Society; • in terms of its 'private' status, yet the state monopoly system of the UK is not normal elsewhere. The Church may have lost out in the battle for control in the UK several centuries ago; it is an active sponsor in many other countries - Spain, the Philippines, Indonesia. In the last, there are private Muslim universities, as well as those sponsored by the Chinese communities. Private foundations supported by philanthropy or business sponsorship exist in the USA and Argentina, and are burgeoning in Romania and other Eastern European countries. Within a state system, the UK model of autonomy, defended as essential to the nature of a university (Russell, 1993), is not common on the European mainland, where lecturers are civil servants (e.g. France) and professors are appointed by the head of state (e.g. Finland). Some of the strongest uni-

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In Mexico the mission of UNAM, the Autonomous National University, includes specific reference to promotion of Mexican culture and identity. Like other countries in Latin America it is re-discovering pre-Columbian culture as a device to assert identity against rampant Americanization. The equity programmes in Australia and New Zealand similarly re-assert indigenous heritages. In continental Europe, leaders in all walks of life are graduates almost without exception; in the UK the anti-intellectual culture of the 'selfmade man' (sic)) is only slowly fading. In many developing countries, universities are the main locus of research for industrial and economic development; not so in the UK. In continental Europe (e.g. the Netherlands, Scandinavia), movement of senior people between universities and government is common, even normal; I can think of few examples, post-war, in the UK.

So, Robbins' aim of 'transmission of a common culture' seems to have been abandoned. There is, indeed, a mutual antagonism between universities and government, perhaps because of the crude philistinism of the latter in setting as a dominant aim 'to serve the economy more effectively', as much as the tradition of monastic detachment of the former. There is a risk, too, that English universities will lose their way in failing to adapt to the new paradigms now necessary, and a risk that the former polytechnics will be drawn into this lack of sense of direction because of the tendencies to convergence built in to the funding system. Shattock (1994) charts the record of resistance to change of the old universities, with the support of the UGC, which led to increased intolerance and intervention by government. (Those looking for analogies

18 Ian McNay of slowly forced adaptation by a conservative establishment might look at Marqusee's (1994) Marxist history of cricket, substituting UGC and CVCP for MCC and TCCB.) It is not a model to pursue with impunity. The distance that some need to travel is shown by some outcomes of the research on quality at the Centre for Higher Education Studies (Loder, 1993), which showed the low rating lecturing staff in traditional universities gave to the need for any knowledge of the world of employment to which their students were going, or of learning theories to help students cope with their 'teaching'. So much for Robbins' first aim - 'instruction in skills suitable to play a part in the general division of labour' - and his second - 'to promote the general powers of the mind'. That latter point is underlined by a personal communication from a graduate recruitment officer from a major company: 'our applicants are better and better qualified, and less and less competent'. Narrow, specialist, inarticulate, isolationist were some of his criticisms: perhaps value is being subtracted. Robbins' remaining aim is 'the advancement of learning' through research. This has become the dominant criterion for many in defining a university. Yet, as noted above, it is a relatively recent phenomenon: the PhD was introduced in China only in 1983. In the UK less than 10 per cent of total R & D spending is in universities; the government gives nearly as much research funding to private enterprise as it does to higher education (Cabinet Office, 1994). That leads me to my final set of contentions: the university is under challenge and needs to find its place in the new order, or rather, universities need to find their place and then promote the collectivity since, to quote Robbins again: Eclecticism in this sphere is not something to be despised: it is imposed by the circumstances of the case. To do justice to the complexity of things, it is necessary to acknowledge a plurality of aims. (Robbins, 1963)

The Carnegie Foundation has focused on the issue of'scholarship' as a central defining characteristic, in recognizing the need for change in higher education (Boyer, 1994). The Scholarship of Discov-

ery encompasses research, yet, as just noted, more is done outside higher education than inside it in some countries: Boyer points out that major companies recruit more PhDs than major campuses; Japan's universities are now looking to develop a role in research which hitherto has been relatively small (Cummings, 1994); in many countries - e.g. France, Russia - research is funded to units separate from the university system. The Scholarship of Integration was sacrificed to single-discipline degrees and departments. Becher, Embling and Kogan (1978) recognized this weakness, since most problems in real life are not susceptible to single-discipline solutions. Just at a time when inter-disciplinary research centres are becoming normal, to overcome this problem, the curriculum is being fragmented further into modules and credits with, in many cases, responsibility for any integration abdicated by teaching staff and passed to the student. The discipline of coherence and progression imposed by the late CNAA is therefore being lost. The Scholarship of Application, Boyer links to nation-building. He regrets its reduction in importance in the USA, where it was a traditional role he would like to recapture. In the UK, it is one item on the agenda of contestation within academe and between elements of academe and government. The Scholarship of Teaching, of transmission, is also being lost. Few academics in traditional universities developed professionally in this field; those in modern universities, including the UK Open University, are vesting more of this responsibility in media-based technology. If a learner, via a modem at home or work, can tap into a range of material and work with it interactively, what role is left to the teacher? Or the university? That is the challenge: to find new representations of the academy, a new balance among various roles. Concepts of the UK university have been restricted, and restricted in their development by paradigms such as Halsey's. This has provoked a legitimate challenge to them to justify their existence and their funding. They risk failing unless they can follow NIACE (1994) and Rothblatt (1994) in seeing higher education as an idea, not confined to a place with high walls and forbidding

University = Diversity; Pragmatics > Dogmatics guardians to the academic Eden. The learning communities need to spread throughout the society which sponsors and succours them, and become symbiotes, not parasites. Their history shows they can survive, but they needed to adapt to do so. There is no single right answer: they need eclectic diversity, a pragmatic accommodation to changing realities not a conservative hankering after the past. There are many models for them to draw on because 'university' has a rich diversity of meanings and representations in its various settings.

References Adelman, H. (1973) The Holiversity. Toronto: New Press. Becher, T., Embling, J. F. and Kogan, M. (1977) Systems of Higher Education: United Kingdom. New York: International Council for Education Development. Bourner, T. and Hamed, M. (1987) Entry Qualifications and Degree Performance. London: CNAA. Boyer, E. (1994) Scholarship reconsidered: priorities for a new century, in National Commission on Education, Universities in the Twenty-First Century. London: NCE. Cabinet Office (1994) Forward Look. London: HMSO. Carroll, Lewis (1872) Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, reprinted in The Complete Stories. London: Magpie, 1993.

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Cummings, W. K. (1994) From knowledge seeking to knowledge creation: the Japanese university's challenge. Higher Education, 27. Halsey, A. N. (1987) Who owns the curriculum of higher education? Journal of Education Policy, 2 (4). Leavis, F. R. (1943) Education and the University. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Loder, C. (1993) Interim Report 2: Project on 'Identifying and developing a quality ethos for teaching in higher education'. University of London Institute of Education. (Mimeo.) Maclure, J. S. (1979) Educational Documents. London: Methuen. Marqusee, M. (1994) Anyone but England. London: Verso. NIACE (1994) An Adult Higher Education: A Vision. Leicester: NIACE. Perkin, H. (1984) The historical perspective, in B. R. Clark, Perspectives on Higher Education: Eight Disciplinary and Comparative Views. Berkeley: University of California Press. Robbins Committee (1963) Higher Education: A Report. Cmnd 2154. London: HMSO. Rothblatt, S. (1994) Less of a place, more of an idea. Times Higher Education Supplement, 30 December. Russell, C. (1993) Academic Freedom. London: Routledge. Shattock, M. (1994) The UGC and the Management of British Universities. Buckingham: SRHE/Open University Press. Weaver, T. (1994) Knowledge alone gets you nowhere. Capability, 1 (l). Yeatman, A. (1995) The gendered management of equity-oriented change in higher education, in J. Smyth (ed.), Academic Work. Buckingham: SRHE/ Open University Press.

Response to Ian McNay

RONALD BARNETT Is there a gap between us? Ian McNay observes that, as a matter of fact, universities have interpreted their task differently, both over time and within systems and across systems, even if those same universities have shown tendencies to interpret their task rather narrowly at times. McNay also considers that the challenges of modern society call for even more diversity. The learning society looks increasingly to its universities to assist in promoting just such a society. In all this, we are both on the same ground and looking in the same direction. Yet, as I see it, McNay ducks the key question: in a diverse system of higher education, are there any tasks or responsibilities which are characteristically those of the university? Are there any defining qualities which we have a right to expect of our universities? The question is there, not just as a philosophical matter of defining in an abstract way what might count as the university, but as a practical and contemporary question. As McNay himself puts it, 'If a learner, via a modem at home or work, can tap into a range of material and work with it interactively [and, we might add, a range of experts], what role is left to the teacher? Or the university?' The matter is not unimportant. In the learning society, is there any particular work left for the university? Is there any work left all? If companies have their own training capacities, and often their own research and development arms, and if individualss have really taken charge of their own life-long learning plans, do any responsibilities rest with the university? If society has become, in effect, a total university, are there simply learning residues for the university to pick up, those learn-

ing tasks not met by other agencies? Do we construe the university in a purely negative fashion, as performing those tasks which other agencies will not undertake? In that case, the role of the university is purely contingent, the residue that happens to be left when the major learning tasks have been plundered by other interests. Or might we envisage a definite and a positive role for the university, which renders it a central rather than a peripheral place in modern society? The slide in those last two sentences from 'universities' to 'university' will have been noticed. It is deliberate. If there is a characteristic task before universities in modern society, we can legitimately talk of the university. There would still be an idea of the university to hang on to. We would recognize as varieties of the species 'university' all the separate universities, whatever their mission, their traditions, their market niche, their clientele, the communities with which they are networked, and their research and entrepreneurial orientation. This then is the question: is there an idea of the university for the modern age? The question, it will be noted, does not look back: there is no 'conservative hankering after the past' (to pick up a concluding phrase from McNay). On the contrary, the question looks to the present and the future. Is there an idea of the university worth carving out, not to fulfil an internalist agenda - to pick up one of McNay's other points - but to fulfil definite needs of the learning society? 'On the contrary', too, in another sense, for there is no pretence in the question that universities ever did fulfil any idea of the university. There was a rhetoric of the development of pro-

Response to Ian McNay

moting critical thinking, individual autonomy, and of deep learning. But the evidence, both from particular fields and more generally, is that the rhetoric was not even honoured in the breach, let alone in the observance. The question, though, bears in upon us now with renewed insistence. What might the learning society require of its universities? Why should modern society invest in universities as places of teaching, learning and inquiry? Do they have any particular role to play at all? Or is it a matter of anything goes?

A higher learning for the learning society In the learning society, new forms of learning arise continually: the use of information technology, problem-based learning, action learning, experiential learning, pragmatic learning and operational learning are just some of the latest contenders. Prepositional knowledge is well on the way to being displaced as the dominant form of learning. So the university, if it is to be of service to the learning society, has to take on the new forms of learning to some extent. Society's epistemologies widen, and the university's have to widen, therefore, at the same time. But an additive conception of epistemological responsiveness on the part of the university cannot adequately offer a learning locale for the university in the learning society. The earlier point holds good: other agencies and individuals by themselves will be embracing these new epistemologies. Accordingly, if there is to be a defining role as such for the university, it will be found elsewhere. Characteristically, learning in the learning society is metalearning. Its defining qualities are those of reflexivity and critique, including selfreferential critique. The characteristic epistemological stance both of the learning society and, as it happens, postmodernism is one of scepticism. Admittedly, the ideological orientation differs between the two. The learning society insists that

21

what holds good for today will not do for tomorrow. Put today's learning behind one, therefore, and on to the new. Today's learning has only temporary value at best. This is real-time epistemology, an epistemology of the moment, of the present. But that refusal to endow the known with any permanence is at the heart of the postmodern spirit, although with even greater force. The postmodern spirit refuses to endow any knowledge claim with any security or unqualified status at all. The learning society values learning, if only to discard it. The postmodern distrusts claims to learn, since underlying a claim to know is a 'grand narrative' about knowledge, reason, truth, communication and enlightenment. Yet both orientations are united in their implicit valuation of scepticism. The university is fundamentally an institution intended to produce organized scepticism. Its place in the learning society, accordingly, should be assured. As an institution of the societyto-be, the university has a central role to play. The idea of organized scepticism, therefore, is an idea with its eye on the future, not on some romanticized conception of a past golden age of the university. Of course, a clear legitimation of this idea of organized scepticism is available to us through the deep archaeology of the idea of the university. In the Western tradition, this is often how universities have seen themselves. Organized scepticism is, we might say, the shorthand for their collective mission statement. But, it might equally be rejoined, that is the trouble. It has just been a matter of mission statement; the mission was always just rhetoric. Perhaps so; but the idea at least has always been there in the deep idea of the Western university. What is new is that it now appears that society has particular need of this sceptical capacity. The idea has to be realized! Modern society has to build into itself self-monitoring and self-critical capacities. Economic survival, the capacity to cope with system-wide complexity and to develop an informed societal responsiveness to change and evolving societal values: all these call for institutionalized critique, a critique which will not be quietened by power structures or partial interests.

22 Ronald Barnett Just these ideals have been those of the idea of the Western university. We should, therefore, distinguish between the surface and the deep structure of the university. There are all manner of interpretations of the life of critical reason which different universities will develop. Responsiveness to the local community, to the professions, to academic callings or to students' manifest wishes are all legitimate orientations and will be found even within single universities. But, if beneath this surface structure of happenings and orientations, the university abandons its deep calling to sustain and to widen the life of critical reason, society itself will be impoverished. Certainly, the university now has an added duty

to go on testing what is to count as the life of reason, to widen our sense of what it is to be rational and to engage in critical reflection. The modes of engagement in the university have been unduly limited; so we need diversity even in its deep structure. But a totally decentred university cannot be sustained, either practically or as an idea. Philosophically (as an idea), ethically (as a socially valued project) and instrumentally (as a pivotal institution in the learning society), the university is needed more than ever precisely for its declared function of sustaining the life of critical reason. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly more doubtful whether society can survive in any meaningful sense without such an interpretation of the university.

3

Diversification and Elitism in Mass Higher Education

CHRIS DUKE Diversification - a core dilemma Of all the dilemmas embodied in the transformation of higher education (HE) from an elite to a mass system, none is more central, nor more problematic, than that which is captured in the term diversification. Is it the blade applied to the Gordian knot of expansion without loss of quality? the weasel word which allows exclusiveness and privilege to survive in the demoralizing world of levelling down? an apparent note of sanity in an unseemly jangling squabble for scarce resources? Is it perhaps the unholy common ground on which diverse British vice-chancellors can meet, caballed as they are into clubs, groups and cliques Russell, small is beautiful, hamburger, and other? It will be evident at once that this chapter concerns itself with the changes transforming British higher education in the mid-1990s. Here significant rapid expansion has come later, and therefore impacted harder, than in most other postindustrial societies. (The changes in the 1960s which seemed radical at the time have subsequently been judged rather modest, or mainly on the surface; see for instance Wagner, 1995.) Yet much of what follows essentially applies, allowing for local particularities of history, culture and economics, in American, European, Commonwealth and other societies (see for instance Berdahl et al., 1991; Titmus et al., 1993; Schapiro and Schapiro, 1994; Miller, 1995). The sense of crisis afflicting British higher education about which the then Editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement wrote a decade ago (Scott, 1984; see also

Reeves, 1988) has amplified rather than faded. A string of books in recent years with the imprint of SRHE and the Open University Press bears witness to this shared, yet fragmented, perception. We are therefore examining a familiar rather than an entirely new problem: the preservation of valued character, qualities and characteristics especially in universities, as the higher education sector moves from a small intake of mainly middle-class and well-educated young people to absorb a third or more of each age cohort on its entry to adulthood at around the age of 18, and increasingly large numbers of ever more diverse adult returners. As institutional and system size grow and intake diversifies, diversification of the system has a natural and appealing, as well as a political, logic. Maybe system diversification will allow for concentration of mission and role, with little if any diversification within each individual institution, and the preservation of the distinctive and valued character of each. If not entirely new, this dilemma is nonetheless interesting; and it is still quite new for the insular British, more especially the English. Morever it is made more difficult by justified pride in the high quality and efficiency of the traditional elite, selective system. The dilemma is how to preserve high quality, including efficiency as measured by high completion rates, in a massively expanded system. Is this insoluble? Is the deadlock to be resolved only by means of different missions and resources imposed upon universities, or by gradual system degradation through homogenization? Is the old or a new hierarchy irresistible? Is 'equal but different'

24 Chris Duke sociological nonsense? Will egalitarian expansionists, while winning a battle, inevitably lose the war, as social power and rewards continue to slip away from the massified system to a selected or self-selected elite? If so, is bringing this about the job of government, or of the free marketplace? Is the idea of a market in a quango-driven higher education system in which government remains the prime purchaser anyway merely an obfuscation? The dilemma is over a perhaps insoluble conundrum: how to avail a large minority, even the majority, of the population of the good of higher education without devaluing that good below any real value. We might just pause and ask the question whether it is more accurate to speak of a good or merely of 'goods'. Here is a contest between the ideals of excellence and those of equity, in which pragmatism and expediency may instead be expected to prevail. Will this be at the expense of both ideal positions? Or can a principled reconciliation resolve the dilemma? If a resolution is achieved by diversifying the system and homogenizing the character of each individual institution as a system component, who and what are the true winners and losers in such an outcome?

Ideas of a university and of mass higher education There are many ideas of a university, if no other statement as elegant as Newman's; and many attempts to claim legitimacy for a particular model or ideal by reference to one or another authority or golden past (but see for instance Marriott, 1981; Tight, 1991, for some earlier arrangements and aspirations for 'access' in the British system). In Britain discussion, both practical and scholarly, of mass higher education as an opportunity for society, a challenge to the university or a threat to academe has hitherto usually drawn on the American experience, rather as the Conservative government since 1979 has tended to look across the Atlantic for inspiration in seeking the reform of British higher education. This American 'model'

can be variously perceived. From a student and parental perspective it may be the nightmare of mounting indebtedness. From a governmental perspective it may show how to expand the supply of HE without greatly increasing public expenditure. From an academic and institutional perspective there is the Jekyll and Hyde of free market insecurity, competition and commodification; or opportunity for high income and rapid expansion for the popular and strong. Quite recently comparisons with HE in the United States have come under closer and more critical scrutiny. The American level of public investment appears higher than dry economists and politicians may like to claim. The level of alumni and other charitable donation is less high than sometimes asserted, and less relevant to UK circumstances. Moreover, statistical comparison of the take-up into higher education is misleading, when for instance British HE is compared with the American while excluding our further education (FE). Comparison of the student experience also reveals the extent to which America differs from Britain in respect of students' status and period of study. Part-time and intercalated modes are much commoner in the USA, where higher proportions work their way through university or 'college'. Reflection upon our own system in a comparative sense is common. Comparison between the industrialized nations has been fostered by the OECD for many years, and we regularly measure ourselves against 'competitors'' performance. In such comparisons participation and completion rates feature prominently. This brings us back to the British preoccupation with system efficiency, as demonstrated first by reference to high completion rates in the three-year full-time degree, and secondarily by the level of take-up into employment (or further study) by those who graduate. Some of these indicators are heavily circumscribed by assumptions about the functions and clientele of higher education - see for instance a study of the employment and other outcomes of higher education for part-time employed students as distinct from young school-leavers (Woodley, 1995). Other measures of efficiency, including opportunity cost on the one hand and more subtle

Diversification and Elitism in Mass Higher Education 25 social indicators of the consequences of participation and exclusion on the other, are not considered very often in any public way. It also brings us to the increasingly common tendency to compare British with other European experience, without ignoring the performance of America or the Far Eastern 'dragon economies'. Membership of the European Common Market, and more hesitantly of the European Community and Union, has begun moving our attention around from America more towards the Continent. Leaving aside the political turmoil which European union is causing, culturally and intellectually Britain appears to be becoming much more European, and Europe-conscious. In universities the large scale of ERASMUS student exchanges since the 1980s and participation in many, diverse and often large European research and development partnerships fostered from Brussels have begun to make a mark in our heavily insular Anglophone society. These contacts have made us much more conscious of higher education models and experience across the Channel. Apropos the dilemma of mass higher education and diversification this means a new reference point for politicians, administrators and the 'chattering classes'; but it does not greatly simplify the problem. Rather, continental comparisons feed our anxieties about a perceived threat to the quality and efficiency of British HE, and reinforce traditional insularity and resistance to change. Nor, ironically, does such contact and experience necessarily reassure those committed to expansion of higher education on equity grounds. For all Europe's official commitment to social cohesion and against the marginalization of excluded underclasses (Commission of the European Communities, 1993; European Commission, 1994), my own experience of comparative European research in HE suggests perhaps less sensitivity and practical attention to matters of exclusion and inequity in some European partners than in the British system (Bourgeois et aL, 1994,1995). Nonetheless, we in Britain are caught in the surely unstoppable transition from a small, very selective higher education system conceived and equipped mainly to teach clever 18-year-olds and

to undertake research, to a very large, open and diverse HE system. Before very long this will take in up to half the school-leaving population, if for example the Confederation of British Industry has its way, as well as ever-larger numbers of 'adult returners'.. The 'turning off of the tap of growth' from 1993 by government and hence the Funding Councils (via the institutional MASN or maximum aggregate student number) is almost certainly a pause, rationalized as 'consolidation'. It is likely that expansion will resume before the end of the decade, on a new funding basis in which the 'funding partners' - the State, students and/or their parents, and possibly employers - will share the costs of HE on a new basis involving a larger private contribution, probably through a new tax-based loans scheme. The familiarity with continental systems derived from our European membership offers no new solutions, no easy answers, to the dilemma of expansion without loss of quality. Rather, it fuels the anxiety that a valued system will inevitably deteriorate. For those who value high quality teaching and learning anchored in and informed by the tradition and active practice of research it reinforces the desire to protect a high university tradition by separating out a group of 'real', or research, universities from the already partmassified system. In the late 1980s there was loose talk and media speculation about a differentiated British system of higher education in which there were to be R, T, and X universities — those dedicated essentially to research or to teaching, with a mixed category, or division, to the league table, in between. Such a model of intent was firmly denied and disowned by those charged with fashioning a higher education system at the time. Yet the trends point to its reappearance in the mid-1990s, de facto if not by public political 'ownership', possibly with a sharper dichotomization between 'R and T', and the mixed middle ground squeezed out. Before we follow the logic of this model, and possible options which might evolve, let us attempt a brief review of the social functions of HE. What might this tell us of the deeper social forces behind short-run competition for resources?

26 Chris Duke

Social functions of higher education Hitherto, British higher education has served to select and prepare a small number and proportion of those attaining maturity for prestigious and influential positions. There is a strong tendency for an elite to reproduce itself, as the predominance of social classes A and B among university students shows. This is not a caste system however, in which management is kept within a closed class. Despite the difficulty of reaching university from socially excluded groups - manual working class and some ethnic communities - the system functions essentially as a meritocracy in which intellectually able young people, providing they can achieve at school on broadly comparable, open national examination criteria, can secure a place at university. Higher education thus serves as an important means whereby young people joining adult society sort themselves out, and are sorted out, for different employment positions, and in large measure thereby for the life opportunities which accompany them. From a societal perspective the apparent logic, transparency and efficiency of HE as a screening and selection device is functional. For many employers the classification of potential recruits to the workforce is similarly convenient; it provides screening and ranking which simplifies choice. At this point those concerned with social equity may protest the inaccessibility of the HE system, and especially of the more prestigious universities, to the socially disadvantaged. The 'access movement' from the 1980s onwards certainly opened new pathways to universities, and widened many routes to larger numbers. However, in the access movement's shorthand, analyses of participation suggest that this constitutes more rather than wider access: young people in middle-class families with first-generation university graduate parents tend to see university as the normal culmination of full-time formal education after completing the upper secondary level (see for instance Fulton, 1989). This brings us to a second social function. For the elite minority who attended university, and now for the much larger population of young stu-

dents following the waves of expansion of the 1960s and especially the late 1980s, going to university was and is also a rite of passage into adulthood. The age of 'maturity' and adulthood has fallen, from getting the key to the door at 21 in a marrying society, to voting at 18 and driving at 17, with physical maturation occurring still ever earlier. However, persisting high unemployment, especially youth unemployment, and the virtual demise of apprenticeship, fuelled partly by technological change and the loss of old jobs and old skills, have all but removed the possibility of other than casual low-skill dead-end employment for young school-leavers and provided an economic as well as a social pressure to stay on in fulltime education through and beyond the upper secondary level. Diversification within higher education as it exists in 1996 is a subset of a larger prospect: the creation of a mass or universal postsecondary or tertiary system in which the whole young population remains in a student role, or a trainee student apprenticeship role, through age 18-plus to perhaps 20 or 21. Let us avoid the detail of debate about new higher qualifications such as advanced GNVQs and two-year degrees, and the merging of the further and higher education sectors into one tertiary system. The point is that selection becomes problematic in a universal system when a special rite of passage formerly exercised for a small minority approaches universality. HE together with FE provides a later transition from full-time schooling to adult life for a growing proportion of the population, with greater ambiguity, than the former formal and de facto apprenticeship routes into work for the unprivileged and less privileged. At the 'output' end the rite of passage leads less reliably into secure and prestigious employment. Graduate unemployment has become a common concern and a threat to the popularity and credibility of the HE system. 'First career destinations' are now an important indicator of the success and status of universities. So far we have noted two important social functions of HE, social selection and grading, and providing a rite of passage to adulthood and the fulltime paid employment which is an important symbol and reward of successful transition, nowa-

Diversification and Elitism in Mass Higher Education 27

days for both genders. Both functions are problematic, with the expansion of further and higher education in times of high unemployment and economic instability. We have touched on a third significant function, preparation for working life. This is distinct from providing the passage into social adulthood, which is anyway problematic if there is no job to move into. Increasing numbers of undergraduates stay on in HE for a semi-privatized, self-financed, taught master's year, after which prospects of immediate employment are higher - of the order of 80 rather than 50 per cent. The third function is preparation for employment by means of relevant education and training, often with an element of socialization but this time into the particular norms and ways of a particular occupation: medicine, the law, and newer and less prestigious occupations. In a few occupations with clear vocational preparation routes, numbers are controlled by government via the Funding Council or, now, the Teacher Training Agency. Otherwise it is a curious process of shuffling the cards and gambling. Students leaving school are shuffled, through a highly unsatisfactory national admissions system known as UCAS, into the places available in HE, partly on the basis of what they enjoy and are good at at school, partly according to what they think they will enjoy and be good at at university, usually with a main eye to securing a job in the uncertain, changing world of employment. It is unclear how to access whole sectors of employment, perhaps the majority of positions; and it is therefore unclear what education in terms of both subject matter and mode is the best choice in the job lottery. Some universities are introducing competency and outcome measures of learning attainment. Some are poised insecurely between traditional disciplinary induction routes and modern 'transferable skills', pulled between a scholarly inclination towards subjects (as are many students and their parents, recognizing what they know from school or earlier higher education) and other forces - capabilities and competencies, professional associations, themselves often conservative, and the NCVQ.

Stepping outside this a little we discern another function of higher education: preparing people for a lifetime of learning, adaptation and retraining to cope with mainly technologically driven change, and to enable themselves to remain employable. The job-for-life is giving way: to the insecurity of impermanent employment as the structure of industry sectors and companies crumbles and reforms, often towards more temporary contracts and self-employment; and to a shorter natural life of knowledge and skills. Even where a continuing secure job appears to be available in a major corporation or a major public service sector, the nature and content of the job changes with such rapidity that without recurrent education and training individuals are likely to find they must adapt or be dismissed. So a fourth function is to prepare for lifelong learning to cope with change technological for public and private economic reasons, socio-cultural for public and private civic and personal reasons. This is a simple classification of functions. It could be refined. For instance, socialization may be extended to a general function of social control and civilizing into the required and acceptable norms of adult society, which may imply homogenization of ethnic and other cultural minorities through educational and then socio-economic participation in society. As the intake into higher education grows and diversifies this socio-cultural function becomes more salient, though not necessarily more openly acknowledged. We can see it as a battle for middle-class cultural hegemony, or conversely as a battle to modify what is acceptable within cultural middle England. In practice it is both. With persisting high unemployment, expanding the size of further and higher education serves another social function. It keeps young people out of unemployment, which is politically and socially desirable, and in some measure literally off the streets. It has a socializing and civic, quasicustodial function. The stress so far has been on selection, socialization and ascription of social identities and roles to young people, through the education and learning experience and process. There are two important points to add.

28 Chris Duke First, universities do not just educate. They also accredit and qualify for position. The debate raging in the mid-1990s about standards reflects a community interest in grading and approving individual students for the convenience of society, government and (other) employers, guaranteeing the standard especially in relation to employment roles. Within universities the accreditation function is experienced as assessment, an increasingly burdensome demand on teachers as staff-student ratios deteriorate, and an erosion of time for research and scholarship. Some universities are becoming significant accreditation rather than just or mainly teaching agencies. This is one way of perceiving the rising tide of APEL, CAT, recognition of work-based learning, validation and franchising. There are and have long been HE institutions here and abroad which essentially accredit rather than teach; the University of London started life in just this way. The university in a learning society may appear threatened, from a conventional perspective, with being no more than a service station for learning and a quality assurance accreditation agency. The second point about the changing social functions of HE has more obvious implications for diversification. Adults now constitute a majority in British higher education, as they have done for longer in comparable systems elsewhere (see for instance Campbell, 1984 on Canadian higher education). The fact of entry from the adult, 'postexperience', often working population partly redefines each of the established social functions of HE, while adding the function of qualifying, requalifying or upgrading and upskilling those already in rather than just entering the 'civis'. For 'second-chance' adults it means sharing in the selection, grading and accreditation opportunities which may give access to rewarding and higherstatus economic and social roles. For graduates it means a chance to stay in employment or advance in seniority, either by updating or more likely by diversifying into a new area, commonly for management via an MBA or similar qualification. More problematically, it may include (for the educated Rita) socialization into polite (white) middle-class society. This is true among women returners whose children are growing up; many have eco-

nomic aspirations but many also have personalcum-social aspirations which are wider than work. Within work socialization can also be problematic. Highly cultivated and distinct social roles require careful socialization and induction. It may be practically impossible to gain access to the inner sanctums of Law and Medicine without early socialization. While there may be limits to what universities can do for adults, no analysis of social functions is complete which ignores their participation. Yet they are often the invisible majority. The fact of their high numbers may be close to the heart of higher education's dilemma - and the 'solution', possibly a siren song, which 'diversification' affords.

Diversification in higher education solution or flight? The threat to higher education has been variously characterized - more means worse, quality versus numbers, doing more with less, erosion of standards, and, a related but slightly different and deeper point, commodification. It has been suggested that the 1980s were preoccupied with access, whereas higher education in the 1990s has become fixated on quality and, latterly, standards. The dramatic expansion at the end of the 1980s made the expansion of the 1960s, with the creation of a polytechnic sector, the Open University, and several new universities, appear rather modest. The modesty, or rather conservatism, of the 1960s resided less in the scale than in the form of expansion: modestly increasing the number of more-orless traditional universities while creating a separate non-university HE polytechnic sector in a 'binary system'. Given the scale of the OU, 'trinary' might be more accurate: for while more utilitarian, job-oriented HE relevant to regional community needs was assigned to the polytechnics, the access or second-chance adult function was passed to the OU. These two innovations for a while took pressure off the university sector to be more vocational in flavour, more open to adult demand. We think

Diversification and Elitism in Mass Higher Education 29 of universities' crisis in the late 1960s in terms of student power and changes in governance. From a longer perspective we can see it as a crisis over rising demand and threatened expansion, a crisis which was deferred by diversification into a binary or trinary system. Rather than contrast late-1980s access with mid1990s quality or standards as I like others before me have done, we may with greater accuracy see the dilemma of the 1990s as a conflict between access and quality or standards. Rising proportions of young people as measured by the age participation rate (APR), and of older people entering or re-entering higher education for initial or higher post-experience qualifications, are seeking and gaining access to HE. There remains a small, somewhat disconsolate and probably temporary, non-university sector, the Colleges of Higher Education, with aspirations to join the ranks of universities; and a growing volume of higher education takes place within colleges of further education (see for instance AFC, 1995; HEFCE, 1995). Largely in order to increase and diversify income as the 'unit of resource' (State income per student) declines, universities are selling accreditation for increasing numbers of learners within industry as well as in colleges and overseas institutions. These factors have combined to generate something of a crisis of confidence in the standard of the British honours degree, bringing back the 1980s phrase 'more means worse', and latently militating against the further widening of access which has been a gradual success story especially in the polytechnic and OU sectors but increasingly systemwide. Concern has been fuelled by recognition that many graduates do not quickly gain employment; and by rising non-completion rates. Concern about 'system efficiency' measured in this sense is exacerbated by the continental European comparison referred to earlier in this chapter. What was long ago called the cooling-out function of American higher education has not won credence in Britain. It is still expected that entry to HE must almost automatically mean full completion of a degree or other programme. Research Councils penalize departments for low and deferred non-completion at higher degree level, and

it may not be long before the Further Education Funding Council's funding methodology which rewards colleges in part for completion (paying by results) extends into HE. Unless partial (modular) completion is accepted rather than a full degree, the tension between standards, 'efficiency'-based success, and access will be heightened. Under these pressures, which are at the heart of the dilemma addressed in this discussion, diversification may be grasped as the salvation of highquality higher education. Interestingly, while the term elite remains in disfavour, as a little politically incorrect, the debate about standards has begun to turn on a more acceptable question: what is the meaning of 'higher' in 'HE'? Below this apparently pedagogical if not philosophical level the battle for resources alluded to earlier rages on. Within the recently unified system of higher education there is grouping and grinding as individual universities (or to be more precise their chief executives and immediate lieutenants) seek liaisons which will maximize their institutional advantage and watch, and try to influence, the public indicators or league tables which are used to categorize institutions in divisional hierarchy. These facts and behaviours are indisputable, if not always very public. The trends and outcomes are more speculative, and the consequences a matter of social philosophy and ideology. We may conclude this review, and draw out the sociological and philosophical implications, by focusing on several distinct yet interconnected issues, all of which hinge back to the proposition that a diversified HE system can square the circle, solving the dilemma as to how the high-quality characteristics of British higher education can survive transformation from elite to a mass or even a 'universal' system. Trow's idea of a three-stage transition from elite to mass (at around APR 15 per cent) to universal HE (around 50 per cent) may help us to create an analogy with the expansion of primary and especially secondary education through similar stages. While the age of compulsion, and the curriculum at 16-18 or 14-19, may be under dispute, the idea of universal secondary education is not. Projecting

30

Chris Duke

what are now familiar economic and technological scenarios as the bedrock for the rhetoric of the 'learning society' may help us to recognize that we are just now agonizing over a well-nigh inevitable transition to universal, quasi-compulsory, higher education, which is as inevitable as with hindsight the transition to universal secondary education now appears. What shape will that system take? A glance at secondary schooling in Britain at once reassures those of conservative inclination: highly selective, privileged private education still thrives for those who can afford it, with gradations of privilege and status to match the depth of the private purse. HE is already part-privatized, as the funding of overseas students, MBA and other taught master's programmes shows - as well as the total income mix of universities like my own, where over half and rising is earned commercially rather than granted by government. Eton may offer GNVQs, but it does not cease to be selective; nor are its standards, or rewards, obviously slipping. From a historical schools perspective, diversification with exclusivity looks set to remain as strong as ever. If further evidence is sought, the political consensus over the desirability of transparent quality and performance indicators, alias school league tables, suggests the extension of competitive diversification rather than homogenization. This is admittedly crude and over-simple. Homogenization can occur through the National Curriculum, mandatory work experience, the general commodification of education and knowledge for instrumental ends. Politically determined socialization into a new liberal-economic society, away from welfare statism, serves to remind us that education is a subset (or dependent variable) of the wider socio-cultural order. However, that order shows many signs of greater differentiation at least in terms of income and wealth. The capacity to buy out or opt out of state schooling suggests, as we leave this analogy, that social elitism will continue to be underpinned by de facto selectivity in a diverse education system. The social functions of higher education naturally largely mirror those of earlier education, and selectivity and hierarchy appear certain to survive there too. A priori it would be naive sociologically

to expect otherwise, and the evidence of social trends in the 1980s and 1990s gives no source of comfort to those of egalitarian persuasion. Diversification, however, may serve the useful function of masking continuing inequalities, securing compliance and offering comfort all round: to the hope for rags-to-riches (in America log cabin to White House) which can be a force for social stability; and to the university scholar committed to academic excellence who fears the end of civilized life with massification of numbers and fragmentation of knowledge. The Chief Executive of one of the major former polytechnics which are now with subtle stigma called 'new universities', thereby promoting yesterday's new universities to the more favoured ranks of the 'old' (such is the subtlety of the English language and its social codes), distinguished in his inaugural lecture between the external and internal life of the university (Wagner, 1995). He quoted from a neighbouring old (civic) university inaugural lecture the idea of intimacy (Scott, 1994) as a distinguishing feature of British higher education. Wagner sees significant change in the 'external life' of universities, as their funding, market, governance system and size have changed, but in the old, research, research-led, or real universities (all terms used more or less publicly) virtually no change in the internal life which Scott characterizes as intimacy. The cynic will remark that intimacy has a price: the Oxbridge college has abandoned the one-to-one tutorial, but groups of two to four seem still to be usual and intimate. In new universities seminars of 20 or 30 may approximate the size of most lectures in the more privileged old universities, despite the large growth which affected virtually all institutions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Diversification meaning differential resourcing is transparently and divisively attractive. It is defended on the ground that the nation can afford only a few (two? six? a dozen? two dozen?) topflight universities able to compete internationally - and indeed only one or two, if any, in certain high-cost big-machine areas. It is defended less convincingly on the ground that taking more students into university will dilute teaching and

Diversification and Elitism in Mass Higher Education 31 learning standards because the pool of talent is drained. Studies of the performance of mature age Access students (see for instance the Journal of Access Studies] disprove this, as in a commonsense way do comparisons with the much higher APRs enjoyed earlier in other industrialized nations. However, constant diminution of resources relative to growth in size and numbers clearly implies spreading resources more thinly, with likely diminution of quality in an industry which remains labour intensive and where efficiency gains (e.g. via new learning technologies) are hard to attain. Put negatively, this implies the proletarianization of the workforce (lecturers), the standardization and/or putting out of the production process (teaching students en masse or through selfdirected learning), and the commodification and standardization of knowledge (separately marketed, unitized or modularized assessment components). So long as Higher Education Funding Councils survive (probably until merger with FE occurs) with transparent funding procedures, there is likely to be increasing approximation of institutional income from this source for the same work (the AUCF or average unit of Council funding being the equalizing device). In this context it is clear why the debate over further privatization of parts of higher education via top-up fees has become strident. The funding of higher education will certainly be further diversified away from the Treasury. A mechanism (top-up fees) which favours those strong and of high status will not only accelerate diversification: it may create a more distinct elite quasi-caste group of universities than currently exists. In practical terms the funding debate, perceived from the viewpoint of diversification, turns on the mode and evenhandedness with which new sources of income to HE reach the sector. There are two versions of diversification. One takes HE down the road of greater quasi-caste segmentation. It could all but seal off the research-strong elite universities from further mass invasion of the kind which has taken HE institutions from small to large scale in less than a decade. Diversification will then be along institutional lines, reproducing

the sharpening fault-lines developing with greater differentiation of wealth and opportunity throughout society. The other version might still protect quality and standards, without reinforcing this social rift. It means diversifying within institutions so that different social and cultural groups may enjoy equity of opportunity, and an opportunity to learn with and from one another depending on their individual rather than class aspirations and interests. Each institution according to this model is thus less monochrome, more of a microcosm of the larger diverse society. Cultures may interbreed rather than being separated out for inbreeding. The organizational implications of this mode of diversification can be vexing and untidy. The social gains are attractive. Conversely, the segmentation of HE into private schools and 'secondary moderns' is tidiness and comfort bought at risk of deferred high social price. I am not sanguine that broad and intangible arguments about equity and the common good will prevail over sectoral interests in which the strong fight to grow stronger. I am not sanguine that a unitary Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) will survive in any effective sense against the fractionating tendency to separate. On the other hand there are fragments of good will and some hopeful signs. Birkbeck, the old London part-time people's college, improved its research ratings more than any other institution over the three research assessment exercises (RAEs; 1986-92) which are a main ground for institutional differentiation. At my own old-new university, research excellence and entrepreneurially rewarding regional development and community service coexist constructively. Most heartening is a widely shared and deeply held belief in access and equity among the ranks of good academic scholars, which survives RAE and other competitive pressures. One can discern dimly the outlines of a regional community university strategy wherein vigorous diversity is nurtured within rather than just between universities. For the moment the jury remains out, and this author remains a hopeful sceptic: will diversity turn out to be Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde?

32 Chris Duke

References Association for Colleges (1995) The Higher Education Role of Colleges of Further Education. AFC. Berdahl, R. O., Moodie, G. C. and Spitzberg, I. J. (1991) Quality and Access in Higher Education: Comparing Britain and the United States. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press. Bourgeois, E. et al. (1994) Comparing Access Internationally: The Context of the Belgian and English Higher Education Systems. Warwick: CERC, University of Warwick. Bourgeois, E. et al. (1995) Comparing Access Internationally: Admission, Provision and Adult Participation in Two Universities. Warwick: CERC, University of Warwick. Campbell, D. D. (1984) The New Majority: Adult Learners in the University. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Commission of the European Communities (1993) European Social Policy: Options for the Union (COM(93) 551). Brussels: CEC. Duke, C. (1992) The Learning University. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press. European Commission (1994) European Social Policy: A Way Forward for the Union (COM(94) 333). Brussels: EC. Fulton, O. (ed.) (1989) .Access and Institutional Change. Milton Keynes: SRHE and Open University Press.

Higher Education Funding Council for England (1995) Higher Education in Further Education Colleges: Funding the Relationship. Bristol: HEFCE. Marriott, S. (1981) A Backstairs to a Degree. Leeds: University of Leeds. Miller, H. D. R. (1995) The Management of Change in Universities. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press. Newman, J. H. (1852) The Idea of a University. London: Dent (1952 edition). Reeves, M. (1988) The Crisis in Higher Education. Milton Keynes: SRHE and Open University Press. Schapiro, B. J. and H. T. (1994) Higher Education: Some Problems and Challenges in a Changing World. Toronto: Council of Ontario Universities. Scott, P. (1984) The Crisis of the University. London: Groom Helm. Scott, P. (1994) The meanings of mass higher education. Inaugural Lecture. Leeds: University of Leeds. Tight, M. (1991) Higher Education: A Part-time Perspective. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press. Titmus, C., Knoll, J. H. and Wittpoth, J. (1993) Continuing Education in Higher Education. Leeds: University of Leeds. Wagner, L. (1995) Change and continuity in higher education. Inaugural Lecture. Leeds: Leeds Metropolitan University. Woodley, A. (1995) The experience of older graduates from the British Open University. International Journal of University Adult Education, 34 (1).

4

Rationalization and the Modern University

JENNIFER JARMAN AND ROBERT M. BLACKBURN Our purpose is that through their study and teaching at the University they should discover and acquire the precious pearl of learning, so that it does not stay hidden under a bushel but is displayed abroad to enlighten those who walk in dark paths of ignorance. (Preamble to Statutes of the Foundress of Clare College, Cambridge, 1359)

Debates over resources and priorities have been an important part of university life for a long time. Recently, as government funds have become harder pressed, these debates have intensified and the pace of change has increased. Furthermore, whereas once academics were undisputed 'masters' of their institutions, business interests are becoming increasingly incorporated into universities in a variety of ways and are challenging the ability of the academic professions to determine how their institutions will be organized. While the involvement of business interests in universities is hardly a new thing, government policies and the associated financial pressures on universities have resulted in an increase in business involvement in a variety of ways. First, it involves a shift in the organization of university management, with a perceptible trend towards styles, structures and ideas borrowed from the private sector. Second, it takes the form of a greater number of universitycorporate linkages at the level of faculty interests and research. Third, students are increasingly being treated as 'consumers', are asked to pick up a greater share of the costs of their education and are being encouraged to be more vocational in their orientation. We will take each of these in turn, and discuss what changes are occurring. The first,

adoption of private-sector styles, is central to our concerns and will be considered in more detail, but the three aspects are interrelated and all are contributing to the problems of change confronting universities. Our prime focus is on problems for the professionals who are central members of the university community, conducting the research and teaching for which universities exist. The aims behind the changes are often perfectly reasonable, but there seems to be little thought or sociological understanding in their implementation. Our arguments will be (1) that it is ironic that universities are developing hierarchical management styles at the very time that these are being challenged as inefficient in the private sector; (2) that university-corporate linkages will result in the universities adopting the short-term thinking for which the private sector is well known, thus restricting the academics' abilities to engage in the thoroughgoing, in-depth and sustained research efforts which result in important intellectual developments; (3) that by focusing more on the marketability of students and degrees, universities will be neglecting other worthy educational goals such as personal development, and the development of a greater general knowledge and understanding of democratic societies. It could be argued that such goals are also increasingly important ones to strive towards. Given the massive social changes that contemporary societies are experiencing, the persistent high levels of unemployment and the greater social conflict, educational goals might be chosen to prevent or mini-

34 Jennifer Jarman and Robert M. Blackburn mize greater human misery, increased crime rates and social disorder. Considering all the changes together, our main argument is that they are counterproductive. This is not only because of what is being lost by changing 'missions'. Even in their own terms the new strategies are largely self-defeating. Our discussion will be based on concrete developments in Nova Scotia, Canada and in Britain, particularly England. In both places the universities are subject to government policy and financial control. In Canada education is predominantly provincially funded and controlled. In Britain general policy and funding is determined by the British national government, but there are separate organizational arrangements for Scotland, Wales and England; we concentrate on England, where most of the universities are located. The two places have been guided by somewhat different philosophies and goals concerning the development of higher education. Nova Scotia has thirteen degree-granting universities with a total of 29,433 students (Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education, 1994, p. 2); Great Britain has a far larger system with 96 universities and about 1.25 million students, of which 73 universities and 930,000 students are in England (Department of Education and Science, 1994b). Despite the smaller size, a larger proportion of the population participates in higher education in Nova Scotia. Great Britain, on the other hand, was until recently known for its more elitist educational system, with the highest reputation in Europe in terms of quality, but the smallest proportion of the population being educated at this level. Then in 1992 the Further and Higher Education Act increased the number of universities by 50 (36 in England), from 46 to 96, roughly doubling the number of students, by reclassifying polytechnics and three other higher education institutions. What the consequences have been in terms of standards of quality has yet to be determined. Clearly more students have access to the higher levels of the educational sphere than before. Despite these differences between our two case studies, we show that the current pressures and debates concerning reform within universities are very similar.

The external pressures for change, otherwise known as 'The Crisis' Before we analyse what is actually changing, it is important to make clear the major pressures behind these changes. Education budgets form an important part of total governmental expenditure, and in both places there has been concern over the expense of the higher education system. This concern has recently become particularly acute in Nova Scotia. Out of an estimated 1993/94 budget of $4397 million (Canadian), higher education accounts for $218 million; approximately 5 per cent (Nova Scotia Budget Address, 1993: A3). At a time of recession, and at a time when the government is paying out $824 million of its budget to service its debt (approximately 19 per cent), the Nova Scotia electorate has elected a government which is committed to reducing the deficit while maintaining taxes at their existing levels. Thus, provincial pressure is being applied to reduce the spending on higher education. The federal government has similar financial problems and it looks likely that it will further reduce the size of transfer payments due to the Maritime provinces, further exacerbating the provincial dilemmas. In short, the nature of the entire structure of higher education has come under intense scrutiny with the aim of drawing up strategies for budget reduction. In Britain the financial squeeze began earlier, and there were severe cuts in 1981. Since then there have been increasing pressures on universities to do more with fewer resources. Government policy is to reduce public spending in all areas, and this includes higher education despite a policy of expanded provision. There are a number of demands that universities are facing: that they should be accountable and should be seen to be giving good value for money; that there should be increased levels of productivity and efficiency, though there has been no attempt to assess existing levels of efficiency; that quality of teaching and research remains or is improved; that universities should serve the society, which in contemporary thinking has the narrower meaning of serving the economy.

Rationalization and the Modern University 35 The universities are very heavily dependent on public funds, and so are open to the forces of government policy. As they consume a significant amount of money, the governments and the public want to see the money is well spent. This, however, puts further strains on the resources of the universities; time and money is redirected from academic activities to the administrative procedures for meeting the demands of accountability.

Adopting private-sector management traditions University management Much of the literature on which management styles have been developed has been based on businesses, so the analogy that is used in order to understand the formal organization of the university is the private-sector firm. This is reinforced by being entirely in keeping with current political outlooks. There has been a slow but symbolic change in nomenclature: 'students' and 'employers' become 'customers' or 'clients', 'deans' and 'heads of departments' become 'line managers'. Even the British academics' trade union, the Association of University Teachers (AUT), while concerned to preserve traditional democratic ideals, speaks of the need for departments to elect 'effective managers' (AUT, 1993, p. 13). When a main focus of an institution has been shifted towards cost-cutting due to external political agendas, it is not surprising that there is a turning to outsiders to provide the expertise. The outsiders may be business people who become heads of boards, as in the recent appointment of Bruce Smith as Head of the British Economic and Social Research Council; Smith is a mathematical engineer with his own £10 million-a-year firm, Smith System Engineering. More often, the outside influence will come as existing university administrators turn to a body of management ideas and learn to speak the language of business.

A ceo un tability Given the public-sector 'financial crisis', there has been an increased focus on the accountability of public-sector institutions for the funds that they receive. Thus, there has been an introduction of various systems designed to maximize accountability of those at the lower levels of the university to those at the top, which one could argue is also creating a more hierarchical structure with a greater distance between the 'bottom' and the 'top' (Willmott, 1995, p. 1017). It is interesting that 'accountability' is understood to mean greater control from the top, rather than control of the top by the bottom. Accountability exercises such as research reviews, teaching reviews, departmental assessments, individual performance reviews and so on, occur at much more frequent intervals and are taken much more seriously than previously. External bodies such as the Higher Education Funding Council England (HEFCE) - the government's principal allocator of university funds in England - have begun carrying out productivity assessments. An argument in favour of such exercises is that public monies are being used and therefore there should be some public accounting of how this money is used, to prevent wastage and corruption. While the actual quality of an academic's research and teaching is somewhat difficult to establish, the quantity off work is much easier to assess. Information about staff-student ratios, costs per student and productivity of academics in terms of number of publications has been given prominence. In England the HEFCE research assessment is moving on to attempt to rate departments on the basis of quality. A key component of the assessment of a department (though of unspecified weighting) will be the 'best' four publications in the past four(science)/six(arts) years by each 'research-active' member of staff in post on 31 March 1996.1 There are also two bodies assessing teaching quality. The HEFCE has been designating the teaching of a department as 'excellent', 'satisfactory' or 'unsatisfactory', though this is due to be revised in favour of a profile of six aspects graded

36 Jennifer Jarman and Robert M. Blackburn on a four-point scale. The overall classification will be 'Quality Approved' unless one or more aspect scores 1, when there will be a reassessment in a year; an unfavourable outcome will be 'Unsatisfactory Quality', with partial or total withdrawal of funding. The areas of assessment are clearly specified, but the actual bases of judgement are left vague, apart from an emphasis on formal mechanisms of quality control (HEFCE, 1993,1994). The Academic Audit Unit (AAU) was set up by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, and evaluates a university as a whole, rather than the separate subject departments. It is concerned with 'quality', and with the formal arrangements for maintaining quality. Reviewing the 'audit' of Mekka (a pseudonym), Willmott (1995, p. 1021) observes: Basically, then, the purpose of the AAU ... would seem to be to put pressure on universities to adopt more formalized, centralized and bureaucratized methods of managing their teaching operatives who wo/man the production and delivery processes.

An audit at Cambridge leads us to the same conclusion.2 Shortly after this exercise the HEFCE carried out its first assessment of three Cambridge departments, rating them all excellent. This led to the comment, in an article reporting the concerns of the Vice-Chancellor, that 'the quality is there, even if the bureaucracy is not' (Hunt, 1993). It might well have declared that the ratings were high because of the absence of stultifying bureaucracy and that they reflected long-standing standards of professional excellence. However, this further illustrates the dominance of the managerial perspective, with its concern to reform university administration along formal bureaucratic lines. These various pieces of information about numbers, costs and quality are all useful from a managerial point of view, especially at a time when there is a strong emphasis on productivity and efficiency throughout the economy. They help to ensure that satisfactory standards are maintained everywhere, and are useful in terms of being able to link funding with active and successful departments rather than unproductive departments. It is important to recognize that these systems replace other systems of accountability, ones

which have been more informal. There are two distinct forms of authority, one based on position in a hierarchical structure and the other based on expert competence. In Weber's classic theory of bureaucracy the two are supposed to coincide, but this is very rarely the case. In the economic and administrative sphere the hierarchical model has tended to dominate, though awareness of its limitations has led to many modifications. In universities there is a reverse movement, from competence to hierarchy. An organizational structure entails an implicit model of the commitment and motivation of the workers. The formal bureaucratic hierarchy is a legacy from the 'scientific management' ideas of the early years of the century, with its view of unwilling workers who only respond to direct commands and wage incentives. A wealth of research in the sociology of work demonstrated the shortcomings of the formal bureaucratic hierarchy, and showed that it is impossible for an organization to operate effectively without the positive informal involvement of the staff (e.g. Blau and Scott, 1963). This became so familiar in the 1950s and 1960s that it no longer seemed necessary to mention it, and so it has perhaps become forgotten. At the other extreme from the formal bureaucracy are organizations based on the assumption that workers are willing to do their jobs, may indeed positively enjoy them and want to get on with their work. Academics used to be viewed in this way. The traditional university systems have been based on collegial scrutiny. While academics did not give annual productivity reports, there were, and still are, several points in their careers at which their record and contribution came up for assessment. These key points include: the initial hiring process, tenure review, contract renewals, and considerations for promotion. Other traditional quality checks include the use of external examiners for first and higher degrees, independent external refereeing of work submitted for publication, and external assessments of applications for research funding. More importantly, the informal workplace culture of an academic unit operates to make sure that professional standards of teaching excellence and research productivity are

Rationalization and the Modern University maintained. Academics expect to be able to rely on the professional competence and commitment of their colleagues, without which the organization would not function. Individual lecturers who find themselves uninterested in research may take on larger amounts of departmental administration and assume heavier teaching loads to allow their colleagues to pursue fuller research agendas. Alternatively, in a healthy academic environment, all may find themselves stimulated to work harder. An unfortunate aspect of informality is that workplace cultures may vary, and an apathetic culture can have a negative effect on productivity generally. It has even been known for the shopfloor concept of 'ratebusters' to be applied to colleagues who were extremely active in research. Canadian universities treat the granting of tenure as a serious hurdle, whereas in many British universities the transition from probationary to tenured position has been little more than a formality. In both countries the organizational informality can increase the possibilities for patronage and promotion on non-academic criteria, though simple seniority is more commonly a feature of bureaucratic organization. It is sometimes argued that the absence of strong hierarchical authority structures makes it easier for the lazy and unscrupulous to get away with not pulling their weight, regardless of workplace culture, but the problem of the reluctant worker exists in all types of organizations, and a strength of universities has been that most academics have liked their work. While systems of bureaucratic control need not destroy this commitment, they are not well adapted to engender enthusiasm. Accountability exercises certainly have their costs. In Britain the 1992 research assessment exercise alone is estimated to have cost £13.5 million of public money. Of this, £12.5 million was provided by the universities (Court, 1994, p. 11), money acutely needed for actual research. It seems likely that teaching assessments will prove more expensive. In Canada, the university system is less centralized than its counterpart in Britain, and there are no national or provincial productivity exercises in place. Accountability exercises are more restricted to the assessment of departments

37

by other departments, the submission of individual academics' annual reports on their teaching loads, publications and grants. It is probably impossible to place a dollar value on the costs of these undertakings, but even the more minimal Canadian exercises do have significant costs in terms of hours of faculty time. It is an irony that exercises intended to ensure the quality and quantity of performance are making demands on time and money which can only restrict academic output. In one revealing example, the Unit for Innovation in Higher Education is offering courses for which they claim: We have now established an effective technique for preparing institutions and departments for this exercise [HEFCE teaching assessment] which combines the analysis of examples of self-assessments from other disciplines and giving participants the opportunity to play the part of (1) specialist assessors, and (2) the staff of an assessed department in making practical preparations for a visit from assessors. (Lancaster University, Unit for Innovation in Higher Education, 1994) Two workshops were organized, at a combined cost of £695.00, including Value Added Tax, for each person attending. Because of the serious repercussions to a department for not doing well on these productivity exercises, considerable resources must be expended to ensure reasonable success. It is not surprising that English university vice-chancellors are unhappy with the latest HEFCE exercise (Higher, 13 January 1995, p. 1). They claim that it is disruptive, bureaucratic and unhelpful and suggest an alternative audit under their control. Attempts to agree a single system have met with fundamental disagreements (Higher, 31 March 1995, p. 1). In a way, the most important cost of the new approaches is in terms of time. There are more committees, more meetings, more discussions, more papers arriving on the desk, more forms and reports to complete. Complaints abound, both among the academics and among the administrative staff. Workloads are increased on all sides. Academics have less time to devote to the growing numbers of students or to original research, while

38 Jennifer Jarman and Robert M. Blackburn in the administrative ranks it creates a need for more staff.

Growth of senior administration Perhaps more significant than the proliferation of accountability exercises has been the development of increasingly top-heavy administrations. Marguerite Cassin and Graham Morgan (1992, p. 250) describe the expansion of the senior administration at Dalhousie University as follows: [there has been] a wholly new bureaucratic phenomenon: The 'President's Office'. The latter used to be little more than a geographical designation; now it is a concept of organization that embraces a large complement of functionaries, a bee-hive of activities, a complex of inter-connecting offices. They might equally have been describing the changes in Cambridge, where the position of ViceChancellor has changed from a duty/honour rotating among heads of colleges to a permanent, wellpaid chief executive with his own 'office' of staff. The consequences of this new growth of an upper layer of bureaucracy are that the academics are no longer in control of the university institution. Instead, there is a development of professional managers, particularly in areas such as finance and personnel. Universities have, of course, always needed expert 'administrators', but now the 'managers' are more numerous, more important and more powerful.3 These managers do not necessarily share the same intellectual goals as the academic staff yet they have the final say over important matters of university policy. Manuel Crespo, in a comparative study of higher educational institutions in Quebec, France and the Federal Republic of Germany, suggests that managerial initiatives have had the effect of contributing to the obsolescence of scientific equipment and to diminished library resources, as well as less academic follow-up and personal attention with respect to students (Crespo, 1989, p. 384). From the personal observation of the present authors, it is university teachers who are concerned most with the impact of chan-

ges on the quality of student life, possibly because university teachers have day-to-day contact with many students, unlike the senior administration which spends more of its time with other administrators. It is not that administrators and academics have opposing aims, but their different roles in the context of external pressures inevitably generate tensions. While on the one hand, administrators recognize the importance of high quality in education, on the other hand, they are hampered by the reality of reduced government purses with which to ensure this quality. The current goal seems to be to strive towards the maintenance of quality with much greater consciousness of costs. While administrators are attempting to 'promote the powers of the mind', 'provide an environment for study and learning at the highest intellectual level, often involving discovery and leading to a new understanding beyond the frontiers of present knowledge' (Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education, 1994, p. 4) and so on, it is also clear that governments are determined to cut millions of dollars and pounds from education budgets. It seems unrealistic to expect that the same standards of quality can be maintained.

Reorganizing the university system As well as a growth of senior level administration, there has also been much thought about ways of rationalizing university systems. In Nova Scotia, the Council of Higher Education has discussed at length the structure of the existing system on the premise that: To realize optimal value from its universities, Nova Scotia must have system-wide vision and collaboration in both academic and administrative areas - i.e., think and operate as a coordinated university system. (Council of Higher Education, 1994, p. 5) Proposals have been developed to create larger bureaucratic institutions. For example, several of the current proposals for change involve amalgamating universities and smaller teaching units to

Rationalization and the Modern University

form one large administrative unit, although how cost savings will occur is unclear. In England the process has been going on for some time, though in a less dramatic fashion. There have been amalgamations; for example, Queen Mary and Westfield Colleges combined in the University of London, Homerton teacher training college has become part of Cambridge University, and three colleges combined to form the polytechnic which is now Anglia Polytechnic University. Besides such amalgamations, several departments have closed down (e.g. sociology at Aston) and universities concentrate on different areas of high-cost scientific research, such as highenergy physics. The thinking behind such moves is that a few larger, more specialized centres are more efficient than a plethora of smaller institutions. Amalgamation can have practical advantages such as bringing the experts in a field together in a limited number of groupings; providing centralized computing facilities that can be accessed by researchers all over the country through inter-university linkages; and more generally, economies of scale in purchasing. However, arguments can also be made that 'small' is more efficient - that small units are more manageable; that the need for a layer of middle managers is eliminated; that students can best be served in small institutions where a student community develops, rather than in large anonymous institutions; that access to 'common' resources in large universities can be problematic in real terms, especially for those in marginal locations.

The process of change While the cost savings of large versus small universities are not readily apparent, it is possible to envisage how the turmoil associated with an amalgamation could have the effect of providing the smoke-screen for cost savings. Permanent members of academic staff could be removed and replaced by people on temporary contracts, with little hope of secure employment. Also, some

39

courses or whole teaching programmes could be jettisoned. At the same time, concentration favours bureaucratization and strengthens the pressure towards managerialism. In the move toward cost-cutting, early retirement schemes are a frequent solution. University academics with 20 or 30 years of experience may cost two or three times more than junior academics with little experience. Since the retired person receives a generous pension (the incentive to retire) for not working, it is not obvious that a cheaper replacement would lower the total cost, so how is money saved? First, the pension costs come from a different account, largely from the pension funds of those remaining in employment. Second, significant savings can be made by not replacing, or by delaying replacement of the retired person, thereby increasing the work of the remaining staff, though some of the work may be covered by temporary, part-time staff on very low pay. These savings from non-replacement can be made whenever staff leave, for whatever reason. Even when a replacement is made, the change is not straightforward. Recently graduated PhDs have the advantage of having just finished a threeor four-year period of research so that they are well aware of the most recent debates in their specialist area. They are (usually) younger and so may be more able to understand their (usually younger) audiences, and they may perform equally as well as their more experienced colleagues at classroom teaching. They can bring a fresh enthusiasm to their work, and they may find it easier to adapt to the organizational changes. On the other hand, academics never stop learning and the more senior staff can draw on a breadth of knowledge that takes decades to acquire, and on greater experience in research, teaching and student problems. More experienced academics have to spend more of their time on administration, and it is here that their years of experience are most important. Understanding the nuances of university policy, having the experience to be able to negotiate and implement research agendas (rather than individual projects), and simply having the knowledge of how their department and university are run, are all desirable in an academic setting. They provide the 'cultural capital' to oppose managerial ini-

40 Jennifer Jarman and Robert M. Blackburn tiatives, so getting rid of these players is an effective way to further entrench the managerialist hold on the universities. The general direction of all the structural changes is towards a highly formal bureaucratic model of managerialism. The intention is increased efficiency. Yet it is worth bearing in mind that while the universities are becoming more hierarchical in their organizational structures, and the gap in status and power between the academics and senior management is increasing, this trend is counter to the current thinking on managerial styles. In the past ten years, there have been a variety of explorations of management styles which devolve power from management to the lower levels of occupational hierarchies, and which try to move organizations beyond the stifling bureaucracy of the Fordist organization to a more flexible post-Fordist model. There have been several elaborations on this theme within the management literature: 'Japanese management theory', Theory Z', the 'new managerialism'. Charles Sabel, in his best-selling book, Work and Politics, advocates turning 'low trust' organizations (in which there is little trust of the average worker by management) into 'high trust' organizations where 'those who do the work' make a contribution to 'what work is done and how' (Sabel, 1982, p. 210). Universities are already 'high trust' organizations; however, it looks as if the managerial strategies are trying to reverse the situation and turn them into 'low trust' organizations.

Setting up of corporate linkages Given the deliberately constrained position of government finances in both countries, it is not surprising that there are pressures within universities to enlarge the amount of private-sector funding of various university activities. Plans vary from making the university the hub of a high-technology industrial ring as has been proposed for University College of Cape Breton (Cape Breton County Economic Development Authority, 1994), to encouraging academics to develop 'corporate partners'

with whom to engage in research (Canada Social Science and Humanities Research Council, 1994 guide-lines), to trying to encourage academics to seek actively to turn the results of research into patentable products and to set up companies. The new research priorities are: research which directly benefits industry (corporate partnerships), and research which brings in money to the university. The logic behind this is that useful research can bring in much-needed money and that researchers should be making a direct contribution to the communities in which they are located. Responsible research is that which contributes to economic well-being and has 'practical' applications. This requires that there be a reorientation of the subject matter to be investigated by researchers. In Britain, for example, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is shifting administrative work to the universities in order to devote more time to major 'mission' objectives - i.e. being active in defining and delimiting areas of 'useful' research. The main difference between a university and other higher education colleges has been that universities have been institutions that not only provide teaching but are also, through research, the source of the knowledge that is taught. Thus, it is expected that university teachers are also active researchers. Promotion through the academic ranks has been primarily based upon an individual's research and publishing achievements. The principle of allowing individuals to set their own research objectives, and decide what topics should be researched and how, has been important (with some limitations related to ethical considerations). Increasingly, there is pressure to design research agendas with the goal of bringing in research money, rather than achieving intellectual goals. To some extent, there has always been a tension between the need to undertake research which is deemed to be important by the individual researcher, and the need to convince others sufficiently of its merits so that it actually gets funding, but the current situation of serious shortages of funds within departments has generated new and greater pressures to chase money. This is particularly acute in Britain, where the recent introduc-

Rationalization and the Modern University tion of 'dual funding' has made universities dependent on research funding for basic running costs. The need to acquire corporate partners for research suggests that academics need to be directed towards 'real-world' issues - that academics are not capable of making sensible decisions but tend to waste time, energy and money on concerns that are largely irrelevant to most other members of society. The recently appointed head of the British Economic and Social Research Council has commented that his goal is: the move from a one-dimensional world where intellectual inquiry is the only ambition to a twodimensional world where the utility of research also counts and see through the management implications of that. (Quoted by Walker, 1994, p. 3)

No doubt he has his own idea of what is useful, but frequently research has to be well developed before anyone identifies its usefulness. If such criteria had been applied in the past we might not now be using electricity. (Faraday is reputed to have thought his achievement had no practical relevance.) Linking the business community and the academic community offers the possibility of direct implementation of research results. It offers the possibility of dialogue occurring between two groups that previously may not have had much contact. Depending upon the situation, such dialogue may give the universities access to much better equipment and research facilities in the private sector, and greater capital, than currently exist in the university settings. This may be particularly true in the areas of natural science and engineering. Even in social science survey and data collection, private companies may have much to offer. At the extreme, the losses associated with a business-led research agenda may simply be that decisions are made to do low-level repetitive research projects that provide useful insights to particular firms, but add little to the broader debates of a discipline. For example, sociological research methods could be used to discover which sections of a target population would prefer orange soda to lime soda, and this information could be very useful to corporate partners. Such information

41

would do little to advance debates within the discipline, and the actual undertaking of the project would be an under-utilization of the researchers' skills and limit their time spent on more fundamental intellectual issues. Even where significant issues are addressed, concentration on a useful solution to a predefined problem is liable to be self-defeating. Professional researchers are more likely to devise new ways of looking at a problem, and locate it within a wider theoretical context. There are many examples of developments in one area having unanticipated applications in another, but more usually it is a matter of drawing on a wider basis of knowledge. There is a danger that the application of ideas to new areas will not occur if they are not in keeping with current 'mission' or business needs.

The reorientation of undergraduate courses towards the labour market There are many different ideas about what the content and goals of a university education should be, ranging from the production of a better informed citizenry (John Stuart Mill), to education as a form of leisure-time activity, to the development of a more productive and skilled workforce. Canada and Britain have experienced serious recessions recently, which have had the effect of encouraging more people to enter higher education in the hope that they may subsequently find work, and to reconfigure the kinds of goals that both students and policy-makers have with respect to the 'saleability' of skills and degrees once the student ventures onto the job market. Business lobby groups such as the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) have been claiming that a skills shortage has been hampering the ability of their members to become more competitive in the European marketplace. Similarly, in Canada, the Axworthy Report argues for the importance of institutions of higher education in contributing towards the creation of a technologically sophisticated workforce capable of working with

42 Jennifer Jarman and Robert M. Blackburn the latest round of informatics developments and ensuring Canada's continued place as one of the stronger economies in the world; it states: Rapid technological advances, the globalization of innovation, the reshaping of our work and home lives around the microchip and telecommunications revolution - all this has underscored the point that knowledge and occupational skills cannot stand still. More than ever before, up-to-date knowledge is the hard currency in demand in today's labour market. (Human Resources Development Canada, 1994, p. 58)

The Nova Scotia Council of Higher Education echoes this sentiment: The universities in Nova Scotia - individually and collectively - are a critical element in Nova Scotia's strategy for social and economic renewal. A vibrant, high quality, flexible, forward-looking and dynamic post-secondary education system is essential for Nova Scotia in a knowledge-intensive economy and society. (Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education, 1994, p. 5)

To meet such demands, universities must reorder the ways that programmes are delivered. 'Co-op' programmes,4 in which the student alternates semesters with work placements in firms with academic semesters at the university, remain popular as an effective way to smoothing the transition between work and university for many students. Additionally, there are increasing pressures to expand programmes with 'practical' or 'vocational' components. In Britain the government regards technical courses, particularly in engineering, as useful and tries to promote them, but students are tending to follow their interests elsewhere. Graduate programmes which offer the promise of a direct transition into the labour force, such as law and accountancy, have large numbers of applicants. There is clearly a tension between the benefits of the acquisition of technical knowledge and the benefits of a broader intellectual development, but 'credentialism' is as strong a motivating factor for students now as it was in the 1970s when Randall Collins wrote The Credentialist Society, outlining the increasing importance assigned to formal credentials in determining who has access to good jobs (Collins, 1979).

Students and teachers Just as universities are being encouraged to turn to the private sector to support research, students are being required to bear a greater share of the cost of their education. First, it must be borne in mind that there are important differences between our two case studies in the degree to which students currently finance their own educations. In Britain, it is normal that all British students receive grants which cover the full cost of tuition fees, and for many graduate students the grants cover living costs as well. For the past 30 years undergraduates have also received contributions towards their living costs, where their parents' incomes were sufficiently low, but this is being phased out in favour of loans. In Canada, these costs (fees and maintenance) are usually entirely borne by the student or the student's family, often financed through student loans. In neither country do students bear the total cost of their education, but Canadian students are hit much harder by the financial squeeze since tuition costs have been steadily rising. At Dalhousie, student fees have been raised so that they are now the highest in Canada, at $3200 per year (Council of Ontario Universities, 1994). The Axworthy Report indicates that the federal government is considering a tripling of student fees (Human Resources Development Canada, 1994). Academics are not directly implicated in the question of which students pay how much for their education. There are general concerns around social inequality - higher fees will deter students from lower-income households. Students may also become pawns between academia and management. From an institution's point of view, raising student fees is relatively painless and may ensure better funding for courses that they are involved in mounting. Arguably, academics do face a somewhat different teaching situation when a relatively high proportion of students finance themselves to a substantial extent. There are increasing calls for accountability - 'I am paying $600.00 for this course - I expect a fast turn-round time on my essay.' Even without the financial element, stu-

Rationalization and the Modern University 43 dent concern to get good qualifications can increase demands. This can increase stress levels as staff teaching loads increase, the fast professional attention becomes increasingly difficult to deliver. The student-teacher relationship can become increasingly tense. One consequence of the changes taking place in universities may be an increase in the power and status of the student/consumer. 'The customer is always right' may no longer apply in commerce, but it never had a parallel within an institution of higher education. Students have been viewed as being at the bottom of a meritocratically based knowledge hierarchy. To this point, while there have been various levels of protection and redress against unfair judgements for students, there has been a basic assumption of competence in the judgements of the academic. In Britain, even the identity of an examiner may be protected, and it is difficult for a student to proceed very far with a complaint. The Higher Education Charter is an attempt by the government to specify formal student rights, though its impact has been slight. It is interesting in this respect to note the recent attempt of Sheffield Hallam University's 'Partnership in Learning' to further elaborate the kinds of expectations that students should have of lecturers. One provision, for example, states that students should be able to expect that any material handed in for marking be returned within two weeks with adequate comments (AUT Bulletin, 1994, p. 7). Other universities are encouraged to produce their own charters. It is assumed that academic practices need to be codified in this manner rather than relying on professional competence. While normal practice is at a higher standard than the codified requirement, there are presumably some instances where application of the code would benefit the students. It remains to be seen whether the net effect, if any, is to strengthen the 'consumer's' voice or to allow the workers to lower their norms to the bureaucratic requirement. There has always been something of a tension in the role of the academic, being the authoritative expert while providing a service to the students. The tendency for university students to come from high-status backgrounds, particularly in England,

has strengthened the demand for a high-quality service. In so far as current changes are empowering students in relation to their teachers5 it will increase the stress level for the latter. At the moment, many academics are struggling to provide the same level of quality for students with decreased resources. In some cases this may have resulted in innovative teaching strategies for dealing with larger groups of people. In other cases, it means an increased reliance on less qualified people to provide teaching previously done by the permanent staff. In Canada there are increased pressures to utilize sessional teachers who, by definition, do not have permanent contracts and are cheaper, and to use senior students as Teaching Assistants and markers. In Britain the system is different, but there is a similar growing use of graduate students and temporary part-time lecturers, all at low rates of pay. For instance, in one department with five permanent staff, there are nine part-time teachers on varying rates of pay from as little as £17 a lecture (£8.50 per hour).6 The use of casual appointments is not always possible and is never a complete solution. Many staff members have voluntarily increased their own workloads, resulting in harried staff. One would expect stress disorders to be on the increase. Morale is certainly low - Dalhousie's recent report to the President on the matter of employee morale states that 'Almost sixty per cent of Dalhousie employees ... say that their level of morale ... has declined somewhat or substantially in the last five years' (Committee on Employee Morale, 1994, p. 3). There is abundant evidence in the press and AUT publications that the situation is not very different in Britain.

Conclusions In both Canada and Britain there is extensive access to universities, in keeping with democratic ideals and the desire for a well-educated labour force. The modern university systems are large and costly. Governments, being responsible for the basic provision and funding of the systems, seek

44 Jennifer Jarman and Robert M. Blackburn accountability and cost control - which in the light of the current financial situations and policies means cuts. These are the circumstances in which substantial changes have been, and are still being introduced. They pose a number of dilemmas for the academic staff. We have examined three areas where business has become involved on a larger scale in universities: in university management, in the funding of research and in its influence on the students. In the first area, we have discussed the way that both people from the business sphere and business ideas have increasingly penetrated the university sector. The increasing division between management and members of the teaching and research staff results in lower status and control for the academics, and an increased amount of administrative paperwork. We have suggested that theories of formal organization and bureaucratic control are replacing informal professional workplace cultures, in the mistaken view that the former are inevitably more efficient than the latter. There is a danger of the sort of downward spiral analysed in the classic study by Gouldner (1954,1955), where the failure of hierarchical control leads to progressive tightening of the formal control until the system breaks down completely. The concern with accountability is expressed in the laudable aim to ensure high standards in teaching and research, and to effect improvements. In practice it is taking away considerable time and resources from the very activities it is supposed to support. Assessment scores are replacing the substance of teaching and research as the criteria of academic achievement. The accountability control is imposed at lower levels where even if it were not damaging it is largely unnecessary. At the same time it is reduced at the level of the (new) top management, where governments might be expected to want to ensure it. We went on to look at the impact of private sector funding of academic research. While there are advantages to be gained in terms of additional resources for university activities at a time when such resources are in scarce supply, they are gained at significant costs. These take the form of the diversion of academic research time into shortterm, and often more intellectually limited, corpo-

rate research goals. There are many examples in the history of science of the manner in which developments in one area result in unanticipated applications in another. Our concern is that a narrow linkage of university and business interests will restrict the originality and inventiveness for which university research is renowned. Ultimately this is likely to result in a lower transferability of ideas to business than currently exists. A more fruitful approach might be for governments to target the business world and help them to learn to make more use of academic ideas, rather than targeting academics as the starting point for partnership initiatives.7 Finally, we explored the ways in which privatesector interests are becoming increasingly influential in deciding what gets taught and who pays for it. Linked to the recession, Canadian students are finding it harder to justify spending their limited resources on courses which they feel will produce an insecure future, and their concern is with the usefulness of their credentials in securing decent jobs. For British students the financial concerns are less, but job credentials are still important. More influential, however, are the views of politicians and business leaders who want universities to provide economically useful preparation for entry into the labour market. Thus there is a shift from an older consensus that education was valuable for its own role in personal and civic development, in favour of a new position around job training. In conclusion, we observe that the business approach to reforming the university is based on a formal bureaucratic hierarchical management model of a type which has been rejected in organizational and managerial theory. The academic's defence is based on a concern to preserve the collegial professionalism and independence enjoyed in a more elite past. Professionalism and autonomy have been the foundations of successful universities yet, paradoxically, the attachment to traditional qualities may be helping to bring about greater managerialism. Academics are struggling, in increasingly difficult circumstances, to maintain standards and keep the system going as managerial changes are introduced. Resistance is made complicated because of the volume of work that

Rationalization and the Modern University 45 academics are being asked to do; because a growing proportion of academic staff are on the margins of academia in insecure, temporary, part-time posts, and willing to take the places of tenured staff; and because academics generally don't identify with militant, 'shopfloor' working-class strategies for resisting management (such as work-torule and strikes). For many, resistance is simply a matter of keeping going. It means adapting the new arrangements to contain the damage. Thus it often takes the form of the hours of committee work involved with the documentation of quantity and quality of work, with the drafting of position papers and attempts to inform those with decision-making power about the nature and culture of university institutions. For a time, dedication to students and the world of ideas may conceal the damage being done to the research agendas, the curriculum and the studentacademic relationship. The government aims of increasing academic accountability through formal managerial structures, producing more graduates, making teaching and research 'useful', raising quality and cutting costs are simply not compatible. They undermine each other and in the end the only one that is likely to be attained is a damaging cutback in funding. But if universities are to lose their traditional roles, will any institutions take over as centres of independent research and thought in democratic societies?

Notes 1 A department can declare staff as not research-active and so not included in the publications evaluation. It is not clear if this has any damaging consequences for the resultant grading. However, future funding levels will be related to the grade and the number of research-active staff. One consequence of the procedure is that universities are busily trying to appoint people with good publication records to be on their staff at the assessment date. The hope is that the costs of the extra staff will be more than met from the higher income following improved ratings. This appears to be a risky strategy as, even if average grades rise, the government is most unlikely to increase the overall

2

3

4 5 6

7

money, so there must be some losers. Furthermore, if a university does 'too well' it is liable to have its income capped (held below the level corresponding to the gradings of its departments), as happened to Cambridge after the last research assessment so as to provide more adequate funding elsewhere. Based on the experience of one author and the report to the University (Academic Audit Unit, 1992), which criticized the University's lack of formal systems of quality control. Court (1995) notes similar experiences at the University of Essex. It should be appreciated that the workload imposed on university administrations has increased hugely, and the staff are likely to have suffered from the stress of increased work-demands along with their academic colleagues. However, whether sought or not, their influence - particularly at the highest levels - has been increased by the changes that have taken place. British 'sandwich' courses entail the same basic idea though organized rather differently. It may be noted that in England the HEFCE assessments look for provisions for academics to respond to demands from their students. Personal communication from the Head of Department. The situation may be somewhat exceptional but is nonetheless an organizational nightmare. It is a reflection of the general extent of the problem that the AUT is organizing a campaign to publicize the excessive use of casual staff (AUT, 1995). The pattern of ideas originating in Britain or in Canada but being commercially exploited elsewhere is notorious.

Referencess Academic Audit Unit (1992) Report of an Academic Audit of the University of Cambridge. Cambridge University Reporter, 16 October, 119-35. Association of University Teachers (1993) Promoting Professionalism: The Way Forward on Pay and Conditions. London: AUT. Association of University Teachers (1994) Students have rights too. AUT Bulletin, 197 (April), 6-8. Association of University Teachers (1995) Fighting casualisation. Update, 21 (January), 2. Blackburn, R. M, Dale, A. and Jarman, J. (1996) Ethnic differences in attainment in education, occupation and lifestyle, in Valerie Karn (ed.), Ethnic Minorities and the 1991 Census. London: OPCS. Blackburn, R. M. and Jarman, J. (1993) Changing inequalitiess in access to British universities. OOxford Beview of Education, 19 (2), 197-215.

46 Jennifer Jarman and Robert M. Blackburn Blau, P. M. and Scott, W. R. (1963) Formal Organisations. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Cape Breton County Economic Development Authority (1994) Strategic Economic Action Plan, August. Principal author, Keith Brown, Executive Director, Cape Breton County Economic Development Authority. (Known as the Brown Report.) Cassin, A. M. and Morgan, G. (1992) The professoriate and the market-driven university: transforming the control of work in the academy, in William K. Carroll, Linda Christiansen-Ruffman, Raymond Currie and Deborah Harrison (eds), Fragile Truths. Ottawa: Carleton University Press. Committee on Employee Morale (1994) Final Report to the President. Dalhousie University, 13 March. Council of Ontario Universities (1994) Interprovincial comparisons of university funding, 1993-94 (estimated), in The Financial Position of Universities in Ontario: 1994. Toronto: COU. Court, S. (1994) Is quality assessment out of control? AUTBulletin, 196 (January), 10-11. Court, S. (1995) Looking at quality from the other side off the fence. AUT Bulletin, 199 (January), 11-13. Crespo, M. (1989) The management of austerity in higher education: an international comparison. Higher Education, 18, 373-95. Department of Education and Science (1994a) Education Statistics for the UK 1993. London: HMSO. Department of Education and Science (1994b) Statistical Bulletin 17/94 (November). Economic and Social Research Council (1994) Creating the right business environment. Social Sciences: News from theESRC, 22 (January), 8. Gouldner, A. W. (1954) Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy. New York: Free Press. Gouldner, A. W. (1955) Wildcat Strike. New York: Free Press.

Higher (The Times Higher Education Supplement), 13 January 1995. Higher (The Times Higher Education Supplement), 31 March 1995. Higher Education Funding Council England (1993) Assessment of the Quality of Education. Circular 3/93 (February). London: HEFCE. Higher Education Funding Council England (1994) The Quality Assessment Method from April 1995. Circular 39/94 (December). London, HEFCE. Human Resources Development Canada (1994) Improving Social Security in Canada. Hull: Human Resources Development Canada. (Known as the Axworthy Report.) Hunt, P. (1993) Getting to grips with financing. Centrepiece: The Official Journal of the University Centre, Cambridge, 21 (Michaelmas), 3. Lancaster University, Unit for Innovation in Higher Education, promotional material (1994) Hunting the Snark? The continued pursuit of 'excellence' in the HEFC Quality Assessment Process: preparing for the assessors 1995-96; 16/17 January: self assessment; 30/31 March: the visit. Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education (1994) Critical Choices: The Nova Scotia University System at a Crossroads. Green Paper on Higher Education, an Overview. Halifax: Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education. Sabel, C. F. (1982) Work and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walker, D. (1994) The 'moderniser' at the head of ESRC: a profile of Dr Bruce Smith. Social Sciences: News from the ESRC, 24 (June), 3. Williams, E. (1994) Students have rights too. AUT Bulletin, 197 (April), 6-8. Willmott, H. (1994) Managing the academics: commodification and control in the development of university education in the UK. Human Relations, 48 (9).

5

Is Small Still Beautiful? In Defence of Collegial Institutions of Higher Education

DAVID BLAKE Context and challenge of higher education policy In the 1980s a reforming government began to take a close interest in the relationship between the university, the economy and society in England and Wales. In essence the reforms, identified by some within the university as an attack, challenged the autonomy of university decisionmaking and introduced mechanisms to provide greater central control of university aims and governance. There was more control over the number of students to be recruited, over arrangements for quality control, on the way research funds were distributed (competitively, or selectively), on developing various kinds of entrepreneurial activities and on introducing a new kind of efficient and externally accountable management ethos in university affairs (Becher and Kogan, 1992). As an example of the application of the political arts, Ashworth (1993) considers that the development of public policy towards the universities in the 1980s was breathtaking. Beginning with the 1981 cuts in unit funding which destabilized the system, the polytechnics were gradually loosened from local authority control and enabled by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) to provide the full range of degrees, many of them innovative and mould-breaking. The polytechnics enthusiastically opened their doors to admit the bulge of late-1960s babies which the universities were unable to admit because of the limit on numbers the University Grants Committee imposed. Thus were created two parallel, competing higher education systems, with government skilfully

playing one off against the other. The polytechnics rapidly attained favoured-child status, embracing a new, more self-confident style of management, efficient use of resources and huge productivity increases over those of the old universities. They were rewarded in the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992, which allowed the polytechnics to use the university title. Thus was created, in 1992, a sector of more than a hundred university institutions, able to meet the government's target, of 30 per cent of 18-year-olds going on to take a place in higher education, so quickly that in 1993 the brakes were slammed on to inhibit further, rapid expansion. Alongside the university institutions, expressing concern about their exclusion from the university club, were the colleges and institutes of higher education, many of which originated in the late 1970s as a consequence of the restructuring of teacher education. Resulting from this institutional regrouping is a more heterogeneous range of university-type institutions, a larger university system, a greater spread of research funding and, fed by rapid expansionn of student numbers, much larger universities. Crystal-ball gazing has become a popular, if anxiety-inducing pastime. What challenges lie ahead, to bring further changes in the university sector? For Daniel (1993), unsurprisingly, the challenge of mass higher education in England and Wales means recognizing that increased numbers of students will engage in part-time study. There will be more integration of full- and parttime modes, and a new funding mechanism, based on student credit points, will be necessary. Ball

48 David Blake (1990) has consistently confronted universities with the need to face new realities, to embrace change and move from an emphasis on preservation. In this vein he challengingly identifies some fallacies, as he sees them, about the future direction of universities. These include the mistaken view that higher education of students is not possible unless university teachers are doing fundamental research, the unrealistic defence of arcane definitions of quality, the spurious notion of fixed units of resource and the outmoded idea that the course will be the future curriculum structure for most students. Duke (1992) placed emphasis on the future university becoming a learning organization, adaptable and self-reviewing, placing special emphasis on continuing and lifelong learning. Birch (1988) argues that the university of the future should embrace a broader academic ethic. There should be more interaction between the university and the world of affairs, with research activity more closely aligned to societal needs. Commentators on the development of public policy in the 1980s have agreed about the main themes. Niblett (1990), for example, identified the move from liberal to utilitarian ideas, a process off desegregating university activity, the move to management with a technicist edge, above all an overriding instrumentality in the way the university is conceived. But what struck him most was what he called 'an absence of outrage' about these developments, a tired and defeated acceptance of changes which threatened the university's holistic and moral purpose. Brownstein (1989) identified the same instrumental basis of higher education policy, the move to transform the educational system into a training machine for the labour market. Alongside this identification of the characteristics of public policy there were reminders and restatements of different conceptions. Among these Hammersley (1992) reflected on truth, citizenship and the role of the academic in the liberal university, comparing these aspects within competing kinds of university. Wyatt (1990), in a timely publication, reminded readers of the reflections of Max Horkheimer, Karl Jaspers, F. R. Leavis, J. H. Newman, Jose" Ortega y Gasset, Paul Tillich and Miguel de Unamuno on the essence of the university in Western Europe.

Collegiality and community, scholarship and scale Part of the essence of the university has traditionally been an interest in and concern with a set of values to do with related notions of collegiality and community, scholarship and scale. These are ideas about the kinds of place where university study is best undertaken, the kinds of ethos and relationships which characterize that study, the way higher levels of learning happen and the moral values associated with them. The question of scale arises because of the concern that some of the defining characteristics of the university may be endangered if the scale of the enterprise, defined in various ways, leads to the process of study becoming dehumanized. Of course, even raising such questions may be impatiently dismissed as backward-looking and irrelevant, characterized as clinging to an outmoded and elitist conception of what the university should be at the beginning of the twenty-first century. In her delightful review, The Crisis in Higher Education (1988), Marjorie Reeves discusses the attributes of competence, delight and the common good as features of university study. She explains how she hesitated to use the term academic communityy bevcause there may no longer be such a community, and began to write 'scholars and stu, dents' instead. She noted how the term 'academic' has become merely a pejorative adjective, implying separation from the real world, and a kind of faded irrelevance. There has been a bifurcation of the single community of learners into two communities of scholars and students. The sense of an academic community has been destroyed by excessive individualism, of scholars and faculties, and by the market model, which puts 'the selling counter between teachers and students, creating a transaction increasingly governed by commercial principles' (p. 46). Yet it was the old model of the guild which shaped European universities at their inception and, Reeves argues, it still has validity in terms of its fundamental principles, especially the admittance of members of the guild to a commonn enterprise. It saw the enterprise of learning as enhanced by a community of experts, or masters,

Is Small Still Beautiful? In Defence of Collegial Institutions of Higher Education 49 who shared intrinsic values such as openness, integrity and persistence in scholarship. It saw apprentice learners as engaging in the same craft, sharing the same problems, discoveries and enthusiasms which arise from learning. Reeves is a powerfull voice for the view that, even in a revised form, an academic institution is a community off learners.. This collegial, communitarian tradition found clearest expression in Oxford and Cambridge. But it was an inspiration and possibly an underchallenged assumption about the way higher educationn should develop in the twentieth century too. Niblett (1990) notes the powerful influence of Sir Walter Moberley, chairman of the University Grants Committee from 1935 to 1949. Moberley saw higher education as holistic, wanted undergraduates to spend a period in university residence and had strong views about the contribution of universities to the moral and intellectual life off the nation. The Robbins Report of 1963, presaging unparalleled expansion of student numbers, also saw higher education as developing citizenship, culture and the general powers of the mind. A strong feature was the planning of much more residential accommodation for students as part off this holistic commitment. The new universities off the 1960s were established in green-field sites, set apart from industrial centres, and residential communities were established. Collegiality was a significant part of the ethos off the Colleges of Education, established as a new form of teacher training institution by Robbins. Wyatt (1977a) looked at the distinctiveness of the form of collegiality claimed by the 27 Anglican colleges which existed before the turbulent reorganization of teacher education after 1977. He found strong claims for collegiality, for a distinctive kind of academic community, in college prospectuses and in the statements of Anglican teacher education organizations and representatives. Ideas of collegiality were expressed in relation to the relatively small size of institutions, the excellence of staff-student relations, the colleges' interest in the process of learning and the Christian nature of the institutions themselves. Wyatt (1977b) also used sociological analysis to develop four models, or ideal types, of community in in-

stitutions of higher education. These he characterized as: the craft guild or community of scholars, in many respects conforming to the ideal reviewed by Reeves; the community for the cultivation of the intellect, which is drawn directly from Cardinal Newman's text on The Idea of a University, and corresponds to Oxbridge's collegial structure; the bureaucratic model of community, based on the division of labour, which most closely corresponds to the management and departmental structures of modern higher education institutions; and the model of the spontaneous community, effectively an individualistic rejection of the worthwhileness and relevance of the idea of community in its traditional form. It is the challenge to the idea of collegiality which is noticeable in the formation of higher education at the turn of the century. Duke (1992), developing his view of the modern shape of the university, notes how the primary loyalty of the academic to the community of scholars and a discipline is challenged by the view that the function of academic staff is to respond to a changing external market. Becher (1989) describes the concentration of academic staff on research rather than teaching, where they had choice, observing that membership of the academic profession 'is defined in terms of excellence in scholarship and originality in research, and not to any significant degree in teaching capability' (p. 3). Birch (1988) finds the traditional idea of the community of scholars inward-looking and self-sustaining. The old justification of the academy in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is unsustainable. He describes the collegial and cloistering emphasis still found in British higher education and considers it unhelpful. Finnegan (1992) does not argue for a form of spontaneous community, in Wyatt's typology, but there are clear parallels in the way she develops her case for 'recovering' academic community. Her more open model of the academic community is the Open University. It is argued that the traditional academic community no longer exists and has simply become a powerful myth. The Open University has broken the mould of traditional forms by introducing a new population to higher education, experimenting with new forms of inter-

50 David Blake action in learning and by developing a new range of support systems for students. There is no need for students and teachers to live together. The community is an arrangement for people to interact together. Boundaries are becoming fluid and permeable, and institutional conceptions will need to reflect such changes. It will be beneficial for the development of higher education in the future if traditional assumptions are challenged.

An international dimension In the nineteenth century, emerging forms off higher education in France and Germany were characterized by quite different relationships with government and radically diverse forms of organization (Ben-David, 1977). France, in the wake off the Revolution, established a series of professional schools for teachers, lawyers, doctors and engineers. The professional schools were called faculties, but they were not part of a university. Only in 1896 was the name university reintroduced for a collection of loosely linked faculties. The defining characteristic of the French system was total subjection to central government, which at this time was considered a progressive step. The reformed German university, on the other hand, was given monopoly influence in professional education and emerged with a powerful reputation in scientific research. German universities, unlike the French, were granted corporate autonomy and increased in importance. Despite these differences a common conceptualization of higher education was emerging. It was a view that higher education had to be based on scholarship and linked to research. Higher education is always in a state of flux and beleaguered academics consistently invoke the term crisis. Faced with the then unprecedented expansion demands in the 1960s, Ben-David observed a kind of 'anomie', disorientation or normlessnesss as intellectuals struggled to come to terms with unexpected change (Ben-David, 1977, p. 1). This description helps illuminate the outcomes off a study by Wilson (1992) on academic staff atti-

tudes to ideal and actual aspects of the university in present-day Australia. The two aspects of greatest diversity between academic staffs ideal view and actual experiences were concerned with the autonomy of the university, its freedom from outside interference, and the erosion of democratic governance within the university. Staff regarded both these areas as significant threats to their conceptualization of the principles of the university in a climate of change. Bertilsson (1992) invokes the spirit of Humboldt in her review of the move from university to comprehensivee higher education in Sweden. The unity of Humboldt's vision is seen as relevant to the reconciling of individual and collective impulses within higher education. Ideas like critical reflection and intellectual competences are seen as modern restatements consistent with Humboldt's views. But quite clearly the old conception of the university as a closed, formal location, involving learning and living in a Humboldtian sense, has gone. In Sweden there is now no sense of a total institution, of full-time study for a majority of students, of a preponderance of students being socialized into adulthood, of a community of scholars and acolytes engaged in a shared endeavour. For Bertilsson the crucial unity for universities to defend is that of teaching and research. Another feature of higher education's problems in preserving notions of collegiality is the emergence of new patterns of staffing, in particular the increase in part-time and fixed-term contracts. A careful study of this phenomenon at work in Canada (Rajagopal and Farr, 1992) indicates the depth of the change. More than one-third of Canadian faculty are now part-time, many of them women. They are seen, in this study, as invisible and lowstatus workers with no real access to the privileges of full-time academic staff. In general part-time faculty are considered marginal to the academic enterprise, and excluded from even very basic training in what they do. Yet this is a highly skilled and flexible workforce. The trend to use part-time staff is likely to increase, and ways will have to be found to draw large numbers of such workers into the academic community.

7s Small Still Beautiful? In Defence of Collegia! Institutions of Higher Education

From the United States Henderson and Kane (1991) explore the problems faced by academic staff in state comprehensive universities. They argue that these faculty are 'caught in the middle', between the expectations of elite research universities and liberal arts or community colleges. The state comprehensive universities, formed from the former teachers' colleges, have tended to ape the prestige model of elite institutions. Thus, there are high expectations about the research outputt of staff and, as well, high expectations about teaching loads. The authors believe that there needs to be a redefinition of the expectations of membership of an academic community to include scholarship manifested in teaching and service. They argue that excessive emphasis on disciplinary research can lead to less involvement with students and with university governance, thus threatening collegiality. In any case competing in research with elite institutions will merely lead to low satisfaction and self-esteem. There is a mistaken assumption, it is argued, about the connection between high-quality research and high-f quality teaching. They call for a redefinition off scholarship, to include scholarship for teaching, as a way of responding to the danger of a pervasive decline in collegiality.

Why large? The creation of ever larger higher education institutions seems to be an inexorable, unquestioned process. Whereas even in the 1960s the size off many universities was around 3000, that would now qualify as a small, perhaps even an impossiblyy small, institution. The creation of larger organizations, by merger or new developments, seems to represent a spirit of enterprise, or acquisitiveness, within the education business. 'Big means tough means better' might be the unstated slogan lying behind the drive for growth. A Canadian study of scale in educational institutions (Daniel and B61anger, 1989) talks of universities with fewer than 5000 students as small.

51

Three basic arguments are advanced in favour of large higher education institutions. In brief these are economic, organizational and entrepreneurial. The economic argument is that large institutions v offer significant opportunities for economies off scale, in other words larger organizations are more efficient and can teach more students more cheaply. The organizational argument is in two parts. First, large organizations, by virtue of their size, offer advantages to academic staff, especially staff seeking support and funding for creative and innovative projects. Second, departmental structures within large institutionss ipso factoo hold advantages over small departments in small institutions. The entrepreneurial argument is that the large institution is more likely to be able to market itself nationally and internationally, is more likely to establish research teams and project offices which will attract funding and add to the prestige of the organization. The way in which economies of scale work is reviewed by Schumacher (1983). He identifies the potential for economies in such areas as bulk purchasing, staff economies through more efficient deployment, generation of larger classes and increase in departmental size. He identifies the potentiall of larger institutions to invest in capitalintensivee facilities which will yield long-term economies, and the possibility of large organizations developing better and more efficient central specialist resources. Sear's (1983) economic analysis of the potential of economies of scale in higher education reaches the unambiguous conclusion that 'there are economies of scale in universities and these are never exhausted, i.e. average costs fall indefinitely as student numbers rise' (p. 18). He further concludes that there is no case on cost grounds for establishing new departments in existing subjects and even less of a case for establishing new universities. He looked to the long-term implication that the number of universities and departments should be reduced to the minimum possible, in order to eliminate unnecessary fixed costs. Looking at organizational features of large organizations from his United States' experience, Trow (1983) felt that large organizations with large budgets are more likely to have financial slack. It is

52 David Blake possible, he argued, for prudent financial managers to set aside money for innovative projects outside the mainstream - which can greatly enhance the opportunities of academic staff to engage in worthwhile research and creative developments. Looking at organizational questions from a Canadian perspective Daniel and Belanger (1989) found that faculty in larger institutions had smaller teaching loads, more graduate programmes in which to teach, and more opportunity for specialist teaching across not too wide a spectrum, and that they did not feel that sense of isolation which could sometimes be a feature of small departments. The entrepreneurial argument for large scale lies in the capacity and resources of large organizations to market themselves effectively, acquire new business and identify areas for investment and development. The area of research, increasingly a competitive one, is a useful illustration. The large organizations, by this argument, will have more potential to allocate resources both to pump-prime new projects and to support establishedd teams. There will be more potential to establishh disciplinary and interdisciplinary teams of experience and substance. Higher-quality applicants will be attracted to organizations with a proven track record, thus the process will become self-renewing. In sum, only the large organization has the muscle to survive in a competitive and market-based higher education system.

In defence of the smaller scale Perhaps the title is too defensive, even apologetic, but it recognizes that the virtues of a smaller scale now have to be justified and explained. The argument is that certain claims and assumptions about the advantages of the large scale are open to challenge, that certain requirements of organizations per se are better met in units of smaller scale, that the requirements and needs of staff and students will be better met by small-scale organizations and that research on some of the effects of large- and small-scale organizations points to at least the

need to pause and think before moving inexorably ahead with development based on the fashionable orthodoxy of largeness. E. F. Schumacher (1973) noted 'the irresistible trend, dictated by modern technology, for units to become even bigger' (p. 58). He believed that the idea of economy of scale should be challenged since it rested on a purely economic rather than human argument, and in any case the economies were not always so evident. It is noticeable, for Schumacher, that as soon as organizations attain great size there are strenuous attempts to attain smallness within them. Whereas there is almost universal idolatry of giantism, the virtues of smallness should be restated, where they apply. In brief, for Schumacher, these are 'convenience, humanity and manageability' (p. 60). It is interesting to note an acknowledgement from a supporter of the concept of economy of scale that studies of the effects during the last period of expansion in higher education, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, revealed that the economies achieved were sometimes disappointing (Sear, 1983). Thomas and Chickering (1983) draw on Sale's work which explores five myths about large organizations. These are that large organizations are more economical, efficient, innovative, cost-effective and profitable than smaller ones. On each account the arguments are more complex and equivocal than supporters of large organizations, in a business context, imply. Looking at higher education Schumacher (1983) argues that 'economies of scale achieved at one level can create side-effects which directly generate diseconomies at other levels' (p. 61). Some examples, in Schumacher's analysis, are a decrease in the quality of management control, a potential narrowing-down of their work contract by staff, a more bureaucratic organization which actually makes it more difficult for the organization to change and adapt, and the development of larger administration structures. The basic requirements of any organization, in Schumacher's (1973) view, are for freedom and order. He argues that there is 'a duality in human requirements when it comes to the question of size and no single answer. There is an appropriate organisational scale for any activity. The appropriate solution depends upon what it is we are trying to do.'

Is Small Still Beautiful? In Defence of Collegia! Institutions of Higher Education 53 Handy's (1994) arguments are similar. Small units are 'faster, more focused, more flexible, more friendly and more fun'. They can 'get closer to the customer and the citizen, to the patient or to the student' (p. 102). They will be more personal and less bureaucratic. There is no one optimum size, for Handy, but 'we need the unit to be big enough to be competent to do what it has to do and small enough so that we can know everyone in it and they can know us' (p. 122). There has been, arguably, insufficient concern with the individual needs of staff and students. When there are increases in scale there is a danger that the individual will sense that human integrity is being challenged 'when he feels as nothing more than a small cog in a vast machine and when the human relationships of his daily life become dehumanised' (Schumacher, 1973, p. 225). There is also a danger to efficiency and productivity as larger organizations spawn 'ever-growing Parkinsonian bureaucracies'. Even if the rules devised by bureaucracies are outstandingly humane, nobody likes to be ruled by rules (Schumacher, 1973, p. 226). The large organization can lead to a linemanagement nightmare where, far from a community or collegial spirit, people in junior roles take orders from others in a superior role who in turn take orders from others in a more superior role and so on. Handy (1994) returns us to the values off community for individuals within an organization. 'Organisations are nothing if they are not communities of people, and a community is not a property' (p. 152). The key aspects of the community, for Handy, are that it has members rather than employees and it belongs to the community. The argument comes full circle to collegial forms off governance when Handy argues that businesses should become self-governing communities. Thus will the needs of staff be recognized. According to Thomas and Chickering (1983) the needs of staff and students in higher education are similar. They are for an institutional ethos which communicates directly what its values are and what it stands for. They believe, further, that the kinds of values and the institutional climate the community of stafff and students want are more difficult to achieve in large organizations.

There is a tradition of research, mainly based in the United States, which examines the effects of scale of organization on certain indices of student behaviour. Chickering and Thomas (1983) draw on this body of work to argue that in smaller higher educational institutions there is more student participationn in the community, more staff-student contact, a better record of student retention, higher satisfaction levels with the educative process and closer student identification with institutional values. It should be noted, however, that the research rarely led to clear-cut conclusions, was often constrained in size of samples and sometimes undertaken in idiosyncratic settings. It tended not to focus on student achievement. It is unwise to emphasize the solidity of research evidence about the educational advantages and disadvantages whether of small or large organizations.

Accountability, quality and managementt How will a renewed emphasis on collegiality, and on the need to find a smaller scale in our institutions, work out in practice? How far can collegial forms help shape institutional responses to the demands of accountability, quality enhancement and management in higher education? Put in recent management jargon, can collegiality provide fitness for purpose in the way higher education orders its affairs? The argument developed here is that there are strong reasons for adopting a collegial approach to these three areas, one which embraces and takes pride in the values of academic communities. First, accountability. In his inaugural lecture David Jenkins characterized accountability as meeting other people's standards (Reeves, 1988, p. 51) and there is an element of this in the way the idea is applied to education. Becher and Kogan (1992) distinguish the managerial, consumerist and professional models of accountability, related in turn to the institutional hierarchy, the market and the collegium. Whilst acknowledging the legitimacy of all three elements, it is clearly the case

54 David Blake that accountability to hierarchies and markets has increased in significance over accountability within the academic community. Yet if higher education is to see itself as accountable for work which is worthwhile in academic terms and for grasping a mission which goes beyond the instrumental and short-term, it is indeed accountability to an academic community which needs to be upheld. Perhaps this form of accountability will enable more clarity and self-confidence in defining the purpose of the university and setting it within a moral context. Secondly, quality enhancement and control. For an academic community the quality-assurance industry with its dehumanizing language of inputs, outputs, indicators and control looks at times as iff it is grafting an alien industrial process onto the field of higher education (Blake, 1994). It is incontrovertible that part of the commitment of higher education is to provide excellent learning experiences for its students. Yet it is also the case that excellence may be variously defined, is valueladen and requires elucidation in ways which conform to academic values. Barnett (1992) identifies a number of voices with stakes in the debate about quality and what it means, for example the technicist (the quality industry professional), the epistemic (the voice of the discipline), the consumerist, the employer, the professional and the inspectoral. The collegial voice of the academic community is under-represented. There is a case, as Barnett argues, for seeing higher education as a practice with its own rules and values. These collegial understandings help shape practitioners' engagement with conceptions of quality. Without involving a strong collegial voice in the development of quality systems the confidence of the academic community may be lost. Thirdly, management. Few commentators on recent developments in higher education fail to refer to a significant change in management style and ethos. Skilbeck (1992) points to a growth of managerialism at the expense of collegiate values. Duke (1992) saw a managerialist tide flowing strongly in higher education, influenced by polytechnic systems and the 1985 Jarratt Report. Niblett (1990) noted a move from traditional values and relationships in management to a new form of

corporate management with a technicist edge. Becher and Kogan (1992) note the complexity off describing and interpreting institutional managements in a diverse sector. They identify elements of the collegium, of a bureaucratic form and off federated professionalism within institutions. The components of collegium and hierarchy tend always to be present in all kinds of institution but in different measure and relationship. There are difficulties in reconciling collegial and hierarchical elements, sometimes leading to conflict, overlap or delay in decision-making. There is a move to tidy up the relative uncertainties of traditional forms of academic organization by adopting a much sharper line-management approach within a hierarchical system. Such an approach risks diminishingg or even losing the voice of the academic community, who may see a residue of consultative and participative forms as betokening no more than spurious lip-service to the academic community's involvement in governance. There is a feeling that higher education is moving to adopt production-line modes of supervision and control just as industry is moving towards more enlightened forms (Duke, 1992). It is important to understandd that in the area of institutional management the collegial traditions of universities have a great deal to offer.

Conclusionn Collegiality is a powerful idea with a long history and pervasive influence on the way the academic community perceives its role. Forms may change, but it is a term which sums up the nature off institutions thought to be appropriate for higher education, indeed for all forms of education. Thus a headmaster, commenting on proposals to enlarge his school to 1750 pupils, said: Our aim is to value all our pupils as individuals and prepare them for the future. To do that you have to have structures and a culture which enables all pupils to be known and valued as individual human beings. I think our culture and structure do that with the school at around 1750. (Ward, 1994)

7s Small Still Beautiful? In Defence of Collegia! Institutions of Higher Education 55 The values of a collegial approach to higher education should not be abandoned in favour of a shortterm quick fix which distorts the values of the university in favour of the market alone. Collegiality implies putting the student's real interests and claims at the heart of higher education (Barnett, 1989) but not in a way which turns its back on the enterprise of study or the traditions of the academic community. It is interesting to note student demands, within a National Union of Students charter, for an enhancement of the quality of education through openness, responsiveness to the needs of individual students and student representation on decision-making bodies (NUS, 1993]. Such views are entirely compatible with a collegial form. None of this is to argue against change. New forms of collegial organizations will be developed and the notion of community will be redefined. Already, within the context of the Open University, much of long-term significance has taken place. But we should also pause, before the juggernaut of one model of the massive higher education institution overwhelms the rest. There is a case for diverse forms of organizations and clear advantages in the human scale of institutions of a manageable size. Within large organizations, even very large organizations, there is value in continuing to find ways of creating collegial-type smaller units. The values of the academic community in all spheres of the life of higher education institutions should be reaffirmed where necessary. In developing new structures where there is further institutional change, careful consideration should be given to federal structures with a collegial element.. In an address on 'Education and culture', Martin Gaskell (1989) noted the pressure towards large institutions with corporate managements who become remote from those who teach and those who learn. He identified a tendency to concentrate on means rather than ends and pointed also to uncertainty about the moral responsibilities of higher education, and about the culture it should be inculcating. There are concerns about the values, orientations and commitments of our higher education. It is essential that a strong collegial voice

continues to argue for a vision of the future based on worthwhile academic values.

References Ashworth, J. M. (1993) Universities in the 21st century old wine in new bottles or new wine in old bottles. Reflections on Higher Education, 5. Ball, C. (1990) Higher education at the crossroads. Higher Education Management, 2 (2). Barnett, R. (1989) Responsiveness and fulfilment: the value of higher education in the modern world. Higher Education Review, 22 (2). Barnett, R. (1992) Improving Higher Education: Total Quality Care. Milton Keynes: Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press. Becher, T. (1989) Academic Tribes and Territories: Intellectual Enquiry and the Cultures of the Disciplines. Milton Keynes: Society for Research into Higher Educationn and the Open University Press. Becher, T. and Kogan, M. (1992) Process and Structure in Higher Education. London: Routledge (2nd edn). Ben-David, J. (1977) Centers of Learning: Britain, France, Germany and the United States. An Essay prepared for the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Bertilsson, M. (1992) From university to comprehensive higher education: on the widening gap between 'Lehre' and 'Leben'. Higher Education, 24. Birch, W. (1988) The Challenge to Higher Education: Reconciling Responsibilities to Scholarship and Society. Milton Keynes: Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press. Blake, D. (1994) Quality assurance in teacher education. Quality Assurance in Education, 2 (1). Brownstein, L. (1989) University education in a free society: a preliminary defence. Higher Education Review, 22 (1). Daniel, J. (1993) The challenge of mass higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 18 (2). Daniel, J. and Belanger, C. (1989) Academic vitality and informal opportunism: a prescription for smaller universities. Higher Education in Europe, 14 (3). Duke, C. (1992) The Learning University: Towards a New Paradigm. Milton Keynes: Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press. Finnegan, R. (1992) Recovering 'academic community': what do we mean? Reflections in Higher Education, 4.

56 David Blake Gaskell, S. M. (1989) Education and culture: a perspective from higher education. Higher Education Quarterly, 43 (4). Goodlad, S. (1983) Economies of Scale in Higher Education. Milton Keynes: Society for Research into Higher Education. Hammersley, M. (1992) Reflections on the liberal university: truth, citizenship and the role of the academic. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 2 (2). Handy, C. (1994) The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense of the Future. Hutchinson. Henderson, B. and Kane, W. (1991) Caught in the middle: faculty and institutional status and quality in state comprehensive universities. Higher Education, 22. National Union of Students (NUS) (1993) NUS Student Charter. London: National Union of Students. Niblett, W. R. (1990) An absence of outrage: cultural change and values in British higher education 1930-1990. Higher Education Policy, 3 (1). Rajagopal, I. and Fair, W. D. (1992) Hidden academics: the part-time faculty in Canada. Higher Education, 24. Reeves, M. (1988) The Crisis in Higher Education: Competence, Delight and the Common Good. Milton Keynes: Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University. Schumacher, C. (1983) The problem of scale in higher education, in S. Goodlad.

Schumacher, E. F. (1973) Small Is Beautiful: A Study off Economics As If People Mattered. London: Blond and Briggs. Sear, K. (1983) Economies of scale in higher education, in S. Goodlad. Skilbeck, M. (1992) The role of research in teacher education. European Journal of Teacher Education, 15 (1 and 2). Thomas, R. and Chickering, A. (1983) Institutional size, higher education and student development, in S. Goodlad. Trow, M. (1983) Differences between the nominal and effective sizes of higher education institutions, in S. Goodlad. Ward, D. (1994) Shifts in numbers threatens ability to perform for pupils. The Guardian, 23 June. Wilson, B. (1992) Studies in the conceptualisation of a university. Studies in Higher Education, 17 (3). Wyatt, J. F. (1977a) 'Collegiality' during a period of rapid change in higher education: an examination of a distinctive feature claimed by a group of colleges of education in the 1960s and 1970s. Oxford Review of Education, 3 (2). Wyatt, J. F. (1977b) The idea of 'community' in institutions of higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 2 (2). Wyatt, J. F. (1990) Commitment to Higher Education. Milton Keynes: Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press.

6

Learning Skills and Skills for Learning

JOYCE BARLOW My contribution to this conference is an opportunity to think about the learning processes that underlie the whole of education. Learning is of course one of our most pervasive life experiences, and the relationship between learning in life in general and learning in an institutional context raises some interesting questions in our changing world. The conference is about developing our response to change, and that is where I begin - with the changes and pressures in higher education and their implications, particularly for students, academic staff and information specialists. I go on to ask 'What is learning?' and refer to the ways in which some psychologists and educationalists have tried to describe the processes involved. I then focus in particular on learning skills - how they are acquired and how they relate to learning in post-compulsory education, and I refer to some recent work on skills transfer. This leads to a consideration of what many see as a crucial quality of learning which we need to be supporting and helping students to develop, namely independent and autonomous learning. There are many terms associated with it, such as learning for employment, lifelong learning, learning to learn. I conclude with an example of an innovative medical degree course and highlight the role of information specialists in its design, resourcing and support for students. To begin with the changing context. The Australian academic, Professor Philip Candy, was responsible for a very fruitful study which was carried out in Australia in 1993. It was an v investigation off

the characteristics of undergraduate education which enable and encourage graduates to participate in formal and informal learning throughout their lives. (Candy, 1994, p. iii)

Although the study was carried out in Australia, I believe it corresponds closely to our own experience. Candy provides a very clear formulation off the changes and pressures resulting from the present changing context of higher education. The changing context the continual increase in the sheer amount off knowledge, including the amount required to function adequately in the modern world; • the decreasing half-life of professional knowledge; • the increasing influence of interdisciplinary understanding in the professions; • the transition from an industrial world to an information-based society using increasingly sophisticated technology; • increasing internationalization and the transition to a 'global village'; • the changing shape of organizations and of people's roles within them; • a move from an elite to a mass higher education system, with greater numbers of undergraduate students, a greater range of educational backgrounds, and a greater pressure to achieve more with fewer resources; and • debate about the appropriate form of articulation between higher education and work, and higher education and other forms of education. (Candy, •

1994, p. 185)

Candy's thesis was that all these factors point to the importance of lifelong learning and the need for higher education to help provide the skills for this. In Britain, too, the divisions are being broken down between learning for life in the real world

58 Joyce Barlow and learning in what was the more rarefied atmosphere of colleges and universities. Industry and higher education are getting closer, many more people are studying part-time, and the proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds following traditional degree courses is diminishing. Post-compulsory education needs to change what it offers in relation to the social context, the much more varied student population and the increased numbers of students it serves. Not least it needs to change because of the brave new world of the vastly increased availabilityy of information, the Internet, the information superhighway, CD-ROM. The learning experience of students in our colleges and universities is changing radically. What exactly is learning? Two things are clear: firstly, learning is a complex process, and secondly, we all learn in our own way. Two researchers who are widely quoted in this field are Rumelhart and Norman (1978). They have described learning in terms of accretion, (re)structuring and tuning. Accretion is the most basic form of learning, and involves learning items or facts. Earlier research had concentrated on this purely memory-based level of learning. Rumelhart and Norman broke from this mechanistic view in the 1970s to try to define the mental processes involved in organizing and reorganizing facts and perceptions. They used the term 'structuring' to describe the building of a mental 'schema' for a particular set of facts. Their term 'tuning' describes the continual adjustments which are made in order to fit one's knowledge to the demands of the situation. To use an example from Gates (1992, pp. 232-3), one's driving skills and roadcraft are continually being adjusted as one copes with traffic and weather conditions on a road which one may know well. Tuning is the process whereby skills are developed and perfected through practice. Rumelhart and Norman use the term 'restructuring' to describe the most painful and difficult aspect of learning, which involves breaking down one or more existing schemata and creating a new pattern of understanding. Figure 6.1 illustrates the relationships between the different mental processes. This analysis is a

powerful one. I'd like to relate it to an example from the teaching of one of my colleagues at Brighton, a lecturer in computing, Phil Siviter. He described to me how he observes students learning to become programmers. Phil sees learning computer programming as most akin to learning a musical instrument, or learning to paint: it is about problem-solving with abstract material and is quite different from physically demonstrable problem-solving such as in engineering. At first students learn programming cliches, for example a loop in a particular language. The learning is highly literal at first: this syntax has this effect. Very few students extrapolate from this to other contexts of their own accord. This is learning in accretion mode. The students acquire a critical mass of cliches, and they then extract their own model of how the language works and can begin to invent their own software. In Rumelhart and Norman's terms they have built their own schema for a particular programming language. When it comes to learning a second computing language the students find it extremely difficult, especially if the language is of a different type. They learn, for example, about loops in the new language, and they come to know two types of syntax for the same function. The student now has an independent concept of a loop. This restructuring process can be a great struggle, and students usually feel as if they are going downhill for a while. Sometimes it can take a whole term (or the greater part of a semester) before they are eventually able to say 'I think I am beginning to see what this is about'. When learning a third language the students know what they are looking for. They are now thinking in abstract structures and have acquired the ability to think about programming independently of a particular language. They can talk about the drawbacks of a language: 'Wouldn't it be nice if you could carry out such and such a process in a less convoluted way', and they start to devise their own solutions, or language constructs, to support particular functions. The history of the development of programming itself has parallels to an individual's programming

Learning Skills and Skills for Learning 59

Figure 6.1 Source: Rumelhart and Norman (1978).

skill development. First there was cumbersome machine code, then assembly language (if, then, goto = do this until, repeat until xyz gets to such a condition). This was like concentrating on each phoneme or each word rather than thinking about what you want to say. With more advanced programming constructs, a higher-level entity is involved, and students become able to think at higher levels about what they are trying to do. Having looked at this very fundamental model of learning, I move on now to some recent research on student learning in post-compulsory education. Here we are looking at how students approach their learning and the influence that the institution has on this. Paul Ramsden, who is Professor of Higher Education at Griffith University, Brisbane, has drawn up the model of learning in context illustrated in

Figure 6.2. In his book Learning to Teach in Higher Education, he recommends that we think of learning as 'a change in the way people understand the world around them, rather than a quantitative accretion of facts and procedures'. In Rumelhart and Norman's terms he places the emphasis on restructuring. He says that unfortunately there is a large body of evidence indicating that some central goals of higher education - students' understanding of key concepts and ways of thinking in a discipline, and the development of abilities to integrate theoretical and practical knowledge in professional subjects are by no means always achieved. (Ramsden, 1992, p. 82)

Research has demonstrated that this failure is strongly connected with the way students go about learning: what they intend to achieve through

60 Joyce Barlow

Figure 6.2 Source: adapted from Ramsden (1992), p. 83.

their study. In deciding their approach, students are influenced both by their own motivation and previous experience, and (crucially) by what they perceive as being required. Orientation to studying is one of the terms used to refer to the approach an individual student decides to adopt. The context of learning includes how students are taught, the design of the curriculum, and the assessment methods. There is an interplay between all these and the perception of the task requirements, and on this basis the students decide their approach, which then results in certain outcomes in terms of quality of learning. Student induction is a very important means of helping to develop an appropriate orientation to studying. Most students come into postcompulsory education with a reasonably open mind. Within the first three weeks or so they will have formed an opinion about what the institution has to offer them - the degree of interest and challenge, and how much effort they will need to expend in order to succeed. These initial weeks are a unique opportunity to help students understandd themselves as learners and to win their commitment to studying in ways which involve a

search for meaning and a deep engagement with the subject matter. It is worth emphasizing that in the longer term the most determining influence on a student's orientation to studying is assessment. Derek Rowntree (1987), in his classic text Assessing Students: How Shall We Know Them?, says If we wish to discover the truth about an educational system, we must look into its assessment procedures, (p.l)

The Committee of Scottish University Principals agrees: Research has identified assessment as having the greatest single influence both on the effort put into studying, and on the quality of learning. (CSUP, 1992, p. 11)

The quality of student learning is described in terms of surface and deep approaches. The surface approach to learning is characterized by Intention simply to reproduce parts of the content Accepting ideas and information passively Concentrating only on assessment requirements Not reflecting on purpose or strategies in learning Memorising facts and procedures routinely

Learning Skills an d Skills for Learning 61 Failing to recognise guiding principles or patterns (CSUP, 1992, p. 5)

Correspondingly, Surface approaches are encouraged by •

assessment methods emphasising recall or the application of trivial procedural knowledge assessment methods that create anxiety cynical or conflicting messages about rewards an excessive amount of material in the curriculum poor or absent feedback on progress lack of independence in studying lack of interest in and background knowledge of the subject matter • previous experiences of educational settings that encourage these approaches (Ramsden, 1992, p. 81)

A deep approach to learning, on the other hand, involves Intention to understand material for oneselff Interacting vigorously and critically with content Relating ideas to previous knowledge/experience Using organising principles to integrate ideas Relating evidence to conclusions Examining the logic of the argument (CSUP, 1992, p. 5) From the point of view of the learning context Deep approaches are encouraged by •

teaching and assessment methods that foster active and long-term engagement with learning tasks; • stimulating and considerate teaching, especially teaching which demonstrates the lecturer's personal commitment to the subject matter and stresses its meaning and relevance to students • clearly stated academic expectations • opportunities to exercise responsible choice in the method and content of study • interest in and background knowledge of the subject matter • previous experiences of educational settings that encourage these approaches (Ramsden, 1992, p. 81)

Professor Noel Entwistle of Edinburgh University (1992) adds another dimension to these orientationss to studying, or approaches to learning. He talks about a 'strategic approach'. Students who adopt this approach are particularly selective as to how they invest their time and energy in studying, aiming to do the minimum to achieve success in

terms of passing their course. Unfortunately more and more students are forced to think in these terms because of financial hardship. The approaches to learning that I have described are related to context. If we are thinking in natureversus-nurture terms they fall mainly into the category of nurture. Other theorists have talked about cognitive styles, and these are more to do with an individual's natural inclinations with regard to learning. Gordon Pask identified 'serialists and holists', and Guilford identified similar categories of 'convergers and divergers'. Serialistt (Pask) Converger. (Guilford)

Holist Diverger

Pask carried out experiments in which he observed how different subjects approached the task of familiarizing themselves with 'the taxonomies of two imaginary families of martian fauna, the Clobbits and the Gandlemullers' (Daniel, 1975, p. 84). As the terms imply, serialists have a natural preference for learning step-by-step; holists, by contrast, like to delve into the complex picture. At the extremes both these categories have their hazards. Serialists have difficulty taking a global view, and in Pask's terms they are likely to suffer from an 'improvidence' pathology. Holists have a globetrotting tendency (natural surfers on the World Wide Web?) and 'can tend to make hasty decisions from insufficient evidence' (Riding and Cheema, 1991, p. 204). Redundant holists go further, even incorporating incorrect information. Pask's experiments also showed that serialist style learners learn best from serialist style teachers, and vice versa. Guilford formulated the convergent-divergent thinking dichotomy in the 1950s. Riding and Cheema have given an amusing if stereotyped description of the way divergent thinkers are received in the educational world. Overall, evidence seems to suggest that whilst divergent thinking is an invaluable cognitive quality, socially, it is considered as irritating, disruptive, and even threatening by teachers. Indeed, Getzels and Jackson (1962) found that teachers preferred learners who were low in divergent thinking (i.e. conformist

62 Joyce Barlow

Figure 6.3 Kolb's learning cycle

and orderly) to those higher in divergent thinking, even though all the learners were of similar intelligence, and even though the divergent thinkers produced more imaginative and original responses. Since schools are inherently rule-bound and conservative institutions this comes as no surprise. This inevitably means that much of the divergent thinking (creativity) is likely to contrast or even conflict with what is routine, familiar, expected and 'correct'. (Riding and Cheema, 1991, p. 201) The final model of learning I refer to is the work of David Kolb. In the late 1970s and early 1980s in America Kolb began to use his 'Learning Styles Inventory' (1977, 1981, 1984) to identify individuals' preferences for different styles of learning. He was able to show that the scores showed a strong correlation with the disciplines that people had chosen to study. In terms of discipline preferences (Otter, 1992, p. 99), assimilators (abstract-reflective quadrant) tend towards the 'hard pure' sciences, for example, mathematics and natural sciences. Convergers (abstract-active quadrant) incline towards the 'hard applied' sciences such as engineering. Accommodators (concrete-active quadrant) have an affinity with 'soft applied' subjects such as education and law. Divergers (concrete-reflective quadrant) choose the 'soft pure' subjects including the social sciences and humanities. The diagram is better known as the learning cycle, and it illustrates the process of adult learning which proceeds through experience, reflection, theorizing and deciding what changes to

make to the process, experimenting, and further reflection, continuing round the cycle. Kolb emphasizes that the fully developed professional must be able to occupy any of the quadrants. It is not sufficient to remain in one. Reflection is a very important aspect of learning which is often neglected. Donald Schon has also emphasized it in his writing, for example in The Reflective Practitioner (1983) and Educating the Reflective Practitioner (1987). An important point about defining categories off learners is that it is valuable for people to be aware of their own learning styles, so that where appropriate they can choose ways of learning that suit them, or they can compensate for their natural preference by making the extra effort needed to learn in a less congenial way if the subject requires it. As a teacher or supporter of learning, it helps to be aware of one's own style and to try to provide for learners who may not have the same learning preferences as oneself. For example, it may be helpful to provide optional learning materials and to set optional types of assignments in order to suit different types of learners. This is made easier by the increasingly varied range of resources for learning: electronic media, print-based packages, video, interactive video and multi-media, as well as books and traditional lectures. I believe that all students should be helped to acquire some awareness of learning processes. It can help them to study more effectively and to cope with some of the difficulties they face, for example as they go through the restructuring process. An awareness of the theory of learning processes is also vital for staff, who need to take into account the increasingly heterogeneous nature off their groups of students. In the past higher education was essentially a cloning process, with the most successful graduates being creamed off to do research. Nowadays the constituency of postcompulsoryy education is much more varied and the aims of the system far broader. For students to do well in industry and commerce they need to be able to learn new skills and acquire knowledge on a continuing basis. The phrase 'personal transferable skills' trips glibly off the tongue, and it has been given considerable currency as a result of the Enterprise in

Learning Skills and Skills for Learningg 663

Higher Education initiative. As Tim Oates, Head of the GNVQ Research and Development Unit at the National Council for Vocational Education, has pointed out, the research on transfer is still very thin. What is very important is that: The learning situation should place the learners in a position of directing and leading their own learning, enhancing their capacity to be independent learners, to look to their own resources for interpretation, problem solving and for finding out rather than developing a dependency on an external expert who will not be present when learners confront those challenges for which their education has supposedly prepared them. (Thomas and Anderson, 1991)

This is an extremely telling quote which sums up how higher education should be. I would assert that the most important task of education, particularly nowadays, is to help students develop a repertoire of skills for learning which will enable them to respond flexibly in future contexts of life and work and to become lifelong learners. John Biggs (1994, p. 4) has identified four key elements which help to foster this approach in students. These need to feature in the way courses are designed and the processes of learning that are required for success. Motivational context involves intrinsic motivation, the development of a love of the subject for its own sake, not just wanting to succeed in examinations. It is part of the role of teachers to motivate students, and inspired teachers can succeed greatly in this. Learner activity means that the learning process needs to include well-planned activity, with reflection on the outcomes of the activity and encouragement to relate it to theory. Interaction with others refers to the fact that discussion is very powerful in forming and reinforcing understanding. It needs to be built into courses of study, and students should be encouraged to take advantage of any peer-tutoring systems that are organized, and also to form their own learning teams. Pask uses the word 'conversation', sometimes referring to an internal dialogue. It seems that little learning can in fact occur without conversation. True learners are interested in different points of view and inhabit a natural dialogue

about the subject they are studying. One might go so far as to say that human life is characterized by a search for meaning, and this finds its expression in part through education. A well-structured knowledge base means that it is essential to work from students' existing knowledge and to present new subject matter in a structured and integrated way. I have chosen to illustrate the realization of these principles through the example of an innovative and highly regarded Bachelor of Medicine degree at the University of Newcastle in Australia. The way the course is designed is a prime example of how to encourage students to become lifelong learners.. This is achieved through an integrated and problem-based curriculum, with an equal emphasis on learning process and on knowledge acquisition. Unlike traditional courses, the degree is not divided into a pre-clinical and a clinical phase. Neitherr are the different subject areas fundamental to a medical education (anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, etc.) taught separately. Instead, the learning is organized into five domains. Professional skills Critical reasoning Identification, prevention and management of illness Population medicine Self-directed learning (Candy, 1994, p. 262)

This last element, the domain of self-directed learning, is regarded as so important that students have to pass it in order to proceed to the following year of the course. Instead of lectures, there are a number of group sessions called 'fixed resource sessions', and these represent only a small element of the course. The majority of the learning is based on electives, which increase in length from two weeks in the early part of the course to five to eight weeks in later years. Problem-based learning in groups is a major learning strategy; and assessment is in terms of pass/fail, not percentages or grades. The curriculum is also organized as a 'learning spiral', so the students keep returning to topics and learning about them at increasing depth, with reflection on

64 Joyce Barlow

the pattern of knowledge that they are building up. This accords very well with one of Kolb's models, in which he sees people starting at the bottom of a cone and spiralling upwards in their learning, acquiring richer and more complex levels of understanding as they proceed. The medical students have a wide degree of choice in what they study, but this is not at the expense of developing a sound and comprehensive knowledge base. Teaching staff support students as they move through the integrated curriculum, alerting them to links, and pointing them in the right direction. This kind of guidance is crucial in the early stages, because the nature of the course involves an element of uncertainty while students are coming to terms with the problem-based and self-directed approach. The planning, resourcing and delivery of the course is underpinned by the role of information specialists, who are based in an 'Undergraduate Education Unit'. They are responsible for developing students' skills in accessing information from the whole range of sources. An Information Specialist works in very close collaboration with the academics, managing and monitoring all the learning materials for the course. The Specialist ensures that the necessary resources are available for each student, identifying where new resources are needed. An interesting and surprising part of her responsibility is to ensure that students are only assessed in relation to the 'approved' curriculum. This, and the straightforward pass/fail classification, must remove the usual emphasis on grades and competitive performance. By the later years of the course students are in any case usually following an individualized programme of learning. Students are carefully selected for the course, based on their existing skills and their predicted ability to flourish as self-directed learners. Many of them are already graduates in a different discipline, and often it is their performance in arts subjects rather than high grades in mathematics or a science subject that provides the indicator of their suitability. One student on the course commented: If I compare it with the science degree I did before, it was much more passive - you sat there and you had lectures and then you regurgitated them, and you

could be lazy. I didn't learn how to seek out information from the library because I wasn't forced to do it, but in this course I was forced to do it to pass, so I think that was the main incentive to get through. (Candy, 1994, p. 263)

The design of the course emphasizes the development of skills for learning Students learn how to learn in a variety of contexts and how to apply the problem-solving approach to all new learning situations. (Ibid., p. 269)

- and information skills and computer literacy are fundamental. In the information age, mastery of all manner of electronic databases, indexes and networks is essential just to keep in touch with current developments in the field and to be familiar with information retrieval systems which enable the new graduate to function both as a competent professional, and as a member of the community. It is important, therefore, that graduates leave university equipped with the skills and strategies to locate, access, retrieve, evaluate, manage and make use of information in a variety of fields, rather than with a finite body of knowledge that will be soon be outdated and irrelevant. (Ibid., pp. 102-3)

Candy affirms the increasing centrality of the role of information specialists in the delivery of this type of course. Librarians are becoming coaches who develop within students the capacity to not only access, but also to evaluate and choose information. Increasingly their involvement in many different aspects of the university's life is ensuring that libraries are becoming the 'hub of the university' and that librarians are operating at the cutting edge of technological developments in identifying the need for, locating and accessing, evaluating and managing information. (Ibid, p. 171)

Their responsibilities include: providing on-the-spot assistance to students, stafff and the outside community in locating and accessing information; • providing reader education services at all levels and in all aspects of information literacy, including one-to-one and group instruction and demonstration, as well as printed material such as pamphlets, handbooks, workbooks and selfinstructional packages aimed at specific reader groups;

•

Learning Skills and Skills for Learning 65 • • • • • •

conducting workshops on new technological developments in information storage and retrieval methods; giving guidance in curriculum design intended to promote self-directed and resource-based learning; participating in courses which integrate information literacy with the content and design of the curriculum; providing orientation programs for new staff and students; maintaining and developing resource collections, and exchanging information and resources with other libraries; and designing electronic databases, computer software packages and course material for specific purposes. (Ibid., pp. 171-2)

For their part, students need to develop the following skills of information literacy: • •

• • •

•

understanding the nature of the information society; understanding, and being able to implement the processes of identifying an information need, locating, retrieving, evaluating and synthesising the information required; developing a high level of communication skills, including the ability to communicate with colleagues and information professionals; developing a sound knowledge of information sources, including network sources, and strategies for using them; developing the ability to manage the information retrieved through the appropriate use of, for example, word processors, spreadsheets, bibliographic management software; developing a familiarity with the hardware of information technology, books, videos, compact discs, computers and all their accompanying apparatus.. (Ibid., p. 172)

To sum up, in responding successfully to the pressures that all of us are experiencing in postcompulsory education, there is a very important role for information specialists. Firstly, in relation to students, ensuring the development of their information literacy; secondly, in relation to academic staff, ensuring that there is a partnership between teachers and resource providers in curriculum planning; thirdly, in using their position at the centre of our institutions to promote a culture of lifelong learning; and last but not least, they

need to help convince governments that education is a vital area for the investment of resources, and that it must be accorded the status it needs in order to ensure the future well being of our society.

Note This paper was given at the CoFHE (Colleges of Further and Higher Education Group of the Library Association) Annual Study Conference, 'Serving our students: Information skills for the new millennium', Edinburgh, April 1995. The paper will be published in the Proceedings of the Conference, and we are grateful to CoFHE for permission to publish it here.

References Biggs, J. (1994) The research context: student learning research and theory: where do we currently stand?, in G. Gibbs (ed.), Improving Student Learning: Theory and Practice. Oxford Centre for Staff Development. Candy, P. C. (1994) Developing Lifelong Learners Through Undergraduate Education. Commissioned Report no. 28, National Board of Employment, Education and Training, Australian Government Publishing Service. Committee of Scottish University Principals (1992) Teaching and Learning in an Expanding Higher Education System. Report of a Working Party of the CSUP. Daniel, J. S. (1975) Learning styles and strategies: the work of Gordon Pask, in N. Entwistle and D. Hounsell (eds), How Students Learn. Institute for Research and Development in Post-compulsory Education, University of Lancaster, pp. 83-92. Entwistle, N., Thompson, S. and Tait, H. (1992) Guidelines for Promoting'Effective Learning in Higher Education. Centre for Research on Learning and Instruction, University of Edinburgh. Kolb, D. A. (1977) The Learning Styles Inventory: A Self Description of Preferred Learning Modes. Boston: McBer and Company. Kolb, D. A. (1981) Learning styles and disciplinary differences, in A. W. Chickering etal. (eds), The Modern American College. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass,

66 Joyce Barlow Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, and London: Prentice Hall. Gates, T. (1992) Core skills and transfer: aiming high. Education and Training Technology International, 29 (3), 227-39. Otter, S. (1992) Learning Outcomes in Higher Education. Unit for the Development of Adult Continuing Education (UDACE), Employment Department. Ramsden, P. (1992) Learning to Teach in Higher Education. London: Routledge. Riding, R. and Cheema, I. (1991) Cognitive styles: an overview and integration. Educational Psychology, 11,193-215.

Rowntree, D. (1987) Assessing Students: How Shall We Know Them? London: Kogan Page (revised edn). Rumelhart, D. E. and Norman, D. A. (1978) Accretion, tuning and restructuring: three modes of learning, in J. W. Cotton and R. L. Klatzky (eds), Semantic Factors in Cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 37-53. Schon, D. A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books. Schon, D. A. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco and Oxford: Jossey-Bass. Thomas, R. G. and Anderson, L. (1991) Teaching for transfer: application of cognitive theory to vocational education. Paper presented to the Research Section of the American Vocational Association.

Part Two The Changing Management Culture off Higher Education

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7

The Culture of Political Correctness

ROGER HOMAN Introduction Twenty years ago the teacher in training was systematically apprised of a series of procedural virtues including the avoidance of bias and indoctrinationn and tolerance of - even respect for alternative and opponent points of view. Neutrality was pronounced a desirable posture in the chairing of classroom discussion and the teacher was not to affirm personal views in religion or politics in such a way as to influence children or students to follow them. More recently, these values have been displaced by the sense that clear and explicit commitments are a professional obligation and that the teacher has a responsibility to check unacceptable dispositions and establish desirable ones in their place. 'Sexism', 'racism' and 'homophobia' are designated evils against which educational practitioners are professionally obliged to crusade. Educational time is then devoted to the promulgation of correct attitudes. This paper is not about the rights or wrongs of the new orthodoxies of anti-sexism or anti-racism but about the consequences of licensing educationists at all levels to preach as well as to teach. It relates to the ways in which the political culture of the school or university prevails against those holding views that are deemed by their teachers to be unacceptable. The object is to offer a sociological analysis in terms of the cultural milieu in which bias operates in teacher education and to explore implications of that analysis for the competencee of monitoring agencies to recognize bias in the courses they visit.

As is well known, the notion of bias derives from the game of bowls, where it refers to the weighting of a wood so heavily on one side that it cannot travel in a straight line. That is both the meaning and the effect of bias in education. Bias does not exist merely because a teacher adopts and argues a point of view without elaborating alternatives. It is widely recognized that perfect balances of perspectives are seldom achievable within a particular programme of study, still less within a single lecture or seminar. Those who identify and challenge bias in educational practice may do so not because they imagine that it is either possible or desirable to pursue a straight line but because they wish in their own practice to veer in an equally deviant but opposite direction. For example, Dave Hicks (1982) examines bias in geography textbooks and comes up with a checklist of undesirable perspectives such as ethnocentrism. He prefers minority groups to be perceived as victims rather than as the cause of their own problems; rather than attribute food shortages to the ignorance of farmers he points the finger at multinationall companies who control the food supply. In the selection of textbooks, Hicks suggests, teachers should check the previous record of the publisher for omissions, distortion and bias and ask questions about the publisher's current ideological commitment. The principle is that of political correctness: it is not that bias is avoidable but that it must be of the approved form. Nor does it amount to bias that a tutor is associated with a particular intellectual orientation or party: higher education would arguably be a dull and unedifying experience for students if their

70 Roger Homan teachers were required to suppress their own views and deny students the benefits of exposure to them. The subject of concern in this paper is not the prospect of neutrality but, as in bowls, the debilitating effect of bias: we are concerned with the possibility of such a bias that the intellectual capacities and opportunities of students are impaired or confined.

The issue of bias In the last ten years the supposed evidence of bias in teacher education courses has attracted serious attention and animated debate between observers and practitioners. There was a series of formal complaints to the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) which validated most teacher education courses in polytechnics. Components of courses reckoned to be subject to excessive bias have been exposed in the publications of the Hillgate Group (1989) while being commended as models of excellence by those who organize and teach them (Hill, 1989). The point made by critics is that many degree courses, be they in teacher education or home economics, happen to include a component which is heavily dosed with Marxism or a barely distinguishable equivalent. A number of questions then arises about the quality off these courses. It may be that such a dosage is no more than a justifiable antidote to other factors of political socialization within education and outside it. If so, the public which funds courses that run for three or four years may be entitled to know how its money is being invested. If time is of the essence and a narrowly conceived principle of relevance is accounted a virtue, the case has to be made for the inclusion of these components in terms of the educational and professional objectives of the course. What concentrates the mind so wonderfully on the issue of bias is that the debate that started out with a concern for quality subsequently turned upon the very future of courses based in institutions. The quest for standards which two decades ago was the mission of the authors of the Black Papers is sustained, in some

cases by the same people, as a critical challenge to how higher education institutions are occupying their time. Those of the political left believe that they find a high level of 'intentional racism' among students commencing initial teacher training courses (Cole, 1989b, p. 15) and submit that this demonstrates the need to continue college-based courses in order to treat undesirable attitudes (Hill, 1989). For its part, 'the Radical Right' points to the use being made of initial training by those who declare socialism as a 'fundamental prerequisite' (Cole, 1989a, p. 3) and it uses this position to delegitimize institutional practice: the case has been subsequently made out for articled teacher and licensed teacher schemes which remove teacher education wholly or largely from the institutions whose courses are deemed to have offended.

The legitimation of bias Thirty years ago 'training colleges' became 'colleges of education'; the notion was that the preparation of teachers should not be a narrowing process but an enlarging one, with the learning of desirable sentiments and the acquisition of appropriate skills being complemented by opportunities for personal intellectual development. To that extent the BEd degree succeeded the Teachers' Certificate and aspired to be compared with first degrees available in universities. At this time R. S. Peters' Ethics and Education became a standard' text and the responsible conduct of the teacher's role was explored in a way that took account of, for example, indoctrination as a hazard rather than as an opportunity for those who wanted it. Within the professional development of religious education, the confessionalism which had been implicit in the meaning of 'religious instruction' which was operated in the 1944 Education Act now gave way to a more phenomenological approach and one which respected the variety of religious traditions that had since arrived on the British scene. Respect for contrary beliefs, traditions and perspectives was at least an aspiration at that time,

Th e Culture of Political Correctn ess 71

although it was recognized that its achievement was fraught with practical difficulties. Since the mid-1960s the climate within the profession has changed and the adoption of particular neo-confessional positions has been authorized in formal guidelines. For example, local education authorities and advisers adopting 'anti-racist' and 'anti-sexist' policies have urged teachers to check and confront expressions of racism and sexism which are officially regarded as unacceptable dispositions. Appropriate language is trained and undesirablee language is suppressed if need be by punitive measures; there is a strenuous effort to control the consciousness of children and students in these matters. Formulations of responsible professional behaviour are enshrined in institutional policies and in codes and guidelines issued by local authorities and central government. There is no desire here to underestimate the gravity and offensiveness of the dispositions called 'racism' and 'sexism'. Nor is it suggested that the persistence of these attitudes does not signify a shortcoming of an educational system, as does the persistence of violence, abuse, harassment, vandalism and so on (some of which engage the political left rather than the right, and others vice versa). The point here is rather that the approval and disapproval of specific attitudes at official level, and the consequent principle that professionally responsible behaviour consists in the elimination of those attitudes, licenses the teacher educator in the operation of thought control. There is no longer the notional obligation to encourage students to think for themselves but to think 'correctly'. What matters now is not the process of intellectual discourse but the pursuit off specified outcomes. The modification of intellectual behaviour has the imprimatur of local and central government; the - probably unachievable end of generating a profession of non-racist nonsexistt teachers is held to justify the means of confining the boundaries within which their habits off thought are confined. As a first-year student at the Polytechnic of North London wrote: On the one hand there are lecturers of various political shades who have an intense commitment to teaching and to scholarship generally. But on the

other there are those who offer nothing but pure dogma, whose criteria for the selection of material are purely political. (Jacka et al., 1975, p. 44)

The courses which are the basis of the dispute between the Hillgate and Hillcole groups claim a further warrant in purporting to be 'critical'. The term 'critical' is conveniently ambiguous. It has a favourable connotation in educational practice which derives from its elaboration in Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, where it signifies an advanced intellectual capacity along with analysis, synthesis and so on. 'Critical' thinking is therefore an activity that is sought and desiredd by examiners of courses. In Bloom's sense, it is an intellectual habit which cannot be bounded by loyalties or partisanship. However, what passes for 'critical' thinking in some courses is a kind offf slavish sympathy for the insights of a number off writers who are themselves 'critical' in the sense that they are negatively disposed to the political formations of Western societies. The 'critical' disposition is in this sense imitative rather than active. At worst, it may be transmitted by passive reading and rote learning of politically correct texts. Students are trained by persistent exposure to make received criticisms their own. This is already a far cry from Bloom. Moreover the range of accessible ideas may be polarized in the presentation of courses into two types: there is one set of perspectives and practices which is offered as the object of critical thought and another which is offered as the medium off such thought. Tutors and students of these courses stop short of lending the approved texts to critical analysis. It is in this sense that, like the bowler's woods, they are not able to travel in a straight line.

The cultural milieu of bias Course documentation, such as that on which the Hillgate and Hillcole groups base their published debates, is at best only a partial indicator of the existence or absence of bias. The appearance off 'balance' in reading lists may be no more than a

72 Roger Homan superficial feature. What matters more than the awareness of contrary points of view is the relative treatment that these are given. Some readings will be chosen for seminal insights while others will be offered for the purpose of target practice. Where, as happens in several institutions, the teacher of a particular course cites his/her own readings and texts, which might reveal a particular political bias, it will seldom be possible to give contrary perspectives an equally fair hearing, even where that might be the intention. To infer balance of treatment on the basis of an illusion of balance in a reading list is naive in the extreme. A special hazard besets the teaching of a course which is occupied almost exclusively with content of a particularly polemical kind, where a component is taught by somebody who is involved in one side of the public debate, where the 'critical' diet of prescribed reading takes the form of material published by a course tutor and where students have little or no tutorial support for alternative perspectives. In such cases participation is more or less confined to those who develop a sufficient measure of confidence. If students feel that a sympatheticc ear is lent only to voices in accord with the tutorial line, dissenting views will be withheld and debate is displaced by the rehearsal of conforming sentiments. There is a similar effect upon the writing of essays where students may feel even wrongly - that higher marks are achievable more easily by those who adopt the prevailing view than by those who in seminar or written assignments dissent from it. The nature of seminar discussion is dictated not by a desire for the openminded pursuit of truth or the appreciation of sophistication in reasoning and new ideas but by the commitment to confront, challenge and eliminatee unacceptable ideas; in this situation the student contributing points of view may not do so experimentally as a learner but in the spirit of submission for approval. Student teachers know that what is at stake when they declare their views is not merely their intellectual reputation but their acceptability to the profession. This is bound to have an inhibiting effect upon many and it falls to those who are confident in their alignment with the prevailing orthodoxy to monopolize the discussion..

So we have reached a point where professionals often feel that they have a warrant to pursue thef end of securing in their students the expression off those attitudes which they themselves affirm. This interpretation of the dynamics of the teaching encounter throws some light on the changing role off the teacher educator. The tutor functions not to test students' ideas with a view to strengthening them but to screen and correct. Those who occupy the role have a mission which they recognize to be political (Cole, 1989a, p. 3). Lecturers at the Polytechnic of North London were quoted as saying 'I will only teach what I believe in' (Jacka et al, 1975, p. 92). The effect that they then have not only upon their classes but on the institutions in which they work is to secure a taboo upon the utterance of particular views. We are told that new students are taken in hand by second- and thirdyear students who form an alliance with likemindedd tutors in a kind of People's Court, where alternative opinions are adjudicated by jeering and other forms of intimidation (Jacka et al., 1975, pp. 41-2). At meetings and in classes, statements are punctuated with gratuitous statements about 'Thatcherism' and 'Majorism', the Tory government and the Criminal Justice Bill, to the extent that a student dare not affirm contrary opinions either because they are already sensed to be anathema or for fear of inciting fellow students with whom he or she has to live and share a continuing course. The effect of the prevailing humour, of the regularity with which conservative or liberal views are condemned and the saturation of the physical environment with leaflets in common rooms, on coffee tables and windows, on noticeboards and taped to paving stones and trees is to intimidate with a minority consciousness what, if the truth be known, is a more popular range of opinion. The climate which Jacka reported persists in the 1990s. To illustrate this, the author of this paper recently conducted a study skills workshop among first-year undergraduates in an institution of higher education and contributed the view that a purpose of seminar discussion was to allow students to argue in an experimental way and to refine or withdraw arguments on the basis of supportive evaluation by tutors and peers. Partici-

Th e Culture of Political Correctn ess 773

pants in the workshop derided this optimistic observation as a fanciful ideal, and the following students' comments were recorded: It's not worth trying. You know what they think and they just jump on you. You don't have the confidence or else you just can't think quickly enough and they don't give you a chance. There are two or three students who agree with N [the tutor] and they have all the discussion to themselves. He came into the lecture and said 'Before I start I think it's important to explain the position about the strike on Thursday' and that's all we heard. You didn't feel you could say 'Can we get on with the lecture?'

What these remarks reveal is the hegemonic principle of bias. It registers in the feelings of students and debilitates them. It exists not just in the selection of readings or topics for study but permeates the cultural milieu within which courses are conducted. To that extent it runs deeper and is more elusive than the transactions which are accessible to visiting observers such as Her Majesty's Inspectors.

The dynamics of monitoring As central government has come to take a more active role in the control and direction of education, it has become recognized that inspections and visitations have consequences for an institution that are more fundamental than the mere benefit of a professional evaluation for the purpose of self-improvement. Decisions about student numbers, funding and the very future of courses are made in the light of inspectors' findings. To the extent that the future of an institution is at stake, professionals and students within it rally around the construction of a favourable account. There is a special hazard familiar in social research when those conducting any kind of enquiry enjoy a statuss or authority or exert influence or have sanctions in their gift and when the subjects of research

have a vested interest in the favourable conclusions of assessors. What therefore happens in institutions being visited is that even those members who in the normal course of events are the severest critics of a course will conspire to prevent inspectors from discovering its faults. Students to meet visiting parties will be hand-picked. At such times loyalty to course leaders is high and persistent dissenters are seldom put forward, least of all to be present in uncontrolled settings such as lunches and coffee times. The function of the power relations of inspectors and colleagues in institutions, then, is the closure of ranks in defence against all forms of external monitoring. The tenor of preparations for an HMI visitation is dramatically revealed in the published extracts of an internal briefing document prepared by a head of department at a nameless institution: Before they arrive we must rehearse our response to a number of key issues ... and hammer out the party line which we will hold ... We must make sure that we inhibit aggressive outbursts from our more volatile colleagues. (Smith, 1986, p. 229)

The inspectorate is of course as aware of defensive tactics as it is of the reactivity of its method of observing teaching sessions, often by prior appointment. The problem is acknowledged in a ministerial letter to the CNAA dated 10 April 1990: We recognise that there have been problems of substandard quality in teacher training courses and that there is no doubt some element of political bias in this area of higher education and in others. It is, however, not realistic to expect the centre to quantify the latter since only constant monitoring in lectures or seminars themselves could hope to pick it up. We do not have the resources to do this, nor do I suppose one would find much overt bias at a lecture at which HMI were present.

Conclusion The debate about bias in higher education is in some measure a struggle between opponent radical groups over what should be the content of the curriculum, even about who should determine it.

74 Roger Homan But what this paper has touched upon is a pedagogical dilemma involving the tension of liberal values. On the one hand are the procedural virtues of tolerance, freedom of belief, individual conscience and mutual respect. On the other is such an assertion of equal rights as to proscribe specified dispositions and behaviours. There is no room for tolerating racism, for example. This licenses the elimination of undesirable views by such means as the alliance of teachers and students, the intimidation of those daring to express the intolerable. Freedom of thought is seen as a lesser right than the entitlement of others to be spared disrespectfull attitudes. Some of the behaviour policies which are now being formulated in schools give a clue to how this dilemma may be resolved in classroom and seminar discussion: each child is entitled to be heard and taken seriously; there must be a secure environmentt in which there is no expectation of ridicule or derision or verbal bullying. In higher education, as we have seen, there may be no such guarantee of security for the minority or disfavoured view. In this event, the Quaker meeting provides a model of good practice: no one interrupts; there is usually a silence after each contribution; comments are made to the meeting and not at individuals; voices are not raised; the meeting proceeds toward a consensus and there is an implicit taboo on lobbying or domination by in-

dividuals. There is space to reflect upon the consequences of opinions; ideas are considered rather than forced; the power of groups to force a view is inhibited. It is a way of proceeding that ensures a hearing for the views of individuals and at the same time submits them to conscientious reflection.

References Cole, M. (1989a) Education for Equality: Some Guidelines for Good Practice. London: Routledge. Cole, M. (1989b) 'Whose is this country anyway? Who was here first?' An analysis of the attitudes of white first year BEd students to immigration to Britain. Multicultural Teaching, 72. Hicks, D. (1982) Bias in Geography Textbooks: Images off the Third World and Multi-ethnic Britain. University of London Institute of Education: Centre for Multicultural Education Working Paper 1. Hill, D. (1989) Charge of the Right Brigade: The Radical Right's Attack on Teacher Education. Brighton: Hillcole Group. Hillgate Group (1989) Learning to Teach. LLondon: Claridge. Jacka, K., Cox, C. and Marks, J. (1975) Rape of Reason: The Corruption of the Polytechnic of North London. Enfield: Churchill Press. Smith, T. J. (1986) Faculty governance - professionals and bureaucrats. Educational Management and Administration, 14.

8

The Management of Change in Higher Education

MYRAMCCULLOCH Introduction Over the past two decades the degree of change experienced in the higher education system has been wide-ranging and significant. It has reflected the changing relationship between higher education and the state affecting the realms of academic autonomy and accountability, collegiality and managerialism, research and teaching, the research agenda, the nature of the curriculum, and, indeed, the nature of teaching itself. Watson (1992) describes this as ' . . . reappraisal of the role of the university in society and the restructuring of higher education generally . . . " (p. 316). The argument to be developed in this chapter is one which highlights the enormous strengths of universities as social institutions within a changing context, which have nevertheless persisted in recognizable form over the centuries. The persistence, it is argued, results not from resistance to change but from the ability of the university to accommodate change within flexible, often inexplicit structures and to internalize these changes within the long-established traditions, values and attitudes which make up its distinctive cultural forms. The particular changes to be used as examples within this debate reflect perceptions of an altered balance between academic autonomy and academic accountability. The managerialist thrust towards increased accountability intended to achieve efficiency and effectiveness will, it is argued, undermine the effectiveness and efficiency of universities in fulfilling their fundamental purposes of teaching and research. It will, paradoxically, diminish the quality of that which it seeks

to enhance. Within a dialogue about diversity there is pressure to uniformity. The challenge to uniformity is seen as resistance to change, yet the meaning of diversity is as yet unclarified, and parties to the discussion have little mutual trust. The focus of this chapter is the university, its purposes and the processes by which these are evolved/challenged in the interaction between the organization and its external environment, particularly the policy context. The argument is developed in seeking to examine, through the model of loose coupling (Weick, 1976; Orton and Weick, 1990), relationships between the purposes and the organizational structures of the university and to identify strategies and mechanisms which serve to promote stability and change. It further examines the extent to which the university is structured to incorporate the particular pressures of determined external forces and uses as an example the work of audit and assessment carried out by the Higher Education Quality Council and the Higher Education Funding Councils. It also considers the extent to which purposes can be changed by such pressures or resisted through organizational accommodation leaving the central purpose intact.

The nature of the university What is, or are, the central purposes of the university? Barnett (1990) suggests one way of conceptualizing these purposes which suggests that they are relatively clear; that the very vocabulary of higher education embodies 'a set of traditions

76 Myra McCulloch

with mediaeval origins and having a wide international currency ... testimony to intentions, embodiedd in special institutions regarding educational processes which reflect certain kinds of values and are designed to have particular kinds of outcome' (p. 7). Shils (1984) reminds us why universities are important. They 'have a distinctive task. It is the methodical discovery and teaching of truths about serious and important things' (p. 3). This is the essential justification for the university, 'intellectual integrity and freedom of inquiry' (p. 6). Barnett (1990) identifies twelve specific purposes which form the 'value background' off Higher Education, the first five being the pursuit off truth and objective knowledge; research; liberal education; institutional autonomy; and academic freedom. 'The development of students' critical abilities' is mentioned as number eight in this list (pp. 8-9), thus implying a hierarchy in which scholarship and research are considerably more important than teaching. Moodie (1986) confirms this view. As a context within which a typology for discussion might be identified, this appears to be of interest since the variety of organizations now called universities has been considerably expanded. It would be interesting to speculate upon the priority given to various aspects of Barnett's Value background' in the various higher education institutions. Furthermore, Birch (1989) reminds us that there are developing tensions between the internal and external perceptions of the roles of the university. Whilst universities seek to maintain traditional values such as those espoused by Shils, the government, the key provider of funds, challenges this model, and whilst in receipt of central funding the universities are vulnerable to official definitions of purpose which stress the need 'to meet the needs of the economy' (Watson, 1992, p. 65) rather than to defend institutional and individual academic autonomy. This link between the economy and the universities is also stressed through state funding of student tuition and maintenance, which causes fluctuation in planning numbers according to the

availability of public funds. One of the most significant pressure points on universities at the moment, it might be argued, is the unpredictability of undergraduate student numbers, which depend upon the public-sector borrowing requirement. The direct consequences of fluctuation are reflected in levels of funding, but perhaps more importantly, the nature of university membership and its mission or system of priorities and balance of its activities is also affected by these influences outside its control. Trow (1989) argues that four values have continued to inform the English 'idea of a university' in the period since the Robbins Report (1963) and that these have both allowed the expansion of the 1960s and 1970s and, at the same time, restricted the potential growth into a system of mass higher education. The four values are the virtual monopoly of state-supported institutions in providing degree-level study; the shared commitment to high and common standards for the Honours degree; the full-time mode of study; and the state funding of student maintenance and fees (p. 55). All of these, it might be argued, continue to be under discussion, and the funding round of 1992/93 (Utley, 1992) showed perhaps the first signs of the universities' internal strategic planning processes combining with the external planning function of the then Universities Funding Council (UFC) to provide more distinctive kinds of universities than we have seen in the past under that title. For example, the bids for additional undergraduate numbers at particular 'old' universities might suggest their appearing to be increasingly 'teaching-centred'. Their purposes, in other words, will begin to shift in terms of the priorities given to research and teaching. The hierarchical relationship between the two will be dramatically affected by these differential funding mechanisms since the expansion in teaching of undergraduates has not been matched by an equivalent expansion in resource for teaching. The dilemma for institutions is the desire to maintain quality in teaching without undermining research effort or appearing to be able to maintain standards at lower unit costs.

The Management of Change in Higher Education 77

The university as an organization However, to what extent can we speak of the purposes or goals of the universities? Can an organization be said to have goals and if so, of what kind? Or should it be argued that only individuals can have goals (Greenfield, 1975,1979,1980) and that the gathering together of like minded persons over a period of time gives the illusion of systematically established organizational goals? Or suborganizationall goals which may or may not fit consistently into a coherent 'mission' statement for the total organization. Greenfield (1975) argues for 'human action and intention as the stuff from which organizations are made' (p. 71). Organizations are therefore definitions of social reality; definitions and redefinitions if we see the social construction of reality as a continuing process during which the social world is made and remade. The study of organizations, therefore, becomes the analysis of processes where members (for example, of universities) are constantly seeking to make sense of the reality within which they are working and by doing so, making explicit their beliefs and values as members of such organizations. The interpretation of human experience is 'the bedrock on which human life is built and upon which organization theory should stand' (Greenfield, 1979, p. 97). Thus, organizations are expressions of will, intention and value, and as such, express 'becoming' not being. They are essentially arbitrary definitions of reality (Greenfield, 1980). Furthermore, following Giddens, Greenfield argues that asymmetries in meaning and morality can be observed because of the power of certain groups to ensure that their interpretations of meaning and representations of reality are dominant. A congruent definition is that of Cohen and March (1986), who describe the university as a 'prototypic organised anarchy' (p. 3) which has problematic goals, unclear technology (or processes) and fluid participation. This latter characteristic contributes to the partial rationality observable in such institutions where participatory democracy allows lack of participation as well as an active role to be taken. Orton and Weick (1990,

p. 206) argue that 'because people have bounded rationality (for example, limited informationprocessing capabilities, memories that obscure details and short attention spans) they notice different parts of their surroundings, will tune out different parts at different times, and will process different parts at different speeds'. The making and taking of decisions becomes, in such circumstances, 'fundamentally ambiguous' (Cohen, March and Olsen, 1972). My own research in an 'old' university suggests that until academics are directly affected by a decision they will take little notice of the decisionmaking process. A senior academic remarked to me 'I believe nothing should be made secret at all because most people won't read any of it. Unless you actually stamp "Secret: Not to be Read" on it, which would draw a slightly bigger audience

....'

In other words, members of organizations may behave in ways appearing to be contrary to the interests of the institution because they only understand, or have only listened to, part of the debate. Alternatively, they may behave in such ways because they represent the vanguard of a developing trend. Or, again, there may be within the organization competing or even contradictory views which can persist in harmony precisely because of the fundamental ambiguity allowed to decision-making. Ambiguity becomes a positive feature of organizational decision-making. The essential ambiguity of a structure which is constantly being made and remade makes sense. It also carries certain advantages. Ball (1987) confirms that the search to identify goals of a particular organization is 'often conducted on the basis of an assumption of consensus among the organization's members - an assumption which has extremely limited validity . . . " (p. 11). He goes on to state that schools (as with other educational organizations)) typically lack such consensus and, indeed, this contributes to their effectiveness: ' ... the structure of schools allows for and reproduces dissensus and goal diversity' (p. 11). Where aims, intentions, values and beliefs are inexplicit, they may be widely shared since they can operate at a level of generality which gives offence to no one. As soon as they are clarified and articulated as

78 Myra McCulloch

policy, the opportunity for challenge, disagreement and conflict is opened up. Thus, it seems, the argument suggests an effective form of organizational structure in the university as one which permits, and even encourages, operation within uncertainty. It also implies acceptance of conflict as intrinsic to organizational processes as 'It should not be assumed, as systems theorists seem to do, that conflict is always destructive' (Ball, 1987, p. 20). This ambiguity, uncertainty and conflict is unsurprising if it is accepted that some four main patterns of organizational behaviour are evident in universities, two or three of which are dominant at the same time (Becher, 1988). Becher identifies the four as the hierarchical, collegial, anarchical and political. He gives an example of university planning (p. 25) which shows the 'backstage' or political phase leading to an hierarchical 'frontstage' formal plan which receives 'understage' or anarchistic grass-roots protestations which eventually lead to a 'frontstage' or collegial decision-making which emerges as a compromise plan. Becher's example, however, tidies up the life and work of the university in ways which empirical examples would seem to challenge. For example, the 'value background' identified by Barnett recognizes the research and teaching roles to be carried out within autonomous institutions by scholars protected by academic freedom. To what extent does an aggregation of these characteristics indicate single, or even a coherent organizational form? If it does not, what form of explanation might allow an incoherent, incongruent form to persist and succeed in achieving its members' multiple and contradictory aims?

The paradox of stability as change and competition Weick (1976) offers the opportunity to understand this through the concept of loosely coupled systems which capture these different sets of realities which coexist at any one time in educational institutions. This allows, inter alia, acceptance off

individual and patterned (or institutional) goals which may be different in the various segments or sub-units of organizations and which may vary over time and context. Orton and Weick (1990) set out ways in which the concept of loose coupling has developed since 1976 through a review which covers some 300 works. The model's strength lies in its ability 'to explain the simultaneous existence of rationality and indeterminacy without specializing these two logics in distinct locations' (p. 204). Thus they posit a technical core which is closed to outside forces and where coupling produces stability, and an institutional level which is open. The relationship between responsiveness and distinctiveness is the key to the dialectical interpretation of loose coupling they favour. Dialectical is used in this sense to mean the identification and resolution off the changing patterns of relationship between the contrary terms distinctiveness and responsiveness within organizations (p. 205). Where both are present, the organization may be said to be loosely coupled. Key elements in an understanding of loose coupling include causal indeterminacy-bounded rationality, selective perception and ambiguity; a fragmented external environment which may reflect dispersed stimuli (that is, varying demands and responses to the system) or incompatible expectations and a fragmented internal environment. In all of these contexts the responsiveness/ distinctiveness relationship can be sought among individuals, sub-units, organizations; between hierarchical levels, between activities, and so on. In other words the model provides an analytical language to explore relationships between parts and the whole, or between separate parts within the whole without requiring a consistent or coherent pattern to be discovered and explained beyond continuing existence through 'conversations' between integration and autonomy. Thus March (1987) argues that ambiguity creates loose coupling between information activities and decision activities and that this creates autonomy for information-gatherers. If this autonomy is thought by management to be unsatisfactory, it can be combined, through the model, with coupling in other dimensions (Orton and Weick, 1990) thus

The Management of Change in Higher Education

retaining the dialectic of responsiveness/ distinctiveness and providing opportunities for enhanced leadership, focused effort and the sharing of values. Orton and Weick (1990) conclude their article by proposing a simple sequential model of loose coupling theory which moves from causes to types to direct effects to compensations and to organizational outcomes, giving each of these five variables the same weight though allowing each a stronger or weaker voice in different contexts (p. 217). This 'preliminary model' 'compactly summarizes past thinking on loose coupling' (p. 216) and offers a tool for investigation which combines 'the contradictory concepts of connection and autonomy' (p. 216) and helps us to understand the 'fluidity, complexity and social construction of the organizational structure' (p. 218). These key features of the loose coupling model show how relevant it can be for the study of the modern university in a turbulent environment. If it is to be argued that only individuals can have goals and that organizational persistence can be explained by groups of individuals sharing patterns of values which are represented as organizational goals, then individuals, sub-units, hierarchical levels, etc. can be identified within the university which indeed represent implicit, ambiguous, incoherent and contradictory value systems within an organization which at first sight appears to be structured on technical-rational grounds. Weick (1976) and Orton and Weick (1990) allow us to understand this in terms of a technical core with coupling linked with a series of more or less loosely coupled areas, levels, individuals and units with which it is in conversation. Thus an accommodation can be found between the different aims and intentions of the academic staff, the students, the administrative staff, the librarians, the porter and so on. All may proceed in satisfaction with their lot while in ambiguous three-dimensional conversations. Indeed, in turbulent times, managerial disruption or chaos may be seen as essential to the fulfilment of the organization's goals. At times of rapid change, coherence becomes a liability. Weick (1985) confirms that in assessing the significance of corporate structure at times of change, coher-

79

ence tends to make it more difficult for organizations to become something new; it makes existing structures extremely tenacious; it leads to rigidity and reduces the speed with which changes in opportunity can be detected; it looks backward and leads towards conservatism.

Current challenges to universities and their autonomy in England The question which then needs to be posed is: what happens when the workable, if relatively ambiguous, mission of the university is directly challenged by powerful external forces? These seek to make both explicit and dominant a system of externally defined priorities which could explode the myth of shared, if inexplicit, values so important to the persistence of the institution. They may also contribute to reducing the autonomy of the institution from the state and affect in a number of problematic ways (Tapper and Salter, 1995) the academic freedom of its tutorial staff. Of the many external challenges facing the university: levels of funding; increased student numbers; unit of resource; Research:Teaching: Research/Teaching (R,T,X) categorization (ABRC, 1987); the establishment and implementation of Quality Assurance and Assessment perhaps give the clearest example for analysis. The original Academic Audit Unit, established as a result of the work of the Reynolds Committee (1986) and the Academic Standards Committee of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) between 1986 and 1989, represented an attempt to set up a 'buffer' zone in the form of an interuniversity peer review system rather than have an external audit group set up by government. The establishment by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) of a Quality Assessment system overwhelmed this intention. It was not intended that academic standards be inspected. Confirmation was to be sought that the internal processes established by universities to monitor and promote their self-critically imposed and externally examined standards are effective and

80 Myra McCulloch

that their claims to excellence can be substantiated. The evaluation of quality against mission rather than publicly defined, explicit standards remains problematic but seems inevitable in a system explicitly committed to, and already making manifest, the newly popular concept of diversity.. Both external processes turn the spotlight onto our teaching activity: the outcomes may affect the funding we get in the future (Underwood, 1991). The place of teaching in the 'old' universities has traditionally been more ambiguous than that off research, though it is probable that the critical mastery of what is known and the pursuit of new knowledge (scholarship and research) would be placed higher than the teaching function in a hierarchy of purpose. Moodie (1986) writes of teaching seen as a duty for which competence is requiredd while research is the academics' 'own work' for which excellence is the aim. Administration is merely a chore. This would probably be reversed in a 'new' university and, indeed, is questionable in some of the older universities following their response to current policy trends. Weick (1976) and Orton and Weick (1990) provide us with a way of understanding and handling this potential conflict by permitting us to have teaching and research as functions running side by side in conversation, with individuals having different views about their relative importance. Thus, different departments within an institution might be more or less committed to research, further differentiating within an institution encompassed by a system-wide differentiating scheme through a funding regime based on Research Assessment exercises. Flexibility and diversity within organizations would thus be promoted and different kinds of organizational relationships between the constituent parts of the university would be fostered. However, the method of working and the documentation employed by audit and assessmentt teams imply that a more two-dimensional system of organization is expected, cutting out diversity and distinctiveness in favour of responsiveness, to leave us with a tightly coupled system. There are indications that centralized control off the teaching function is expected. The 'institution' is clearly seen as a technical-rational system with

hierarchical relationships between levels of activity and distinct accountability structures between the centre and the periphery. If the university were a simple organization with a single, clearly articulated teaching mission, these assumptions might be sustainable. Warnock (1982) identified 'immense differences' (p. 104) between the old universities before the abolition of the binary line in 1992. It is likely that in the larger 'unified' university system even greater diversity will be found. How, therefore, can the demands of audit and assessment, backed by the force of potential funding differentials for the unresponsive, be given sufficient priority to satisfy the demands of accountability, while permitting the flexibility of the loosely coupled organization to continue? It is possible to argue that one tightly coupled system within an organization is acceptable within the model. That is that teaching is subject to centralized control within the institution and formally subordinate to the demands of the agencies of the state. However, if this tightly coupled teaching system is added to a tightly coupled technicall core, the balance of the dialectic within the institution begins to be affected. Tapper and Salter (1995) suggest that the real decline in autonomy is, in fact, not in relation to institutional autonomy but here, in the increasing inability of dons to control their own working conditions. Elton and Partington (1991) in their paper Teaching Standardss and Excellence in Higher Education recognize that despite all the contextual factors that affect teaching, 'it is the attitude of individual academics ... that eventually determine group and corporate decisions' (p. 1, para. 1). Thus, the individual needs to be able to see that teaching is seen to be equivalent to research in terms of recognition,, resourcing and rewards. The conviction that this is so, if spread among numerous individuals, could represent a systematic change in the culture of the teaching function such that the necessity for a tightly coupled quality assurance system would be decreased. The self-critical evaluation of individuals would ensure adequacy of such mechanisms in the pursuit of the shared value of teaching excellence. The role of internal quality procedures such as those implied by Total

The Management of Change in Higher Education 81 Quality Management systems might offer some interesting potential here (McCulloch, 1993). The issue is how to achieve the transformation in the value of teaching so that long-term acceptance of bureaucratic, tightly coupled systems can be challenged without implying low teaching standards or a lack of value attached to that activity... TThe university, by incorporating teaching as a highly valued activity - on its own terms - can challenge the external threat to its values and, most importantly, its autonomy. Elton and Partington (1991) make two suggestions. The first relates standards and criteria for teaching excellence to corresponding research standards, since, they argue, these are more generally agreed. Russell (1993) puts forward the view that 'An institution which does not do research is not a University and a power which attempts to decree otherwise discredits only itself (p. 106). Although this view might be challenged, appropriate training and induction, scepticism and selfevaluation, willingness to give and accept criticism, responsiveness, communication skills and so on are explicitly accepted as the norm within research communities. The argument here is that since research is so highly valued, if teaching is seen to be open to judgement on the same criteria, it, too, will be highly valued. Thus, the loose coupling between research and teaching could be seen to be slightly tightened, but the two remain both distinctive and responsive. The changes in teaching assessment measures to resemble more closely, but not identically, those of the Research Assessment Exercise makes this seem a reasonable aim in the medium term. However, why should those who value teaching 'ape' research in this way for the sake of rapidity f and ease of understanding? An adapted version off research criteria for use in evaluating teaching is then proposed, followed by a formulation of new 'bespoke' criteria for teaching. Elton and Partington (1991) argue that in evaluating teaching we need appropriate quality processes at all levels off the institution, but they also stress that collegiality implies individual responsibility; that a change in organizational culture is necessary and that the self-critical nature of the university makes this

more possible than in many bureaucratic institutions. Barnett (1992) would agree. If the Elton and Partington model is taken as a sequential description of the dialectical processes to be followed within an institution to permit accepted but ambiguous priorities to be challenged and changed (by using existing priorities as the beginning of the conversation), it is possible to argue that the tightly coupled organizational structures assumed by audit and assessment represent a threat to the loosely coupled structure of the university for only a short time. It confirms their lesser effectiveness in achieving the aims of excellence, and the replication of excellence as a shared goal within the research and teaching functions makes tightly coupled central controls superfluous.

Conclusionss It seems possible, therefore, that the preliminary model of loose coupling theory (Orton and Weick, 1990) permits an explanation of how persisting institutions can accommodate radical change by evolutionary processes which serve to permit ambiguity to be clarified and remystified through a dialectical mechanism. This affirms the traditionall commitment to academic autonomy and confirms the universities' skills in accommodating extensive change whilst maintaining their inherent purposes. Questions remain, however. Is the level of ambiguity to which institutions return the most effective at which stability can be sustained? Is the toleration of uncertainty the most fruitful environment within which academic work can be accomplished? In accommodating powerful external forces by internal mechanisms, how is the internal power structure operating? Is the notion of loose coupling, combining autonomy and accountability,, a velvet pretence concealing an iron fist off reality? As the work of audit and assessment continues, and their impact becomes more evident, we will be able to see more clearly whether, and how effectively, the older universities are still able to

82 Myra McCulloch

protect their cultures and accommodate change. What we can already say is that the hierarchical relationship between research and teaching is being challenged; that this challenge is powerfully rooted in government policy mediated through the Funding Councils' allocation strategies; that this challenge will make explicit interests which have, by being left ambiguous, served to promote the past health of the universities. One can also suggest that the model of loose coupling offers an explanatory language through which we can see how external challenges can be taken on, incorporated and remystified to promote the continuing health of the universities.

Referencess Advisory Board for the Research Councils (1987) A Strategy for the Science Base. A discussion document prepared for the Secretary of State for Education and Science by the ABRC (May). London: HMSO. Ball, S. J. (1987) The Micro-Politics of the School: Towards a Theory of School Organization. London and New York: Methuen. Barnett, R. (1990) The Idea of Higher Education. Buckingham: SRHE and the Open University Press. Barnett, R. (1992) Improving Higher Education: Total Quality Care. Buckingham: SRHE and the Open University Press. Becher, T. (1988) Principles and politics: an interpretative framework for university management, in A. Westoby (ed.), Culture and Power in Educational Organizations. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Birch, W. (1989) The Challenge to Higher Education: Reconciling Responsibilities to Scholarship and Society. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Cohen, M. D. and March, J. G. (1986) Leadership andd Ambiguity. Boston: Harvard Business School Press (2nd edn). Cohen, M. D., March, J. G. and Olsen, J. P. (1972) A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrativee Science Quarterly, 17,1-25. Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals Aca- v demic Audit Unit (1991) Notes for the Guidance off Auditors. CVCP. Elton, L. and Partington, P. (1991) Teaching Standards and Excellence in Higher Education: Developing a Culture for Quality. Occasional Green Paper no. 1. CVCP.

Greenfield, T. B. (1975) Theory about organization: a new perspective, in M. Hughes (ed.), Administering Education: International Challenge. London: Athlone Press. Greenfield, T. B. (1979) Organization theory as ideology. Curriculum Inquiry, 9 (2) (Summer). Greenfield, T. B. (1980) The man who comes back through the door in the wall: discovering truth, discovering self, discovering organizations. .EEducational Administration Quarterly, 16 (3) (Fall), 26-59. McCulloch, M. (1993) Total quality management: its relevance for higher education. Quality Assurance in Education, 1 (2), 5-11. March, J. G. (1987) Ambiguity and accounting: the elusive link between information and decision making. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 12, 153-68, and quoted in J. D. Orton and K. E. Weick (1990). March, J. G. and Olsen, J. P. (1979) Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget (2nd edn). Moodie, G. C. (ed.) (1986) Standards and Criteria in Higher Education. Guildford: SRHE and NFERNelson. Orton, J. D. and Weick, K. E. (1990) Loosely coupled systems: a reconceptualisation. Academy of Management Review, 15 (2), 203-23. Reynolds, P. A. (1986) Academic Standards in Universities. CVCP. Robbins, L. (1963), Committee on Higher Education. Higher Education: A Report. London: HMSO. Russell, C. (1993) Academic Freedom. London: Routledge. Shils, E. (1984) The Academic Ethic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tapper, E. R. and Salter, B. G. (1995) The changing idea of university autonomy. Studies in Higher Education, 20 (1) (March), 59-71. Trow, M. (1989) The Robbins trap: British attitudes and the limits of expansion. Higher Education Quarterly, 43 (1) (Winter), 55-75. Underwood, S. (1991) The visit of the Academic Audit Unit: examining the University's standards. Newsletter, University of York. Utley, A. (1992) Cash rewards for cheap expanders. The Higher, 28 February, 3. Warnock, M. (1982) The values presupposed, in D. Bligh (ed.), Accountability or Freedom for Teachers. Leverhulme Programme 7. London: Society for Research into Higher Education, pp. 100-17. Watson, K. (1992) Towards a reassessment and a realignment of higher education: the triumph of the technocrat? Comparative Education, 28 (3). Weick, K. E. (1976) Education organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21,1-19.

The Management of Change in Higher Education 83 Weick, K. E. (1985) The significance of corporate structure, in P. J. Frost, L. F. Moore, M. R. Louis, C. C.

Lundberg and J. Martin (eds), Organizational Culture. London: Sage, pp. 381-9.

9

Judging Quality in Higher Education: Towards Bureaucratic Conformity

CLEMADELMAN Equity and quality Martin Trow (1969) observed that as the proportion participating in higher education (HE) increases there are qualitative changes in the institutions,, particularly in their view of the value of elite education. He suggests two thresholds: 'elite' to about 15 per cent participation, and then up to 40 per cent, which he calls 'mass' higher education. A commonplace argument states that the pursuit of 'excellence' loses out to the pursuit of equity in the shift from elite to mass. A few, such as Strike (1985) and Massaro (Volume 4 of this series), argue that excellence is compatible with equity provided that sufficient resources are available. This is also the assumption of European Union policy. Until about 1980 indicators that excellence and truth were being pursued in HE, or rather, especially in universities, were debated within academia, and it is only subsequently in the UK that performance criteria and measures of output have been used as a test of the veracity of these claims (Pollitt, 1987). The pursuit of equity is not subject to quality assurance in higher education in England, and the reason is not hard to find: incompatibility with the values of the ideology of the market economy, particularly the belief that competition brings forth efficiency and that 'freedom of choice' might bring about the best available outcomes. That there are initial and subsequent constraints on such choice, that it can never be fully informed to make reliable predictions and that the rewards are loaded towards those that are already well re-

sourced, would lead to perpetual predetermination in the market if it were not for innovative meansl of going beyond the constraints and institutionall mistakes and misfortunes. But, fundamentally, those who decide the criteria for distribution of funds call the tune, or the 'shots'. Financial and institutional management have invaded time for scholarship and research in both the UK and the USA, but the USA still values equity of access, encourages the seeking of equal opportunity and respects diversity of university missions in pursuit of these values and that of elusive 'quality'. Graeme Moodie of the University of York (UK) provided an analysis in 1988 which well stands the test of time. He quotes 'the high priest of market ideology', the late and former Secretary of State for Education, Sir Keith Joseph, who told the House of Commons in 1984 that government objectives in higher education 'are quality and costeffectiveness'.. Moodie states that 'whereas in the USA it is access that both rivals and complements quality, in Britain it is "cost-effectiveness" with which quality is linked'. He cites the first page of the first Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1968) which said that 'the American nation needs and expects from higher education ... quality of result and equality of access'. In part this crucial difference is ideological, but it is also based on the USA aspiration to allow individual choice amongst real alternatives in a 'mass' system of higher education institutions with diverse missions. Such choice applies as much to faculty as to students. I consider that in the UK the range of alternatives has over the past decade been systematically reduced towards conformity of cost units

Judging Quality in Higher Education: Towards Bureaucratic Conformity and modules, performance outcome indicators and audit on criteria established by market economistss in government departments. Academic peer review to assess quality and veracity as developed by the late Council for National Academic Awards has given way to assessment against criteria agreed with government ministers and civil servants.

The changing politics of assessment Until the early 1980s UK university academics kept to their idiosyncratic curriculum territories of what is worth knowing as a subject discipline without much concern for the education of the whole person - Keele University having reluctantly conceded that aim in the 1970s. In the UK the debates about access to HE (e.g. Leverhulme/ SRHE, 1983) and the status of liberal education have aroused little passion, unlike that in the USA. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher vowed to break the professionals' closed shops or rather their secret gardens of values, knowledge and judgements, apparently to provide public accountability to the stakeholders. But as with the schools, the customer-contractor relationship is cruelly drawn from a market economy in which educational qualities such as mentorship, nurture, or selfless pursuit of understanding in a community of scholars are derided for all but a select elite. Such is the 'radical conservatism' of Thatcher that the lot of the majority is radically changed to competing in the market whilst conserving and adding to the excellent, as denned by socioeconomic status and success rather than social class, rank and custom. The pressure then, and more intrusively now, under the Higher Education Funding Councils, is to high-profile management, income generation, links with industry and commerce; the academic pursuit of active reflection and debate is not quite a waste of valuable time but it certainly does not fit into the 'get up and go for it' mentality of the marketeers. The university's role as a source of well-informed honest critique of the social and material world has been reduced. Inside UK universities the market mentality has invaded

85

the discourse of its teaching and research despite the warnings inherent in the waning of the Social Science Research Council to make way for the Economic and Social Research Council (Sir Keith Joseph, the Secretary of State for Education at the time, insisted that sociology was not a science but a refuge for socialists and the like). In the UK the discrepancies amongst the institutions of higher learning in terms of resources and research are starkly stratified. The quest for indicators of excellence and quality goes on but equity and access within a deliberate encouragement of diversity are far away issues.

University merit and funding This chapter considers the worth of two widely used, putative sources of quality assurance: institutional accreditation and student ratings off their courses. These two procedures, as well as their validity for different stakeholders in the process of higher education, are examined using information from current and recent research as well as from public guidance documents from higher education regulatory agencies, such as the Quality Assessment Division of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (1993,1994) From their burgeoning in the mid-nineteenth century, higher education institutions were polarized into those aspiring to excellence and those aspiring to equity. The majority of the now former polytechnics and teacher training colleges were characterized as being on the side of equity whilst the pursuit of excellence took place in universities. Polytechnics had larger classes and far less resources for research than the universities. Until 1993 the majority of funding for university teaching and research was decided by the central government Treasury whereas the polytechnics were funded from public-sector allocation, as were schools and hospitals. Local and regional commerce and industry, voluntary and professional organizations had, through membership of polytechnic governing bodies, a considerable influencee and power over the budget of the poly-

86 Clem Adelman technic and thus over plant, staffing and innovation. The chair of the governors was usually a political representative of the constituency ruling party. Polytechnic accountability was decidedly regional whereas the universities spent their financiall allocation according to the decisions of their respective Vice-Chancellor supported by the Senate. Further control over the polytechnics was exerted by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), which was the degree-awarding body set up in 1964 by the government (Silver, 1990). By 1980 the CNAA had developed into a quality control and research and development agency which had the right to inspect most publicsector funded HE from every perspective and which also had the power to withhold accreditation of courses and programmes if the reports off CNAA inspection panels so recommended. These inspection panels comprised academic peers as well as representatives from the pertinent profession. The procedures of the CNAA have set part of the agenda for what are now the Higher Education Funding Councils (for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), which scrutinize the assessments of all universities, all of the polytechnics having been allowed the status of degreeawarding institutions, thus 'university', in 1992. What was, until the 1980s, unchallenged university rhetoric about the pursuit of excellence and truth, and beyond scrutiny except by external examiners and the Research Councils, has become subject to inspection and rating, called 'assessment', by the Higher Education Funding Councils of the UK, which report to central government and whose reports are available publicly. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals guides the Higher Education Quality Council, which conducts 'audits' of all universities. The work of these two organizations overlaps and is now in contest. The HEQC is currently claiming that it can cover the 'assessment' work of the HEFC (HEQC, 1995). If the present Secretary of State for Education is convinced by these claims, then the judgements of university quality will rest with peers rather than with externally imposed performance criteria. Institutional self-evaluation would be the means to present the case, and if this is adopted, practice in

the UK will become similar to that in the USA, as described later. The present chairman of the Higher Education Quality Council is John Stoddart, director of former Sheffield City Polytechnic and a critical friend of the CNAA. Sheffield Hallam University and University of Northumbria were pioneers in that they demonstrated to the CNAA that they could validate and control the standard and quality of their own degrees (Adelman and Powney, 1987). John Stoddart (1995) retains his independent critical edge and argues from within the HEFC against 'a framework in which the major weight would rest on the external validation or approval of subjects or programmes in individual institutions'. He argues for proper 'self regulation which is the only secure route to high quality and standards because it builds on and brings out professionalism'. The CNAA, HMI and some professional bodies, Stoddart maintains, have past experience for the model of self-regulation proposed. The CNAA had made considerable progress towards institutional self-regulation before its demise in 1992, but the much longer experience off programme and institutional accreditation in the USA demands discussion. I make this comparison to raise questions about the conditions for peer and institutional self-regulation in the context off pursuit of quality. In the light of research and methodological criteria I will consider one aspect of the Higher Education Funding Council quality assessment in detail: the validity of 'data' provided by students. I would also argue for selfregulationn (Adelman and Alexander, 1984) but consider that the UK efforts in this regard could learn from a critical understanding of USA experience. The problems are methodological and ethical as well as being linked to resources. It is my understanding that self-regulation cannot be achieved within the market ideology of the Higher Education Funding Councils as this precludes and even penalizes a range of institutional missions such as equity - which do not conform with HEFC criteria. Of the two traditions of self-regulation and accountability that were developed by the former polytechnics, that of accountability is now ascendant, but the orientation of the accountabil-

Judging Quality in Higher Education: Towards Bureaucratic Conformity ity is towards HEFC rather than towards the regional community. The universities claimed that the veracity and the validity of the external examinerr system was a main source and guarantor off quality assurance, but this claim has been under scrutiny as a means of self-regulation by peer criticism. Silver (1996), for example, outlines the historical development of the external examiner 'system' and highlights the strength of the social networks in the reciprocal appointment process. In a study published earlier he provides a critical review of the current state of external examining in the UK (1995). An earlier detailed questionnaire study which included a section on external examiners (Warren-Piper, 1985) was never published in full after objections from university representatives,,, one of whom said the report should be embargoed for ten years. The objectors refused to countenance that there were major doubts about the claim of universities that they were in full control of their means of maintaining standards and quality.

In the USA The USA does not have external examiners. The quality of a university's courses and programmes is monitored by the university through its institutional research office which utilizes registry statistics with course feedback data, particularly those provided by students on their satisfaction with their courses. The university incorporates those data into self-study reports which represent part off the preparation prior to a regular, usually three- to five-year, regional accreditation visit. In professional training and education the professional associations have the right to inspect courses, but the most exhaustive inspection, that of the whole institution, is that from the Regional Association. To gain membership of this peer scrutiny procedure, the university must satisfy initial criteria, apply for a visit, go on probation and finally, after three to five years, become a fee-paying and fully participating member of the Regional Association.

87

Eligibility criteria for initial application for accreditation are set by each of the six Regional Associations. The criteria are similar, although I shall quote only from those issued by the North Central Association which covers 19 states, including Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota and New Mexico. There are four categories: 1 2

3

4

Mission and authorization - stated mission and legal entitlement to award degrees; Educational programmes - inspection of at least one of the undergraduate programmes of a duration of two or more years, recognized subject disciplines and general education, and also the distribution of success and failure to gain the degree; Institutional organization - governing body, chief executive officer, qualified faculty 'significantly involved in the development and review of educational programmes and admission practices'; Financial resources - sufficient and regular audit, public disclosure - publishes accurate educational prospectus and financial position.

The need to satisfy these requirements is intended to exclude the accreditation of speculative establishments, the badly organized as well as the educationallyy inadequate. Satisfying eligibility allows application for accreditation which requires the applicant to demonstrate that it meets all of the following evaluative criteria: alignment of purposes and mission; effective deployment of resources to make the purposes feasible; accomplishmentt of purposes; the prospect of continued effective accomplishment of purposes. Degrees awarded by accredited institutions are recognized by professional associations and other accredited universities. Attempts by federal government to influence these procedures had, until 1993, been successfully resisted. State universities have, however, always been subject to budget fluctuations which reflect the prosperity of their residents. Thus the fortunes of the state universities of Michigan are closely linked to those of automobile manufacturing. As state universities have called for more federal aid the federal government has

88 Clem Adelman taken a more intrusive part in defining performance standards and quality. Both countries have quality assurance systems for higher education and both of these are based on peer review. In both countries the national government wants more say in defining the criteria off quality and in setting performance standards. In this respect the UK government has much more power since it now provides most of the funds for higher education centrally through the Treasury whereas in the USA the traditional constitutional autonomy of each state together with the large proportion of fee-paying universities limit federal intervention. In addition the federal bureaucracy would need a massive expansion to handle the administrative consequences of tighter control. The states would oppose this on various grounds. In the USA regional accreditation usually precedes state recognition and always precedes professional accreditation. For the most part this has been a viable and publicly acceptable arrangement. Two professional associations have proved problematic: business studies, for lack of transparency in procedures; and teacher preparation for more complex reasons, some of which are of relevance here. From the late 1960s the National Council for the Assessment of Teacher Education developed well defined and evaluated 'standards' (criteria) for assessment of programmes. This process of self-regulatory quality assessment involved sustained evaluation and development at a high level. By the mid-1970s NCATE could claim that its standards were equitably arrived at and were a fair measure of whether a programme was worthy of accreditation. The standards have been under continuous review; about 20 per cent of programmes fail to meet the requirements. Most of the states accept the rigour and validity of NCATE standards and procedures and do not require further evidence of quality. The point here is that selfregulation, as John Stoddart (1995) acknowledges, takes a long time to establish credibility. In the UK the peer assessment under the CNAA has been discarded and it will take a new government aboutt five years to establish a new credible system offf quality assurance. Goodlad's commentary is so pertinent to the current UK situation that I quote:

Excessive regulation leads to passivity on the part off those being regulated, as old rules can easily be replaced by new ones; faculty members wonder why they should bother to respond to each new set off standards if yet another new set is just over the horizon. (Goodlad, 1990)

Assessment by students In England it is the HEFCE that is required by statute to assess the performance of higher education institutions: 'provision is made for assessing the quality of education provided in institutions for whose activities it provides, or is considering providing, financial support' (Section 70 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992). HEFCE reports to the Secretary of State for Education within the government, which decides on the level and formula for the funding of the assessed institutions. Formally the Secretary of State for Education has the statutory right to reduce or even withdraw funding from a university but will act on advice from HEFCE. Inspections by assessors appointed by HEFCE, unlike those of the latter day CNAA, do not lead to accreditation but to what is claimed to be measures of quality and performance upon which funds are allocated competitively by HEFCE. Some institutions, such as Wolverhampton University, have gone even more public in their quality assurance by inviting inspection and satisfying the quality criteria that have gained them the insignia of the British Standards Association - a body which formerly dealt only in material products. Just as with the appointment of external examiners, the appointment of assessors by HEFCE is not made publicly explicit. This does not imply deliberate bias, but in a country as small as England there is an intense network of university news based on academic reputation and established status rather than on equity and fulfilment of mission. For most, the HEFCE decision, in part based on the assessor panel's visit, provides enough assurance to prospective students and grant holders that the institution is fundamentally sound. For two years prior to April 1995 institu-

Judging Quality in Higher Education: Towards Bureaucratic Conformity tions were selectively inspected. In response to comments from the institutions during 1993-94, all 'providers' will now be visited in at least one unit of assessment (HEFCE, 1994). As in the USA, all HEFCE institutions will now provide a 'self-assessment' ('self-study', USA) prior to the visit (HEFCE, 1994, p. 24). Institutions are expected to give high priority to questions about elements of the student learning experience and student achievement that might be addressed within each aspect. 'Major sources of evaluative evidence include present and past students . . . ' (HEFCE, 1995). I will take up this as a problem rather than a given, in the light of experience from the CNAA and the USA. Firstly, what use is student feedback on courses as part of an assessment of quality of those courses? CNAA inspection panels would request discussions with particular year groups of students often those in their final year as these would have an overview of the courses. But informal meetings with students occurred at breaks in the formal programme. During these junctures the sleuths off the panel might seek out students to corroborate a claim made by the institution particularly about student satisfaction. These ad hoc meetings with one or two students were sometimes admitted to the information which fed the panel's eventual •judgement of the courses. The CNAA did not provide guidance on student feedback. Each assessment visiting party proceeded in their own way. The CNAA eventually commissioned a report on student feedback (Silver, 1992). Institutions have developed procedures for student feedback which in some cases involved questionnaires to all students each year. Group feedback techniques and other methods are in use, and all surpass on the grounds of reliability alone the conversational feedback used by CNAA visiting panels. However, the validity question with student feedback is that of whether the inquirer or data-collection method uses constructs which the students understand and to which they can provide experiential answers. As Silver observes, 'even in institutions which emphasise the accepted importance of an "evaluation culture" it is not always understood that students do not enter higher education as initiated members of that culture. Institutions may

89

fail to take account of the time scales on which students operate. Students may find it difficult to share wholeheartedly in the evaluation culture unless it becomes perceived as part of the learning process of which they do have expectations.' Scriven (1994), after an extensive analysis of student course evaluation procedures and content across the USA, concludes: Student ratings are an important source of data for the evaluation of teaching merit, but neither necessary or sufficient. In particular, student ratings should not be used in the absence of the academic value of content, best rated by subject matter specialists; the justification of the content against the eventual (and sometimes immediate) needs of the student and society; the quality of test construction - best rated by measurement specialists, though there should be some faculty in the same department who have the necessary minimum competencies; the use of valid and ethical grading practices, by those with some understanding of proper practice in those areas.

Considering Silver's study of student feedback for the CNAA and the HEFCE guidelines alongside Scriven's exhaustive analysis of validity in such feedback my understanding is as follows. Student feedback is a valuable source of data on the presentation of courses, but unless several conditions are satisfied student data are not reliable let alone valid. Silver's and Scriven's warnings to administrators and quality assessment sleuths warn them not to require student feedback to provide data on matters for which student feedback is unsuited and invalid. An example is that student self-ratings of learning gains on the course are compiled into some statistic and used inferentially to rate the teacher. Scriven points to the scope of the student-rating questionnaires: they are often prejudicial in that they ask questions about the teacher's style, or personality, or about the appeal of the subject matter; they ask invalid questions, for example comparisons with other teachers, whether the respondent would recommendd the course to a friend with similar interests or banal statements to rate, for instance, 'it's one of the best courses I've ever taken'. Silver and Scriven concur in their substantive criticism of undue reliance on the student for a deeply incisive evaluation of the course or programme taken given the partial and transient un-

90 Clem Adelman derstanding of the subject matter. Yet HEFCE asstantial change has been in the almost equitable sessors are asked to investigate: 'Are students participation of women overall but there is a conmade fully aware of curricular contents?' as one off tinuing gendered division of subjects of study. 'six core aspects of provision'. Scriven and Silver HEFCE assessment is not designed to be also warn against too-frequent and overlong quescriterion-referenced to a mission statement - this tionnaires as in both cases students tend not to would be the route to diversity instead of concomplete the questions. They also warn of quesformity which is required for the type of audit that tionnaires which do not include the questions HEFCE pursues. CNAA was able to foster diversity students want to answer - those of low respondent and validate procedures for maintaining standards validity and those that are biased towards favourwithin and across institutions. HEFCE does not able or unfavourable comments. have such independence from government ideoThese are some of the warnings against the facile logy. HEFCE is embedded in the market ideology use of student feedback on courses. HEFCE makes which is not at all 'free' but is determined by clear that student ratings are only one of a number assessment criteria of elite rather than mass or of important data but does not discuss sources off equitable higher education. Given HEFCE's criinvalidity in the consumers', now called staketeria, a 'core' set of data, feedback from students is holders', judgements. not to be relied upon as it is not informed by the HEFCE does not take into account the initial research and evaluation literature but by customlevel of resourcing nor the 'mission' statement off ary categories and common sense. an institution. This reduces or ignores diversity Those with a broader view of the politics of whilst allowing the same criteria to be applied to • higher education quality assessment would consider the student issue a technicality. The urgent all HEFCE institutions. Accreditation in the USA does take into account the institutions' resources question is what changes are happening in the and the 'mission', and although the criteria inculture of higher education and what of the future. clude the academic and managerial, the social I have already considered some of the issues in the aspirations of the institution are also part of the initial part of this chapter. The centralization of definition and criteria of worth is non-negotiable assessment of quality. There is no imposition of a single ideology or definition of fitness for purpose. despite John Stoddart's hopes for self-regulation. And yet although there is a market economy it is But the Stalinist market economy, the heir of radione which is large, diverse and which allows peocal conservatism, will by its own morality and ple the mobility to make informed choices and to pragmatism last only as long as it is cost-effective: reconsider their pathways without excessive penthe 'enterprise' versus the 'stakeholder' societies. Currently some major fault lines have appeared in alty or shame as in HE in the UK. The HEFCE quality assessment criteria are not the HEFCE block as mentioned earlier, but it is too early to say whether the universities will reassert designed to encourage universities to develop beyond the narrow confines of provision for the their autonomy albeit with a requirement to evalu'elite'. Attempts to diversify higher education by ate practice rather like the well-established polyadmitting more adults, a more representative protechnics manifest in the latter days of the CNAA. portion of ethnic minorities and by providing apThe quandary for those academics who want to propriate preparatory courses are being reduced. pursue an informed critique against conformity Universities, in their need to achieve according to and for diversity and equity in higher education is HEFCE criteria and in the research ratings, are one of how to express dissent and pursue fundanarrowing their student constituencies and their mental critique against the press to perform to links to community and voluntary organizations. meet performance indicators and criteria which To the claim by the government that more are do not take into account the risks of innovation nor participating in higher education should be added the different lead-times and remunerations in dif'more of the same as in the past 80 years'; that is ferentt areas of knowledge. These problems are middle- and upper-class whites. The only subcompounded for those whose intellectual work is

fudging Quality in Higher Education: Towards Bureaucratic Conformity

inextricably linked with health care, welfare or education, for in these the social accountability is at least as complex as the financial accountability to HEFCE. My pessimism about the consequences of centralization, whilst maintaining elite status off some institutions, may not be fully realized given the present contestation between HEQC and HEFCE. And there is at least one positive consequence, in the move towards public accountability by universities.

Acknowledgementss Harold Silver suggested critical amendments to an early draft. My thanks to Keith Hodgson for providing current documents and to him and Keith Watson for their comments on drafts. The author is culpable for the outcome.

Referencess Adelman, C. and Alexander, R. (1984) The SelfEvaluating Institution. London: Methuen. Adelman, C. and Powney, J. (1987) Institutional Agreements and the Validation Process. London: CNAA. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1968) Quality and Equality: New Levels of Federal Responsibility for Higher Education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Goodlad, J. (1990) Teachers for Our Nation's Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Her Majesty's Government (1992) The Further andd Higher Education Act, Section 20. Cmnd. HMSO. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) (1993) Assessors' Handbook. London: HEFCE (pp. 3, 27). HEFCE (1994) The Quality Assessment Method from April 1995. Circular 39/94. London: HEFCE.

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HEFCE (1995) Assessors' Handbook. London: Quality Assessment Division. Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) (1995) The Second Round of Quality Audit: Consultative Document. HEFCE Policy Conference, University of Warwick. Leverhulme/SRHE (1983) Excellence in Diversity. Guildford: SRHE. Moodie, G. C. (1988) The debates about higher education quality in Britain and the USA. Studies in Higher Education,, 13, 55-13. North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (1987) Accreditation of Postsecondary Institutions: An Overview. Chicago. Pollitt, C. (1987) The politics of performance assessment: lessons for higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 12(1), 77-99. Scriven, M. (1994) Using student ratings in teacher evaluation. Evaluation Perspectivee (The Evaluation Centre, Western Michigan University), 4 (1), 1-7. Silver, H. (1990) A Higher Education: The Council for National Academic Awards and British Higher Education 1964-89. London: Falmer Press. Silver, H. (1992) Student Feedback: Issues and Experience. London: CNAA. Silver, H. (1995) The External Examiner System: Possible Futures. A report to HEQC. Milton Keynes: The Quality Support Centre, The Open University. Silver, H. (1996) External examining in higher education: a secret history, in R. Aldrich (ed.), History and Education: A Tribute to Peter Gordon. London: The Woburn Press. Stoddart, J. (1995) Choose to do-it-ourselves. London: The Times Higher Educational Supplement,t, 13 January. Strike, K. (1985) Is there a conflict between equity and excellence? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 7 (4), 409-16. Trow, M. (1969) Elite and popular functions in American higher education, in W. R. Niblett (ed.), Higher Education: Demand and Response. London: Tavistock. Warren-Piper, D. W. (1985) Enquiry into the role off external examiners.. Studies in Higher Education,, 10, 331-42.

10

Formula Funding in Higher Education: Neither Centralized nor Decentralized

DAVID A. TURNER Introduction Over more than five decades, comparative educationists have found it useful to classify educational systems as either 'centralized' or 'decentralized'. Based on the work of Kandel (1933), such a classification has highlighted differences between systems in which decisions are made within a monolithic ministry of education, and systems in which decisions are made at institution level. In practice, however, all education systems are more complicated than is suggested by such a simple schema. Even in his original work, Kandel acknowledged that certain decisions may be made at a central level, while others are more likely to be made at an institutional level (p. 58). An educational system may be centralized with regard to certain aspects, such as finance and planning, while decentralized with regard to other issues, such as curriculum and teaching methods. Moreover, policies formulated or adopted at the level of a national ministry frequently have to be implemented at the institutional level. Even in systems which appear to be strictly centralized, processes of persuasion and legitimation are important in ensuring that new policies are effective throughout the system (Lauglo and McLean, 1985, p. 5). Rather than viewing educational systems as 'command structures' in which orders are handed down from the top, it is more helpful to understand the policy process as an interaction between local and central elements. The central authorities establish the basic ground rules, particularly the financial ground rules, within which institutions

have more or less latitude to respond to local circumstances. While these considerations are true of all aspectss of educational systems, they are perhaps most obviously true in the case of higher education. Traditions of autonomy and academic freedom mean that governments have found it hard to legitimate explicitly centralized programmes in higher education, even where most other aspects of education are centralized. For example, when the Soviet Union accepted the principle of centralized planning for all aspects of economic planning, the most prestigious universities were still permitted an element of freedom in their admission and curriculum processes. Another example can be found in Mexico, which has enthusiastically embraced central control in all other aspects of education, but stressed the word 'autonomous' in the name of the leading institution of higher education (Universidad Nacional Autdnoma de Mexico). On the other hand, as higher education systems have expanded in the twentieth century, and particularly since 1945, even the most liberal governments have found it difficult to reconcile the increased expenditure required of mass systems off higher education, principles of public accountability, and complete autonomy of institutions off higher education. In particular, in return for state funding, most governments have sought to ensure that (a) the commitment to government expenditure is kept within overall budgetary limits, and (b) institutional recruitment plans are to some extent harmonized with national manpower requirements.

Formula Funding in Higher Education: Neither Centralized nor Decentralizedd 93 The problems which face governments in the control of education are perennial. Since education generally forms a major component of public expenditure, they cannot afford to lose control of the overall level of expenditure. They also have to ensure that education is effective, and that the needs of society, however that term is understood, are met. But it is in the nature of education that central control cannot be too prescriptive. Some freedom must be allowed to institutions and to educators so that teachers can exercise their professional judgement and can cater for individual differences. Particularly in universities, some freedom must be given to academics to pursue their own research interests; the history of government attempts to control the direction of knowledge generation has not been one of unmitigated success. One of the ways in which governments have sought to set a policy framework for institutions off higher education, and simultaneously legitimate their involvement in this area, is through formula funding. 'Formula funding' is a term which can be used to refer to the rule-governed allocation off funding to institutions, and normally includes two elements corresponding to the governmental concerns set out above. Formula funding limits the overall commitment of the government to fund, usually by setting a normative level of funding for each unit of activity, and by setting targets for recruitment. In this chapter a variety of formula arrangements are considered. This is not a comprehensive survey, but indicates some of the variety in formula systems. Even where formulas are adopted, which variables are included in the formulae vary widely. Formula systems also vary in respect off the functions which formulae serve in the overall policy-making process. Typical of a simple formula to allocate resources to institutions on the basis of student numbers is the scale adopted in the Czech Republic in 1992 to fund students in different subject specializations, as set out in Table 10.1. A fully developed formula funding system would also include a mechanism for setting the numbers of students to be enrolled in different institutions. In this way the system can

Table 10.1 Funding per student/allocation by subject area in the Czech Republic

1.

Social science areas Education and economics Technical areas Agricultural areas Medicine, natural science (including mathematics), physical culture and chemical technology 6. Veterinary science 7. Fine arts and music

2. 3. 4. 5.

Coefficient

Price (Crowns)

1.00 1.25 1.65 1.90 2.55

16,921 21,151 27,920 32,150 43,149

3.00 3.50

50,763 59,224

Source: Turner (1994), p. 141.

be steered towards the production of certain skills within the limits of the government's budget.

Formula funding Formula funding was first introduced in Texas in the 1940s, but spread relatively rapidly throughout the United States (McKeown, 1989). There is a broad consensus over the main purposes of formula funding, although different points are emphasized in different systems. Formula funding is seen as a way of: (a) ensuring that the allocation of funds is fair in its treatment of different institutions (i.e. similar institutions are treated in accordance with similar rules or norms); (b) opening the method of allocation of funding to public scrutiny; (c) simplifying the funding mechanisms (which also makes it easier to secure the first two goals); and (d) providing a mechanism for 'broad steer' towards policy goals, to push institutions in directions consistent with government policy. (Florida, 1991, pp. A12-A14) In very general terms, formula funding represents a move away from traditional systems of funding, where decisions are made in secret committees, where individual institutions have been able to

94 David A. Turner secure advantage through special pleading, and where funding anomalies, once adopted, are perpetuated through a process of basing future spending plans on historic patterns of expenditure. Such procedures led to a situation where each institution's funding was considered in relation to its proposed budget, and funding allocations were decided on an ad hocc basis. In traditional systems, an explicit commitment to apply the same norms to all institutions was absent. As government funding was provided for a broad range of institutions which had previously been locally funded, in a process of forming truly national systems of higher education, reliance upon historic patterns of funding was seen to be increasingly unreliable. In the 1960s in the United States, a further element was added to the notion of formula funding, with the concept of zero base budgeting (Harvey, 1977). This was an important development historically, as the concepts of zero base budgeting have influenced the development of many formula systems. It is also important conceptually, as in its pure form zero base budgeting leads to an extreme ideal polar type of formula funding, in which all historic elements are ignored. At the heart of zero base budgeting is the sense that historic funding may not simply compound old mistakes: it may create new ones. Programmes and provisions which may have been good value for money at one time may become less important, or costs may rise disproportionately in a specific sphere of operation. The idea of zero base budgeting is that each cost centre should justify its expenditure from the ground up, and that all expenditure needs to be rejustified every year. The total budget needs to be redecided every year, without reference to previous allocations. There are a number of consequences arising from the adoption of a zero base budgeting approachh to the funding of higher education. In the first place, it tends to lead to an emphasis on the aspect of fairness in allocations, rather than on the other possible goals. In particular, simplicity tends to be lost in a proliferation of formulae relating to reasonable expenditure on staff, of calculations of maintenance costs on buildings, and so on. At the same time, zero base budgeting leads

to a concentration on input costs, and the justification of inputs in relation to particular processes. The structure of zero base budgeting means that the question of broad policy steer is subordinated to the search for ensuring cost-effectiveness. Goals which go beyond such purely fiscal considerations have to be built in through separate mechanisms. For example, additional new funding might be allocated to promote technical or vocational education, or to ensure that the needs of specific ethnic groups are met. Expenditure for such initiatives would be allocated specifically to those projects. A further consequence of a zero base approach to budgeting is that individual institutions may suffer very violent changes in funding levels from one year to the next. Indeed, since the total budget is reviewed every year, it is arguably the principal point of zero base budgeting that it can produce dramatic 'winners' and 'losers' in the funding stakes. At the same time, it is widely recognized that institutions need a degree of stability in their funding, and that they need a reasonably long planning horizon in order to be able to produce appropriate and considered responses to changing conditions. Consequently, formula systems which can produce major changes in funding are frequently augmented by a 'safety net' process which ensures that the most dramatic changes in funding are phased over a number of years (Universities Funding Council/Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council, 1992, pp. 11-12).

An alternative approach to formula fundingg Although the broad purposes of funding mechanisms adopted in the United Kingdom are similar to those which have been mentioned in connection with formula funding in the United States, the emphasis has been quite different. In the case off the four Higher Education Funding Councils in the United Kingdom, the emphasis has been very firmly upon producing a broad steer for institutions. Although fairness and openness have also been alluded to as desirable targets, zero base budgeting has not been adopted as a principle offf

Formula Funding in Higher Education: Neither Centralized nor Decentralized

funding mechanisms. Yearly allocations are based upon the previous year's and incorporate a substantial historic element. In terms of policy steer, the joint Universities Funding Council/Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council committee which set out the options for funding mechanisms, including the mechanisms eventually adopted, used an informative metaphor. The committee's report referred to funding mechanisms as systems of 'policy levers' (p. 3). The mechanism was meant to be policy neutral, in the sense that it was not to incorporate steer towards any particular goal, but was to permit steer to be given, by adjusting the parameters in the formulae. Thus different elements of the formula system were seen as levers, the operation of which could direct the system towards growth, or improved quality, or reduced cost, or increased vocationalism, or whatever goal was seen as desirable. This process can perhaps best be illustrated with reference to the mechanisms which typically operated in 1992 and 1993 in relation to the funding of teaching (Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, 1993). The funding formula operated on the income of the institution and the student numbers in eleven different academic subject categories. In order to arrive at the student number and finance allocation, a sequence of steps had to be gone through. These are illustrated in Figure 10.1. On the basis of the previous year's funding and student numbers, the first step was to impose an 'efficiency gain'. An institution was expected to take the same number of students as in the previous year, but for a lower level of funding. The reduction of funding, typically of between 1 and 4 per cent, was to be made up through improvements in efficiency (Figure 10.1, AB). Here one can immediately gain a feel for the 'policy lever' aspects of the formula: the efficiency gains were skewed so that the most expensive institutions suffered most. The policy lever was being used to bring about a standardization of costs across the system of higher education, but the range of efficiency gains, between 1 and 4 per cent, meant that the steer was relatively gentle. The second stage of the calculation was to permit expansion at the same level of funding per

95

Figure 10.11 Formula funding mechanisms in the United Kingdom m

student as applied to the institution after the impositionn of the efficiency gain. The amount off expansion permitted depended upon a number off criteria, including the level of funding and the assessed quality of the institution (Figure 10.1, BC). In the final stage of applying the formula method, the institution was able to recruit more students for a reduced income, simply to receive the fees which they bring, without any additional central funding from the council (Figure 10.1, CD). In addition to these formal elements of the funding mechanisms, observation of the institutions suggests that they voluntarily pursue a policy of 'cash recovery' through which they try to secure a level of funding equal to that which they enjoyed in the previous year. In terms of Figure 10.1, this represents a commitment on the part of the institution to recruit until they arrive at the previous level of funding, indicated by the dotted line XY. In the combination of an efficiency gain with a policy of cash recovery, one can see the engine which drives this particular mechanism towards growth. One can gain a better sense of the dynamic qualities of this system by looking at modifications

96 David A. Turner in the parameters used in the funding formula. In an attempt to curb the growth which the funding formula was producing, in 1993 the government reduced the level of fees in certain areas of study. The impact of this decision in terms of Figure 10.1 was to constrain the institution to move along CE, instead of CD. In other words, in order to pursue a cash recovery policy, the institutions would need to recruit more students than previously. One can understand the reasoning of the government, that if they reduced the level of fees, students would become less attractive, and the institutions would recruit fewer. However, as set out here, the implication is that the policy lever which was being operated was likely to have the opposite effect to that intended. In fact, the institutions continued to expand. This is an important point, because the original assumptions upon which the design of the system was based were that there was a non-problematic relationship between each policy lever and policy outcomes, and that the original mechanism was policy neutral. Experience demonstrated that both assumptions were false. Designed in a period when growth was seen as a major policy goal for higher education, the mechanism adopted by the funding councils strongly promoted that end. Measures which were taken to reduce growth did not have the anticipated effect. In the autumn of 1993, the government introduced strict new rules designed to choke off the growth, which they regarded as out of control. Although many of the overall goals of the funding systems in the United Kingdom are similar to those adopted in the United States, one can identify a number of significant differences. In the first place, unlike the zero base budgeting systems, the United Kingdom systems make provision only for marginal adjustments to the funding of institutions; the core of the institution's funding is secure. Core plus margin systems do not need elaborate systems of safety-netting. Another major difference is that the formulae used in the United Kingdom, unlike those emf ployed in the United States, lack an analysis off input costs. In the context of funding in the United Kingdom, input costs are irrelevant, since the focus of policy is not the effective spending off government money, but the production of effec-

tive policy steer; so long as the funding mechanism is pushing institutions in the desired direction, other considerations are secondary. Input costs are clearly not irrelevant when institutions decide how to respond to their specific situation. Where a variety of courses are grouped together in order to apply a funding norm, there is the obvious likelihood that the expansion of courses with lower input costs will be more attractive to the institution. There is, however, no systematic information in the United Kingdom regarding input costs, and the funding norms incorporate them only in the crudest way. As far as the funding councils are concerned, however, an effective funding structure is one which steers institutions towards the desired goals, irrespective of actual costs of providing student places. Rather than focusing on the costs of inputs, the United Kingdom formulae are geared towards output measures. Most obviously, the United Kingdom systems are geared towards student numbers, and hence to the number of graduates produced. It might be argued that student numbers should be regarded as an input or throughput measure rather than as an output measure (Kaiser et al., 1992, p. 100). However, other measures which are used in the application of the formulae, notably those which concern quality, do involve output measures either directly or indirectly. The observed quality of educational delivery, drop-out rates and completion rates, all of which are involved in quality evaluations, are clearly output indicators. The linking of student numbers with more direct measures of output makes clear the fact that in the United Kingdom formula funding is being used to steer institutions towards the production of specific outputs. The use of output measures in the United Kingdom can also be seen in the separate allocation of funds for research.

Output measures in formula funding In general, formulae based on output measures appear to be finding increasing favour in Europe, and in several systems funding is now linked to very specific output measures, and concentrated

Formula Funding in Higher Education: Neither Centralized nor Decentralizedd 97

on activities which are disaggregated. Both Holland and Denmark now employ schemes which can be described as 'taxi-meter' systems of funding - the further an institution takes the student along their educational path, the more funding they receive (Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, 1994, p. 69). In such systems the elements of the process off higher education are isolated, and a unit of funding allocated to each: admission, delivery off course units, elements of formative assessment and final, summative assessment. Institutions can be funded according to the number of students admitted, taught, and successful on programmes. Once again, by adjusting the parameters, or operating the policy levers, central funding agencies should be able to provide broad steer towards qualifications in particular subject areas, controlling such indicators of quality as drop-out rates, and so on. For obvious reasons, such a system can only be steered towards those aspects of quality which are relatively easily quantified. One difficulty with such subdivision of higher education functions is that it shortens yet further the planning horizons which are available to institutions. In the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s, institutions enjoyed a planning horizon off five years, with annual budgets being set against a background of outline planning for the longer period. The planning period progressively shortened, until the present system provides less than one year as a planning horizon, as each year's funding depends upon recruitment in the same year. If one takes that one step further, however, the institution which is funded separately for differentt functions may not know what its funding will be for September until it has the examination results in August. This last point leads into another difficulty with funding mechanisms based upon output measures. Such systems can be relatively complex, since they can use a wide range of indicators for a single course. This militates against the simplicity which is one of the broad aims of formula funding. Moreover, this increase in complexity can reduce the confidence which we might have in the operation of policy levers. Once a funding consequence has been attached to each element of the education

process, the level of detail available to central planners in designing policy steer is greatly increased. However, it also means that the institutions are more likely to be aware of the funding implications of their actions. It is not immediately clear whether funding by results is likely to produce a greater emphasis on quality, or whether, by attaching a penalty to poor assessment results, it is likely to produce a pressure towards the lowering of standards. The majority of systems which use detailed calculations based on output measures are relatively young, so it is too early to say precisely how such policy levers are likely to operate. One can observe, however, a growing concern with independent quality assurance mechanisms.

Formula funding and political process One further difference between systems in the United States and Europe is found in the relationship between the funding mechanism and the political decision-making processes. In the case off Florida, a report on funding formulae noted that 'Formulae do not generate revenue' (Florida, 1991, A4). The formulae are used to calculate an appropriate level of funding, in order to make a recommendation to the state legislature. The politicians can then decide to make funding allocations, normallyy below the formula level, on the basis of a more general perception of the state's financial needs and opportunities. The formula outcome represents a norm or guide which can facilitate or legitimate a subsequent political evaluation. It can be said that the system is 'overfunded' or 'underfunded' depending upon how the actual allocations measure up to the norm set by the formula process. In contrast with this, the formula mechanisms in the United Kingdom, and in an increasing number of European systems, do, indeed, generate revenue, in the sense that the formula process comes after the political process, and the results of the formula calculations are equivalent to the allocations. No concept of overfunding or underfunding

98 David A. Turner can exist, since there is no norm against which to measure allocations. Of course, it would be wrong to exaggerate the difference between these two approaches; no governmentt willingly relinquishes control over its overall expenditure, and one must suppose that where the formula comes after the political process,, its application has been calculated in such a way as not to embarrass the overall spending targets of the government. In some instances, as is the case in Holland, this may be incorporated explicitlyy into the formula system, where the formula calculations are used to divide a predetermined budget. However, the difference is clear in the significance attached to calculations linked to a formula; in some cases the formula produces allocations directly, in others it produces guidance for a political body. To put this another way, in some cases the policy levers incorporated in the formula act directly upon the educational institutions, in others they are mediated through another political process. Whether one or other of these processes is likely to predispose a system towards political interference from the central funding authorities is an open question, which would need to be examined on the basis of a broader survey of systems and their operation. It may be accidental that formula systems which are based upon input measures are likely to come before the political process, while those based on output measures are more likely to come after the political process, but there is also a kind of logic about it which suggests that there is a link between the style of the formula and the mechanisms off political control. Formula systems based on outt putt measures are very susceptible to fine tuning off the policy lever mechanisms, and it may therefore be felt that there is less need for explicit and overt political control after the formula. On the other hand, with input models, policy lever linkages are more remote, and politicians may feel less confident that they should release the reins. Indeed, that view would appear to be justified, since the operation of policy levers is not always well understood. In spite of the high level of detail which the more sophisticated formula mechanisms incorpo-

rate in relation to funding, the institutions still retain a great deal of flexibility in how the money is actually spent. In the United Kingdom, for example,, although funding is allocated on a formula basis in each of eleven academic subject areas, and for part-time and full-time students separately, the outcome of the calculations is a global figure for the total 'block grant' which is paid to the institution. The principle of the block grant is that the institution is then free to allocate resources internally as it sees fit. In any particular country, there will, of course, be exceptions to the block grant principle. Where funds are allocated directly to programmes meeting specific criteria, or for the educational provision for specific groups of students, one might expect the funding body to undertake some inspections to ensure that those funds are being spent 'properly'. However, for the most part, institutions will retain some flexibility when it comes to questions of the internal allocation off resources. On the other hand, it might be rather too naive to assume that institutions make their internal allocations of funding without any reference to external funding criteria at all, even where the block grant principle permits complete freedom. An institution which secures additional funding on the grounds that a particular area exhibits high quality in teaching or research is likely to pass some off that funding on to the area in question, in order to secure similar advantage in the future. In this way, the making public of the external apparatus of funding provides pertinent material for the parties to internal debates on the question of funding allocation. Outside of the United States, formula funding is relatively young, and it is not possible to anticipate precisely how institutions are likely to be shaped, as internal political processes adjust to take account of the external funding mechanisms. It is clear, however, that institutions are likely to be changed by this. One can see the direct effect most clearly in institutions where there is a visible internal structure, as is the case in federal universities. In such a case, units having a function which is not explicitlyy funded tend to be weakened in relation to those which are explicitly funded. For example, in

Formula Funding in Higher Education: Neither Centralized nor Decentralizedd 99 the United Kingdom, where students are funded explicitly according to their academic subject base, academic departments are strengthened at the expense of functions which are not explicitly related to subject, such as central library facilities, student services and so on. Where a university does not have such a clearly delineated structure, similar shifts may take place in the internal political balance, and they may be equally disruptive, but they will be much less easy to see. For example, a department or administrative unit may contain students who are funded at different levels. This can produce tensions between those who wish to see the funds spent in the area which generates them, and those who wish to see students treated equally. The use of systems for the allocation of funding which are ever more open to public scrutiny is likely to emphasize the internal divisions in institutions which are essentially diverse, and to undermine values of scholarly community. In any event, there are likely to be internal political adjustments to the changes in the external funding mechanisms, and some of those changes are likely to be uncomfortable. Nor are these difficulties entirely to be avoided by subdividing institutions into units, or cost centres, which are more homogeneous. Even within quite narrow subject areas there are likely to be courses and programmes which are more expensive to operate and those which are cheaper. Iff they are funded at the same level, there will be pressure to expand the relatively cheaper programmes at the expense of the relatively dearer. Any grouping of subjects is likely to lead to the creation of policy levers which are operating by themselves, without any intended outcome.

Policy studies and the prospects for formula funding The early survey of funding mechanisms conducted by the funding agencies in the United Kingdom suggested it would be desirable to study the impact formula funding had on diverse institu-

tions (Universities Funding Council/Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council, 1992). The report outlines an implied comparative study, to examine the way in which the policy levers of formula systems have an impact on institutions with different missions, structures and histories. Such a study holds out the prospect of developing a wellarticulated body of knowledge about the ways in which policy levers incorporated into formula funding systems work. Thus, for any type of funding mechanism, it would be possible to predict whether it was likely to steer the system towards the desired policy goals, and to anticipate the unintended consequences of using particular types of formula funding. Comparative study would then enable the consideration of a wider range of types of formulae, and increased understanding of the ways in which the details of rules related to broader policy goals. This highlights a legitimate role for comparative policy studies in the future. It is an insight which should be linked to the fact that we know very little. What has become clear over the past decade is that normative rules introduced to produce specific policy outcomes may not be effective in producing those ends, and may, indeed, produce entirely unanticipated consequences. Holmes (1981, pp. 31-2) has pointed out that it is relatively easy to arrive at a consensus such as 'It is desirable to promote quality in higher education', but much harder to agree on specific policy measures which will achieve this end. He argues that it is the role of the comparative educationist to develop an understanding of the links between the concrete level of policy and the broader policy goals. The case of formula funding illustrates the need to develop this area of study. In all systems there is concern about the unintended consequences of the specific way in which formula funding is implemented. Thus in the United Kingdom, the fact that the funding formula did not provide a policy lever for stopping growth and consolidating on past expansion has prompted sudden intervention to change the regime. Similarly, in Florida, concern was expressed that the process of averaging student intakes over a three-year period made the formula system unresponsive, and, particularly in periods of sus-

100 David A. Turner tained growth, resulted in a significant lag between expansion and increased funding (Florida, 1991, pp. A2-A3). Thus in all systems there is a concern that it is harder than one might imagine to establish a formula funding system which promotes the policy goals of the central funding agency. An effective policy process must be based upon a research base which includes clear, generalized statements, or 'laws', of what consequences are likely to arise from specific, concrete measures. The production of such a research base should be a main target off comparative policy studies in the immediate future.

Dilemmas and debates This brief survey of formula funding mechanisms suggests that there is a wide variety of ways in which the balance of interests between institutions and central funding agencies is mediated. In practice, the development of the system depends on both a central framework and the responses off institutions as they take advantage of the opportunities which that framework offers. The path off institutional development is thus the outcome off two entirely separate decision-making processes, and reflects a very real balance of power between the funding authority and the institutions. Neither participant alone can dictate the direction of development. Indeed, as some of the examples have shown, institutions may not respond in the way anticipated, and the eventual outcome may include elements which nobody desires. The study of higher education demonstrates that the application of national policy is not simply a question of whether power lies with the central authorities or with the individual institutions; what happens is the result of a complex interaction between the policies pursued at the local and the national/state level. Nor can it simply be resolved into a single dichotomy between 'centralized' and 'decentralized'. Both central authorities and institutions face a range of dilemmas in

deciding what to do, and the interaction of their actions will influence the eventual outcomes. From the point of view of government funding agencies, formula funding mechanisms have a number of advantages, which have already been referred to. They increase openness, at the same time as offering opportunity to steer institutions in a general policy direction. Also, they explicitly offer a process whereby the allocation of funding can be legitimated. However, these advantages are not gained without risk. Openness provides advantages for everybody involved in the political process, and institutions may be able to use this to exert pressure upon the funding agency. For example, if a primary purpose of the funding body is to reduce the unit of resource provided for the teaching of students, then the political opposition to such a measure may be strengthened by making the processes more visible. In the UK, the Committee of ViceChancellors and Principals pressed for openness, riot only in the operation of funding councils, but also in the instructions passed from government to the funding councils (Universities Funding Council/Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council, 1992, Annex B). One can see how this could be used by the institutions in an effort to protect themselves from measures which could be shown to be electorally unpopular. Formula funding possesses a logic of its own, which may lead government policy into areas it would not otherwise have chosen to venture into. When the Czech government introduced the formula system set out in Table 10.1, it was relatively easy to predict that the government would be forced to choose between losing control of the higher education budget and acting to control enrolments in institutions, an area which, for historic reasons, they were rather keen to avoid (Turner, 1994). And this did, indeed, turn out to be the case; entry into formula funding as a first step led on inexorably to further developments. For governments, then, the adoption of a formula funding scheme presents a dilemma. It offers many acknowledged advantages, but also a number of risks. In particular, the direction of future developments does not remain entirely with the government, and it will be a delicate decision

Formula Funding in Higher Education: Neither Centralized nor Decentralizedd 101 whether political opposition will be silenced or amplified by making the processes more available for public scrutiny. For the most part, however, the balance seems to be more in favour of the adoption of formula funding mechanisms at the moment. Once a decision has been made to adopt a formula funding system, there remain a range of questions about how such a system is to operate. Should the formula operate in inputs or outputs? Should it include a historic element? Should there be safety-netting to protect the institutions from violent fluctuations of income? Again in the UK, this process was conducted publicly, with a range of systems being evaluated, and their advantages and disadvantages being enumerated. But the same choices have to be made in all systems, once a decision to adopt a formula-based system has been made. As some indication has been given here, no funding structure is without its policy implications, and the dilemma which faces the funding body is to select a funding mechanism which promotes desired policy ends. However, as is clear from the cases where formula funding produces outcomes which are not desired, politicians tend to overestimate the ease with which this can be achieved, and the selection of appropriate funding procedures is, perhaps, less of a dilemma than it should be. From the perspective of the institutions, there are also a range of dilemmas to be faced. The first is a strategic decision as to whether to respond to the funding mechanism as intended, or to act in such a way as to frustrate those intentions. Under the latter category there are a number of possibilities, not least of which is cooperation between institutions to coordinate responses. Between 1988 and 1992 in the UK, both the universities and the then polytechnics operated in funding regimes which required them to make bids for funds, and where the funding formulae were designed to encourage growth. The universities were more effective than the polytechnics in resisting this pressure towards growth and the resulting lowering in the unit of resource. There were a number of reasons for this, including differences in the way the bidding processes func-

tioned, not least of which was the fact that the universities found it easier to coordinate their responses, and to some extent act as a price cartel. Cooperative action requires appropriate circumstance in order to be effective, but it also requires a substantial degree of common interest between institutions. It is not accidental that the university sector in the UK at the end of the 1980s was more homogeneous than the polytechnic sector. But cooperation is also hampered by one of the major impacts of formula funding; it tends to position institutions as competitors, particularly where formulae are being used to allocate portions within a fixed budget. If institutions decide to accept formula funding systems at face value, and to respond to them in competition with each other, there still remain a number of options open to them. They can remain true to their planning goals and mission objectives, or they can permit their policy to become diverted towards purely budgetary targets. It has already been noted that a large number of institutions can be seen to pursue cash-recovery policies. This suggests that for many the objective of balancing the budget takes priority over other, possibly educational, objectives. Other institutions can be seen to accept a lower income in order to maintain what they see as important institutional identities. However, these policies are often linked to strategies for cash replacement. Typical of this is the policy to accept a cut in teaching funds at the same time as increasing attempts to attract research funding. From the government's point of view, it may be relatively unimportant how institutions respond. One of the advantages of formula funding is that it permits the funding agency to manage the allocation of funding to, and to provide policy steer to, the whole sector of higher education, without dictating in detail the policy of any institution. For example, the funding body can set an overall budget and growth targets for the whole sector with comparative confidence, while leaving it to individual institutions to decide which grow and which remain the same size. Formula funding offers a framework within which to link national goals with institutional autonomy.

102 David A. Turner

It is when the funding agency's ambitions go beyond this level of general policy steer that difficulties arise. Fine tuning the system to produce growth only in specific subjects, or only in institutions which demonstrate high quality in teaching, or exemplary levels of cost-effectiveness, is much more difficult than it might seem. Again, as the case of the UK illustrates, attempts to confine growth to specific subjects may produce entirely unwanted side-effects. Finally from the institution's point of view, there is the question of the extent to which the external allocation of funding to the institution is reflected in the internal allocation of funding within it. Since in the UK certainly, and elsewhere probably, institutions have very little idea what the marginal cost of increasing student numbers in any specific area is, any allocation of resources within an institution is bound to be arbitrary (Universities Funding Council/Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council, 1992, Annex H, Paragraph 7). There is, therefore, no reason why the internal institutional arrangements should be very closely tied to external funding arrangements. But it is also unrealistic to expect that the internal politics of institutions will be unaffected by the wealth off detailed information which a transparent funding system makes available to protagonists. In the long run, the impact on the internal politics of institutions, upon managerial structures, cultures of decision-making, expectations of collegiality, and the balance of power between various subject groupings, may be among the most important effects of the introduction of formula funding. This remains a fruitful area for future research, and it is still too early to be clear as to the direction in which these changes will go. All of this is to say that the to and fro of policy and counter-policy, central directive and institutional side-step, and the complex interplay of politics and decision-making is present in formula funding systems in much the same way as it is in any manner of controlling and funding a major sector of education. One of the fascinations of formula funding systems is that, because a number of the functions are explicitly governed by normative rules, the systems as a whole are slightly more amenable to systematic study. That apart, they

have many of the features which all educational systems have.

Conclusions As the will to make government more open spreads, so does the appeal of formula funding mechanisms in higher education. Currently the countries of Eastern Europe are following the model set in Western Europe. Further afield, there are indications that systems which are more open in terms of the allocation of funds, more 'market oriented' as it is sometimes put, are finding favour (Bray et al, 1994). As more countries develop systems of mass higher education, we can expect to see a further spread of formula funding. There are also signs that secondary and even primary school expenditure will follow the same path, with growing concern to ensure that schools are funded on an equitable basis. We can look forward to a considerable growth in the importance off formula funding over the next twenty years. Formula funding represents the acceptance on the part of central government that the allocation of resources between competing demands requires legitimation. It also represents the acceptance on the part of institutions of higher education that they be held accountable for the stewardship off public funds. As part of our growing understanding of democratic government, formula funding provides an opportunity to examine the tensions and balances between national and local decisionmaking processes. These tensions and ambiguities are not new. It has always been simplistic to suppose that policy could be adopted centrally and implemented locally. Formula funding offers an extended opportunity to study the interaction between policymaking bodies at different levels, and to supersede the simple dichotomy between centralized and decentralized systems. The review of formula funding mechanisms leads to two distinct types of conclusions; those which relate to the nature of formula funding it-

Formula Funding in Higher Education: Neither Centralized nor Decentralized

self, and those which are related to the comparative study of policy issues more generally. Taking the nature of formula funding first, such systems appear to offer a solution to a range off problems which, if not universal, are certainly widespread. Governments wish to allocate resources more fairly, and, perhaps more importantly, with more visible fairness. At the same time, they hope to make their allocation systems simpler, to make institutions of higher education more responsive to national needs, and to limit their overall level of expenditure on higher education. These aspirations are widespread, and with the encouragement of a recent report from the World Bank suggesting that public expenditure on higher education should be reduced, they are likely to continue long into the future (Salmi, 1994). Although these aspirations have different emphases placed upon them in different national settings, they are all very common. In a response to that fact, we can expect formula funding of higher education to spread yet further in the future. However, formula funding is not one system; it is implemented in a variety of ways with different effects. While the adoption of a rule-governed system makes central control and policy direction more explicit, it also frees institutions to make the best use of the latitude which they have. The introduction of a specific system of formula funding is neither centralizing nor decentralizing (or it may have elements of both); the effects will depend upon local circumstances. A final lesson which a survey of formula funding offers, and perhaps the most important lesson of all, is how imperfectly we understand the connection between policy implementation and policy outcomes. Policy implementation is a multiperson game where the ultimate effects depend upon the interaction of all of the players, and only rarely does any one party to the game have the power to dictate an outcome. The model of policy levers, where it is supposed that a simple modification to policy will bring about a simple, well-defined and predictable outcome, is seductive. A cursory study of formula funding also indicates that it is false. This leads on to the more general conclusions about the comparative study of policy in educa-

103

tion. Comparative studies can offer a useful guide for policy-makers, if an understanding of the functions of policy levers can be improved. Generalizations such as 'If a funding mechanism has feature X, institutions are likely to respond in fashion Y* would be a great help for policy-makers, and apparently an improvement upon our current levels of understanding. As the example of the United Kingdom set out here has shown, it is possible to go even further than that, in describing limits to where the institutions can move in specific regulatory fframeworks. This approach to the study of policy, with its emphasis upon the unintended consequences off policy, is in line with the broad approach to policy set out by Popper (1957, pp. 61-2) and elaborated in the area of comparative education by Holmes (1981, p. 70). To date, however, there has been relatively little progress towards those 'sociological laws' which Holmes thought it was the function of comparative studies to generate. The widespread adoption by governments of explicitly rule-governed behaviour, as is the case for formula funding of higher education, offers an excellent opportunity to test whether such general statements concerning the links between institutions can be developed. Success or failure would have important implications for the whole area of comparative policy studies.

References Bray, M., Davaa, S., Spalding, S. and Weidman, J. C. (1994) Transition from socialism and the financing off higher education: the case of Mongolia. Higher Education Policy, 6 (1), 36-42. Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) (1994) Aspecten van Hoger Onderwijs. Enschede: CHEPS, University of Twente. Florida State Postsecondary Planning Commission (1991) Florida Community Coliege Finance: Update Report 2. Tallahassee, FL: Florida State Postsecondary Planning Commission. d Harvey, L. J. (1977) Zero Base Budgeting in Colleges and Universities. Littleton, CO: Ireland Educational Corporation. Kaiser, F., Florax, R. J. G. M., Koelman, J. B. J. and van Vught, F. A. (1992) Public Expenditure on Higher

104 David A. Turner Education: A Comparative Study of the Member States of the European Community.. London: Jessica Kingsley. Kandel, I. L. (1933) Studies in Comparative Education. London: George H. Harrap. Lauglo, J. and McLean, M. (eds) (1985) The Control of Education. London: Heinemann Educational Books. McKeown, M. P. (1989) State funding formulas for public institutions of higher education. Journal of Education Finance, 15 (1), 101-12. Popper, K. R. (1957) The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Salmi, J. (1993) Higher Education: The Lessons of Ex-

perience. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (1993) Recurrent Grants for Teaching and Research for 1993-94. Circular Letter 14/93. Edinburgh: Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. Turner, D. A. (1994) Formula funding of higher education in the Czech Republic: creating an open system. Studies in Higher Education, 19 (2), 139-50. Universities Funding Council/Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (1992) A Funding Methodology for Teaching in Higher Education. London: UFC/ PCFC.

11

Principals, Agents, Producers and Consumers in Higher Education

GARETH WILLIAMS Introduction Higher education systems in nearly all OECD countries have experienced some increase during the past ten years in their exposure to market forces (see for example Geiger, 1988; Wasser, 1990; OECD, 1990; Neave and Vught, 1991; Becher and Kogan, 1992; Karmel, 1992; Williams, 1992; Goedegebuure et al, 1993; Gellert, 1993; Massy, 1994). This 'marketization' has two main strands. David Turner has dealt admirably with one off them, the shift of government funding from incremental block grants and input-based line-item budgeting to output-based formulae in which universities and colleges are paid according to the number of students they recruit, or latterly in some countries their success in getting students to complete courses. The other strand is the shift from the public sector as the overwhelmingly dominant source of funds to the private sector, students, their families and employers. In part they are both aspects of the same ideological shift away from producer-dominated provision of public services towards consumer sovereignty, and the shifts are certainly not unique to higher education. All public services — even, in the United Kingdom at least, the police - are beginning to find their funds dependent on their scores on output-based performance indicators, and they are expected to supplement their public funds by recovering the costs of some of their work in quasicommercial activities. Whether the collapse of the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe was a cause or a symptom of this shift of dominant

ideology is something that will keep historians busy for years, but it was undoubtedly the most dramatic aspect of a trend that has been very pervasive since the late 1970s. There can be little doubt, however, that the growth of formula funding to create quasi-markets owes much to the advent of cheap electronic management information systems. Without these systems the elaborate resource-allocation models that have been developed over recent years would simply have been impossible to operate. Even now there is a danger that as the models become more and more complex the essential signals which the formulae are supposed to convey from the suppliers to the users of funds, from the principals to the agents in current economic jargon (see p. 112 below), become unintelligible and sometimes even dysfunctional (see OECD, 1990). None of these budgetary procedures constitutes a real market, in that education is still provided free or at a cost well below its full costs to the direct consumers, the students. The incentives for suppliers of services are to meet the wishes off proxy consumers - governments or funding agencies - rather than the real consumers - students and employers. It becomes more important to predict government policy than to market higher education services to students. On the other side the student consumers are still benefiting from an expensivee service at well below its real cost. There is therefore some motivation for them to collude in inefficiency, such as the excessive prolongation off study in several European countries. This is giving rise to many claims that a greater share of the funding should be borne by students themselves.

106 Gareth Williams A 'real' market subjects both suppliers and consumers to market disciplines.

Real markets The current movement towards market approaches in higher education funding is based on three main tenets: (1) that efficiency is increased when governments subsidize students to buy academic services from producers, rather than supplying them directly, or indirectly through subsidy of institutions; (2) that as enrolments rise and countries reach the goal of mass higher education, the private sector must relieve governments of some of the cost burden if acceptable quality is to be maintained; (3) that many of the benefits of higher education accrue to private individuals so criteria off both efficiency and equity are served if students or their families make some contribution towards the costs of obtaining the benefits. A recent World Bank report reviewing its experience of lending for higher education over two decades (World Bank, 1994) draws attention to the growing importance both of private finance and of an almost completely unregulated or selfregulated private sector of higher education in many countries, particularly in Asia and Latin America. The United States also has a substantial private sector free of federal or state regulation. In both regions the private universities are in most respects genuine market-oriented organizations in which the institutions depend almost entirely on their commercial success. An 'accidental' experiment illustrating the strengths and dangers of a real market in higher education was the response of British universities to the imposition by the government of full-cost fees for foreign students in 1980. The rise in fees was followed by an immediate fall of 40 per cent in the number of foreign students in Britain. How-

ever, universities realized very quickly that the new arrangements were not only a threat to their survival, but also an opportunity for their financial salvation. They undertook active marketing, especially in the countries sending large numbers of students to Britain. Within five years 65 per cent of universities had some scheme of financial incentives to encourage individual departments to make the effort to recruit more foreign students. The percentage of foreign applicants for undergraduate places who were accepted in British universities increased from 24 to 50 per cent. Many of the changes were welcomed by academic staff, but some were alarmed by the award to universities of Queen's Awards for export performance. It appeared that commercial rather than academic criteria were being applied to student recruitment. There were claims of irresponsible recruitment and the establishment of 'ghetto courses' which had more to do with exploiting a financial opportunity than with providing students with a worthwhile British university experience. However, there was also an increased concern with the welfare of foreign students and the introduction of a wide range of good quality special courses aimed at particular market niches - American undergraduates looking for a European cultural experience, continental European students wanting to study the English language and literature, students from OPEC countries wanting research training to enable them to go back to good jobs in their own rapidly expanding higher education systems, and students from developing countries with grants from governments and intergovernmental agencies to help them acquire specific technical and vocational skills. Competition to improve quality as well as competition to reduce prices is a characteristic of real markets.

Some empirical evidence Figures 11.1 and 11.2 and Table 11.1 show the great variety of contributions of the private sector to higher education institutions in 40 countries.

Principals, Agents, Producers and Consumers in Higher Education 107 Table 11.1 Percentage of higher education income from private sources

France Germany Netherlands Great Britain Japan Canada USA Ireland Spain

1980

1985

1990

1991

1992

9 5 3 10 NA NA NA NA NA

10 7 9 13 NA NA NA NA

11 9 17 20 NA NA

12 NA NA 20 61 14 44 14 18

15 NA 30 22 60 15 50 33 23

NA

NA NA NA

Sources: France, Germany, Netherlands 1980-90: Kazemzadeh et al. (1994). Great Britain 1980-91: University Statistics, 3 (Annual) (Universities only). All others: Education at a Glance. OECD, 1991,1993 and 1995.

Private institutions account for over 80 per cent off enrolments in the Philippines and 1 per cent in Pakistan. Amongst the wealthier countries, in the United States nearly a quarter of all enrolments are in private institutions and in Japan nearly threequarters. There is similar variation in the proportion off the income of the public institutions that comes from tuition fees. It ranges from nearly 50 per cent in Korea to about 1 per cent in France and zero in Germany. There are other lessons from international comparisons. In Japan, a country with high levels off overall enrolment, the privately funded sector is large, but students in the national (public) universities pay low fees. These national universities generally have higher prestige than the private institutions, access to them is strictly limited by competitive examination, they provide a very high proportion of the country's scientists and technologists and their graduates are eagerly sought after by industrial and commercial companies. The suicidal competition for entry to them is easy to understand. Private universities and colleges cater for the less-high fliers, but families are willing to pay substantial amounts for their sons and daughters to attend them in a society where education is seen as the prime route to social and economic advancement.1 Private universities perform a different function in the United States. In that country the prime

function of the public institutions is to provide an acceptable higher education to all who seek it at a price they can afford. The private sector caters for those who want something different, whether it be higher education with a particular religious, cultural or vocational emphasis, or simply what is perceived as higher quality. The American economist Estelle James has coined the expressions 'excess demand' and 'differentiated demand' to describe these two models of private-sector provision (James, 1991). In Japan private universities cater for excess demand because the public institutions simply do not provide enough places for all who seek them: in the United States private institutions provide for the differentiated demands of students who could find places in public institutions but choose not to do so. In considering the role of public and private finance these contrasting examples from the two countries with the highest enrolments in the world highlight the kind of choices which governments and higher education systems all over the world are facing. In several European countries private universities and tuition fees paid by students are either not allowed, as in Greece and Germany, or strongly discouraged, as in France. Instead public higher education is supposed to provide for all who qualify for entry by passing the appropriate secondary school examination. Consequences off this policy include excessively large class sizes, large numbers of students attending courses in other countries, long periods of study, and a statecontrolled system of examinations. These European models are coming under strain as the advent of mass higher education puts intense pressure on public budgets, while at the same time the greater variety of students that mass higher education entails are seeking a wider range of educational opportunities. An increasing number of economists and higher education policy analysts are seeing private institutions and private finance as being the way to relieve these tensions.

108 Gareth Williams

Figure 11.1 Share of enrolment in private higher education Source: World Bank (1994).

Forms of private contribution and their effects on the behaviour of higher education institutions Private-sector contributions to the costs can come from three principal sources: students, employers and charitable organizations. In the early 1990s they accounted for about 10 per cent, 6 per cent and 4 per cent respectively of the income of higher education institutions in Britain, and 22 per cent, 8 per cent and 6 per cent in the United States.

The general case for students contributing to the costs of their education beyond 18 is that 'he who benefits should pay'. The maxim can be justified on grounds of both equity and efficiency. Students receive most of the benefits of higher education: it is only fair that they, or their families, should help pay for it. At the same time universities and colleges are likely to provide academic services most efficiently if they have to compete for students for their income. There is much room for debate, however, about which students should pay, how they should pay and how much they should pay. What

Principals, Agents, Producers and Consumers in Higher Education 109

Figure 11.2

Tuition fees as a proportion of recurrent expenditures in public higher education institutions Source: World Bank (1994).

is fair, what is efficient, what is politically acceptable and what is practicable? Students can contribute in four main ways. (1) They, or their families, can pay all the costs as the education is received. (2) They can pay higher taxes as part of a general system of progressive taxation if their higher education results in higher earnings. (3) Graduates can pay a special income tax surcharge throughout their working lives. (4) They can borrow money while they are studying and pay back what they borrowed when they are earning. In each case it is important to distinguish between contributions by students towards the cost of their education and the payment of their living expen-

ses while studying. This paper is primarily concernedd with the income of higher education institutions, so the subsequent discussion is focused mainly on the implications of student contributions to the costs of the provision of higher education courses, not with their living costs while they are studying. The problem with (1) is that the requirement to pay fees up front obviously makes it difficult for students from poorer families to participate in higher education. The empirical evidence is not, however, unambiguous. In the United States, for example, most 'proprietary' higher education institutions are attended mainly by students from relatively modest family backgrounds who prefer to take advantage of their great flexibility of entry requirements, curricula and modes of teaching

110 Gareth Williams and assessment. In Japan there is immense competition for entry to the prestigious national universities, which clearly is advantageous to those who have had the advantage of a privileged secondary education. The net result is that many students from families of relatively modest means pay high fees at less distinguished private institutions. More than 60 per cent of the income off Japanese universities comes from student fees; nevertheless Japan has the highest participation rate in tertiary education in the OECD area. Higher education institutions in the United States, another country with very high enrolment rates, receive 50 per cent of their income from private sources (OECD, 1995). As far as efficiency is concerned private payment of fees obviously encourages higher education institutions to respond to student demand and thus from a market viewpoint it encourages efficiency. However, competition for students can also encourage expensive marketing activities: it was estimated in the late 1980s that about 10 per cent of the total expenditure of higher education institutions in the United States was devoted to marketing activities of various kinds (OECD, 1990). In the United Kingdom the intense competition between universities stimulated by the great 1988-93 expansion and the creation of a unified sector of higher education appears to have stimulated a similar marketing spree. In the extreme version of the competitive scenario all higher education institutions are in fierce competition with all others over the whole range of teaching and research. This model has some attractions to government and other purchasers off higher education services in that competition helps to keep prices down. There is, however, a serious risk that price competition will be at the expense of quality at least at the lower end of the market. The lower reaches of United States higher education are a warning as to what may happen if market forces are inadequately regulated. Another danger of unrestricted competition is that universities will compete strongly in the lucrative areas of mainstream mass undergraduate education but few will deem it worth while to provide adequately for minority interests.

Institutional differentiation would modify considerably the extent of competition. In the extreme case where each university specializes on one activity there would be virtually no interinstitutional competition. The danger here, off course, is stagnation. Without the spur of competition the interests of producers can easily take precedence over those of consumers. Option 2 goes to the other extreme. There is no direct relationship between receiving higher education and paying for it. Graduates may help pay for higher education because they earn higherthan-average incomes, which most do, and hence pay higher-than-average taxes. However, as most studies from most countries have shown, the amount graduates repay in additional taxation is insufficient on average to cover the cost of their higher education. Thus public expenditure on higher education in practice represents a transfer of resources from relatively poor families to those that are relatively affluent and potentially affluent. For the higher education institutions their income is only very indirectly related to their enrolments, and the rational management strategy off the universities is to try to predict and accommodate the priorities of the government funding agencies rather than to meet the wishes of students. In many cases government funding agencies aim to behave as proxies for student demand, but there are significant differences. One is that it is in the interest of universities to try to persuade government of the need to maintain cost per student rather than reduce costs, by taking advantage off new technology for example. Another is that government funds are usually based on retrospective student numbers rather than those currently enrolled. This reduces the direct responsiveness of the institutions to student demand. The third option, the graduate tax, represents another kind of cross-subsidy. If graduates paid a lifetime tax surcharge, those who entered highpaying jobs would repay much more than they had 'borrowed' to finance their studies while those who entered lower-paid jobs would pay less. Thus under a graduate tax rich graduates would subsidize the less well off. This ought to be considered more equitable and, therefore, more politically

Principals, Agents, Producers and Consumers in Higher Education 111 acceptable than the cross-subsidy of the rich by the poor when higher education is financed out off general taxation. However, it is usually strongly opposed and considered to be politically unacceptable. This probably reflects the political power of rich graduates. Under this option, as in the previous one, there is little direct relationship between student enrolment and the income of universities. Therefore they may be expected for the most part to behave in the same way as they would if higher education is funded out of general taxation. Student choice may be somewhat affected by the prospect of a graduate tax, but since prospective repayments are known to be dependent on income, the disincentive effects should be marginal. Finally the repayable loan reduces crosssubsidy of any kind to a minimum. Individual students pay for the higher education they individually have received. There may remain some element of government subsidy if the interest on the loan is subsidized or if some students fail to achieve income levels that enable them to repay their loans. In the latter case, however, these are graduates who fail for one reason or another to reach the high salary levels of the average graduate. Thus charges of subsidy of the rich by the poor cannot be sustained. This option may be expected to have an effect on institutional behaviour similar to the direct payment of fees by students. The difference is in the way students obtain the money to pay their fees, and this should not affect their conduct as con-f sumers very much, though it may be that the act off borrowing with an individual commitment to repay encourages students to be more serious about their studies than paying fees out of general household income. The general 'efficiency' rationale for student contributions is first that institutions which receive some of their money direct from their customers are more likely to respond to customer needs and second that students who make some payment appreciate more readily that extended education is not a free good. Just as universities and colleges have an incentivee to respond cost-effectively to the wishes off paying 'customers', so the students themselves are

more likely to make an efficient use of their own time while studying, and to demand that their teachers do the same, if they are making a direct financial contribution of their own. The different study habits of many overseas students compared with their British counterparts in British universities has often been remarked. Many factors contribute to this, but the need to minimize the costs of course completion is undoubtedly one off them. There is, however, one significant piece of evidence that runs counter to such claims. If students are relieved of financial worries while they are studying they can concentrate on their academic work and complete their courses quickly. In Britain, and also the former socialist economies off Eastern Europe, where it was normal for full-time students to receive a salary as well as free higher education, course completion rates typically reached 90 per cent or more within three or four years. This is much higher than in almost all countries which do not treat their students so generously.2 Any scheme to charge students must avoid encouraging higher drop-out rates or longer courses. One way of achieving the efficiency gains off market-based systems while reducing the perceived inequities and inefficiency of students paying their own fees is the issue of vouchers to students which they can 'spend' at higher education institutions of their choice. So far pure voucher schemes have remained a part of the conceptual armoury of educational economists, but the mechanism of finance in operation in the United Kingdom between 1988 and 1993 came very close to the voucher concept. In 1988 the government raised UK student fees to levels that covered a third of teaching costs, but it continued to subsidize them out of public funds. Clearly these fee levels covered marginal teaching costs because most universities and colleges recruited large numbers of fees-only students, thus driving down the overall average cost per student. Doubts about the viability of even such a marginal cost 'voucher' scheme appeared in 1993/94 when the government decided that the costs of the expansion it stimulated were no longer sustainable and reversed the policy. In order to implement this

112 Gareth Williams policy reversal the government Funding Councils announced severe financial penalties for institutionss that recruited fees-only students. Another example of a near voucher system is the Danish 'clip card' introduced in 1989. At the start of their studies each student is given a 'klippenkoort' which is valid for up to five years of study. Each course registration involves a 'clip' or 'clips' corresponding to the duration of the course. In principle students can use their card at any time until it is used up, but it appears that so far, given the unfavourable employment situation for people without high-level qualifications, most have preferred to use it for initial higher education. Unfortunately the 'card' is not a physical entity: it exists only in the mind of the computer that administerss the scheme. The clip card scheme is also intended to influence institutional behaviour. One of its objectives is to reduce the average length of time it takes to complete degree courses. Denmark has traditionally shared with its neighbour, Germany, the problem of excessive course lengths, and previous methods of funding both universities and students did nothing to encourage them to curtail the length of programmes of study.

The marketization of higher education: a broader view The changes that have been described in this chapter, and the preceding one, are not unique to higher education. Changes in university-stateconsumer relations are incidental to a much bigger game in which the roles of individuals as consumers, producers and citizens are being redefined, probably as a result of the hectic pace off technological change that is characterizing the last two decades of the twentieth century. The changes in higher education are just one example of what economists have come to call the principal-agent problem: how does the principal, the government, get the agents, the higher education institutions, to carry out its wishes and those

of the student-consumers whose interests it claims to underwrite? How does he who pays the piper ensure that the tune he wants to hear is played? A paradoxical feature of formula funding models is that while part of the rationale for their establishment was to free institutional managers from the inevitable bureaucratic regulation and hence inflexibility of input-based line-item budgeting, they are actually resulting in even more detailed regulations than the systems they are supplanting. The mechanism by which this comes about is instructive. The key feature of output budgeting and stateregulated markets is careful identification and specification of the 'outputs'. One question this raises is whether it is appropriate to consider students as an output. Clearly if the aim of the 'principal' is to get the 'agent' to recruit as many students as possible it is quite legitimate to consider student enrolment as an output. This was the aim off government policy in Britain during the period 1988 to 1993. If, however, the output is just 'students' without further specification, there is an incentive for the agent to favour students who are cheap to teach, and not to worry too much about successful course completion. Indeed if institutional income is based on gross enrolment, as it has been in some countries, there is actually an incentive to encourage students to delay graduation as long as possible. It is this incentive that the new Danish emphasis on 'active students' is intended to counter. Output budgets and quasi-markets thus tend to lead to tighter and tighter specification of the outputs in order to ensure that the agent produces what the principal wants. Thus there are different unit costs for students of different subjects, allocations for successful course completion as well as for enrolment, quality-threshold criteria and possibly, as in Scotland, higher payments from public funds for what are considered to be courses off above-average quality. Thus the introduction of output budgeting has turned the wheel full circle in one important respect. Governments and funding agencies undertake as much detailed regulation as they do under a regime of traditional line-item by line-item

Principals, Agents, Producers and Consumers in Higher Education 113 input-based budgets. This is to a large extent the explanation of the paradox that the move to output budgets both increases the financial autonomy off universities and colleges and at the same time results in increased state intervention. Whether it is more 'efficient' or not depends on how well the outputs are specified, and how onerous and expensive it is to monitor actual outputs compared with desired outputs. But the principal-agent problem in higher education goes beyond matters of technical competence. The fundamental ethical and political issue is the validity of a government's claims to consider itself the principal-payer, with the right to insist that all agent-piper-universities play tunes of its choosing. When the tunes concern the fundamental knowledge and thinking of a society it may be claimed with some justification that the line between legitimate political accountability and totalitarianism is a thin one.3 Of course the governments of Western democracies would claim that this is dramatic nonsense on two counts. One is that they are reflecting the will of the majority as reflected in democratic elections. The other is that they are not imposing a monolithic will on higher education but merely reinforcing the claims of consumers. The implications of the first of these claims goes far beyond a short paper on higher education. However, in a world that is beginning to see the rise of local nationalism and religious fundamentalism, it is legitimate to pose the question of the extent to which success in an election gives governments the right to impose the will of the majority on any recalcitrant minority. More specific to higher education, however, is the question of the extent to which it is appropriate for it to be consumer-oriented. Certainly any publicly funded higher education must be responsivee to national needs as interpreted by a democratically elected government; certainly privately funded higher education has to respond to what its consumers are willing to buy. But universities have other responsibilities as well: to truth, to professional integrity and to longer-term cultural traditions. They should not be subject to every whim of political or market fashion.

Notes 1 Undergraduate students in both public and private universities receive no support from public funds towards their living expenses. 2 Japan is an exception. There student fees paid by families encourage rapid and high rates of course completion. It is unusual for students to work their way through college. 3 This and a number of related themes are explored in more detail in Williams (1995).

References Becher, T. and Kogan, M. (1992) Process and Structure in Higher Education. London: Routledge (2nd edition). Geiger, Roger L. (1988) Privatisation of Higher Education: International Trends and Issues. Princeton: International Council for Educational Development. Gellert, C. (ed.) (1993) Higher Education in Europe. London: Jessica Kingsley. Goedegebuure, L., Kaiser, F., Maasen, P., Meek, L., van Vught, F. and de Weert, E. (eds) (1993) Higher Education Policy: An International Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Pergamon Press. James, Estelle (1991) Private Finance and Management of Education in Developing Countries: Major Policy and Research Issues. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning. Karmel, Peter (1992) Financing higher education. Paper presented to the National Conference on Governance and Funding of Australian Higher Education. Kazemzadeh, Foad, Schacher, Martin and Steube, Wolfgang (1994) International Comparisons of Higher Education Statisticall Indicators. Hanover: Hochschul-Informations-System, April. Massy, William F. (1994) Resource Allocation Reform in Higher Education. Washington, DC: National Association of College and University Business Officers. Neave, Guy and Vught, Frans A. (1991) Prometheus Bound: The Changing Relationship between Government and Higher Education in Western Europe. Oxford: Pergamon Press. OECD (1990) Higher Education Finance: Current Patterns. Paris: OECD. OECD (1995) Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD.

114 Gareth Williams Wasser, Henry (1990) Changes in the European university: from traditional to entrepreneurial. Higher Education Quarterly, 44 (2). Williams, G. L. (1992) Changing Patterns of Finance in Higher Education. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Williams, G. L. (1995) The marketisation of higher education, in D. Dill and B. Sporn (eds), Emerging Patterns of Social Demand and University Reform: Through a Glass Darkly. Oxford: Pergamon Press. World Bank (1994) Higher Education: The Lessons off Experience. Washington, DC: World Bank.

12

From Policy to Practice: Stafff Development in Higher Education - the Keyto the Effective Management of Change

BRYAN J. COWAN Introduction Higher educational institutions all over the world are in a state of ideological readjustment. Such turmoil has demanded a transformation of thinking,, attitudes and beliefs and a radical modification of behaviour. The traditional preoccupations of academic staff, those of satisfying research, administration and teaching requirements, are now being challenged. The days when institutions vigorously channelled energies into defending the status quo and the right to intellectual autonomy are gone (although some have yet to realize this). Reality has crept in like a silent snake to overwhelm and reshape higher education in recent years. The conservatism and introversion of many institutions have been shaken with the imposition of new government demands, exposing the need for the rapid acquisition of survival skills, hitherto not associated with academic life. Those organizations which will not only survive but thrive in the current arena of increasing legislation and accountability are those which anticipated such change and provided appropriate mechanisms for their staff to adapt and cope. For too long, educational institutions, from all sectors and situations, have allowed themselves to be pawns in a political game. Imposed change has been seen as a threat over which individuals have no control. Organizations involved in the provision off higher education have largely followed this path, particularly those whose reputations for intellec-

tual supremacy span generations of students. This paper seeks to encourage the view that institutions of higher education should adapt to a more strategic approach to the management of change. An approach which will not only have implications . for coping with the present proliferation of governmentall and societal demands but also, and more importantly, for helping organizations to gain a greater control over their future destinies. A vital aspect of strategic thinking about change lies in the ability and willingness of institutions to offer systematic, well-funded centres of support and development. This paper will present an outline of how to manage successful change, while offering a broad view of staff development initiatives, which encompass more than an ad hoc training approach. Such ideas have been gathered by the writer in his role as management development co-ordinator in his own university and management consultant to other institutions.

Change in universities In the past few years we have seen considerable change in the management of higher educational systems across the world. There has been a significantt reshaping of the role of higher educational institutions in many societies and a blurring of the artificial barriers between academic and technological institutions (Watson, 1992). Coombs (1985), Williams (1986) and Psacharopoulos

116 Bryan J. Cowan

(1990) point out that this is largely to do with increasing costs of higher education, while Griffiths (1989) claims that it is due to changing relationships between the state and universities. Whatever the root of the problem, institutions in most countries are expected to seek funding from sources other than governments, to be more accountablee to their students and to increase outputs of research. Williams (1986) indicates a further area of uncertainty and dispute: the perception society has of the purpose of higher education. Williams suggests three views in relation to universities: (1) the self-governing community or college of scholars; (2) the public service corporation provided by the government and (3) an enterprise in the knowledge industry selling whatever mix off academic services it is most profitable to produce to whomsoever is willing and able to buy them. Changes that have affected universities globally are reflected in the OECD report (1987) - cash crisis and the consequent need for entrepreneurship, the increase in working-class students and female students, the greater demands for quality and appropriate practical skills from industry, the flexibility of courses (modular, transferable credit systems), the introduction of student/staff evaluation, the technological revolution, the greater potential of inter-institutional collaboration, the pressure from external parties for specific training and skills, the increasing dependence on financial sponsors, and competition between institutions for funding and prestige. In the UK the process of defining the role of higher education has become submerged by political pressures, cutbacks, new legislation and the obligation to satisfy national league tables for research output. The so-called 'upgrading' of polytechnicss to university status has catapulted original universities to reappraise their entrepreneurial capabilities in the light of their new cousins' reputation for such measures. Institutional autonomy is now a luxury and not a right. It exists only for those who foresaw these changes and prepared themselves for them. The range and impact of change imposed on institutions of higher education is not the main purpose of this paper. The writer is more concernedd with promoting the idea that, as change is

inevitable, institutions should develop a positive and informed outlook on ways of acquiring appropriate coping skills. This implies a shift from the sacrificial lamb mentality to organizational selfreliance and control. Universities, in particular, cannot now be run as precious organizations for whom commercial practices are out of place and unacceptable. The time has gone when intellectual debate surpassed the need to raise funds for survival. Such a comment does not intend to place higher education at the mercy of vacillating and dubious societal whims. On the contrary, despite pressures on institutions to react to external demands, they should resist fashionable fancies and maintain many of their independent thoughts and characteristics.. In order to do this, however, they must often satisfy nationally established indicators of quality and success. When student numbers are declining, when there is debate about standards, then it is difficult to confidently make a stand against external pressures for change. Only proven competence and the resulting public respect will provide greater freedom for autonomy in beliefs, values and identity. Because of their lack of vision in previous decades many higher education institutions have allowed themselves to be remoulded to fit into convenient compartments. This denigrates the open-endedness of learning (in all its forms) and confines its purposes to quantifiable outputs student numbers, numbers of first-class honours, etc. (Stone, 1974; Burgess, 1982; Wasser, 1990). Furthermore, too much unresisted external pressure creates an unhealthy homogeneity, when educational provision at this level thrives on its heterogeneity. It is ironic that institutions will only secure this latter state through a collaborative commitment to a more proactive stance. Institutions of higher education, in all contexts, have been confronted with new expectations and the need to assimilate a range of new skills. The more traditional the institution the more difficult the adjustment has been. Marketing, for instance, has swept institutions in many countries. In the UK it was not long ago that courses on marketing were considered so inappropriate that places were unfilled and courses failed to run. Today, the de-

From Policy to Practice: Staff Development - the Key 117

mand for such courses is almost beyond satisfaction. Other skills which have been recognized as essential in recent years include strategic thinking, entrepreneurial, identifying and creating opportunities for the future, public relations, imagebuilding,, fund-raising and setting achievable objectives. In short, higher education needs to be managed systematically for both the short- and long-term, and skills, other than those related to subject specialisms, should be provided. Gray (1989) focuses on the failure of university departments to cope with or initiate change. He claims that one of the main reasons why universities fail to cope with change is due to the 'comparatively scant attention to close working relationships that relate to the managerial processes'. He launches a vitriolic attack on the myopiaa of university systems: Among the reasons why university departments react as if the world outside was unchanging is the very long history of calling the tune all the time by determining their own criteria for entry; a long tradition off aloofness; the nature of university careers that normally depend on a reputation well beyond the university itself; a totally inadequate (in fact, largely non-existent) career development process within and among universities; lack of departmental collegiality and a strong sense of academic rivalry (latterly this has become a rivalry for funds); lack of any sense off need for teams and team building; isolation and separatenesss of departments from the university itself; lack of interest in management and impatience with routine administration; confusion within universities about the organisational nature and functions (in many universities) of eligibility for departmentalf headship to certain grades of staff and total absence off training in management for those about to embark on a period of departmental leadership.

Gray strongly argues for systematic, long-term, management training (starting with vicechancellors)) throughout the university. Reclusivity is a dangerous stance in any organization. When individuals, departments and organizations themselves fail to value collaborative strategies for survival then it will be difficult to survive innerinstitutionall competitiveness. Higher education can not exist in isolation. And neither can its constituent institutions. As Williamss (1986) claims, 'the relationship between higher education institutions and the society

which surrounds them is a reciprocal one. It is a partnership.' This then is the root of the problem. Is it a truly equitable alliance or is one side wielding more power than the other? To avoid external tyranny it is vital for institutions to have an understandingg and greater command of the process off change.

The management of change 'The essential ingredients for handling change successfully include leadership, vision and imagination' (Carnall, 1990). Yet as Carnall continues, without effective management of the change process, including careful planning and the sensitive handling of the people involved, any innovation will fail to achieve its desired impact. It is well known that changes emanating from the identified needs of an organization are more likely to be successfully implemented than those imposed externally. In other words, when people believe they will benefit from the change there will be a greater sense of ownership and commitment to its success. When external change is imposed mechanisms must be in place to help individuals cope. When such mechanisms do not exist then time is wasted by negative feelings and fire-fighting activities. Managing change in an educational context has multi-dimensional connotations and as such creates conflicts in values and beliefs and between individuals at all levels within the organization. Those introducing or imposing new initiatives should note that the ripple effects of change often have severe ramifications for the work and attitudess of all people as well as for the culture and ethos of the institution. This paper argues that higher education institutions can create systems which not only provide survival tactics but also help them utilize the innovation in ways which strengthen, unite and prepare them for other radical changes in the future. A systematic and strategic approach to coping with change reduces the chance of surrendering helplessly to the unknown. An organization

118 Bryan J. Cowan which fails to develop systems to cope with change will result in increasing low morale among staff and a decline in standards at all levels. It is a question of attitude, corporate commitment and the provision of flexible and imaginative organizational support networks. Change involves a number of factors. On the positive side it embraces notions of creativity, learning, progress, improvement, evolution, growth and development (personal and organizational), opportunities for reflection and reform. On the negative side it provokes feelings of threat, risk, insecurity, loss, anxiety, struggle, a sense off hopeless inevitability and time-wasting. Various models exist to help organizations implementt successful change. Perhaps the simplest, and possibly the most useful, is that of Schien (1969), who offers three interrelated processes. These are (1) unfreezing current behaviour; (2) substituting new behaviour; (3) refreezing the new behaviour. All three are essential if change is to be effected successfully. The fear of the unknown makes individuals (and organizations) cling to the security of habitual or conditioned behaviour. In short they need to be 'sold' the idea that other possibilities might suit them better. The longer the individual has conformedd to certain patterns of behaviour the more difficult it can be to divert their vision to other appropriate alternatives. When values and cultural beliefs are involved then the unfreezing process takes that much longer and requires considerable conversion time and personal support. The unfreezing process can be secured in a number of different ways. Some of these are: demonstrating the advantages of the new idea in ways that show previous practice is no longer tenable, exposing individuals to practices (perhaps in other organizations) which have benefited from the innovation, offering personal support for those who have particular problems, and creating opportunitiess for the development of new and necessary skills. If the unfreezing process is not managed well and people do not experience a sense off 'ownership' of the idea, then both individual and corporate behaviour will revert to its original pattern.

The second stage of Schien's model - substituting new behaviour - again endorses the need for systematic personnel development and support. Change creates feelings of insecurity, frequently manifested in aggression and resistance. Encouraging new behaviour in individuals and groups is better achieved when staff themselves find strategies for coping, than if these are imposed. If impositionn is necessary it is better to 'provide extrinsic incentives to secure acceptance of specific required behaviors' (Michael, 1981). New behaviour should be confirmed and sustainedd through the refreezing process. The change process is about learning (Handy, 1989). Implicit in that process are at least the following: reflection of past experience, measurement of understanding, reinforcement of skills and knowledge being assimilated, support, monitoring and evaluation of the learning process, its outcomes and application. Refreezing then emanates from the desire of the individual to willingly modify behaviour patterns and assimilate and functionalize new ideas. Michael (1981) advocates that change should be managed with 'support, sympathy and determination on the part of the higher authority and with highly motivated behavior and a spirit of co-operation by lower levels'. Such cooperation will only exist when feelings of fear are channelled through systems of support and development. With cultural or ideological change the refreezing process takes a very long time - sometimes only being accomplished by a subsequent generation. Such mechanisms for support and encouragement need to be in place for the time that it takes to effect the change. Again, staff development defined in its widest sense can provide a focus for such initiatives and act as the vital link between policy and practice. Managing change is not an ad hoc activity but a systematic strategic planning process (Grundy, 1993). Implicit in such an approach, according to Grundy, is the need to create a sense of long-term direction in order to anticipate and shape the future environment. It also involves the careful allocation and development of available resources, not only for competitive advantage but also for the greater control of future changes. The implication

From Policy to Practice: Staff Development - the Key 119 then is that managing one change successfully equips the organization for subsequent experiences. Grundy's five key phases of managing change - diagnosis, planning, implementation, control and learning - support this thinking and place the developing individual and organization central in the change process. Higher educational institutions often suffer because of their tradition for reactive, submissive and sluggish responses to opportunities. Deluged by external change, institutions frequently adopt primary coping strategies which serve for the event but do not equip the organization for future change. What is needed is a commitment to creative contingency skills which moves the institution's reaction to change from 'corporate Valium' to a situation where change means challenge and a chance to enrich organizational life. The key to any change is the ability to transform a problem into an opportunity. The stance becomes proactive, strategic and positive. It embodies planning, development of all resources, especially the human variety, and monitoring and evaluating the progress and implications of the innovation. Imposed change too, if seen in this light, enhances possibilities for organizational and individual growth. Coping with change in higher education is undoubtedly a corporate juggling feat. Areas of weakness are exposed and fear can dominate. Within the chaos that ensues, with ranks disunited and dispirited, governments often make a second strike and further change is inflicted without resistance. Handy's (1989) view of 'discontinuous change' is helpful in that he indicates that we cannot continue to expect change to be a natural progression of what has existed before. It is much more likely to be a potentially destabilizing and unanticipated event that will demand an often painful reinterpretation of present thinking, behaviour and belief patterns. Support mechanisms then are crucial in every organization to provide staff and others with the strategies and skills necessary to cope with change. It has already been stated that change is a learning process. Implicit in this then is the need of organizations to provide new skills. There is

more of course. Creating a sense of ownership off change requires opportunity for discussion and expression of feelings - formally and informally for representation on policy-making boards while allowing greater personal control of the impact which the change makes on individuals' perceptions of themselves, their work and their beliefs.

Staff development: the bridge between policy and practice A backward glance Staff development in UK institutions of higher education is generally regarded as having been instigated by the Jarratt Report in the second halff of the 1980s. Miller (1976) and Brown and Atkins (1986) claim, however, that initiatives (principally concerned with the quality of university teaching) were already underway long before this time. Before promoting the idea that staff development is the link between policy and practice (in any organization) it is worth examining these early endeavours. Brown and Atkins (1986) record that from 1929 a succession of reports, papers and conferences advanced the idea that the training of academic and administrative staff in universities was essential. Miller (1976) writes that it was not until the early 1960s that some institutions became aware of the need to improve their staffs teaching performance. An interesting statement, made by Miller in the mid-1970s, still seems apposite today: For centuries there had been little concern that teachers in higher education needed training. Graduate status automatically endowed the graduate with a teaching qualification in the schools as well as in the universities... A graduate was given credit for knowing his discipline and it followed that he must be able to impart that knowledge. As far back as 1961 the AUT (the Association off University Teachers) made the case for training teachers in higher education to the Committee off Vice-Chancellors and Principals. The outcome

120 Bryan J, Cowan

was the Hale Report of 1964 which, undertaken by the University Grants Committee, reported on teaching methods in universities. The report considered the effect on undergraduate education, not only of lecturers, discussion, laboratory work and field classes, but also the setting in which teaching is given. Examinations were also scrutinized. Sir John Wolfenden (Chair of the University Grants Committee), in the foreword to the document, focused on the increased numbers entering higher education and stated that this situation was not matched by an increase in university staff. The recommendations of the report emanated from researchh carried out among university staff determining to what extent they received support and training in teaching methods. Most university teachers had received little guidance on how to teach. Support was informal, invariably at a departmental level and mainly within science subjects. Nottingham University was highlighted as an exception to such ad hoc practice, as courses on teaching methods were provided on request by the Department of Education. The Hale Report led to a number of initiatives, summarized in a pamphlet of the Society for Research into Higher Education (Greenaway, 1971). In 1965 the University Teaching Methods and Research Unit was set up at the University of London Institute of Education as a response to the faculties of medicine, dentistry and engineering. Pumppriming came from the Leverhulme Trust, thus enabling work to be carried out further afield. A further initiative was the report of the Committee on the Use of Audio-Visual Aids in Higher Scientific Education (chaired by Brynmor Jones in 1965) which recommended that there should be established central service units in the institutions themselves and a national centre for educational technology. According to Miller (1976) the role off this national centre was to 'be a concentration off services not capable of being provided by smaller units, staff training for university and college units, development of ideas in the use of new aids, provision of a co-ordinated cataloguing and library service and an information and advisory service'. It was hoped that despite its principal

focus on higher education, it could be useful to further education colleges and schools. In 1967 the National Council for Educational Technology was established to centralize all areas of education and training in the UK. As a result off the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals Report (1972) and through the support of the University Grants Committee, 25 central services in universities, catering for staffs diverse technological needs (language laboratories, use of television, film audio-visual techniques) and offering assistance in programmed learning, were set up. This initiative was consolidated by the Department of Education and Science which published a report on 'Central arrangements for promoting educational technology in the United Kingdom' in 1972. In March 1971 the Committee of ViceChancellors and Principals set up a small working group to undertake a thorough investigation into the whole area of university teaching. The survey showed an increase in activity in many universities with regard to providing training for university teachers. Courses, however, tended to be informal and impromptu with respondents claiming that more formal and systematic procedures were necessary at local, regional and national levels. It was recommended that all universities should provide induction courses for all newly appointed academic staff. Topics to be included should be: the organization of the university, the structure off its government, an introduction to the running off the department and its policy, syllabuses, student course loads, student progress, the library and other services and a knowledge of modern teaching aids. It would be interesting to note to what extent contemporary induction programmes meet these requirements. Furthermore, it was considered important during the first year of teaching that the new lecturer attended other longer training programmes designed to improve teaching skills, increase research and have a better understanding of course design and student evaluation. Training was not, however, to be limited to new staff. It was proposed that after a period of three years every lecturer should be given the opportu-

From Policy to Practice: Staff Development - the Key 121 nity of attending more advanced courses of perhaps a week in length. Such courses should encourage opportunities for discussing the dissemination of research findings in teaching and learning and sharing problems in an informal setting. Attempts to rationalize courses at regional or national levels encouraged an interdisciplinary approach to teaching. To achieve national objectivess the working group proposed a coordinating committee for the training of university teachers to be set up by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. Their work should include the following: • •

• • •

the offering of advice to individual universities on the setting up of training schemes, keeping itself informed on developments in provision of training courses and reviewing the training needs of university teachers, disseminating information on course availability on a regional basis, assessing needs for courses to be established on a regional basis, encouraging development of regional courses at suitable centres.

In 1973 the Co-ordinating Committee for the Training of University Teachers for the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals appointed a coordinating and research officer to inform the committee on current training initiatives in UK universities. The reactions of the universities to the work off the Co-ordinating Committee was set out in the 1972-73 report. Responses were generally favourable. Several universities suggested an extension of training provision to meet local requirements. It was largely felt that a greater distinction was needed between induction courses on the introduction of the new member of staff to university systems and that which provided insights into teaching methods. Expansion on courses dealing with technology in the classroom was deemed unnecessary. Follow-up courses to induction programmes were considered important, especially those which dealt with course objectives, curriculum evaluation, teaching methods, learning theory, the use of media in teaching, self-assessment, student

assessment, the fuller exploitation of library resources and the design of self-instructional materials. To facilitate some of these programmes interuniversity links were recommended by the universities themselves. The University Grants Committee provided a number of special grants to nineteen projects (many involving clusters of universities) to enable a development of training programmes. The projects included a broad range of areas, from middle and senior management to the evaluation and further development of training programmes for junior teaching staff. Other topics involved the evaluation and development of thinking about tutorial systems, management skills for junior staff and communication within the university. Each project contained an action-research element so that lessons learned could be widely disseminated. Staff training in polytechnics was directed, until recently, by the local education authorities which financed and controlled these institutions. Research generally was superseded in importance by teaching, as responsiveness to societal needs became the key, and essential motivator. The polytechnics (as well as colleges of further education) took professional development of staff seriously. In the Times Higher Education Supplement (2 November 1973) it was announced that following a conference on educational development services at Newcastle Polytechnic, an association for the development of new teaching methods was to be set up. Inter-college working parties were constructed to investigate technological advances, the nature of learning, tutorials, discussions and projects and the evaluation of teaching objectives. The principal objectives defined at the conference were to develop polytechnics as teaching rather than research institutions, thus distinguishing them from universities. To justify their place in higher education, centres for staff development were set up both nationally (Coombe Lodge, for instance) and locally. Miller's research, undertaken in 45 universities and 21 polytechnics between 1973 and 1976, demonstrates that a number of institutions were taking staff training very seriously. It is not proposed here to detail individual institutions' initiatives. Miller's findings, however, do show that commitment

122 Bryan J. Cowan

did begin well before the Jarratt Report (1985) with a few institutions taking seriously the whole process of enhancing staff abilities. Perhaps one major move forward since Miller's report is that development is now seen as more than the extension off teaching and research skills. As we have seen in previous sections of this chapter, academic stafff are currently obliged to undertake a variety off tasks that frequently mirror the demands of commerce, rather than those of promoting and guarding intellectual elitism. In the 1980s staff development continued its turbulent route. In 1981, for instance, the coordinating committee for staff training (established in the early 1970s and with joint membership from the AUT, the CVCP and the NUS) was disbanded. Some saw this as a reflection of diminishing interest by the vice-chancellors to stafff training. It was clear to many involved in stafff training that a national coordinating body was crucial if the work in higher education was to achieve a recognizable credibility. In 1982, therefore, a committee for the training of university teachers was set up by the CVCP, and representation from the AUT and the NUS was sought. Subsequent reports (AUT, 1982; CVCP, 1983; UGC, 1984) consolidated this new commitment to stafff training in higher education. The Jarratt Report (1985), which considered academic standards, provided policy statements on staff appraisal which considerably increased interest in staff development. The government's consultative paper on higher education (1985) also promoted the need for staff training (Brown and Atkins, 1986). To determine the impact of these reports Brown and Atkins, in 1986, carried out a survey into academic staff training in 41 universities and 25 colleges in the UK. The findings show that training commitment was largely sparse and, where it existed, it still focused on the improvement of teaching skills. There was a growing recognition that areas of research and management also required development. Certain key recommendations, made by respondents, are worth noting. The need to give staff training higher priority and status both nationally and locally and to make it obligatory was widely affirmed with training seen as a lifelong professional activity, encompassing more

than the development of teaching techniques. The need to undertake and disseminate research into staff training, with regular evaluation of programmes by both providers and participants was also recommended. Brown and Atkins (1986) further advocate that staff training serves to enhance morale in higher education, while creating greater self-esteem among staff through the peer and organizational support which comes from successful training programmes. In 1991 the Universities' Staff Development and Training Unit (compiled by Guildford) produced a report on the provision of staff development in UK universities. The report showed that: •

there was an increasing staff development activity in universities at institutional, regional and national level; • more staff development coordinators were gradually being appointed to full-time positions; • staff development needs were being met in a number of ways not only limited to provision of courses; • universities were using a wide range of internal and external providers to meet their staff development needs. The report stresses, however, that there is little room for complacency, since: •

•

•

•

•

staff development was seen as a peripheral activity which did not form an integral part off institutional and departmental planning; much provision of training and development was still ad hoc, and patchy, with little rationale and underpinning; provision was not only erratic but also imbalanced, and much more needed to be done for ancillary, clerical, manual, secretarial and technical staffs; resources for staff development were still inadequate in all aspects, i.e. staffing, finance, space and equipment; staff development was not seen by 'management' as the priority activity it ought to be, and individuals lacked clearly continuing profes-

From Policy to Practice: Staff Development - the Key 123

•

sional development programmes as an integral part of their contacts and work schedules; universities still had a long way to go before they could claim that they provided adequatelyy planned, recognized and resourced continuing professional development for all employees.

Those working in higher education might wonder whether anything has changed in the time since the report was written. National commitments towards the promotion of staff development emerging from the 1980s include the Universities' Staff Development and Training Unit (USDTU) set up by the CVCP in January 1989 at the University of Sheffield. The main terms of reference for the unit were: •

•

•

•

•

• •

To stimulate provision for the training and development of all categories of university staff in order to improve their performance and that of the institution. To promote such provision principally by encouraging universities' own activities both locally and nationally. To act as a national resource centre in terms of expertise and for the dissemination of information and training needs. To publicize achievements, promote an awareness of further development and identify likely future needs. To establish a network of contacts, at all levels, for colleagues concerned with staff development. To organize a restricted programme of special events to meet a national need. To consider possible endorsement of, or provide some form of accreditation for, courses run by other organizations.

Renamed the Universities' Staff Development Unit (USDU) and now called UCoSDA (The Universities' and Colleges' Staff Development Agency), the unit is now self-financing, relying on contributions from individual UK universities as part of their overall contribution to CVCP and from self-generated income, raised through training programmes, publications, resources and specific funding. The unit continues to offer support in a

variety of ways and to produce relevant courses and literature, while keeping an eye on future trends in higher education so that they can readily respond. Another body actively involved at a national level in staff development is the Conference of University Administrators (CUA), which is a membership organization for administrators. The CUA staff development committee organizes a programme of national courses and offers training sessions at the Annual Conference. A joint CUA/ USDTU working party recently produced a Continuing Professional Development Award for administrators, approved by the Conference of Registrars and Secretaries. The Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) is a national group conducting research into higher education. It contains a separate staff development group, SRHE(SD), which organizes conferences and produces a regular newsletter. A series of materials for academic staff development has also emanated from the society. The Standing Conference in Educational Development (SCED) was originally set up for staff in polytechnics. Now open to all universities, SCED organizes national workshops and conferences and produces a number of publications. SCED's most recent initiative is worth noting. There has been an extension of the impressive work already carried out by the Universities' Staff Development Unit in Sheffield. A Staff and Educational Development Association has recently been set up in order to accredit the work of staff and educational developers in institutions of higher education through an award of a professional qualification. The scheme is intended to establish the greater status and professionalism of staff and educational development. Its aims state that it will enable staff developers, working in higher education, to develop and demonstrate their competence to help lecturers, support staff and the institutions in which they work to improve the quality of the student experience. The qualification is awarded on the basis of reflective portfolios. In these, developers demonstrate their values, objectives and expertise and submit needs analyses; evaluations of programmes; examples of acting as consultants,

124 Bryan J. Cowan

mentors and advisors; monitoring strategies; personall and professional coping strategies and a reflection of past practice. Following a pilot scheme early in 1993 with twelve staff developers, an increasing number of universities are getting involved. Values which underpin the scheme have been acknowledged throughout this paper in relation to the management of change and its relationship with staff development. They include understanding how people learn, recognizing individual learning needs, focusing on the development of an individual's existing competences, a promotion of scholarship and professionalism, an emphasis on collaboration, promotion of equal opportunities, and the creation of opportunities for reflection. When staff development has national status and is seen to enhance both the esteem and competence of the developers then it is much more difficult for those in leadership and policy-making positions to ignore this vital work. Staff development in higher education in the 1990s is signified by a sustained dichotomy between those who are committed to the development of academic and non-academic staff and those who feel that it serves no useful purpose. At a national level, as we have seen, support initiatives have been underway for at least twenty years, yet much practice still confirms a lingering, tokenistic belief in the development of university personnel. It would seem from research carried out during the past twenty years that it is at the institutional level that inertia, antagonism and a blinkered view of the potential of developing staff exists. The lack of vision to see that staff development is the link between policy and practice in all organizations prevails. The diversity of commitment, funding and recognition from the leaders and policy-makers in higher education illustrates that the marketing of the notion of staff development has yet to achieve widespread and sustained impact. The total lack of support in some institutions for staff development is not only depressing but implies a myopic view towards wholeinstitutionall progress and opportunity. Such a perspective hardly creates processes to cope with change or to encourage a spirit of entrepreneurial-

ism from which mechanisms for positive strategic planning could derive for the long-term defence of the institution.

The way forward In 1987 the CVCP produced a Code of Practice on academic staff training in universities. It stated that staff development programmes were inadequate and that greater commitment was required. The report listed three levels at which staff development should operate: •

individual - improving opportunities to enhance and enrich professional skills; • departmental - improving the quality of teaching and research; • institutional - improving the quality of the academic environment. While the report recognized potential tensions between an individual's and a department's or an institution's goals, it contended that flexible development approaches could overcome such conflicts. The CVCP recommended clear organizational policies for staff development, the appointment of coordinators, systematic training programmes for all staff, in-house programmes for departments and an overall commitment by the leaders of the institutions. They also proposed a list of topics for development while advancing the idea that management and leadership skills should be targeted for training. How far such measures have been introduced undoubtedly reflects the commitment of those leading higher education institutions. This paper has argued that staff development should be an integral part of policy-making, goalsetting and evaluation of all practice and output. It should be a vehicle through which, in climates of increasing expectation and anomaly, higher education can be recognized as 'getting its house in order'. Staff development should be, therefore, pivotal to considerations about quality and ex-

From Policy to Practice: Staff Development - the Key 125

cellence through an interpretation of policy into appropriate practical application. When positive commitment to staff development is displayed by those who impose policies and legislation then the organization is strengthened by its ability to support and develop individuals and teams. The ad hoc approach offers staff nothing more than survival skills. Staff development in such a context is mere tokenism. There are still too many institutions which operate from this base. A long-term approach to the development of staff encourages a more systematic vision for the organization and its integral parts and sees change as a challenge through which greater success and opportunity can accrue. This idealized picture may stick in the throats of those who work in situations where staff development receives little commitment from leaders and where development itself is limited to training courses. The lack of resources is frequently bemoaned in all sectors of education, and higher education is no exception. In the UK situation each university has been obliged, since the late 1980s, to provide staff development programmes, but the degree of commitment to this is left to the individual institution. There is, then, a considerable variance of practice, with some institutions employing a diverse range of staff within their staff development centres, targeting the disparate groups of staff employed within the institution. At the other end of the scale some institutions have no full-time staff developers, drawing staff from other faculties who must resolve the pressures of what inevitably becomes the unhappy conflict of two full-time jobs. Staff development, as stated, is more than training, and many initiatives do not need to have impedimental resource implications. The writer has gathered the following practices from a range of institutions he has visited. • peer review/support, • working in teams, • job shadowing, • job rotation, • regular opportunities to visit other institutions,

• sabbaticals, • more systematic delegation of tasks from heads of departments/faculties to staff in lower ranks, • staff appraisal, • organizational/departmental audits and review, • needs analyses, • faculty-based training programmes, • individually based programmes, • long-term mission statements, • regular review of goals (departmental, organizational) • market research, • interfaculty/department collaboration, • monitoring and self-evaluation, • regular updating of certain 'everyday' skills (e.g. technological) to ensure compatibility with the modern world, • formal procedures for feedback from students and others, • personal and professional support/counselling systems, • appropriate leadership within the institution, • self-management competence, • better motivation and encouragement of all staff through increased opportunities for social development, • nationally and locally recognized accreditation of staff training, • the training and greater involvement of nonacademic/other staff, • greater financial support for national centres of staff development, • institutional recognition that staff development is important in the achievement of organizational, departmental and individual goals, • appropriate funding" for staff development work, • open channels of communication within the institution and opportunities for staff to feedback ideas for improvements within the system. This list is by no means intended to be comprehensive. No doubt some institutions could offer

126 Bryan J. Cowan

exciting additions. The list is offered to show that staff development should not be conveniently polarized to the edge of the organization but seen as a foundation upon and through which other systems and structures can flourish. It must be stated, however, that the success of any of the above initiatives depends on the vision of institutional leadership, their concern for individuals and above all an understanding that management is about getting the job done through and with the help of other people. To achieve this requires a motivated and competent workforce equipped to cope with the unexpected. The successful management of change is also a social process. As Agar (1994, p. 5] states, 'Any strategy for change needs to take into account the necessity of developing meaning, particularly shared meaning. This may be the single most important constraint on innovation which is commonly overlooked by advocates of change.' He points out that one of the most powerful constraints to change 'are the group norms which map out for the members of that group the acceptable range of professional beliefs and expected style of conduct'. It is argued here that through drawing together staff from all areas of the institution, prejudices and predispositions can be positively challenged and redefined for the good of the organization. Personal and professional development can provide the secure environment in which such reshaping of ideas and behaviour can occur. Change embraces the making of new meanings individually and corporately. Therefore successfull innovation will result when these processes are given time and space to take place. The responsive institution is one which ensures the imaginative, creative and critical elements of a genuinely open-learning experience intended to facilitate the self-actualization of staff and organization. Leaders who want change to be managed successfully should, therefore, recognize the need for phenomenological thinking: everyone reacts in different ways and will require different degrees of support. Carnall (1990) states that The management of change should take a pragmatic approach supported by a willingness to learn'. Staff develop-

ment and education should be the agency through which such learning takes place.

Referencess Agar, D. L. (1994) Universities and the academic profession: implications for change. South African Journal of Higher Education, 8 (2), 5-9. Association of Colleges for Further and Higher Education and Association of Principals of Technical Institutions (1973) Staff Development in Further Education. Report of a loint Working Party. AUT (1969) Working Party Report on University Teaching. London: Association of University Teachers. AUT (1982) The Professional Development and Training of University Teachers. London: Association of University Teachers. Beard, R. M. (1970) Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. London: Penguin. Brown, G. and Atkins, M. (1986) Academic staff training in British universities: results of a national survey. Studies in Higher Education, 11 (1). Burgess, T. (1982) Autonomous service traditions, in L. Wagner (ed.), Agenda for Institutional Change in Higher Education. Guildford: Society for Research into Higher Education, pp. 70-9. Carnall, C. A. (1990) Managing Change in Organizations. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall. Clarke, B. R. and Neave, G. (1992) The Encyclopaedia of Higher Education, Volumes I-IV. Oxford: Pergamon. Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (1965) Report on the Use of Audio-Visual Aids in Higher Scientific Education. Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (1972) Training of University Teachers. Report of a Working Group. Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (1972-73) Report of Co-ordinating Committee for Training of University Teachers. Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (1987) Academic Staff Training: Code of Practice. CVCP. Coombs, P. H. (1985) The World Crisis in Education: A View from the Eighties. London: Oxford University Press. Department of Education and Science (1972) Central Arrangements for Promoting Educational Technology in the United Kingdom. London: HMSO. Fullan, M. (1982) The Meaning of Change. Columbia, Canada: Teachers College Press. Gray, H. (1989) Resisting change: some organisational considerations about university departments. Educa-

From Policy to Practice: Staff Development -the Key 127 tional Management and Administration, 17, 123-32. Greenaway, H. (1971) Training of University Teachers. London: Society for Research in Higher Education. Griffiths, J. (1989) Universities and the State: The Next Step. London: Council for Academic Freedom and Democracy. Grundy, T. (1993) Implementing Strategic Change: A Practical Guide for Business. London: Kogan Page. Guildford.P. (1990) Staff Development Provision in Universities of the United Kingdom.. Sheffield: CVCP. Hale (Chair) (1964) Report of The Committee on University Teaching Methods. London: HMSO. Handy, C. (1989) The Age of Unreason. London: Hutchinson.. HMSO (1985) Higher Education into the 1990s: A Consultative Document. London: HMSO. Jarratt (Chair) (1985) Report of the Steering Committee for Efficiencycy Studies in Universities. London: CVCP. Jones, B. (Chair) (1965) Report of the Committee on The Use of Audio-Visual Aids in Higher Scientific Education. Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. Michael, S. R. (1981) Techniques of Organizational Change. New York: McGraw-Hill. Miller, G. W. (1976) Staff Development Programmes in British Universities and Polytechnics. Paris: IIEP.

OECD (1987) Universities under Scrutiny. Paris: OECD. Partington, P. (1992) Update Three - USDU's Third Annual Report. Sheffield: CVCP. Psacharopoulos, G. (1990) Priorities in the financing of education. International Journal of Educational Development, 10 (2/3), 157-62. Schien, E. (1969) The mechanisms of change, in W. Dennis, K. Benne and R. Chin (eds), The Planning of Change. New York: Holt. Stone, L. (1974) The University in Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Times Higher Education Supplement, 2 November 1973. UGC (1972) Training of University Administrators and Teachers. Press notice, 8 February. UGC (1984) A Strategy for Higher Education into the 1990s: The University Grants Committee's Advice. London: HMSO. Wasser, G. (1990) Financing Higher Education: Current Patterns. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Watson, K. (1992) Towards a reassessment and a realignment of higher education: the triumph of the technocrat. Comparative Education, 28 (3), 315-22. Williams, P. R. C. (1986) Non-governmental resources for education with special reference to community financing. Prospects, 16, 231-41.

13

Travellers in a Strange World: Inequality and Discrimination against Women Academics and Its Negative Effects on Higher Education

BARBARA BAGILHOLE The personal Personal experiences often encourage an interest in a line of research, and despite being particular to that person often help to illustrate wider issues. I feel these experiences of mine in higher education begin to highlight the implications of male domination and the concurrent processes of marginalization and production of 'otherness' for women in academic life. Two experiences as a mature sociology student have remained vividly with me. Firstly, I wanted to do my third-year undergraduate dissertation on 'women and workers' co-operatives'. I was informed that this would not be possible as no one was interested in the topic. There was a specialist on the sociology of work and organizations, but the problem was that he was not interested in women. Secondly, during my viva for my first degree, in a room of all men academics apart from the one woman lecturer in the department, I was asked to detail how I went about my academic work, particularly how I prepared my essays. Having explained my techniques, I was asked in a follow-up question by the external examiner if my husband was a sociologist. I wonder how many married male students have been asked about their wives in connection with their academic work. I had a period of five years out of the academic profession working in the field of equal opportunities in a radical local authority during the 1980s.

Subsequently returning to an academic post, I was amazed at the continuation and persistence of inequality and discrimination against women in higher education.

Bastions of male power Almost all academics are men and they are firmly in control of higher education. The Hansard Report (1990) is heavily critical of universities and describes them as 'bastions of male power and privilege' (p. 68). As Acker (1994) graphically comments we have man-centred universities with some women in them. Women only account for 24 per cent of full-time academic staff in new universities, and 16 per cent in old universities. Their minority position is even more starkly observed if we consider their concentration in the lower grades. Only 12 per cent of grades above principal lecturer in new universities, and 6 per cent of professorial grades in old universities, are held by women (CUCO, 1994). Because of the concentration of women in the lower grades, on average women academics earn 83.9 per cent of men's salaries (AUT Woman, 1992). The number of women academics is beginning to increase. However, much of this increase comes through the 'casualization' of the profession, with the introduction of more and more temporary con-

Travellers in a Strange World tracts (Aziz, 1990). Women make up over half (53 per cent) of the part-time academic workforce, excluding those re-employed as part-time after early retirement. While many part-time staff choose to work this way, there is a sizeable proportion who work part-time because they are not able to get a full-time post (Hart and Wilson, 1992). There is much statistical evidence to highlight this problem, but little empirical work on the nature and the mechanisms that serve to maintain this inequality, and the effects of this imbalance on higher education. To begin to remedy this, I undertook a qualitative study of women academics using a semi-structured interview schedule. This was to allow the exploration of women's perceptions and experiences of being a member of this profession. In total 43 women were interviewed, consisting of all those who were available and willing to take part in the study, out of the 53 women academics in an old university. They included women from all the departments where women were present, and from across the full range of academic grades. In the university only 11 per cent of the full-time academic staff were women: 53 out of 538 staff.

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that they do so at a price. This is the price that many women academics have had to pay. I haven't had a normal woman's life because I am an academic. This has involved a lot of moving around and this has broken up relationships, because men won't pack up and come with you. There is a difficulty in combining the conventional role of a woman, family, children, with the expectations of a successful academic. Successful women academics have to demonstrate that they are more committed to the task in hand, and better. If you are accepted as a successful academic then you become an honorary man.

Recruitment and selection Informal recruitment processes are recognized as one of the major areas where discrimination and prejudice can creep into an organization. Nearly half of the women interviewed in this study had heard about their posts through personal or informal contacts. The Head of Department [HOD] had a chat with my HOD.

The findings

Family commitments There is a problem for women of combining an academic career with family commitments. Only 56 per cent of the women were married or had a partner, and only 30 per cent had children. As Dudovitz (1983) claims the separation between academic work and women's lives is false, because in the eyes of critics the two are inseparable. Many women had chosen not to have a conventional family life, in favour of their career. This appears to be a rational choice when we consider they work in an 'institutionalised context governed according to the male life cycle' (Acker and Warren Piper, 1984, p. 242). When Thomas (1990) looks at the success of students, she demonstrates that women can succeed in higher education, but

Being in small minorities in higher education women are less likely than men to have access to informal professional networks and contacts which can assist their career (O'Leary and Mitchell, 1990). Although universities claim to be meritocraciess they value reputational status above all, which is heavily dependent upon one's integration into formal and informal networks in the academic community. Universities are prime examples of LipmanBlumen's (1976) 'homosocial' institutions, being established and run by men. From this, it follows that the rules pertaining to appointment are maledriven and are evaluated according to male standards. There is discrimination in appointing women in some departments. Certain departments are against appointing women. There are subtle ways of favouring men. Some sections and departments regard women as inferior and treat them in that way. They don't see women as equal contributors.

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Nearly half of the women had negative comments about their interviews. The panels were criticized for being too large, intimidating and male, and there was some evidence of inappropriate and discriminatory questions being asked. I felt that there was a token woman there. It was a panel of men with one woman from another department. There was an inappropriate question. I was asked if I wanted to come to the university because my husband was here. This question was disallowed by personnel, but I answered it anyway.

Career aspirations Most of the women were ambitious; 71 per cent of the probationers and 62 per cent of the established staff wanted promotion. However, in contrast, their expectations are much lower. Only 30 per cent of the probationers and 23 per cent of the established staff expect advancement. These assessments dovetail with the view of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) 'that the combination of secrecy, subjectivity and amateurism which surround too many promotions procedures, is lethal to the objectives of equal opportunities' (AUT, 1992, p. 13). I try to look at it positively but looking at the statistics it's not very hopeful. There is an unofficial agenda. If you publish enough papers you'll get on, even if you fail at teaching students. It helps if you're male. Being a woman is a disadvantage. It's made as difficult as possible. There are disadvantages for women going for a promotion. Because of managerialism you need a tough corporate persona. There is discrimination but it's subterranean.

The appraisal process is an important area of career development in universities. However, Judith Byrne-Whyte, assistant chief executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission, stated that recent research showed that women were doing badly out of appraisal: 'For women, appraisal does not provide anything "value-added"; it is more an exercise in asset stripping' (Tuck, 1992, p. 5). Given the lack of seniority of academic women, both women and men are usually appraised by

men. Over two-thirds of the established staff in this study had been involved in the appraisal process, but only three had been appraisers. For most of them it was a negative experience because they felt they had different perceptions of their job to their male appraisers. Appraisal experiences often reinforced stereotyped expectations and assessments of women by upholding the traditionally male view of university life. I tried to push forward the fact that what women do cannot be measured in the same way, caring for students. I managed to give this more status, but it took time to convince my male appraiser of this. Measured against male successes and other things, it doesn't seem to count as much. Women have more contact with students at the coal-face. We take account of the needs and expectations of students. I give more individual supervision. The students know I'm always here.

Positions of power The hierarchical organization in the university works against women having a voice in important arenas. Only 46 per cent of the established staff and 29 per cent of the probationers held positions on decision-making committees. The structure says that you don't get major chairs of committees unless you're a professor. So it's a waste of time, you're not taken seriously unless you're a professor. They don't see you.

The majority of women on university committees had negative experiences: difficulties in getting to know the system, or getting themselves heard or noticed, and the male dominance of the committees. It takes a while to know what's happening and the people. Tuning into the politics takes time. It's difficult to get yourself heard and recognized. You have to be assertive to get in. They're all middle-aged men in suits. Myself, the secretary and the woman that brought the tea were the only women. The chair addressed us as 'gentlemen', as if I was transparent. The atmosphere was stuffy. They weren't used to having serious discussions with women. It's intimidating if you're the only woman in the room. I speak and say something and no one takes a

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blind bit of notice. Men speak and they can say the same thing and everyone is interested. My impression is ignored.

Women academics in a minority These women academics find themselves in small minorities in their schools, and in their departments as well. Out of the 21 departments within the university, four have no women academics at all, a further eight have only one, and most have very small minorities. This was seen by the majority of the women as a major disadvantage. They don't know how to react and respond to me. They are boys together and I don't fit in with that. As a woman, it's hard to penetrate that. I feel marginalized.

Kanter (1977) provides a framework for discussing the difficulties of women who are single 'tokens' or in small 'minorities'. They suffer from the duality of being both invisible and extra visible. Women who are in a small minority experience all the problems of discrimination and isolation characteristic of tokens. They are less confident of their abilities, less willing to take risks, less able to negotiate for their needs, and experience performance pressures, and marginality. Quite a lot of comments go on. I work hard and they complain that the conversation always gets serious when I'm around, but I find that's the best way to handle it. Jokes can get out of hand, where do you stop them? I'm treated as less important and invisible. I'm very aware of being a woman in a male environment.

Women academics report greater social isolation than men (Yoder, 1985), and they are less integrated into university departments (O'Leary and Mitchell, 1990). Nearly half of the women in this study across many departments felt isolated. I find it difficult to get to know the place. I don't go to the senior common room. No one has set out to exclude me but I don't feel part of it. I'm peripheral. All academics are isolated, but women have an extra dimension.

Over three-quarters of the women felt that having more women academic staff at the university

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would have a positive effect, changing the feel of the place, and giving it a different atmosphere. They felt that being in the minority had an effect, not just on themselves, but also on their environment. The rules are set in staff meetings where women have a low profile. It's very difficult to make yourself heard. The few women who are there don't support each other whereas men support each other with nods of approval.

Being in a large majority men are inducted into the profession under the tutelage of male models and mentors. They have more natural access to support systems. This sponsorship enhances their self-esteem, confidence and careers. 'Generally, the university is a "man's world" and the old boy network is influential' (Sutherland, 1985, p. 25). On the other hand, women have little access to female models or mentors. Being such a small minority women cannot avoid marginal status, and therefore are unwilling to risk being identified with the minority. They hesitate to support each other (Hawkins and Schultz, 1990). Women need more encouragement from mentors but get less. Less than a quarter of the women in this study had role models or professional mentors, despite feeling a need for them and appreciating their benefits. Success in the academic marketplace requires a high level of educational attainment, but moving through the system of rewards and status requires knowing colleagues who can provide guidance, support and advocacy. Women cannot function successfully unless they employ what Delamont (1989) calls the 'indeterminate skills' of the profession which 'prove elusive to women' (p. 202). These aspects are the 'distinctive modes of perception, of thinking, of appreciation and of action', the 'taste of a group, its characteristic taken-for-granted view of the world', 'tacit, undescribable competencies' (p. 29). Women need the same socialization into the profession as men get from male networks and sponsors. As it stands 'parts of the occupational identity and performance are obscured from women' (p. 29). Women are frequently not admitted into the allmale informal networks, which are wellestablished. They may therefore be excluded from

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appropriate advice, informal decision-making and discussions about their department. Particularly in research, you see it going on. Men giving advice to other men in private. Sporting activities brings them into contact with staff from other departments, which gives them opportunities that I don't have. Then they make more of the right decisions about research and so on. I've no access to the grapevine. They intertwine well and it helps their work.

Women have particular difficulty in securing access to this 'colleague system' that provides mutual career benefits through collaboration, information exchange, contacts for research resources, career planning, professional support and encouragement, and opportunities to publish (Kaufman, 1978; O'Leary and Mitchell, 1990). Networking is a crucial ingredient in professional career success and looked for in promotion decisions (Halsey, 1992). It takes time and it's more difficult as a woman, e.g. going over to a group of men at a conference and joining in their conversation. When I start talking to a man it never occurs to me that he might think I'm making a pass at him, but it has happened and is excruciatingly embarrassing. I try to be professional with them and not be aware of this but it's a problem.

Relationships with male colleagues Women report more difficulties with relationships with male colleagues, and more leave their positions because of negative relationships (Johnsrud and Atwater, 1991). This is very important because women in the academic profession are usually judged and dependent on good recommendations from men (Sutherland, 1985). They are 'double deviants', not only working in a maledominatedd world, but also expecting to receive equitable rewards and recognition (Laws, 1975). Only one woman in this study reported a positive, supportive relationship with her male colleagues, whereas nearly a third reported negative perceptions. They felt that colleagues had adverse views of them because they were women.

I was told by a male colleague that I only got the job because they wanted a woman. Their wives have looked after their children while they've concentrated on their career, and they're very macho about it. I spend most of my time with the secretaries. It's a common idea that you get through the door first, but if you do you get a knife in the back. It's more like non-communication rather than different treatment. They are quite stand-offish. They don't tell me things I need to know. They are pleasant but underneath the knife is going in. I'm asked to do things at the last minute, literally an hour before. Am I being set up to fail in front of the students? You can't do the job properly if you're not given information.

Sutherland's (1985) sample of Finnish women academics felt that male cliques formed in social gatherings, being particularly prevalent in the single-sex saunas. Many women in the present study commented similarly on the difficulty of getting to know male colleagues. There's a heavy male drinking social life. You're barred from meeting them outside the university because they're involved in sport, bars, things I can't participate in.

Roles of women academics The academic reward system is biased toward research and publications, activities exhibited more by men than women. The tendency for women academics to emphasize their teaching rather than research has been noted in several studies. Men retreat into research, and this is seen as legitimate, whereas women take on the role of nurturing students (Carnegie, 1990; Finkelstein, 1984). In this study, the majority of the women had different roles from their male colleagues on equivalent grades. This was mostly more pastoral duties, either self-imposed, student-initiated, or colleague-driven. This often gave them a problem with time management, and was damaging to their career because these duties were not recognized or rewarded by the university. The role is not different but the enactment of the role is. I'm given the pastoral side. I take more personal responsibility for students. This is difficult in the

Travellers in a Strange World present climate because there's little recognition for this. Men will wash their hands of the problem student and they end up at the door of women staff. This has a serious impact on my work.

Many women commented that their research time got squeezed out, whereas male colleagues managed to get more time for their research. Men are a bit more single-minded. If they perceive research as important to their career they are more prepared to sacrifice other parts of their work. Students are sent to me by the male staff without asking me beforehand - buck-passing. I can refuse but it makes me feel awkward to say no.

Women are less likely to apply for and receive external funding for research (Hawkins and Schultz, 1990). This affects their research productivity. Nearly a half of the women in this study were less successful than their male colleagues in getting research grants.

Relationships with students Nearly half of the women reported that there are more women students in their classes than the departmental norm, suggesting that female students gravitate towards female academics. Despite this, most have to teach male-dominated classes being in an institution where male students outnumber female students by three to one. Interestingly, about two-thirds of the women report that they treat male and female students differently, and they in turn are treated differently by the students. They spend more time with female students and give them more support. However, they do act in an ambivalent way. They respond to women students, but also show strong commitment to the male model of the profession. To survive they have to rid themselves of 'feminine' characteristics, feelings and interests. They must not be suspected of 'exaggerated' women identification. In contrast to male colleagues, they cannot appear to favour members of the same sex. They are in a situation of conflict well known in research on minorities. They are determined to succeed on the basis of their own merits, with no hint of patron-

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age. The dilemma is that they want to support other women, but for reasons of sheer survival cannot betray their discipline. With this conflict of loyalty, women who succeed in the system are in no position to support other women. It's a Catch-22 situation - how can you encourage more women to believe they can do the job if all they see is men? We need women academic role models.

In addition, women academics sometimes have problems with male students who do not accept their status or authority. Male students are more difficult to deal with. They have the power of their maleness. Although it may not be in my mind it's in theirs and it makes it difficult to be assertive. Boys are skilled at manipulating women, they've done it all their lives. Some male students find it hard to do what a woman tells them and they don't like it. They have difficulties with my authority.

Some female lecturers experience problems of sexual harassment from male students, particularly in the male-dominated disciplines in engineering and science. I stopped wearing mini-skirts following comments about my legs. I have to give as good as I get, sexual innuendo. I can handle it but some female staff find it more difficult. I treat the female students differently because they treat me differently.

Discrimination The sum of the impressions from this study was that women were discriminated against in the university. This ranged from direct discrimination in recruitment and selection to what can be categorized as indirect discrimination in areas such as representation on committees, difficulties with family commitments, lack of support for gender research, workload balance, and time pressure. Because there are so few women, they will only promote 'male' females. You have to adopt that model to get on. There is no understanding of the way women are put down. Women say things in committees and meetings and they are ignored until a man says them. These are male structures and women are

134 Barbara Bagilhole less easy in them. There is a lack of recognition that people have families. There is an ethos of a male organization and any women in it feel enormously threatened, staff and students.

Some of the discrimination was described as subtle. The women were not sure whether it was intentional or not, but it was present and had an effect. There seems to be an undervaluing and stereotyping of women as part of the male organization. This subtle behaviour is more problematic than overtly discriminatory behaviour. Often inadvertent, sometimes well-intentioned, it often seems so 'normal' as to be virtually invisible. Yet it creates an environment that wastes women's resources, takes time and energy to ignore or deal with, undermines self-esteem, and damages professional morale. It leaves women professionally and socially isolated, and makes it difficult for women to keep informed about professional matters and promote their views. As Thomas (1990) shows, higher education makes it difficult for women to succeed, 'women are marginalised and to some extent, alienated' (p. 181). Whether it's deliberate or not, most people making decisions see women as good at some things and not appropriate for other things. It's so subtle, they think that they're being objective, but they're not. Women are filtered out. We need to make explicit what we've always felt to be implicit.

Nearly two-thirds of the women reported that they had personally suffered from discrimination, and incidents that they felt were directly linked to being a woman. This included such things as the type of responsibilities they were allocated, not being included in networks or collaborative research that would have been good for their careers, and being generally excluded. I do get comments from staff, particularly my HOD as I am a mother. He says things like - 'We can't expect her to do this as she's got to leave early. That's what happens when you become a mother.' I try desperately hard, and feel very pressurized as a woman. They don't want to use you for collaborative research because you're not part of the network and they feel they can't profit from you. It's subtle, what you get asked to do and what you don't get asked to do. Women's time is regarded as less important.

Negative effects on higher education So it can be seen that universities work to maintain and reinforce women academics' unequal position and status. This has implications, not only for the women themselves, but also more broadly. It has several negative effects on higher education itself. These include the maintenance of male power and privilege within society, wastage of talent of half of the population, perpetuation of knowledge which is produced almost exclusively by men, and finally, the failure to provide appropriate support and role models for the increasing number of women students.

Maintenance of male power and privilegee The male-dominated preserve of the academy is a set of social relations involved in the production, reinforcement and maintenance of male power and privilege. The non-discriminatory nature of university charters presents an ideal of rationality, an open and meritocratic community of scholars. But as Halsey (1992) maintains, 'universities have always played a role in social stratification, controlling access to highly valued cultural elements, differentiating the capacity of individuals to enter a hierarchy of labour markets, and therefore being intrinsically inegalitarian institutions' (p. 18). Though Halsey's remarks refer to social stratification generally, it is appropriate to suggest from the above research findings that this phenomenon carries over into gender. 'Higher education cannot magically create equality ... Higher education, however, is just as guilty as other aspects of education in perpetuating the belief that women are naturally suited for some fields and men are naturally suited for others' (Feldman, 1974, p. 46). Universities reinforce and make an important contribution to the maintenance of common and traditional beliefs about gender differences and gender divisions in the labour market. Subject divisions and hierarchy by gender persist in higher education and these im-

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science like for such a person? What happens to her nerve, her self-confidence, her ability to believe in the evidence of her own intelligence, her capacity for creative thought? (pp. 12-15)

portantly contribute to students' chances in the labour market. Particular forms of knowledge are differently accessible to men and women. Thomas (1990) and Greed (1991) show the way that institutional, disciplinary and departmental cultures in higher education transmit a hidden curriculum of gender divisions and through this create or reinforce gendered subjectivities. Women are much more likely to be in the labour force today. We owe it to them to equip them with the best ungendered resources and skills (Acker, 1994).

Often the most powerful forms of discrimination are subtle and succeed in communicating to women that they are not, and can never be, full citizens of the academic community. The relative powerlessness of women academics and the major problems they face make it extremely difficult for them to foster their talent.

Wastage of talent

Male-based knowledge

Women's talent is being wasted. Firstly, very few women are admitted into the academic profession. This has been recognized and acknowledged by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, who expressed their concern over the few women in senior positions in universities, and set up a Commission to spearhead a more active and radical approach to ensure that universities gain a fairer share of available talent at all levels (CUCO, 1994). Secondly, the few women who do gain entrance find it hard as minorities functioning within a male environment to fulfil their full potential. They suffer from isolation and exclusion from their male colleagues, and challenges to their authority from male students. They have fewer support systems, with few role models or mentors, and little access to communication networks. They report problems with work relationships, and experience hostility from male colleagues and students. Gornick (1981) describes their inability to succeed quite poignantly.

Generally, men are constructing the body of knowledge, women are only adding a few fingers and toes. Academic knowledge production is always inscribed within social and cultural relations. Therefore, because men rule, their ideas are the 'ruling ideas' (Acker, 1983). Women made a very late entry into the field of academia, being admitted to higher education well after men and in smaller numbers. It was felt that a degree unsexed a woman (Kahle, 1985), and the question of women in academia is still controversial. Female agendas need to be integrated into mainstream male institutions. CUCO (1994) wants 'to encourage and help universities to realise the educational,, economic and cultural value of diversity by employing, at every level of responsibility, people drawn from all the varied communities which universities serve' (p. 3). At present, the male model of being an academic predominates, because they are in the majority and they were here first. Women academics take on the characteristics of their environment, they become 'honorary men', because men make the rules. This biases knowledge: 'It is possible that the closest we shall ever come to objectivity in science will be when we achieve a totally diverse population of scientists' (Hall, 1981, p. 26). It also influences who studies it: 'We ask why girls lack the science orientation of boys . . . without questioning why science alienates girls' (Acker, 1983, p. 198).

What did it mean to be one, or a few, among the many? What if a woman in science feels she's got to prove herself many times more than a man does; that her work is more often challenged and less often supported; that she can't get grants, equipment, promotions and tenure as easily as her male counterparts do; that she works under the peculiar strain of an excluding hierarchy of working colleagues that is always operative and always denied. What is life in

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Responsibility to students The following questions posed by the Commission for Racial Equality (1986) provide good benchmarks for measuring the success of universities in providing equal opportunities: 'Who is recruited to universities? What happens to them while they are there? What are the effects of higher education on their subsequent life chances and experiences?' Recent statistics show that girls and young women are performing better than boys and young men at all levels of the education system, and for the first time something approaching equal numbers of young men and women are beginning to enter higher education as students. Fulton (1993) argues that 'The 1990s have truly been the decade of the woman student' (p. iii). However, it has not been the decade of the woman lecturer. Here Acker's (1994) description holds: 'the higher the fewer'. Women and men students are continuing to have beliefs reinforced that women do not make academics. Women do not deal with knowledge at this level. They are teachers, but predominantly in primary schools not in universities. Therefore, there is a dearth of role models or mentors for women students in higher education. The higher education sector should recognize its responsibility to provide an equal service for women students.

Conclusion This paper highlights the difficulties for women who wish to enter and succeed in the academic profession and the subsequent negative effects of this on higher education itself. Being in a small minority has an effect both on the women themselves, and on their environment. The reality of the male environment leaves them with many fewer support systems than male colleagues. They do not have access to role models or mentors, and they find it difficult to enter informal communication networks which are so important for success

within the profession. They report difficulties with working relationships, and experience hostility from both male colleagues and students. Finally, after exposure to this masculine environment,, they are not confident about their chances of success. The majority become convinced that they do not really belong. This can lead them to react by putting considerable pressure on themselves to perform better than male colleagues, and to avoid being identified with other women. This means that the women who do succeed as 'honorary men' are in no position to support other women, and the process continues. It is particularly important to highlight and explore the processes of discrimination in universities, because as establishments of learning and knowledge they have a vital role to play in society at large. Not only is a diverse group of academics desirable for its own sake, but women students need and deserve to have a larger number of women as teachers, mentors and role models. Higher education must recognize its power and responsibility to bring about changes which demonstrate its unequivocal commitment to providing equality of opportunity for all.

Referencess Acker, S. (1983) Women, the other academics, in R. L. Dudovitz (ed.), Women in Academe. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Acker, S. (1994) Gendered Education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Acker, S. and Warren Piper, D. (eds) (1984) 7s Higher Education Fair to Women? Guildford: SRHE; Milton Keynes: Open University Press. AUT (1992) Sex Discrimination in Universities. Report of an academic pay audit carried out by the AUT research department. Association of University Teachers. AUT Woman, 25 (Spring 1992). Aziz, A. (1990) Women in UK universities: the road to casualization?, in S. S. Lie and V. E. O'Leary (eds), (1990) Storming the Tower: Women in the Academic World. London: Kogan Page. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1990) Women excel as campus citizens. Change, 22, 39-43.

Travellers in a Strange World 137 Commission for Racial Equality (1986) Words or Deeds: A Review of Equal Opportunities Policies in Higher Education.. London: Commission for Racial Equality. CUCO (1994) A Report on Universities' Policies and Practices on Equal Opportunities in Employment. Commission on University Career Opportunity. Delamont, S. (1989) Knowledgeable Women: Structuralism and the Reproduction of Elites. London: Routledge. Dudovitz, R. L. (1983) Editorial in R. L. Dudovitz (ed.), Women in Academe. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Feldman, S. (1974) Escape from the Doll's House. New York: McGraw-Hill. Finkelstein, M. (1984) The American Academic Profession:: A Synthesis of Social Scientific Inquiry since World War II. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Fulton, O. (1993) Women catch up. The Times Higher Education Supplement, , Synthesis: Higher Education Trends, 16 July, ii-iii. Greed, C. (1991) Surveying Sisters: Women in a Traditional Male Profession. London: Routledge. Halsey, A. H. (1992) Decline of Donnish Dominion: The British Professions in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hansard Society (1990) The Report of the Hansard Society Commission on Women at the Top. London: Hansard Society. Hart, A. and Wilson, T. (1992) The politics of part-time staff. AUTBulletin (January), 8-9. Hawkins, A. C. and Schultz, D. (1990) Women: the academic proletariat in West Germany and the Neth-

erlands, in S. S. Lie and V. E. O'Leary (eds), Storming the Tower: Women in the Academic World. London: Kogan Page. Johnsrud, L. K. and Atwater, C. D. (1991) Barriers to Retention and Tenure at UH-Manoa: The Experis encess of Faculty Cohorts 1982-1988. University of Hawaii at Manoa. Kahle, J. B. (ed.) (1985) Women in Science: A Report from the Field. Lewes: Falmer Press. Kanter, R. M. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporations. New York: Basic Books. Kaufman, D. R. (1978) Associational ties in academe: some male and female differences. Sex Roles, 4, 9-21.. Laws, J. L. (1975) The psychology of tokenism: an analysis. Sex Roles, I , 51-67. Lipman-Blumen, J. (1976) Towards a homosocial theory of sex roles: an explanation of the sex-segregation of social institutions. Signs, 3, 15-22. O'Leary, V. E. and Mitchell, J. M. (1990) Women connecting with women: networks and mentors in the United States, in S. S. Lie and V. E. O'Leary (eds), Storming the Tower: Women in the Academic World. London: Kogan Page. Sutherland, M. (1985) Women Who Teach in Universities. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Thomas, K. (1990) Gender and Subject in Higher Education. Guildford: Society for Research into Higher Education; Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Tuck, K. (1992) An exercise in asset stripping. AUT Bulletin (January), 5. Yoder, J. D. (1985) An academic woman as a token: a case study. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 61-72.

Travellers in a Strange World: A Response to Barbara Bagilhole

MYRAMCCULLOCH Introduction Barbara Bagilhole presents a bleak picture of the position of women academics in higher education today. Her evidence is powerful; the voices of the women interviewed for her research reveal frustration and anger at the conditions under which they labour in a particular university. One might speculate that it is the particular nature of this university which serves to exacerbate the experience, but nevertheless the picture can be seen more generally from the evidence of women throughout the higher education system. As Miriam David argues (Acker, 1994), ' ... quite clearly the academy is transformed in fact if not in effect by its gendered nature' (p. 4). Furthermore, in order to attempt to change the academy she notes that all these solutions and strategies require enormous reserves of strength and energy to keep up the political fight, which may detract from more serious pursuit of knowledge' (p. 6).

'...

Challenging the status quo However, Bagilhole's final aim, that 'Higher education must recognize its power and responsibility to bring about changes which demonstrate its unequivocal commitment to providing equality of opportunity for all' (p. 136) will only be achieved if women in the academy contribute to this challenge to the status quo and commit themselves to creating an alternative culture which remakes the

social reality which is the university. There is, from the evidence she presents, little incentive for our male colleagues to make this effort. Morley (1994) reflects on the difficulty of this process: '... acknowledgement needs to be made of how experience is socially constructed and how voices and texts are riven with ambiguity, contradiction and instability' (p. 195). The context within which this process takes place demands that women display of the very characteristics they wish to challenge: ' ... consciousness within academia can lead to paradox and contradiction as feminists try to achieve recognition and status for the quality of their professional work, without being damaged or incorporated in the process' (Morley, 1994, p. 196). For, ' . . . if women academics cannot fight their own battles, who can?' (Acker, 1994, p. 133). The need to 'look like a lady, act like a man and work like a dog' (Acker, 1994, p. 140) confirms the contradictory demands made. If 'societies only exist in so far as they are created and re-created in our own actions as human beings' (Giddens, 1982, p. 13) then this necessitates a ' ... double involvement of individuals and institutions: we create society at the same time as we are created by it' (p. 14) This further necessitates acceptance that the world will not change simply because women academics perceive there to be injustice; what is needed is 'the trained relentlessness in viewing the realities of life, and the ability to face such realities and to measure up to them inwardly' (Giddens, 1971, p. 242 on Weber's methodology). For some women, recognition of reality has led to rejection of the system as it is. However, 'Reject-

Travellers in a Strange World: A Response to Barbara Bagilhole 139

ing what is perceived through the glass ceiling can be a successful strategy for resistance, but it also perpetuates male dominance, female alienation and separation between management process and quality of conditions for employees' (Morley, 1994, p. 198). Bennet (1985) notes that within the context of school teaching, teachers themselves are not a homogeneous group. Art teachers have a very distinctive response to the notion of career. Their challenge to the system is not to compete. One of Bennet's respondents confirmed: 'I have a delightful sense of freedom in not being career oriented, and not having to resort to strategies' (p. 130). The strategy of rejection also suggests that there is a monolithic culture which women, as a homogeneous group, experience in the same way. Billing (1994) argues that this is not so. Even if women share common experiences, is there a common critique? 'To take a stand that one set of gendered values is better than another is essentialism' (p. 182). The male/female dichotomy is, she argues, simplistic; social class, age, ethnicity, religion will also make a difference as will different kinds of masculinity and femininity. The problem, of course, remains in the asymmetry in the different qualities ascribed to the feminine and the masculine. On the university as an organization, the evidence suggests the very opposite of a monolithic culture. Aldrich (1979), for example, refers to the irrepressible tendency towards variability within institutions. Bacharach (1988) confirms educational organizations as political systems, with political actors whose differences are made explicit in the decision-making processes during which the use of formal power (authority) and informal power (influence) affect the outcome of negotiating processes. This presupposes the formation and breakdown of coalitions as interest groups reflect and renew their position in response to the issue of the day. Of perhaps more importance is the location of knowledge, both as a feature of power and as a tactical stratagem. In the university, the particular distribution of knowledge which may or may not in differing circumstances be seen to constitute power is one of the characteristic features of the organization. Expertise may be located in the .

most junior member of the department, whose authority is legitimated by the simple test of its being the 'best authority*. The use of this expertise to wield power may be directed not within the university but to the outside, where the status and esteem of the learned society is sought. Indeed the power to take decisions may be contingent upon factors entirely other than formal power or informal influence. In my own research a senior academic confided: ' . . . I went to an assistant lectureship in ... and found within three months I was taking ... because I happen to get in early at 8.30 in the morning and nobody else much was in, that it became the case that everybody sent problems and all the rest of it to me, and I found that, you know, one was involved in taking decisions even though one had no status for taking them.' The clear hierarchy within a monolithic culture does not stand up to scrutiny. Elster (1989) argues that in society altruism, envy, social norms and self-interest all contribute in complex interacting ways to order, stability, co-operation and change as the perceptions of self-interest vary. None of this challenges Barbara Bagilhole's analysis of what the status quo is since it is often the political skill and pervasive networks or coalitions of male interest which are so evident, but it does begin to challenge the assumption that there is an immovable object which stands in the way of change. Fullan's conviction that' . . . focusing on the individual is not a substitute for system change, it is the most effective strategy for accomplishing it' (1993, p. 135) suggests that even the isolated woman academic can make a difference once the possibility of change becomes accepted. The academy, like any other major organization, is riven with paradox and contradiction as both a source of oppression and location for exploring liberation and empowerment' (Morley, 1994, p. 202). One of the first objects for challenge is the notion of 'career'. Evetts (1992) makes this point clear. She describes the ways in which writings of the 1950s and 1960s reified the concept and gave it an apparent structural reality. Individuals therefore see themselves as operating i n ' . . . a structure that has an objective existence, not as constituting that structure by their actions and/or inactivity. In that

140 Myra McCulloch

way career structures are reproduced in the minds, actions and interpretations of career builders themselves' (p. 1). Structures take on a 'phantom objectivity' (p. 2) and careers become 'a structure of opportunities and a manifestation of objectively assessed achievements, rather than a collection of actions by certain people some of whom have connections, networks and sponsors, then they bolster the power, authority and legitimacy of those who have used, benefited from and achieved promotion in a career' (p. 2). It is the micro-political nature of career-building that needs to be addressed so that any apparent inevitability can be seen more clearly as subject to political action. Evetts, following Giddens (1981), adopts the notion of structuration where 'action and structure stand in a relation of logical entailment: the concept of action presumes that of structure and vice versa' (Giddens, 1981, p. 171). In other words there are interrelationships between career actions and career structures: what we do can actually affect the structure and linkages between positions. Acker (1989) makes a similar point. Individuals need to recognize the power structure within which they are striving to achieve change and development congruent with their own values. 'Some time ago Peter Berger (1963) observed that a humanistic sociology might still depict individuals as puppets controlled by social forces, but that they would retain the capacity to look up and see who pulls the strings' (p. 19). Lawn (1988) notes examples of the effectiveness of individual and collaborative action in making or resisting change. 'The women Primary Teachers ... found a number of ways to contest the patriarchal management of their schools and in so doing ... have tried to protect their definition of "the good teacher" and so of their skill' (p. 175). The 'management of change' literature certainly supports the view that the intentions of the top members of the hierarchy in an institution can rarely be found implemented in their entirety at the bottom of the ladder. The definition of reality is still, however, predominantly in the hands of men. Kanter (1977) suggests that 'equality for women cannot be solved without structures that potentially benefit all organization members more broadly' (p. 606). This

necessitates structural changes within which individuals can act. The male-dominated criteria for promotion need to be replaced not simply by affirmative action but by enabling strategies such as developing new jobs; developing eligibility for promotion; encouraging job rotation and team rotation; decentralizing more leadership opportunities and, perhaps more importantly, rewarding managers for subordinate mobility (p. 615). To empower those women and others who currently operate at a disadvantage requires attention to both sides of power' (p. 616). However, whatever successes may be gained at organizational level, there are still constraints imposed by the socioeconomicc structure as a whole. The current hold on expansion in the universities does not encourage innovative, employee-centred projects to be established. It is salutary also to note Kanter's 'and others' category. Bartol (1978) reminds us that women are not the only group who are filtered out of the promotion stakes; but it is their visible and systematic failure that makes it obvious.

Alliances and coalitions Barbara Bagilhole states that Thee nondiscriminatory nature of university charters presents an ideal of rationality, an open and meritocratic community of scholars' (p. 134). This, although it may be imperfectly implemented, should not be underestimated in the challenge by women to the status quo. Billing (1994) reminds us: 'Power relations are not given once and for all but are constantly produced and reproduced' (p. 183). Although universities are male-dominated political institutions, they are also subject, through Charter, Statutes and Ordinances, to a bureaucratic core of rules guarded by a strictly hierarchical administrative system. Whereas there may be criticisms attached to manifestations of bureaucratic organizations, the advantages of bureaucracy in relation to equal opportunities should be employed in the struggle for change. For example, The construction of a purely rational course of action ... serves the sociologist as a type

Travellers in a Strange World: A Response to Barbara Bagilhole

(ideal type) which has the merit of clear understandability and lack of ambiguity. By comparison with this it is possible to understand the ways in which actual action is influenced by irrational factors of all sorts' (Weber, 1947, p. 92). 'Rationalistic bias' can be used as a methodological device. 'It certainly does not involve belief in the actual predominance of rational elements in human life' (p. 92). The guarantees of formal rationality, 'clarity, consistency, certainty, coherence and system were all attributes which logic brought to reason, providing the form for thought, generated by thought alone' (pp. 117-18). In Weber's bureaucratic system, individuals are free and subject to authority only with respect to their impersonal official obligations within a clearly defined hierarchy; having a clearly defined sphere of competence and a free contractual relationship. This leads to a social 'levelling' (p. 340) and the dominance of impersonality 'sine ira et studio' (p. 340) - without hatred or passion. 'Everyone is subject to formal equality of treatment' (p. 340). Parsons in his introduction to this volume of Weber's work puts this stress on equality more strongly. Bureaucracy forms a protective structure within which 'the relative immunity from invidious discriminations on such grounds as birth, individual favouritisms, ethnic or class status, have their roots in this pattern' (p. 82). Parsons feared the effects of human agency within the system where other critics feared the lack of effect of human agency (Michels in Mouzelis, 1975). In this Parsons can be said to have reason. In the university, the bureaucratic hierarchy which protects the rules is independent from the academic hierarchy in which women are currently disadvantaged and where it is clear that the implementation of a conceptually egalitarian system may not measure up to expectations. What a conversation between the technical-rational system which governs the administration and the more political hierarchy which governs the academic will produce is the articulation of the irrationality or inequality of the system. For example, if we take the criteria for promotion within a university, it is clear that a publicly

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stated series of criteria, rooted in what are considered to be the central tasks of the lecturer, are available against which the case of any candidate for promotion may be measured. If one then argues that the criteria discriminate against women because their career patterns are very different from those of men then the focus for change should be the criteria for promotion (i.e. a discussion of corporate values) and the way in which the criteria are to be interpreted, not the rules by which existing criteria are implemented in the formal promotions process. The rules of the institution can be used as the basis for the identification of the value-laden systems which they are called upon to legitimate. There is a paradox here, where the use of impersonal and general rules contributes to a decrease in the visibility of power relations which can promote harmony and decrease tension (in legitimizing patriarchy for example) while at the same time rules can lead to definitions of minimum acceptable conduct, thus promoting additional supervisory closeness and an increase in the visibility of power relations, which promotes tension (making explicit the rankings in the academic hierarchy where women are so over-represented in the lower levels). A separate strand of criticism of bureaucracy is centred on feminist writings of which Blackmore (1989) is an example. She argues that bureaucracy is part of a system of leadership modelled on male experience which emphasizes hierarchy, authority, individualism and claims of rationality. This 'masculinist' characterization (p. 100) fails to recognize alternative paradigms of success, action and achievement to which women are more committed. The fact that authority is seen as 'legitimately and rationally imparted through neutral organizational or bureaucratic means renders the gender relationships which co-exist in bureaucratic life non-problematic' (p. 109). Blackmore continued the argument thus: ' . . . the disempowermentt resulting from the emphasis on social control, hierarchy and bureaucracy rather than recognition of the reproduction of gendered dominance as a set of power relations' (p. 114) confirms the subordination of women's lives and ex-

142 Myra McCulloch

perience. Feminists, therefore, demand a new discourse in which discussion of organizational structures can take place. This argument, however, in stressing the centrality of the reproduction of gendered relationships in maintaining women's subordination is mistaken in blaming bureaucracy per se rather than the uses to which some bureaucracies are put as part of this systemic inequality. It cannot be argued that existing bureaucracies can sustain an independent egalitarian function within social structures which are reflections of existing power dimensions. Bureaucracy may sustain inequality through its implementation of the ethos of the dominant groups in the community (predominantly white, male and middle-class). Grant and Tancred (1992) point to clear examples of women's inequality within a patriarchal state bureaucracy in Canada. They argue that studies 'assume the power of males in positions of significance and ignore the powerless position of females, who are relegated to the more peripheral departments and to marginal positions within departments' (p. 114). 'State power has been "captured" by men' (p. 115) and 'the gendered nature of bureaucracy may be discussed in terms of how masculinity is embedded within it' (p. 116). Patriarchy is similarly embedded in state bureaucracy and one can see throughout the system a gendered division of labour reinforced by selection processes, career paths and micropolitics. Yet even so, Grant and Tancred propose that 'woman's modal locations within the productive and reproductive spheres are reflected in their occupational location within the state bureaucracy, their relatively powerless status vis-a-vis men, and their concentration where adjunct control activities are of paramount importance' (p. 126). It is the force of patriarchy at the root of inequality rather than the nature of the bureaucracy in which, undoubtedly, a 'masculine bureaucratic elite cannot function without a feminized support staff (p. 116). The social relations which govern access to different levels of the hierarchy are, through ideology and the use of power, impeding the move towards pure rationality which would ensure a more egalitarian outcome. The challenge to patriarchy is the central task.

Conclusions The inequality represented by the status quo in academic institutions is undeniable. Its capacity to resist change, however, should not be overestimated,, for it is this, in part, which disempowers women. Universities have survived so successfully over the centuries not through resistance to change but by being so accommodating to change whilst preserving their dominant culture. Taking on the force of social construction and reconstruction as a tool for empowerment and using the administrative bureaucracy which acts as the guardian of the rules in implementing the Charter of the university to point up inequity offers a possible way forward while occupying the moral high ground. The battle for equality should use the force of tradition in its favour through the defence of human rights rather than as its enemy, the irrational defendant of patriarchy.

Referencess Acker, S. (ed.) (1989) Teachers, Gender and Careers. Lewes: Palmer Press. Acker, S. (1994) Gendered Education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Aldrich, H. E. (1979) Organizations and Environment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Bacharach, S. B. (1988) Notes on a political theory of educational organizations, in A. Westoby (ed.), Culture and Power in Educational Organizations. Milton Keynes: The Open University Press, pp. 277-88. Ball, S. J. and Goodson, I. F. (eds) (1985) Teachers'Lives and Careers. Lewes: Palmer Press. Bartol, K. M. (1978) The sex structuring of organisations: a search for possible causes. Academy of Management Review (October), 805-15. Bennet, C. (1985) Paints, pots or promotion? Art teachers' attitudes towards their careers, in S. J. Ball and I. F. Goodson (eds), pp. 120-37. Billing, Y. D. (1994) Gender and bureaucracies: a critique of Ferguson's The feminist case against bureaucracy'. Gender, Work and Organization, 1 (4), 179-93. Blackmore, J. (1989) Educational leadership: a feminist critique and reconstruction, in J. Smyth (ed.), Critical

Travellers in a Strange World: A Response to Barbara Bagilhole Perspectives on Educational Leadership. Lewes: Falmer Press, pp. 93-129. David, M. (1994) Critical introduction, in S. Acker (1994), pp. 1-11. Elster, J. (1989) The Cement of Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Evetts, J. (1989) The internal labour market for primary teachers, in S. Acker (ed.) (1989), pp. 187-202. Evetts, J. (1992) Dimensions of career: avoiding reification in the analysis of change. Sociology, 26 (1), 1-21. . Fullan, M. G. (1993) Change Forces: Probing the Depths of Educational Change. London: Palmer Press. Giddens, A. (1971) Capitalism and Modern Social Theory. London: Cambridge University Press. Giddens, A. (1981) Agency, institution and time-space analysis, in K. Knorr-Cetina and A. V. Cicourel (eds), Advances in Social Theory and Methodology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Giddens, A. (1982) Sociology: A Brief but Critical Introduction. London: Macmillan. Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Grant, J. and Tancred, P. (1992) A feminist perspective on state bureaucracy, in A. J. Mills and P. Tancred, Gendering Organizational Analysis. London: Sage Publications Ltd, pp. 112-28. Kanter, R. M. (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation. New York. Basic Books, ch. 33: Organizational change, affirmative action and the quality of work life. Lawn, M. (1988) Skill in schoolwork: work relations in the primary school, in J. Ozga (ed.), Schoolwork: Approaches to the Labour Process of Teaching. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Lawn, M. and Grace, G. (eds) (1987) Teachers: The Culture and Politics of Work. Lewes: Palmer Press. Morley, L. (1994) Glass ceiling or iron cage: women in UK academia. Gender, Work and Organization, 1 (4), 194-204. Mouzelis, N. P. (1975) Organisation and Bureaucracy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (2nd edn). Weber, M. (1947) The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (trans. A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, ed. with intro. Talcott Parsons). New York: The Free Press.

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The Role of Teacher Unions in Higher Education

JOHN CLAY Introduction This chapter has been written in two parts; in the first part I intend to outline the development of one union, NATFHE (The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education), from its modest origins to the present day. In part two I will go on to argue that the changes in higher education brought about by a change in the political climate which favours 'free market' principles and the 'enterprise culture' have affected the structure and objectives of trade unions in higher education. The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) was founded in 1904 as a self-proclaimed professional association; initially as the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions (ATTI) (Turner, 1988, p. iii). ATTI did not see itself as a trade union in the accepted sense when measured against criteria for 'unionateness' and only became a fully fledged trade union in the 1960s. Nevertheless, it has played an important historical role in the development of the industrial, technical and commercial arts in Britain. The technical education movement from which ATTI arose acted as a conduit for the limited social mobility of the urban working class. In addition, the need for properly educated scientists and technologists that were more than trained artisans exerted the pressure necessary for elementary schools to upgrade their curriculum to include scientific and technical instruction. By the end of the nineteenth century, basic scientific instruction had made sufficient impact on the vast majority of schools. This created the opportunity

for large technical institutes in the metropolitan areas to develop scientific and technical studies at more advanced levels. These were some of the achievements that underpinned the foundation of the association at the beginning of this century.

Virtuous beginnings The Great Exhibition of 1851 marked a turningpoint in the establishing of what was later to become known as the technical education movement. The industrialists and politicians in Britain saw technical innovation and development from other European nations as a real threat, likely to displace Britain from its perceived industrial preeminence. As a response to this imagined or real threat, the Department of Science and Art was set up in 1853. This body instituted the first examination in 1859 that certificated artisans trained in the understanding of how basic scientific principles were applied in the manufacturing process. The Paris Exhibition of 1867 gave this process a further boost, and attention shifted towards the provision of an adequate supply of teachers of technology who could not only train more artisans in proper schools in the industrial areas but also prepare teachers who would promote scholarship and applied research in the industrial sciences. The number of students studying part-time in the evenings at technical institutes increased to 100,000 by 1870. However, 70 per cent of the teachers who taught these classes were secondary and elementary school teachers working in the

The Role of Teacher Unions in Higher Education 145 evenings to supplement their income. Despite the rapid expansion in student numbers during this period, there were only eight teachers who earned their living teaching science full-time in technical institutes, and the levels of instruction were, in the main, of an elementary nature. The elementary and especially the secondary system remained hegemonic throughout this period. The need for advanced scientific and technical education was considered vital for Britain to compete successfully against Germany, but in order for that to happen the level of scientific instruction in elementary schools needed to be widened. In response, a Royal Commission was appointed (1881-84), and this resulted in the passing of the Technical Instruction Act of 1889. This Act brought about the upgrading of many elementary schools into a form of higher school that paralleled those of the established secondary schools. This had an important effect in that by the end of the century, scientific and technical instruction was made accessible to an even greater number of students from a considerably widened constituency in terms of social class. More importantly, the benefits of a decade of compulsory elementary education were bearing fruit, and this, coupled with increasing grants and scholarships resulting from the 1889 Act, allowed for an expansion in both day and evening courses in advanced scientific and technical studies. Between 1880 and 1990, 540 honours degrees in science were awarded. Of these, 56 (10.4 per cent) were from Oxbridge; 138 (25.5 per cent) from the University of London (University College and King's); 219 (40.5 per cent) from the provincial colleges; and the remaining 127 (23.5 per cent) from the London polytechnics. The significant contribution made by the London polytechnics was not lost on the Fabian Sidney Webb, who wrote that: As education institutions, the London Polytechnics constitute a new and distinct type, in that their work is not confined to any one grade - still less to any one branch of knowledge or to any one sex - but ranges from the Higher Grade Day School for boys and girls to fourteen, up to high University instruction and post-graduate research. It is now possible in several of these institutions, for a boy or girl to enter after passing the Fifth Standard at the Public Elementary

School, to remain in the Polytechnic Day School up to sixteen or seventeen; on leaving school at any age to continue education in any branch of study, in either evening or day classes; to prepare for either manual labour, commerce, the higher ranges of technical science, or the classical curriculum of the University; to qualify for membership of the professional associations or to take a London degree, and finally to specialise in postgraduate investigation or research, in various departments of science, literature or art. (Webb, 1904, p. 162)

The London polytechnics were not alone in promoting technical education. In the industrial conurbations of the north of England, the radical tradition of the Liberals favoured assisting institutions such as Owen's College in Manchester and Keighley College. These institutions were instrumental in producing scholars who went on to win further exhibitions to the Royal College in South Kensington. Thus, the increasing flow of students of high calibre provided the stimulus for the creation of technical teaching as a profession. The membership of ATTI in the early years was significantly made up of teachers from modest backgrounds who had gained scholarships and then went on to teach in technical institutions. This was in direct contrast to secondary school teachers of science, who were in the main graduates from the traditional universities moulded in the Oxbridge tradition. The difference in status was reflected in the respective salaries and conditions of service. Despite the many gains and benefits that accrued from the efforts of the technical education movement, the domain of secondary education that provided students with entry to university education remained the preserve of the middle classes until well into the second half of the twentieth century in England. Brown (1992) has characterized this developmental phase in the education system as the 'first wave'. He describes this first wave in the development of mass schooling as one based on the 'axial principle' of educational selection by social ascription that was intended to confirm rather than transcend existing social divisions. Sandra Turner has also argued that despite the advances made by the technical education movement and subsequently by the ATTI, the secondary tradition remained hegemonic, and that the expansion in technical institutes and the poly-

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technics through state aid was made possible because the money spent was seen as a form of 'poor relief.

Professional association or a trade union? The low status of technical education in comparison to traditional secondary education was further compounded with the passing of the 1902 Education Act. This resulted in the Department of Science and Art that had overseen the growth of the technical education movement merging with a new Board of Education. In addition, the newly formed secondary teachers' association was able to exert a strong influence on the Board of Education and was determined to redirect the funds earmarked for technical education towards traditional secondary education. This threat to the technical education movement provided the impetus for the formation of the ATTI in 1904. The need to promote sectional interests was evident right from the beginning. The aims of the association as proposed at the inaugural meeting were: 1

The advancement of technical education generally. 2 The interchange regarding methods of technical teaching. 3 The promotion and safeguarding of the professional interests of technical teachers in such matters as tenure, pensions, salaries, registration of teachers, and schemes of examination and inspection. 4 To lay the views of technical teachers before various educational bodies and the public. 5 To enable technical teachers to cooperate as a body with other educational and scientific bodies where desirable. (Turner, 1988, p. 59) It can be argued with hindsight, some 90 years on, that the desire to become a professional association as distinct from an industrial or craft union was an error based on a misunderstanding of what

the term 'professional' means. Tom Rickey et al. (1990) argued that for higher education tutors, their position as salaried workers not only requires effective collective organisation and representation, but also encourages a recognition that residual attitudes of professionalism, in so far as those are counterposed to trade unionism, are growing ever more inconsistent with tutors' treatment by the employers. That higher education tutors are 'professionals', in the sense that the effective acquittal of their responsibilities requires autonomy in the work process, is not the same thing as the more general sense in which they are sometimes, and erroneously referred to as 'professionals', i.e. as feesetting experts negotiating individual, and contractually binding, deals.

Despite the conceptual distinctions that we are now able to make with hindsight, Michael Barber (1992) states that very early on in the history of the National Union of Teachers the Union's fundamental strategic aim was 'the establishment of a teaching profession on a par with doctors'. The ATTI executive was resolutely opposed to any discussion of matters relating to its third aim from appearing on the pages of the association's journal. Nevertheless, the attempts to define technical education in grandiose terms to give it high status appeared to be falling on deaf ears. An editorial in the Technical Journal at the time remarked: Technical teachers have always had a very difficult role to play in the educational world, being suspected on the one hand by organised workers as being the instrument for the training of better profit-earning machines and on the other hand furtively (sometimes openly) sneered at by the highbrow academicians as 'the purveyors of soiled goods'. (Turner, 1988, p. 60)

The ATTI's approach to negotiating salary and conditions was thus informed by the combined strategies of 'occupational professionalism' and 'status professionalism*. This approach was in many ways in stark contrast to the approach adopted by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) at that time which clearly viewed their status as salaried employees although both groups of teachers were confronted with similar problems. The desire to disassociate the ATTI from any hint of

The Role of Teacher Unions in Higher Education

trade unionism then was summarized neatly by Turner (1988) who writes that: At their conference in Wales in 1921, one unfortunate after-dinner speaker under some illusion as to the character of the ATTI, welcomed the guests with remarks to the effect that he had always been in favour of trade unionism and how nice it was to see trade unionism amongst groups of workers hitherto unorganized. The response of the then President, a Professor G. Knox, himself an ex-miner, was both forceful and uncompromising: The ATTI is not a trade union', he replied, [it] 'does not agree with the normal trade union methods and certainly would never go out on strike', (p. 63)

The total disregard for the 'softly-softly' approach of the ATTI leadership by the government of the day could be seen in the context of salary levels of technical teachers compared to secondary teachers. In 1911, the average salary of technical teachers was £151 whereas the entry level for a secondary teacher was £150. By 1914, the gap had widened to £175 and £165 respectively. The shift from delusions of grandeur to one of realism took a long time in coming. In terms of its lack of effectiveness, there can be little doubt, and it serves to remind us that in the present context of trade unionism in HE, 'back to basics' is not an option.

The period of transformation The transformation from professional association to trade union was gradual. The rejection of the 1953 Burnham Technical Report has to be seen as a watershed in historical terms for the ATTI. It was a significant event because this was also the first occasion where a Burnham Report had been rejected. The executive of the ATTI did not view the rejection of the report as a breakdown in negotiations which would entail instituting sanctions but regarded their action as a signal to the management side to reopen negotiations. When the management side refused, a request was made to the minister to intervene; and when the minister declined, an interview with the leader of the Burnham Panel was sought. None of these approaches

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proved successful and five months elapsed before the original offer was accepted by the ATTI following a minor adjustment to the initial deal. This angered many members, and the growing militancy was reflected by the fact that six divisions around the country defied the executive's recommendation and voted to reject the modified offer. The years 1961 and 1963 proved to be significant in the history of the ATTI. A specially convened conference in October 1961 voted to allow members to take a day's strike action in support of the NUT. Despite this vote, the executive overruled the decision of conference and this angered the activists who were now beginning to exert a strong influence on the association. The direct interference of the minister in the 1963 Burnham negotiations proved to be a crucial determinant in the association turning its back on the strategies of the past, and in 1964, conference voted to change the order of the association's aims and objectives. This marked the beginning of the ATTI's shift from a professional association to a trade union that sought to establish the issue of salaries and conditions of its members as a first priority. The conference in 1966 voted for affiliation to the TUG, and the proposed motion was carried by a huge majority. The executive's counter-proposal to hold a referendum of all members was rejected, and this was seen as a final gesture of the old guard. However, the first attempt to seek TUG affiliation was back in 1937. A motion from the London branch requesting the executive to seek affiliation was rejected, and no further mention was made again till 1944 when it was rejected once more. The period from 1966 to 1974 saw a sea change in the conduct of the ATTI. It increasingly sought to promote itself as a trade union and the alliance it had fostered over the years with the NUT was strengthened. Many ATTI branches took supportive action over a period of ten months in 1970 when the NUT conference voted to reject the 1969 arbitration award. Some ATTI branches took action in sympathy with the schoolteachers and others contributed substantially to the NUT sustentation fund. This growing identification with the

148 John Clay

wider labour movement was evident in the motion of the executive committee to the 1970 conference which committed the association to outright opposition of the Industrial Relations Bill that was due to become law in the following year. This growing militancy of the association was acknowledged in an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement, 2 June 1972, which read: The ATTI has lived up to its reputation as the most consciously trade union of all teacher unions when two strongly worded motions condemning government policy on pay in the public sector and the Industrial Relations Act was passed by conference with scarcely a vote against.

The need for strong and vigorous campaigning to improve salaries and conditions of service in the early 1970s was essential because during the period between 1965 and 1973, Conservative and Labour governments had operated successive income policies that had had the effect of holding down lecturers' pay increases in relation to both the average wages and salaries over the same period. In fact their increases had failed to keep pace with the Retail Price Index and had fallen substantially behind those of comparable groups. The sustained pressure that was mounted over a period of time did finally bear fruit with the setting up of the independent review body in 1974. The Houghton Committee reported in December 1974 and as a result average increases of 26 per cent were achieved in lecturers' salaries. Important changes to the structure and grades such as the abolition of the Assistant Lecturer scale and the automatic progression from Lecturer II to Senior Lecturer grade for those engaged in advanced work were seen as significant gains. Overall, the Houghton settlement was viewed as a significant victory brought about through teacher union solidarity and militant action. It was nevertheless seen by others on the Right in British politics as a capitulation by the Labour government to militant teacher unions, and the Houghton settlement became a rallying point for the first Thatcher administration in its crusade to tame the teaching unions amongst others and in the drafting of the first of the three Education Acts.

ATTI to NATFHE The Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions merged with the smaller Association of Teachers in Colleges and Departments of Education (ATCDE) in 1976 to become NATFHE. The merger was seen as an opportunity by the then education secretary for the new union to shape the development of progressive education policies and to concentrate on issues relating to social justice. However, this mood of optimism did not last for long since by then it was quite evident that the period of unbridled expansion was coming to a halt and resources were becoming constrained. This was the time of the Heath administration when the Chancellor, Anthony Barber, cut £182 million from the education budget in 1973. A large redundancy programme in teacher education occurred and many training colleges were reorganized to diversify into other degree programmes. The period of Labour governments under Wilson and Callaghan were also lean times for educational expenditure, but worse was to come with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Soon after her election to office, a cut of £55 million was made to the education budget. This was followed a year later by projected cuts of up to £4000 million and with plans for further cuts in subsequent years. More importantly, legislation passed in 1980 gave the government the statutory right to control what was spent on advanced further education, i.e. public-sector HE. This was to be the start of the irreversible shift of accountability of HE (public sector) from locally elected representatives to bureaucrats in Whitehall. The National Advisory Body set up in 1982 proved to be quite successful in steering HE development in the direction determined by an increasingly ideological central government. NATFHE had two seats on this board and there were also representatives from the CBI and TUG. It acted on the instructions of the Committee for Local Authority Higher Education which was chaired by the Under-secretary of State for Education, who advised the Secretary of State on matters relating to Advanced Further Education. Despite the success achieved by NAB in reorienting HE to the needs of the market and of industry in general,

The Role of Teacher Unions in Higher Education

the ideologues of the Right felt that institutions in the HE sector were beginning to adapt and interpret the framework of funding and thereby subverting the intentions of the government's credo. NAB was viewed as a body on which local authorities still had an undue influence. The Education Reform Act (1988) broke that final link and the polytechnics became newly incorporated pics, funded via the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC).

Higher education corporations: a new deal? Hickey (1990) eloquently represented the view of elected local trade union officers to the changes brought about as a result of incorporation. He stated that: Incorporation of polytechnics was never a finely judged exercise . . . [it] was part of a grand political strategy informed by the residue of monetarist dogma, a methodological individualism hostile to any form of planning, and a nicely reactionary hankering for an appropriately differentiated education system. The characterization of the process, by some Directors of Polytechnics, as a liberation of academic endeavour from the financial and political constraints of local government was ever, at the most, charitable and naive, and at worst a calculated misassessment designed to forestall opposition at local or national level . . . There seemed little doubt to us, however, that this process was about reducing the unit cost of higher education, and relying on local management decisions to achieve this objective by 'freeing' them from LEA bureaucracy and the constraints and guarantees that the latter imposed and offered. The new constraint, the one that would now impose such an objective to be internalized by local management, was to be the requirements of the market place - a process of competitive bidding between institutions for student numbers and hence, for funds. It was the expectation that the market would foster efficiency in the sector as a whole.

The changes that have taken place since incorporation have been introduced under the ubiquitous banner of 'quality'. The language of the market pervades every document and every memorandum like rhetorical garnish. There is a

149

sharp divide between managers and the managed. The hierarchical management system that flourished in the early part of this century as applied to mass production in the manufacturing industries has been imported into the sector. Taylorism as applied to a Fordist economy, rejected as unsuitable by private corporations in a post-Fordist economy, has taken root in the newly privatized HE sector. This new but old style of management has nevertheless cloaked itself with the language of the 1980s. Its sole purpose is one of obscuring the realities as it affects people. A Radio 4 programme succinctly summed up the nature of this disease, when the presenter Frank Delaney commented that the phenomenon of using jargon to conceal the truth be coined 'obscuranto'; the very opposite of Esperanto that was designed as a language to transcend cultural and national barriers. In the new universities, every faculty is a 'cost centre' and every dean or head of faculty a 'cost centre manager'. Students have become clients and staff have become a resource. This new managerialism has grown unabated since incorporation. Every manager now has to have a designated parking space to confirm and parade his/her newfound status. Whether this 'perk' has improved the productivity of these managers is open to conjecture. The rationale offered at the time of incorporation that institutions would be freed from LEA bureaucracy has not been borne out by experience. Martin Kettle in an insightful and perspicacious article in the Guardian (20 November 1993) writes about the Thatcherite protege" John Redwood's discovery that the programme of privatization in the NHS in Wales has so far added 1500 new managers to the payroll, but only 20 more doctors. He quotes the chairman of the Harrogate Health Care Trust who said: 'We have put in extra layers of bureaucracy, of management and we actually don't know if we are getting any more health care out of this so-called market, over and above the costs.' Kettle continues: The NHS reforms - like the education reforms and all sorts of other government overhauls of the public services - have been carried out in the name of efficiency. In many cases, for efficiency read simply reduced costs or increased productivity, not in them-

150 John Clay selves undesirable goals, though frequently abused . . . What has now become too clear for comfort is that the pursuit of efficiency has itself become an inefficient task ... The goal has been debureaucratisation but what we have is rebureaucratisation. Much of this rebureaucratisation is concerned with measuring outputs and performance. The great growth industry here is inspection and monitoring. But it is also a product of the decision to devolve management, particularly financial management, in several public services. In less than a decade we have created hundreds of new cost centres in which people are now employed sending accounts to one another. . . . Central to this whole new proliferation of bureaucracy is a particularly inflexible set of management theory doctrines . . . the buzz word is 'quality'. [Which in management speak, quoting from a management training manual] is 'QUALITY: the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs'... Total quality management is the mantra of the new bureaucratic class, . . . the aim of TQM is homogenization of practice and the elimination of individual initiative. With their programmed tasks, ticks and crosses in endless multiple choice surveys, and their endless attempts to impose conformity on work practice they make political correctness seem positively liberating to the human spirit.

This new managerialism with its emphasis on employing terms such as 'efficiency', 'choice', 'competences', 'client-centred' has not gone unchallenged by locally elected NATFHE officers. However, the stress on the 'individual' at the expense of the 'social' has made and continues to make considerable inroads into this sector of HE.

Changing the future The structural changes that have taken place since incorporation - the change from polytechnics to universities and the merging of the two previously separate employers' negotiating bodies - have been countered with corresponding changes in both NATFHE and AUT. The appointment of the ex-NATFHE negotiator to the post of General Secretary of the AUT has facilitated a confederation of the two unions. There has been a distinct shift

from national to local trade union representation. The overall policy framework on salaries and conditions of service, though negotiated nationally, will increasingly contain discretionary elements, left to local negotiations for implementation. These discretionary elements, such as the performance-related component in the 1993 pay settlement, are crude attempts to drive a wedge into the process of collective bargaining at the national level. This must be resisted wherever possible, and a cost/price should be exacted from employers where a satisfactory settlement cannot be negotiated. Trade union leadership, both national and local, must find ways of seizing the initiative and shaping the debate about the future of education in general and of HE in particular. To do this successfully,, we must take a more sophisticated view of 'power'. Barber (1992) has attempted to analyse the concept of power. He criticizes Coates' important but limited study of the shifts of policy in the NUT for not exploring the different levels at which power is exercised. Coates (1972) saw the increased militancy of the NUT in the 1960s and the imposed cuts in expenditure by the government of the day as leading to successive confrontation. This simple analysis, according to Barber, is: based on what is visible alone and fails to explore why certain educational questions enter the political arena and others do not, nor how the demands that are made in a democratic society are shaped by those who control or influence what information surfaces in the public domain, (p. 75)

The complex analysis of power as developed by Steven Lukes (1974) has been employed by Barber to argue for a strategic unionism. He suggests a 3-D view of power, that extends far beyond the conflict model over issues (first dimension) and, less overtly, conflict over the decision-making agenda (second dimension) to a deeper level: the conflict over the dominant ruling class's ability in determining people's perceptions of their own needs and interests. He argues that this has been the terrain which teacher unions have not yet chosen to contest fully. In the context of education,

The Role of Teacher Unions in Higher Education

teacher unions need to engage in the battle for not only the minds but the hearts of the public at large. We should be aware that this process of engagement with the public necessarily includes a continuing dialogue with a significant percentage of our own members. As trade unionists, we must build alliances with other groups and form coalitions around specific issues and not bring sectional interests to the fore. The successful campaign to reverse the government's decision on assessment and testing in schools has shown that the juggernaut of the 'permanent revolution' can be slowed down significantly. The present opposition to school-centred initial teacher training and the creation of another unaccountable quango the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) - provide continuing challenges. Responding to initiatives from the government closely fashioned by the rightwing think tanks has forced us as trade unionists to react. To be able to define the agenda for the future, we must establish clear and unambiguous aims. The alternative vision has to be created and this requires trade union officials, both national and local, to focus on the processes as well as the structures that shape the HE system. We should involve ourselves at all levels of the system in order that the third dimension of power as defined by Lukes informs our policies and practice. In addition, there is a further dimension of power that is clearly available to teacher unions in HE that can be employed as a last resort, albeit very reluctantly, because its effects are somewhat unpredictable and akin to a two-edged sword. This strategy involves using the language of the market to expose the defects and hence quality of the product in the eyes of the clients. It is generally accepted that in marketing terms, the cost involved in establishing a brand name in an increasingly competitive market is considerable and that any bad publicity can be extremely damaging. In an increasingly price-sensitive market, adverse publicity can do untold damage and it is therefore in the interests of employers and the employed that this strategy is only contemplated in extremis. The likelihood of this misuse of power will occur when dialogue is replaced by top-down managerial edicts.

151

Conclusion In conclusion, I wish to offer a positive example of the processes within an HE system where a lead can be given by teacher trade unionists concerned with the promotion of social justice issues. If we are to make progress towards education for social justice, we need to engage in a dialogue to ensure that the structures within institutions are democratic and accountable to staff and students at all levels. We must provide students with the skills and understandings necessary to analyse and challenge the structures and processes that oppress them both at the personal level and within the wider social dimension of groups and communities who are subjugated and/or disenfranchised to perpetuate a hierarchy of power and privilege. In the context of higher education, this must include an understanding of the structures and purposes of the institution itself. The rationale and objectives in all programme areas in a higher education institution need to be measured against mission statements and statements of shared values. These should include the development of people's creative potential and an understanding of the natural world, of the society in which we live and of the work processes of that society. They should be concerned with the development of the capacity to work with others in the shaping of society's future beyond narrow national interests. However, mission statements are invariably based on the premise that there is a shared understanding of concepts, such as fairnesss/unfairness and bias/objectivity, that are clearly located in the notion that all HE institutions are liberal and humanistic. This model of equality of opportunity may even recognize the pluralist democracy that we live in. It may, furthermore, take the view that discrimination on the grounds of class, 'race' or gender is unlawful, and certainly immoral; but this model locks people into viewing inequalities manifested on a personal level, in terms of prejudice, discrimination and harassment, as inevitable consequences. A focus on the behavioural aspects of individuals or groups reinforces the view of classism, racism and sexism as unacceptable aberrant behaviour.

152 John Clay

There is a need for a Charter of Rights for students that goes beyond simple consumer rights to one that acknowledges their role in the education process as providers in the construction of another commodity, namely, knowledge. As part of the institutional structures, tutors engage in the certification process to produce a graduand who can be ranked and awarded a high-level credential. Our role as gatekeepers to the increasingly uncertain world of employment enables us to exercise considerable power over students and exact a level of compliance on their part. This whole process of certification and ranking maintains an illusion of meritocracy, fostering a culture of triumphant individualism. We need to consider the extent to which students are included in the planning of the curriculum. Course boards and boards of study usually have student representatives, but their role in the management of the programme is often limited. The method of electing representatives and defining their rights and responsibilities requires urgent reconsideration. The only credible basis for the promotion and achievement of an anti-oppression curriculum is through the development of a 'holistic' view of social justice issues by recognizing all forms of oppression and by not allowing 'experts' to colonize areas and establish hierarchies, through partnership between students and tutors who express a desire to see social justice and equality through education achieving primacy. The development of an open forum on social justice where students and staff (teaching and non-teaching) can meet in a supportive environment is a possible way forward where individual self-development comes through the sharing of experience and ideas, with tutors contributing their knowledge not by 'transmission teaching', but in an environment where individual contributions are valued and respected. The culture of the open forum must foster a climate in which individual levels of consciousness, understandings and experiences are legitimated. The position of tutors within the hierarchy gives them greater access to information which can be pooled to provide students with 'pathways into the labyrinth'. The creation of such a forum has been written about by the author in the context of teacher education (Clay et al., 1991).

Finally, and most importantly, the strategies advocated are based on the premise that it is only when staff and students are equipped to recognize oppression and develop strategies to challenge them that they will in turn feel valued and empowered as both individuals and members of a learning community. As a member and elected representative of NATFHE, I am aware of the considerable efforts that have been made by all staff, teaching and non-teaching alike, in terms of increased workloads to accommodate the vast expansion in student numbers since the late 1980s. Correspondingly, the quality of students' experience and the conditions of service for most employees have been squeezed to the point where the stresses and strains are increasingly sapping the energies of staff to enable them to respond to new ways of teaching and learning. Management structures designed in rigid hierarchies as at present in the new universities are only efficient for the topdown dissemination of information and for the bottom-up gathering of tick-lists and data. They lead to a management modus operandi that simply considers those lower down in the hierarchy as operatives who can be blamed and made to shoulder the responsibility for things going wrong. This outmoded form of managerialism simply maintains the status quo and fails to promote innovation. New ways of management need to be found to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, and unless these new forms of management involve all staff, they will leave the new HE sector impoverished and unfit to meet the needs of students who, as well-informed consumers, will become increasingly free to scour the global market for an education that more closely matches their needs.

Note The views expressed in this chapter are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of other members of NATFHE at branch, university or national level.

The Role of Teacher Unions in Higher Education 153 References Barber, M. (1992) Education and the Teacher Unions. London: Cassell. Brown, P. (1992) Economic restructuring and educational reform. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 13 (3), 291. Clay, J., Gadhia, S. and Wilkins, C. (1991) Racism and institutional inertia: a 3-D perspective of initial teacher education (disillusionment, disaffection and despair). Multicultural Teaching, 9 (3), 26-31. Coates, R. (1972) Teachers' Unions and Interest Group Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hickey, T. with Clay, J., Cole, M., Gray, F., Robertson, J., Sodagar, B. and Whitaker, M. (1990) Public sector higher education and the enterprise culture: a trade union perspective. Paper presented at the Employment Research Unit, 1990 Annual Conference: 'Employment relations and the enterprise culture'. Cardiff Business School. Lukes, S. (1974) Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan. Turner, S. (1988) Social Class, Status, and Teacher Unionism. London: Cassell. Webb, S. (1904) London Education. Longmans (p. 162). Quoted in Turner (1988), p. 10.

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Part Three International Perspectives on Higher Education Reform

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15

Educational Reform in the United States and the Former Soviet Union: Common Errors in State-directed Reform Efforts

HUGH D. HUDSON JR AND ALAN J. HOFFMAN Governmental leaders in the United States and the Soviet Union argued throughout the 1980s that schooling required intensive restructuring. Believing their case to have been made, they proposed plans for particular visions of reform. In the United States, America's decline in commerce, industry, science, and technology was held to be an artefact of declining quality in education, especially in mathematics and science. The landmark publication in this campaign was A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). Government and business leaders called for more demanding studies, a national system of standardized achievement tests, and more rigorous requirements for admission to higher education, an approach to reform centred on perceived economic needs. At the national level, politicians (mainly Republicans) and business leaders led reform efforts. At the state level, Southern Governors (largely Democrats) and business leaders influenced the federal policy guidelines which were published as America 2000 (US Department of Education, 1991).' America 2000 established six education goals: Goal 1: By the year 2000, all children will start school ready to learn. Goal 2: By the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 per cent. Goal 3: By the year 2000, American students . . . will demonstrate competency in ... English, mathematics, science, history, and

geography; every school will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy. Goal 4: By the year 2000, US students will be first in the world in science and mathematics achievement. Goal 5: By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of global citizenship. Goal 6: By the year 2000, every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conductive to learning. Economic concerns of a similar nature dominated the Soviet hierarchy's educational plans (Fischer-Galati, 1990; McLean with Voskresenskaya, 1992). The Soviet leadership proposed interschool 'training and production centres' and school links with workshops within industrial enterprises. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Soviet state-sponsored educational reform took a new twist with efforts to associate American state reform efforts with changes in the former Soviet Union. Educational bureaucrats from the independent republics met with representatives from the US Department of Education and the World Bank to determine the role the US educa-

158 Hugh D. Hudson Jr and Alan J. Hoffman

tional system could play 'as an economic, educational, and democratic model worthy of examination and customized copying' (Alexander, 1992, p. 3). But although government officials in the two countries now jointly professed that the route to educational reform lay in the subordination of education to the needs of industry, their 'reforms' remained highly problematic. To appreciate the common errors in American and Soviet state-sponsored reform, we need first to examine motivations. For the modern nation state, education has had immeasurable value: first as the insurer of cultural socialization and political indoctrination, second as the guarantor of economic advance. Consequently, the state during the past two centuries has paid ever-increasing attention to the schooling of its juveniles as a means for shaping - socially, politically, and economically - the society it wishes to rule. Russia and the United States have shared in this appreciation (see Kahan, 1965; Alston, 1969; Fitzpatrick, 1970; Sinel, 1973; Black, 1979; Okenfuss, 1979; Eklof, 1986). Not since 'Sputnik' had as much attention been directed at educational reform in the US as took place in the 1980s.2 As occurred in the late 1950s, these reformists focused upon international competition. But unlike their predecessors, they did not advocate large infusions of federal tax dollars targeted at specific goals. More significantly, they linked their reform campaign to an attack on the public education establishment. The proposed policy changes were in effect an effort to shift reform away from the humanitarian goals of the 1960s, a period, according to Contreras (1988), Kaplan (1991a) and Bunke (1992), when reform focused upon the needs of talented and gifted students, and the 1970s, when the 'disadvantaged' were targeted. Economic fears also drove Soviet reform. Those in Russia who attempted reform during the era of perestroika and continued to pursue it after the breakup of the Soviet Union banked on education as a major means to save the country from further degeneration toward a Third-World society (see Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1989). The great constant throughout the vicissitudes of Soviet-era educational reform had been the attempt by the ruling elite to

maintain a close connection between school and production. In both countries this overconcentration on economics, coupled with a lack of involvement of classroom teachers, and an aholistic approach to the problems of 'schools' produced an unintended reaction from teachers and educational theorists. Unlike earlier reform initiatives, those articulated in America 2000 engendered strong reservations. While this was partially a reaction to the criticisms of the education establishment and a reflection of the fractious nature of American society in the 1980s, serious concerns were raised. One centred upon the perceived notion that the Bush administration was largely attempting to federalize schooling under the guise of privatizing it. Responding to the 2000 initiatives, Elmore (1991, pp. 3-4) stated 'Given the degree of state level initiatives already being exercised, it is ironic that the administration which gives great deference to the states on matters of education policy would choose to enter an area of demonstrated state leadership'. Also, at least implicitly, the assumption was made at the state and national levels that teachers and school administrators and any 'insiders' were the problem and that few if any schools were doing a good job: The propelling theme of the report is the highly dubious proposition that our public schools are beyond hope or repair. Their rotten performance, swollen bureaucracies, and outdated methods consign them to education's junkyard. (Kaplan, 1991a, p. 8).

Not only were public school employees largely excluded from educational policy formation at the federal level in the 1980s, they were increasingly being reminded that they were going to be held 'accountable' for their actions, and implicitly for the perceived failings of the system. In his remarks on the issuance of America 2000, President Bush stated 'for too long, we've adopted a "no fault" approach to education. Someone else is always to blame. There's no place for "no-fault" in our schools. It's time we held our schools . . . accountable for results' (US Department of Education, 1991, p. 3). Such claims notwithstanding, America 2000 was a highly political document lacking a sound

Educational Reform in the United States and the Former Soviet Union

educational premise. As noted above, reform efforts in the United States emerged in response to perceived governmental and industrial needs in which the reformists emphasized attention to learning of 'important factual' knowledge. These reform efforts produced opposition, especially from educational researchers who studied the actual process of teaching in the school. Contrary to the ideas presented by the 'industrialists', these educators concluded that most teachers overemphasize factual learning. The true deficiency in US education was the failure to stress conceptual approaches, which they argued would develop higher levels of knowledge and more abstract thinking processes (Shaver et al., 1979; Goodlad, 1984, 1990). Finn (1984) maintained that the 'excellence movement' was almost exclusively concerned with educational outcomes, not processes. Goodlad (1984) appealed for a new pedagogy centred on enhancing critical thinking and individuality through social, vocational, and personal development. Surveying this conflict over goals and means, Rowen (1990, p. 31) concluded: Unlike past reform movements in education that have a certain measure of coherence and unity, a perplexing aspect of this latest reform movement is the lack of common ground among supporters. Rather than consisting of a set of coherent demands for change, the restructuring movement instead consists of various reform initiatives which, in the aggregate, contain conflicting accounts of what is wrong with schools and conflicting proposals about how school structures should be changed.

In an analysis of America 2000, Kaplan (1991b, pp. 8-9) charged that the plan lacked internal coherence. It was, he declared, a mixed bag where businesses were given priority in establishing goals; members of Congress each were promised a new million-dollar allocation for an innovative school in their district; parents were assured that their children would now be expected to meet tough new federal test standards, and where [the mythical 1950s television family of] Ozzie and Harriet will spring back to life with a ready-made family of clean-cut kids ready to face a color-blind world bursting with opportunity . . . As an educational strategy, America 2000 is a plan for middle class America, where pride still runs high . . . and

159

where most people like their schools. That some of these schools are performing below expectations is lamentable, but jettisoning them to conform to a market-oriented vision of schooling in a responsible democratic society is palpable nonsense and very dangerous.

A number of authorities have identified and been critical of the 'top-down' approach to reform so evident in the 1980s in the USA (Contreras, 1988; Hoffman et al., 1991; Bunke, 1992). One significant policy study which focused on major state reform efforts in the 1980s determined that local schools and systems had been forced to develop a new response to such a threat to local control, one labelled 'strategic interaction'. It found that 'ownership [of reform] is possible without participation in the shaping of policy' through tacit acceptance and concluded that 'traditional modes of describing local response to policy intervention — resistance, compliance, adaptation — fail to account for the active appropriation of policy we are witnessing' (Fuhrman et al., 1988, p. 255). The authors of this chapter, nonetheless, speculate that such 'compliance changes' are not truly internalized into school systems and that without initiation at the grass roots level meaningful change does not occur. In a study conducted by Hoffman, Hudson and Hudson (1991) US teachers were asked to prioritize broad educational goals (humanitarian, utilitarian, aesthetic, recreational, etc.). An analysis of Table 15.1 reveals that when American teachers were asked to do so, they gave only mixed reactions to the largely utilitarian goals found in America 2000. Teachers did support strongly the goals of teaching mastery of basic skills (ranked as first priority). However, teachers gave low priorities to intellectual development in the subject disciplines as well as education geared toward career, vocational and life preparations which were consistent with the thrust of America 2000 (ranked eighth and ninth respectively out of eleven goals). United States teachers could also be seen as supportive of some humanitarian goals not clearly articulated in America 2000. They ranked the goal of improving students' interpersonal understanding and human relations skills as third, selfrealization as fourth, and moral and ethical well-

160 Hugh D. Hudson Jr and Alan J. Hoffman Table 15.1 US goals of public education (mean ratings) Goal title

Standard Value deviation future

Rank order

sStandard

Value present

Rank order

Interpersonall 4.67 understanding/ humann relationss Citizenship 4.54 and civic responsibilityy Enculturation 4.16 Basic skills 5.899 instructionn Intellectual 4.61 development in the discipline Critical and 4.58 independentt thinking Emotional 4.74 and physical well-being Creativity 4.08 and aestheticc expression Self4.66 realization Moral and 4.15 ethical well-being Career, 4.60 vocational, and life preparationn

3

1.66

6.38

3

1.10

7

1.566

6.13

6

1.13

9 1

1.67 0.29

5.77 6.65

10 1

00.88

5

1.65

6.07

8

1.14

8

1.66

6.51

2

0.99

2

1.57

6.11

7

1.14

11

1.55

5.68

11

1.23

4

1.70

6.34

4

1.12

10

1.82

6.26

5

1.24

6

1.48

6.02

9

1.15

deviation

1.26

N = 279

being as fifth. Contrary to the humanist perspective, however, teachers ranked goals related to emotional and physical well-being only seventh. It appears, then, that in the USA teachers are not clearly united under the collective banner of the major purpose of education being 'to make the US more competitive in the world economic market'. They, like American society in general, appear to be divided between those who argue for the more collectivist goals (to overcome the decline and decay of American education, which, said the reformers in A Nation at Risk, if imposed from outside would be 'the moral equivalent of war') and

those reformists arguing for goals oriented toward social justice and compassion. Given this division and given the token involvement of the teaching rank and file in the formulation of the goals, one can anticipate less than an enthusiastic effort at winning this alleged 'moral equivalent of war'. Critics of the direction of federal initiatives in the 1980s focused largely on issues of equity (Kaplan, 1991a, 1991b; Orfield, 1991; Timpane, 1991). While support continued for the popular and successful 'Head Start' programme for children below the poverty level, appropriations failed to substantially deal with the realities of the United States' increasingly economically disenfranchised population. Estimates in the 1980s indicated that nearly 40 per cent of young children were growing up in poverty. Wouldn't it have been more humane, critics argued, to provide universal access to programmes like 'Head Start', to programmes concerned with pre- and postnatal care? Shouldn't money be spent to help cities and rural areas physically rebuild their outdated schools? The initiatives fail to address the need for sufficient investment in the education of children, let alone the innovative and equitable distribution of limited existing resources. Providing incentives for better performance by rewarding exemplary schools violates a basic principle of school finance ... rewarding high performance schools may deny resources to the entities which most need them. (Cardenas, 1991, p. 28)

Such pitting of schools against each other, in our view, draws society away from consideration of shared visions and a sense of community. Lewis (1991, p. 14) put the case best when she declared that America 2000 was 'but another chapter in the struggle in America that pits "our children" against "those other children". Since before the 1980s those in power and those without it have vied to control what we need to become as a nation and a society.' With regard to the thrust of the reform efforts in the USA in the 1980s, the authors agree with the critics who argue for focus upon humanitarian, child-focused goals. Additionally, and relatedly, we support reform which would have involved greater participation at the policy level by teachers, administrators and parents. To be truly effective, reform in the USA needed to be focused on people or 'citizens at risk', not a 'nation

Educational Reform in the United States and the Former Soviet Union 161 at risk'. The nation in the 1980s and early 1990s was at risk more from its internal crises than from outside economic forces. Reform should have been geared toward humanitarian, egalitarian goals. It needed to be focused upon thinking and decision-making skills. It needed to emphasize schools with characteristics identified by the school-effectiveness literature, e.g. smaller schools with safer environments, supported through appropriate technological assistance, with school and community involvement and with necessary student support services; in short, schools that communities could truly call 'home'. While such reforms may to some seem unrealistic, such 'citizen at risk' efforts were being implemented sporadically in some places in the USA, and where they were being implemented, teachers, administrators and parents were playing a significant role in conceptualizing, planning and implementing them. For advocates of the 2000 initiatives, hopes mounted with Bush's decision to appoint Lamar Alexander, former Governor of Tennessee, to the position of US Secretary of Education. Alexander was seen as a political moderate who was very popular and persuasive with strong support both politically and within the educational community. In an effort to deflect criticism that he was a weak president on domestic issues, Bush brought education to the centre stage during his 1992 reelection campaign. It seems reasonable to assume that America 2000 would have been a major policy initiative had George Bush been re-elected. In describing Lamar Alexander's abilities Kaplan (1992, p. 754) quotes Sam Kennedy, a Maury County executive, who once described his former Governor thusly: 'Lamar's strong point is that he is the best salesman I have ever met.' But Bush was not re-elected. With his defeat in 1992, America 2000 lay largely dormant until March of 1994 when the Clinton administration unveiled its Goals 2000. Not surprisingly, there were many similarities with the Bush America 2000 initiative. The six goals of the 1991 initiative were largely intact. To be sure, various constituencies had lobbied effectively for expansion of subject-matter competencies for goal 3. To the original subjects of English, mathematics, science,

history and geography, the subjects of economics, civics and government, the arts and foreign language were added. (One can readily see the influence of the legal and business communities as well as the various professional teacher organizations.) Two additional goals have been added to those proposed under Bush/Alexander in 1991. (Original goals 4-6 in America 2000 become 5-7 in Goals 2000.) Goal 4: The nation's teaching force will have access to programs for continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all American students for the next century. Goal 8: Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional and academic skills of children. The lobbying efforts of teacher and parent organizations which mobilized in response to the 1992 initiative are plainly visible. Will Goals 2000 America enjoy more success in its implementation? To his credit, President Clinton has not yet authorized use of federal monies to extend private school choice. But, unlike the Bush administration, the Clinton administration has made health care and crime more central issues in the first year and a half of its tenure. The revised goals reflect some consideration of issues teachers consider important, but the process of establishing the goals has increased their complexity and, therefore, decreased their ability to be achieved. There does appear to be some more inclination to put additional federal dollars into supporting accomplishment of the goals, which may be helpful. But problems remain, problems that find their parallel in Soviet and post-Soviet Russian reform efforts. The last major reform of Soviet primary and general secondary education began the year prior to Gorbachev's rise. Although four-fifths of secondary-school pupils did not go on to higher education during the 1970s but rather entered working life, labour shortages during the postKhrushchev era were generating pressures for

162 Hugh D. Hudson fr and Alan J. Hoffman

even more secondary-school graduates immediately to enter production. The answer provided by the 1984 reform, harking back to earlier efforts under Khrushchev, was to establish interschool 'training and production centres' and to link schools with workshops located within 'mother' industrial enterprises to train teenagers for manual employment at factories and farms (Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1989, pp. 25-6; Szekely, 1986). The regime's goals for education were also expressed in new rules to govern student behaviour announced in 1985. School children were to learn at school and demonstrate in life the virtues of industry, patriotism, comradeship, and respect for authority (Szekely, 1986, pp. 331-2). Greater order and stability in society was also to be generated through a new course, The Ethics and Psychology of Family Life' (Szekely, 1986, p. 340). But as had been true in the United States, reforms had been decreed without the active participation of teachers. The government, in the person of Gorbachev (1987, p. 27), believed that it could simply command the appropriate educational policy, one predicated upon the initial foundations of perestroika: 'The most immediate priority, which we naturally first looked to, was to put the economy into some kind of order, to tighten up discipline, to raise the level of organization and responsibility, and to catch up in areas where we were behind.'3 But the Gorbachev revolution from above produced what Hosking (1990) referred to as 'a civil society in embryo'. This emerging civil society severely criticized the authoritarianism and rigidity of Soviet education and the exclusion of teachers from the reform process. The government was thus forced to initiate a 'reform of the reforms' designed to generate public discussion and support for what the bureaucratic elite had determined to be the needs and goals of education. Included in this effort by the government to regain the initiative in education was a new statute for schools ('Provisional Statute of the General Secondary School of the USSR') which stressed the 'self-realization' of the student, the encouragement of more active and student-generated learning as opposed to lecturing, the computerization of the classroom, the creation of a 'democratic

environment' for teachers, and the development of the moral and civic qualities of individual students together with their critical thinking abilities (Gosobrazovanie SSSR, 1989; Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1989, pp. 4, 19-34; Kerr, 1989, p. 21). The capstone of the 'reform of the reforms' was a new 'Principles of Legislation for the USSR and Union Republics on Public Education' that now placed emphasis on 'humanism, moral development, [and] the cultural and spiritual development of the individual'. The law, nonetheless, continued to extol education as a means for the economic development of the country, arguing that the goal of reform was 'the growth of the intellectual, creative, and cultural potential of the country, providing the general economy with specialists of the highest quality' (Uchitel'skaia gazeta, 1990). To a large degree these 'new' concerns were rooted in early Soviet educational experimentation. A short review of Soviet education is necessary to make the dynamics of the 1980s clear. The Bolsheviks inherited an educational system that had failed to bridge the psychological gulf that separated 'the people' and 'society' (Eklof, 1986). In the initial years following the revolution, the effort to do that, and to assimilate working-class and peasant society into a new elite culture, one claiming actually to be the culture of the working class, devolved upon the Commissariat of Enlightenment. The panacea envisioned by Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky, the 'United Labour School', reflected the influence of progressive educationalists of the era in both Europe and America (Fitzpatrick, 1970, pp. 26-34). Based heavily on Dewey's 'activity school', it stressed active methods of learning: non-authoritarian, informal teacherstudent relations; a non-traditional curriculum; and, above all, the complete development of the child's individuality. The school's other, related, emphasis was on 'polytechnic' education. Students would learn numerous basic technical skills, initially without regard for a particular trade. The Bolsheviks disagreed on the setting for this training, whether in a school environment or through labour in a student commune, but were unanimous in their belief that all students should be acquainted with both in-

Educational Reform in the United States and the Former Soviet Union 163 dustrial and agricultural labour. In this they followed Marx (1930,1, p. 522), who, in comments on Robert Owen, set forth a glimpse of socialist education: This will be an education which, in the case of every child over a certain age, will combine productive labor with instruction and physical culture, not only as a means for increasing social production, but as the only way of producing fully developed human beings.

Early Soviet educational policy thus emphasized a number of goals, chief among these being the democratization of education. All children would be allowed to pursue education as far as their abilities could take them, having all first passed through the United Labour School, the basis for compulsory, universal primary education. But as early as 1921 these goals ran afoul of the imperatives of industry, reflecting the tension between the needs of the individual and those of the state found in Marx's observation on the ends of education. The United Labour School's polytechnical and individual emphasis fell gradually before the need for technical and professional training of adolescents and adult workers, being officially abandoned in 1929. The accessibility of higher education to workers and peasants, guaranteed in the 1920s by special preparatory faculties (rabfaki) for workers and peasants and by numerus clausus restricting the numbers of children from the old elites allowed into higher education, became more difficult by the mid-1930s as successful examination became the only route to higher education. The result was a fall in working-class and peasant enrolment at the university from 58 per cent in 1935 to 36 per cent in 1938 (Kerblay, 1983, pp. 149-50). Growing authoritarianism in society was paralleled by rigidity in the school. Standardized programmes of subjects and of course content replaced experimentation, with neither teachers nor students permitted choices. At local and school levels, the will of the central authorities prevailed. To ensure that the needs of industry were met through student enrolment in technical higher schools as opposed to the universities, large fees of up to 10 per cent of the average annual salary were

introduced in 1940 for classes 8-10 of the secondary schools and for the universities. But the unacceptable, at least for many, outcome was that by 1958 some 60 per cent of the university student body came from the white-collar intelligentsia, which made up only 20 per cent of the population (Kerblay, 1983, p. 156). At the same time, the argument was set forth that the schools were now 'divorced from life' and had ceased to make contributions to production (Holmes, 1988, p. 92). The result was the 'Law Strengthening the Ties Between Education and Life' (1958), which attempted to introduce mandatory 'productive work' (i.e. vocational training) in factories during the last three years of secondary schooling, and increased the period of education from ten to eleven years. This law epitomized the central error in Soviet and US educational reform: the changes had been implemented without consultation with the teachers themselves. When confronted with these mandates, teachers in complete secondary schools joined with factory managers to resist the shunting of school children to enterprises, leading to the effective shelving of this reform effort by 1966. Two reforms of the secondary-school curriculum (1966,1977) followed, with the first attempting to strengthen the intellectual rigour of general education and end the purported excessive vocationalism of the Khrushchev reform, and the second to eliminate what teachers reported as excessive difficulties incorporated in the 1966 reforms (Szekely, 1977). Given this history of reform and the past willingness of teachers in the Soviet Union to challenge the government, at least to a limited degree, the heart of Gorbachev's 'reform of the reforms' was the cooptation of those in education who might shift the focus of reform away from economic perestroika in a more humanistic direction. Gorbachev was willing to countenance the emergence of an 'opposition' among teachers provided it was a 'loyal' one; that is, one that would provide him with feedback - and eventual support - to force through a thorough restructuring of schooling guided by the needs of the economy. This loyal opposition therefore had to be informed of the

164 Hugh D. Hudson Jr and Alan J. Hoffman direction the reform of the reform was to take. This necessity was met through the creation of a special Temporary Scientific-Research Collective "School-1" ' under both the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. The goal was 'to develop models of schooling that will lead to the kinds of independentthinking, initiative-taking workers and professionals needed to carry out the economic and social changes of perestroika' (Kerr, 1989, p. 25). In 1989 a collective from School-1 produced its first theoretical statement, New Pedagogical Thinking, stressing the development of the individual and the inculcation of critical thinking (Petrovskii, 1989). But the focus on the economy was not to be lost: Academician Anatoli Avtamonov, a Sovietera educational specialist, argued that the school also must place renewed emphasis on producing what he described as 'labor-loving' children (Brodinsky, 1992, p. 382). And Academician Vasiliy Davydov (1989, p. 66), a noted reformer who after the collapse of the Soviet Union would assume the post of Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Education, reminded the readers of New Pedagogical Thinking that one of the special characteristics of the new pedagogy was the 'labour principle of education', which required 'the combination - at the appropriate age - of study with productive labour in its contemporary forms, a union that will broaden and deepen the foundations of the intellectual and physical development of young people'. Had the Soviet Union finally corrected its basic error in educational reform — proceeding with plans, based primarily on production demands, without reflecting the goals of teachers and the wisdom of practice? This is indeed the position taken by the Gorbachev government in its defence of its educational reform efforts, even though Viktor Riabov (1991, p. 15), First Deputy Director of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, added: 'It has to be acknowledged, in all honesty, that more has been done from above than directly in the educational institutions and the collectives themselves to break down the administrative-command methods of supervising education.' It is also the conclusion drawn by

some investigators, most notably McLean (1992, pp. 84-5), who interprets the Gorbachev reform efforts as part of a larger European-wide revolution of'choice and autonomy': 'This was a change of values more radical than that of Britain. The molding of the individual to achieve a collectivist society in both economic and sociopolitical terms, which had underpinned Soviet education since the mid-1920s, was abandoned. License was granted to participants in the educational system teachers, parents, students - to reject collectivist precepts that had guided practice for almost 70 years.' Such a positive assessment of the Gorbachev reform efforts is cast into serious doubt, however, by much data, including Riabov's (1991, p. 25) declaration in 1989 that 'Throughout [the reform process], the party line must remain firm with regard to young people's thorough study of Marxist-Leninist ideology, which constitutes the scientific and methodological basis for the mastery of the dialectical method of thinking and action'. Licence for teachers, parents, and students to seek new paths to educational reform was opposed by arguments published in the organ of the Soviet Academy of Pedagogical Sciences such as that by A. E. Kapto (1990, pp. 31-2), who, having extolled the virtues of centralized administration, warned that 'If a liberal, any thing-goes style prevails in the school, or if, as a bow to fashionable glasnost', everything is farmed out to the collective instead of making qualified, competent decisions, this can frequently lead to hypertrophied decentralization of administration, which is fraught with the danger of multiple authority, "street meeting democratism," turning collective discussion into a "blather-fest," and a departure from specific responsibility for the state of affairs. . . . In such a situation, it is centralization of administration that can overcome the disorder and bring things back to normal.' The lack of real change was also the central thesis of Nikolai Nechaev, in 1990 head of the Main Teaching-Methodological Administration of General Secondary Education and a member of the board of the USSR State Committee on Public Education. Writing in the organ of the USSR State

Educational Reform in the United States and the Former Soviet Union 165 Committee on Public Education, Nechaev (Nechaev and Usov, 1991, p. 11) referred to a centrepiece of reform, the 'humanization' of education, as a 'myth': To this day, the apparatus has mercilessly squeezed all creative "dissidents" out of institutions of higher learning, persecuted them, and tirelessly reduced things to the standard, the norm, the circular.' (Having made this argument, Nechaev nonetheless called for a 'dictatorship of perestroika's priorities'!) According to Edvard Dneprov (1993, p. 26), who in 1993 served as Minister of Education of Russia, only a 'semblance of reform' had been created during the period of the reform of the reforms: 'The development of a concrete working plan for carrying out of the reform was not discussed at all.' As a consequence of bureaucratic resistance and 'continual hesitancy among the authorities', the reform of education during the last years of Gorbachev was, Dneprov observed, 'suspended'. Similarly Anthony Jones (1991, pp. 4-5), editor of Soviet Education, argued that beneath all the verbiage by Soviet elites regarding freedom from past illusions lay a profound reluctance to give up older collectivist and state-centred approaches to education. Kerr (1989, p. 26) observed that 'there are entire ministries full of functionaries whose main purpose at the moment seems to be monitoring any such changes and modifying them to the point of irrelevance before they are made public'. Despite governmental obstacles to genuine reform, an embryonic civil society was emerging in the former Soviet Union in the 1980s that desired school reform. But what did that society desire? Following up on our earlier study of US teachers' attitudes toward educational goals, the authors undertook an analysis of the attitudes toward education held by a sample of teachers in the Soviet Union to look at the Gorbachev-era 'reform of the reforms' from the bottom up, and to compare the teachers' goals with those manifested by the state. The crucial questions posed were: What were the values and attitudes of teachers toward education? What did they want students to learn? How (dis)satisfied were they with the situation in their schools? Were they supporters of genuine educational and thus social transformation, or did they

continue to adhere to earlier ideas and practices?4 The data from Soviet teachers clearly demonstrate that they supported a perestroika in Soviet education, and that they were in no way ambiguous in their evaluation of the existing course and the necessary future direction of education. In this respect they did not reflect the so-called 'spiritual anarchy' among members of Soviet society that Anweiler (1993) argued prevented the establishment of a guiding philosophy for education during perestroika. They expressed the greatest desire for increased attention in the future in the area of the critical thinking - as we have seen, also the major professed goal of the government. (See Table 15.2.) Not a single teacher called for less attention to the development of critical and independent thinking in the future. Together with enhanced critical thinking, Soviet education, they indicated, should have as its most significant goal the development ' of individuality, 5 a marked departure from earlier state-sponsored collectivist goals, but in line with the Gorbachev era's public calls for respect for individuality and personal initiative. These findings parallel those reported by Brodinsky (1992, pp. 379-80) in his interviews with Soviet teachers in Nizhni Novgorod during autumn 1990. Brodinsky's teachers reported a change in teaching style due to perestroika that included the encouragement of students to ask more questions and to take part in discussion. The quest for individuality and personal initiative extended to the teachers themselves; a Nizhni Novgorod teacher counted among the 'blessings of reform' the fact that 'I don't have to look to someone above for directions', although that teacher continued: 'But then, this freedom came so suddenly. How can we teachers suddenly develop initiative when there- has been nothing in our training or in our experience to help us?' Another teacher expressed a similar discomfiture with initiative: 'It's all well and good to say that teachers may deviate from the textbook - and they may. But how many of us can and do? Aren't most of us teachers creatures of habit who follow the textbook chapter by chapter?' (Brodinsky, 1992, p. 380).

166 Hugh D. Hudson Jr and Alan J. Hoffman Table 15.2 Russian goals of public education (mean ratings) Goal title

Value Rank Standard Value present order deviation future

Rank Standard order deviation

6

2.21

6.70

1

0.79

2

1.89

5.84

11

1.49

8 1

2.08 1.71

6.39 6.23

7 9

0.95 1.18

3

1.93

6.45

6

0.95

10

2.16

6.61

3

0.79

7

2.12

6.58

4

0.86

3.27

11

1.93

6.20

10

0.98

3.41

9

1.97

6.25

8

11.19

4.22

5

1.99

6.63

2

0.91

4.23

4

2.06

6.51

5

0.98

Interpersonal 4.15 understanding/ human relations Citizenship 4.44 and civic responsibility Enculturation 3.76 Basic skills 5.30 instruction Intellectual 4.34 development in the discipline Critical and 3.33 independent thinking Emotional 3.82 and

physical well-being Creativity and aesthetic expression Selfrealization Moral and ethical well-being Career, vocational, and life preparation N = 135

Although among Soviet teachers in our sample critical thinking and individual development rated extremely high, teachers also revealed strong support for social goals. Concern for improving human relations and enhancing moral character received the highest mean scores (6.70 and 6.63, respectively), slightly ahead of the future development of critical thinking (6.61). On the whole, nonetheless, the area of greatest concern for Soviet teachers was in the individual, as opposed to the social sphere, a view of education and of the purpose of perestroika in education that should have given the Gorbachev regime cause for concern,

had it bothered to inquire into the values and attitudes of its teachers, which it did not adequately do. After increased critical thinking, they expressed the greatest desire for improvement in the area of creativity. Enhancing creativity was closely followed by a desire to increase the student's self-realization. Creativity, critical thinking and self-realization, Soviet teachers' future goals, were precisely those areas that the teachers believed to be receiving the least attention under the Gorbachev regime,6 indicating a high degree of dissatisfaction with the school goals of the Gorbachev leadership. This dissatisfaction resulted in large part from the top-down approach of Gorbachev's educational reforms. Whereas at the apex of government fundamental changes in policy and in personnel and administrative structures had been ordered, the changes as experienced by teachers themselves were far less discernible. If Soviet teachers during perestroika were prepared to sacrifice any goal in the future, it was that of teaching civic responsibility. This tendency to view the purpose of education less as a vehicle to mould citizens in a state-determined direction and more as an instrument for the flowering of the individual was reflected in their ranking the maintenance of order and stability in society as the least appropriate function of schooling.7 In this as in so many other areas, perestroika and glasnost had merely allowed members of society to express disagreement with the government's views, and not brought about a consensus between government desires and those of the people. Our research, therefore, offers some interesting predictive variables for reform in post-Soviet education. Gorbachev had support for some form of substantive reform among younger teachers. The problem area for reform remained the more experienced, and given the nature of power in Russian and Soviet society, the more powerful teachers (Hudson and Hoffman, 1993). With Gorbachev removed and with uncertainty in the political process, would they accept and vigorously promote reform efforts if they had the alternative of continuing the older state-directed, productionoriented concept of education? The picture presented by this group is unclear; for these teachers disagreed about what goals they desired for educa-

Educational Reform in the United States and the Former Soviet Union tion.8 There appears to be a perceptible conservative tendency in this group that must be overcome if post-Gorbachev reform efforts are to prove more successful than previous ones. This conclusion is reinforced by the findings of Mitina (1989) of an extremely high correlation between teachers using authoritarian methods of instruction, who were fearful of innovation, and who discouraged student expression of individuality, and years in service. Failure of reform will be even more likely if the Russian government continues the Soviet tradition of mandating reform from above with little attention to the beliefs and values of teachers. Reform in Russian education during 1994 was being guided, at the top, by The Programme of Stabilization and Development of Russian Education during the Transitional Period' (adopted by the Ministry of Education and approved by the All-Russian Conference of Educators in March 1991) and The Programme of Reform and Development of the Educational System of the Russian Federation in the Context of Profound SocioEconomic Reforms' (produced by the Ministry of Education and approved by the Russian government in August 1992). According to Minister of Education Edvard Dneprov (1993, pp. 27-8), the goals of these programmes were the elimination of the administrative hierarchy in education and the replacement of the system of orders and commands with a relationship of cooperation; the emancipation of the school, that is, the granting of pedagogical, judicial and financial autonomy; the development of creative and innovative programs in education; the decisive steps toward the renaissance of the national educational system; and the regionalization of education, toward plurality and openness, variousness and differentiation, depolitization, departization, and demilitarization of [the] educational establishment.

Although Dneprov continued that 'education is a paramount activity in spiritual productivity, that is, the "making" of man, of [the] intellectual and moral potential of society', in his discussion of educational reform his greatest attention remained focused on the contributions of education to the economy. The new god was the trinity of 'market economy, market mentality and market culture' (Dneprov, 1993, p. 29).

167

Provided teachers agreed that the 'proper' goal of education was to 'become an integral part of the market economy" one could expect the voices of teachers to be heard in Russian reform. But as our data indicate, no such agreement exists. In 1994 the proverbial question in Russian education — what is its ultimate purpose, to provide for the needs of the 'whole person', or to provide for the demands of the economy? - remained a question for debate among Russian teachers. Younger teachers ranked economic concerns well behind such Deweyist (and early Soviet) goals as the development of human relations, emotional wellbeing, and moral character. If the mistake of past reforms, of imposing truths - now so-called market truths - from on high, is finally to be avoided, the Russian educational elite will have to learn to listen more carefully to the voices of its teachers. Much the same dynamic is at play in the United States. Real reform in the USA will occur when teachers perceive themselves as powerful and establish a common reform purpose. Given their treatment and rising disrespect and disregard, teachers may well have to resort to union tactics used in other public service jobs, e.g. instead of 'blue flu' used by police officers, teachers may well have to declare 'chalk allergy' work stoppages to call attention to some of the real and pervasive problems encountered in many US schools. Reviewing the above, the authors conclude that economic competitiveness was the significant factor in the educational reform efforts in both the USA and the former USSR during the 1980s and early 1990s. In both countries, teachers and school officials played at best bit parts in the initial shaping of reform in the mid-1980s; in the USA, in fact, those in government and business pushing reform branded the members of the educational establishment as the source of problems in public education. In the former USSR, reactions by the educational establishment to initial reform directions in the 1980s led to the 1989 'reform of the reforms', a reform initiative that gave greater autonomy (empowerment) for teachers. In both countries, however, educational reform efforts were largely ineffectual in changing educational practice. While political changes in both countries, i.e. the collapse of communism in the USSR and the

168

Hugh D. Hudson Jr and Alan J. Hoffman

defeat of incumbent President Bush in the USA, contributed to education reform failures, the authors further conclude that some common errors flawed both reform processes. In addition to failing to involve members of the education establishments in the initial formulation of policies, officials in both countries lacked the experiential basis for understanding the endemic problems in their respective systems. In the USA this has resulted in a 'reform consensus' package of goals that lack philosophical coherence and are largely unachievable within the time-frame established. While Russian officials were advocating a more narrowly drawn focus in 1994 - education as a vehicle for integration of a market-oriented economy (an orientation that, referring to a similar drive by the Reagan and Bush US administrations, Kaplan (1991b, pp. 8-9) described as 'palpable nonsense and very dangerous' in a responsible democratic society) - they were again advocating policy largely in a 'top-down' direction, raising once more the question of how 'responsible' and 'democratic' the new regime truly was. Given these scenarios in Russia and the USA, we suspect that the current reform efforts will soon need to be replaced by 'Goals 2025' or even 'Goals 2050'.

5 6 7

Notes 1 Two of these governors became instrumental at the national level: Republican Lamar Alexander from Tennessee who became US Secretary of Education under George Bush, and Bill Clinton, Governor of Arkansas, who succeeded Bush as President. 2 Chubb (1991, pp. 1-2) praised reformers for addressing the entire education perspective instead of dealing with piecemeal solution, characterizing the myriad of solutions of the 1960s and 1970s concluding as ' ... the temporary pain relievers the federal government has been offering to America's schools [as] ... doing little to heal them'. 3 In March 1985, in his acceptance speech as General Secretary, Gorbachev (1987-89, II, p. 129) had expressed the primary goal as 'the accelerated socioeconomic development of the USSR'. 4 One hundred and thirty-five Soviet teachers were administered a survey. They were initially asked to rate the overall importance presently given by their educa-

8

tional system to eleven educational goal statements and then to rate the importance they believed these goals should have in the future. Next they were presented with four descriptions of 'schools of thought' regarding the appropriate function of schooling, and using the same scale asked to indicate to what extent they agreed or disagreed with each. Finally they were instructed to choose the one school of thought that most represented what they thought schools should be for. A seven-part Likert-type scale was used, where 1 equals 'extremely unimportant' and 7 equals 'extremely important', derived from a survey instrument developed by John Goodlad and his associates (1987, pp. 18-22). The schools of thought data have been scripted herein such that (1) 'maintaining order and stability' equals ORDER; (2) 'developing individual interests and abilities' equals INDIV; (3) 'participating in improving society' equals IMPROV; and (4) 'reconstructing and transforming society' equals TRANS. The authors wish to thank Dr Cathie Mayes Hudson, Assistant Vice-Chancellor for Research and Planning, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, and Dr Alexander Orlov, Laboratory Director at the Scientific-Investigative Institute of General and Pedagogical Psychology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (Moscow), for their assistance with the data. Of those responding, 47.9% chose INDIV as 'Most Significant' (MS); INDIV had the highest mean score, 6.36, compared to ORDER, the lowest, at 4.74. The mean of present creativity was 3.27, of present critical thinking 3.33, and of present self-realization 3.41. For a discussion of the need to continue to foster collectivism and social solidarity, see Davydov (1989). McLean with Voskresenskaya (1992, p. 84) quotes from Davydov; however, they cite only Davydov's comments regarding individualism. Whereas 75 per cent rated INDIV as '7', half or more also rated the remaining three functions also as '7'. And in terms of the function that they selected as most representing their own beliefs, 38.5 per cent chose either ORDER or INDIV.

References Alexander, J. C. T. (1992) Education and the former Soviet republics. American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Newsletter, 32 (3), 3. Alston, P. L. (1969) Education and the State in Tsarist Russia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Anweiler, O. (1993) Educational problems of postcommunist societies: a challenge for public policy,

Educational Reform in the United States and the Former Soviet Union 169 research and practical action. East/West Education, 14 (1) (Spring), 1-12. Black, J. L. (1979) Citizens for the Fatherland. Boulder, CO: East European Quarterly. Brodinsky, B. (January 1992) The impact of perestroika on Soviet education. Phi Delta Kappan, 73 (5), 378-85. Bunke, C. R. (1992) Vision 2000 plus: a paradigm for restructuring schools. Contemporary Education, 63 (4), 274-6. Cardenas, J. (1991) Widening, not narrowing, the gap, in Voices from the Field. Washington, DC: William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship: Institute for Educational Leadership, pp. 28-9.. Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1989) Narodnoe obrazovanie v SSSR (1986-1988) i perspektivy ego razvitiia. Moscow: Vneshtorgizdat. Chubb, J. E. (1991) Bottom-up reform from the top down, in Voices from the Field. Washington, DC: William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship: Institute for Educational Leadership, pp. 1-2.. Contreras, A. R. (1988) Use of educational reform to create effective schools. Education and Urban Society, 20 (4), 399-413. Davydov, V. V. (1989) Nauchnoe obespechenie obrazovaniia v svete novogo pedagogicheskogo myshleniia, in A. V. Petrovskii (ed.), Novoe pedagogicheskoe myshlenie. Moscow: Pedagogika, pp. 64-89. Dneprov, E. D. (1993) Reform of education in Russia and government policy in the sphere of education. East/ West Education,, 14 (l), 13-34. Eklof, B. (1986) Russian Peasant Schools: Officialdom, Village Culture, and Popular Pedagogy, 1861-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press. Elmore, R. E. (1991) World choice and competition yield quality education?, in Voices from the Field. Washington, DC: William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship: Institute for Educational Leadership, pp. 3-4. Finn, C. E. (1984) The roots of reform. EEducational Policy, 15 (1), 1-20. Fischer-Galati, S. (June 1990) The impact of modernization on the educational system: a comparative survey. East European Quarterly, 24, 275-80. Fitzpatrick, S. (1970) The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fuhrman, S., Clune, W. and Elmore, R. (1988) Research on educational reform: lessons on the implementation of policy. Teachers College Record, 90 (2), 237-58.

Goodlad, J. I. (1984) A Place Called School-.Prospects for the Future. New York: McGraw-Hill. Goodlad, J. I. (1990) Teachers for Our Nation's Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Goodlad, J. I. et al. (1987) Study of Education of Educators. Survey instrument developed by the Center for Educational Renewal, College of Education, University of Washington. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. (Used with permission.) Gorbachev, M. S. (1987) Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World. New York: Harper & Row. Gorbachev, M. S. (1987-89) Izbrannye rechi i stat'i, 6 vols. Moscow: Politizdat. Gosobrazovanie SSSR (1989) Vremennoe polozhenie o srednei obshcheobrazovatel'noi shkole SSSR. Moscow: Gosizdat. Hoffman, A. J., Hudson, H. D., Jr and Hudson, C. M. (1991) Teachers' perceptions of the goals of education in the USA: responses to the educational reform literature of the 1980's. Educational Studies, 17 (2), 117-25. Holmes, B. (1988) Educational reform in the Soviet Union, in E. B. Gumbert (ed.), Making the Future: Politics and Educational Reform in the United States, England, the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. Atlanta: Georgia State University Press, pp. 79-97. Hosking, G. (1990) The Awakening of the Soviet Union. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hudson, H. D., Jr and Hoffman, A. J. (1993) Educational reform in Russia and the USA: where are the troops? Educational Studies, 19 (3), 255-65. Jones, A. (1991) Introduction. Soviet Education, 33 (8), 3-5.. Kahan, A. (1965) Social structure, public policy and the development of education and the economy in tsarist Russia, in C. A. Anderson and M. J. Bowman (eds), Education and Economic Development. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., pp. 363-75. Kaplan, G. R. (I991a) Scapegoating the schools, in Voices from the Field. Washington, DC: William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship: Institute for Educational Leadership, pp. 8-12.2. Kaplan, G. R. (199lb) Watch out for America 2000: it really is a crusade. The Education Digest, 57 (1), 8-11.1. Kaplan, G. R. (1992) Lamar Alexander and the politics of school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 73 (10), 753-6. Kapto, A. E. (August 1990) School administration: optimal ratio of centralization to decentralization. Soviet Education,, 32 (8), 27-36. Translation of (1989) Upravlenie shkoloi: optimal'noe sootnoshenie tsentralizatsii i detsentralizatsii. Sovetskaia pedagogika, (6), 42-6..

170 Hugh D. Hudson Jr and Alan J. Hoffman Kerblay, B. (1983) Modern Soviet Society. New York: Pantheon Books. Kerr, S. T. (1989) Reform in Soviet and American education: parallels and contrasts. Phi Delta Kappan, 71 (9), 19-28. Lewis, A. (1991) America 2000: what kind of nation? Education Digest, 57 (1), 12-14. McLean, M. with Voskresenskaya, N. (1992) Educational revolution from above: Thatcher's Britain and Gorbachev's Soviet Union. Comparative Education Review, 36 (February), 71-90. Marx, K. (1930) Capital, 2 vols. London: Everyman's Library. Mitina, L. M. (1989) Formirovanie professional'nogo samosoznaniia uchitelia. Sovetskaia pedogogika, (12), 52-6. National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983) A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Washington, DC: US Department of Education. Nechaev, N. and Usov, V. (June 1991) The humanization of education: reflections after a conference. Soviet Education, 33 (6), 5-16. Translation of (1990) Gumanitarizatsiia obrazovaniia: razmyshleniia posle odnoi konferentsii. Narodnoe obrazovanie, (l), 50-54. Okenfuss, M. J. (1979) Education and empire: school reform in enlightened Russia. Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, 27 (1), 41-68. Orfield, G. (1991) Choice, testing and the re-election of a president, in Voices from the Field. Washington, DC: William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship: Institute for Educational Leadership, pp. 7-8.

Petrovskii, A. V. (ed.) (1989) Novoe pedagogicheskoe myshlenie. Moscow: Pedagogika. Riabov, V. (July 1991) The restructioning of education: ways to accelerate it. Soviet Education, 33 (7), 3-25. Translation of (1989) Perestroika obrazovaniia: puti uskoreniia. Narodnoe obrazovanie, (12), 7-16. Rowen, B. (1990) Applying conceptions of teaching to organizational reform, in R. F. Elmore (ed.), Restructuring Schools: The Next Generation of Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 31-58. Shaver, J. P., Davis, O. L., Jr and Helburn, S. W. (1979) The status of social studies education: impressions from three NSF studies. Social Education, 43 (2), 150-3. Sinel, A. (1973) The Classroom and the Chancellery: State Educational Reform in Russia under Count Dimitry Tolstoi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Szekely, B. B. (1977) Evaluation of the recent curriculum reform. Soviet Education, 19 (7 and 8). Szekely, B. B. (1986) The new Soviet educational reform. Comparative Educational Review, 30 (3), 321-43. Timpane, M. (1991) A case of misplaced emphasis, in Voices from the Field. Washington, DC: William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship: Institute for Educational Leadership, pp. 19-20. Uchitel'skaia gazeta (April 1990) Osnovy zakonodatel'stva Soiuza SSR i soiuznykh respublik o narodnom obrazovanii. Uchitel'skaia gazeta, 15, 9-10. US Department of Education (1991) America 2000: An Education Strategy. Washington, DC: US Department of Education.

16

Mobility or Brain Drain? Eye on International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

SYLVIA G. M. VAN DE BUNTKOKHUIS Introduction The recent political and economic changes in Central and Eastern Europe (GEE) have had a considerable impact on the higher education systems in the different GEE countries. In a timespan of less than a decade, fundamental changes in such areas as access, curricula, and certification are being undertaken and are to be expected. Many GEE institutions have to overcome a 40-year-old tradition of bureaucracy, centralization and inefficiency. In this contribution it is assumed that GEE as well as Western faculty members play a catalyst role in the enforcement of the reform movements in the GEE countries through their primary concern, namely international knowledge-exchange. International activities of faculty members may include, e.g., publication, attendance at international conferences or a membership of an international editorial board. The focus of this contribution,, though, is the international faculty mobility from GEE to the West and vice versa, hereafter referred to as IFM. IFM is considered to be a catalyst factor in the reform process in GEE. There is no specific literature on IFM between GEE and Western countries. Available literature on IFM in general (e.g. Kreitz and Teichler, 1992; Klasek, 1992) suggests that IFM is a valuable component towards the internationalization of universities, because it enriches the teaching and research activities of the respective host institutions and it makes all persons involved more aware of the diversity of knowledge traditions worldwide.

Thus, in many ways it opens the doors for GEE knowledge-transfer to the West and vice versa. Furthermore it contributes in many ways to the improvement of student and curriculum mobility and it provides a broadened experience for 'immobile' faculty members and students. Finally, faculty members in East and West could become the perfect ambassadors to increase interinstitutional relationships. In this contribution 'faculty' or 'faculty members', defined sometimes as 'knowledge workers', are professors, academics, and other staff members involved in research and teaching in East or West. In general, faculty members are dedicated to their disciplines which receive their first loyalty. Faculty members generally share their scientific knowledge with groups of international colleagues, though in the case of GEE, for more than four decades, there has been hardly any chance to share knowledge. This sharing implies a natural need for international knowledge-transfer and exchange. In general, the process of knowledgetransfer is the core activity of a university and can be divided into two highly interrelated functions. Namely a 'non-human carrier' for example through electronic multimedia, curriculum mobility, or journals, without the physical presence of the knowledge holder of the sending organization. Or, secondly, a 'human carrier', which involves geographically mobile faculty members who introduce specific knowledge directly and personally into receiving institutions. Such transfer can be accomplished through faculty members who accept appointments, take sabbatical leaves, work

172 Sylvia G. M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis as visiting professors, researchers, etc. This contributionn concentrates on the second type of knowledge-distribution, that taking place through or via a 'human carrier' from East to West (brain drain) and vice versa (IFM). How can we define brain drain? According to Kallen (1994) 'brain drain is the temporary or definitive loss of intellectual, scientific or cultural resources from a country, a region or an institution'. What are the differences between brain drain and international faculty mobility? In the case of IFM, we have to deal with a temporary visit to a foreign institution, often within the framework of an (exchange) agreement between the sending and the host institution. On the other hand, brain drain is completely to the benefit of the host country. IFM also includes this element, but to a lesser extent. If a GEE expert is on a temporary base (IFM) in the West, the people around this expert will benefit. In the case of IFM, it would be more appropriate to talk about 'transfer of knowledge' instead of brain drain. In Kallen's (1994) opinion, brain drain was an instrument for scientific and political progress after the Second World War (first wave of brain drain): the benefits to American science and culture were enormous. They would not have acquired their present dominant position without this enormous influx of intellect and creativity. This is also illustrated by a study of the Humboldt Foundation (1988) concerning the bilateral scientific cooperation between Germany and the USA. This exchange became in the 1930s and 1940s a one-way street: ideology, terror and war drove away all but a few of the leading German scientists. Many - if not most of the elite - emigrated to the USA and they fully integrated in the US scientific community. In many cases, also concerning the second wave of the brain drain from developing countries to the Western world, there has been a real brain gain for the receiving Western countries as well as for world science and culture. The third wave of brain drain is from Central and Eastern Europe to the West. There are some differences with the other waves. First, the GEE (donor) countries are not at all deprived of scientific competence and tradition. And secondly, contrary to

the brain drained intellectuals from developing countries, the emigrating academics have already worked in their field and have acquired an often high degree of competence. In both respects, the brain drain from GEE has much in common with that from Western Europe after the Second World War. The regained freedom, after 40 years of suppression, has released the desire to travel, to (^establish links with the academic world. In this chapter, reflections will be given on a few issues in the reform movement directly related to the context of brain drain and international faculty mobility. The contribution opens with a description of the historical and political conditions in GEE (Section 1). In Section 2, a special focus is presented on the, historically originated, ambiguous position of research. In Section 3, attention will be given to the mobility of faculty members between GEE and Western countries. As will be seen, there was and still is, a lack of reciprocity in these exchanges. In the next five sections attention will be given to the faculty members and the related know-how currently available in the reform process (Section 4), the appreciation of the local know-how (Section 5), the motivation of the faculty members involved (Section 6), the external brain drain (Section 7) and internal brain drain (Section 8). The chapter ends with a number of concluding remarks (Section 9). This chapter does not pretend to give a complete overview of the issues which are analysed. This would be impossible because of the enormous variety of countries, cultures and school systems in GEE. No two countries or educational systems are exactly alike in terms of their circumstances and needs. On the contrary, in the following sections an effort will be made to contribute to the current reform debate from the perspective of only one selected key group in the reform process, namely the faculty members and their international mobility patterns.

1 Historical and political conditions Historically speaking, the reform movement in the former socialist countries of Europe is of great importance. Through this fundamental political

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

change, about 320 million Central and Eastern Europeans and 365 million Europeans in the EU and EFTA (Seidel, 1991-92, p. 57) became closer to one another.

Economic and cultural conditions For some GEE countries, the present reform movement is an attempt to regain and improve the economic and cultural conditions which they lost in the past. It is hard, for example, to imagine that before the Second World War the standard of living in former Czechoslovakia was higher than in Austria and Germany. For centuries, the system of education in GEE had been part of European culture. Thus, for example, the University of Prague was founded in 1348, and of Krakow in 1364. The history of GEE higher education is deeply embedded in European culture. Until the nineteenth century the GEE universities were an integral part of the European academic tradition. Then the nationalization of cultures and education took place, and national systems of higher education were founded. During the last four decades, however, the Communist system considerably damaged the educational traditions. Nevertheless, it is very important to put these developments in a historical perspective. Gwyn (1994, p. 5) rightly noticed that the West sometimes risks oversimplifying the historical perspective on the '40 years' of Communism as an encapsulated period. It is now over, and the universities can somehow get back to normal almost as though nothing has happened. Not so in Gwyn's opinion: 40 years is an adult lifetime, and new thought patterns as well as institutional practices need time to develop. To illustrate this historical process, we will take a closer look at the detrimental effects of 'Sovietization' on higher education in two GEE countries, namely Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Federal Republics (CSFR). In Hungary the 'Sovietization' led to overspecialization in professional training instead of more comprehensive courses, and a lack of short-cycle training courses of middle-level manpower in engineering and business administration because, in

173

the Soviet system, there was a reluctance to set up short-cycle courses on the grounds that this would undermine the academic prestige connected with full-time courses. Now there is a lack of motivation for institutional partnerships between university and industry (Beckers and Zalai, 1992, pp. 4-6). In fact, all the above factors deal with the know-how infrastructure, in other words the poor innovation structure at the national level. The CSFR is situated in Central Europe and, historically speaking, was closely related to the West European culture. Before the First World War, its HE belonged to the most developed systems in the world. After the fall of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1939, HE entered a period of complicated development and it is obvious that the educational system suffered from the communist regime (1948-89). In the post-war period a policy towards quantitative growth influenced the development of HE. Hrabinska (pp. 13-14) describes a period of 'deformation' in the spheres of admission and centralization of its administration. The result was a gradual loss of the idea of Humboldt's 'scientific university', mainly after the invasion of the Soviet troops in 1968. This created a decrease in international recognition. Even for appointments of faculty members, membership of the Communist Party was required. Pmcha (1992, p. 84) illustrated how HE was damaged under socialism and is far behind the highly developed countries, even behind Greece, Portugal and Bulgaria, in the number of students enrolled. This shows only a tendency, because the enrolment principles (input) are very different among the GEE countries. In fact, it would be better to compare the systems at the graduation side (output), though unfortunately there are no data available. According to the 'Human Development Index' (UNESCO, 1990), CSFR ranks 25th among 130 countries. It is below nearly all countries of Western Europe but is above all other GEE countries. Consequently, what has been the impact of the recent reform movements on these two countries? It is clear that the reform needs time to develop. In Hungary, a peaceful transfer was possible from a one-party dictatorial state to pluralism. The reform process started in the late 1960s. The main

174 Sylvia G. M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis

objective of that process was to improve the 'socialist' system through decentralization and liberalization in all areas of social and economic life. In the 1970s and 1980s there were peculiar differences between Hungary and the other GEE countries. For example, unlike the other GEE countries, Hungary has a long history of reform movements with a large number of intellectual reformists. This long history of opposition made it possible to integrate new idea(l)s in the powerful elite of society relatively easily. Secondly, in spite of political constraints, Hungary has cultivated strong relations with the West in the fields of economy, culture and science. The Hungarians had a higher standard of living and they could travel to the West more freely. And what happened in the CSFR recently? In the opinion of Von Kopp (1992, p. 105), the reforms in CSFR came too late and were not radical enough to solve major historical problems or to quell discontent. Schools and universities, like other social institutions, especially during 'normalization' after 1968, were turning into institutions from which 'the spirit had gone'. This means their functions and promises were no longer supported and believed. Prucha (1992, pp. 91-7) considers as the most relevant problems in CSFR the introduction of pluralism into education. The problem is how to rebuild the comprehensive, uniform school into new models including nontraditional and private/religious schools. In fact, it is a dilemma which also occurs in Western countries, namely 'equality versus quality'. Another problem is the insufficient communication between parents and teachers. Typical for many parents is that they are only interested in marks and that they do not feel responsible for the cognitive development of their children: 'the teachers should teach them because they are paid to do so'. The quality of educational research is rather low, because, during the Communist regime, it was for a great part isolated from developments in Western (seen as bourgeois) countries and almost exclusively orientated to Soviet pedagogy. Relevant areas of change for the CSFR educational system are a greater pluralism, selection by achievement and excellence (compared with political criteria during the old regime). Further-

more, curricular changes such as an emphasis on specialized studies in modern languages and natural sciences and changes within universities themselves whereby students will have more of a choice in selecting courses. The main goals of the reform movement in CSFR, designed by the Ministry of Education in 1989, were an increase in budget, extra support to underprivileged schools and regions, an improved institutional finance system and a modification of educational laws. In the opinion of Von Kopp (1992, pp. 111-12) universities will very quickly have to come to terms with the new academic requirements, especially in subjects related to the economy, trade and management. He is optimistic about the near future because the CSFR has an unbroken tradition of education and the strength of this small nation lies in its humanistic culture. In Prucha's opinion however (pp. 85-6), the latest political developments are very dramatic. The political scene continues to be sharply differentiated. Furthermore, there is a growing tension in mutual relations between the Czech and Slovak Republics. What impact this will have on education is unclear. It may be expected that both republics will develop different educational systems in the future. So far, no political party has developed its own educational policy and the establishment of a freemarket economy will be difficult. As far as the CSFR infrastructure is concerned, the budgets for schools are very limited. This is very dramatic in HE, where the number of students significantly increased after 1989. The number of teachers has not increased because of the finances. Also, the technical equipment is lacking or old-fashioned.

From assistance to international partnershipss In the recent history of international collaboration between universities in East and West, there is a shift from assistance to partnerships in international collaboration. This tendency is in line with the present perception of international EU programmes such as TEMPUS. In the new philosophy of TEMPUS, it is not anymore an assistance pro-

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

gramme, but GEE and Western institutions are working together as equal partners. More and more, the responsibility for the management and content of the projects is transferred to the GEE partners themselves. Less emphasis on mobility schemes is envisaged. The word 'development' is avoided because of its possible negative connotation. And what about other EU programmes? It is expected that programmes such as Human Capital and Mobility and SOCRATES may become major vehicles for facilitating mobility of faculty members. Currently there is a political debate on integrating some GEE countries, such as Romania, Slovenia and Bulgaria in the EU action programme SOCRATES, because these GEE countries are future nominees for EU membership. In particular the 'weaker' countries in the present EU are not in favour of this proposal. There is also opposition of the more federal countries such as the Netherlands. The United Kingdom would possibly support the entrance of these GEE countries into the EU. They may think the more diversity of opinions the better. Countries such as Germany, Austria, the United States and Japan have played and play a major role in establishing collaborative links with GEE institutes. Many Central and Eastern Europeans have strong fears that the influence of these economically powerful nations will result in a brain drain of their talented people. Some GEE respondents fear partnerships with US institutions due to cultural differences, very likely relying on subjective observations. Reasons mentioned were the arrogance and the language accent of the Americans. Instead, there is a preference for collaboration with more 'neutral' Western European countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands. There are clear signs that international partnerships may lead to very positive effects, but that there are, sometimes unexpected, side-effects too. Good examples of universities which changed their educational system through intensive collaboration with sister institutions abroad are the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and the Technical University of Budapest. Zalai, former Vice-Chancellor of the Budapest University of Economic Sciences, stated that within this university the only noticeable attempt to radically

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renew both the structure and content of education started in, and was limited to, the area of training economics and management specialists (Zalai, 1990, p. 50). This university has a worldwide network strongly interrelated with EU networks. They offer an international programme for American students and started an international studies centre for foreign students a few years ago, offering courses on economics, management and Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the Technical University of Budapest has over 60 agreements with universities abroad. About 50 per cent of these agreements only started after 1980. However, the 24 agreements with Eastern Europe existed long before 1980. On the other hand, international partnerships may lead to unexpected side-effects in GEE higher education such as brain drain (see Sections 7 and 8), conservatism and a widening of organizational gaps.

Conservatism and organizational gaps There is an observed peculiar relation between international collaboration and conservatism in GEE higher education. To some extent, the providers of outside assistance reinforced conservatism through funding programmes without any real element of transformation of the institutions. This is often in contrast with their own declared goals. Since the international relations of the most important GEE universities have focused mainly on prestigious and conservative universities abroad, the information collected on European HE did not contain a lot of important elements of the respective HE systems. For example, little information was disseminated on new trends in HE such as vocational education, in-service training, external evaluation, etc. Furthermore, international assistance may lead to a widening of the gap between reform leaders and the grassroots level. In this respect Lajos (1993, pp. 403-11) describes a fairly pessimistic view of Hungarian higher education. Nowadays Hungarian universities can operate without great restrictions. Major developments have been car-

176 Sylvia G. M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis

ried out on the basis of outside assistance, i.e. the Soros Foundation and PHARE. The main problem is that these developments have not considerably altered the main structure, the activities at grassroots level and the way faculty members and students think. How can this process be explained? Firstly, the outside assistance focuses mainly on human resource development. Therefore the intellectual conditions of a transformation improved rapidly. Secondly, there were new leaders appointed in the educational field. Unfortunately, the change of the political and administrative elite also resulted in the emergence of many mediocre leaders of only average talent and experience. In the past these leaders worked on much lower levels in the hierarchy because of their lower competence. Often, they have no coherent vision or strategy concerning the future of HE. These new conservative leaders are very effective in hampering the transformation processes. In addition, most government representatives were academics originally. However, they never dealt with the real transformation problems in HE. Their attitude towards HE is usually conservative too. So far, the government could not carry out the necessary changes in HE. Finally, in some cases there seems to be a pact between the rectors and the government. Also, some rectors seem to have agreed with the privileged position of the Academy of Sciences. In other cases, rectors are the catalysts of innovation. An example is the current situation in Bulgaria. In general, there is a consensus at the various levels of HE on what the major problems are. For example, there is general agreement that there will be continuing financial shortages in the near future, government should play an important role and should include EU programmes in its strategy. Nevertheless it is very difficult to take actions towards reform. The problem is that the power distribution is not clear anymore and there is the constant question of state dependence or independence. Thus, for example, in the beginning people wanted to abolish the Academy of Sciences, but now this institution will remain autonomous. The Academy is neglected on the one hand, and on the other some people are afraid of its

power. It is also doubtful if this Academy is really that conservative. Currently, there is a kind of anarchy. Each university wants to change as 'the last one' and not be the first one to change. Some people find that this conservatism has also a very good side. It is remarkable that the conservatism is found more among the larger GEE universities: we are good, so why should we change? These larger universities primarily use international assistance to enlarge their status and prestige and they are interested in, e.g., purchase of instruments and computer hardware. On the other hand, the smaller GEE universities are more innovationminded. Thus, conservatism is a very selective concept. In smaller universities it is also more common to have the 'right' people in management, who are able to create wide commitment for decisions. An often-heard criticism in larger universities is that democratization causes more harm than good: e.g. the rector is elected instead of appointed and you may get the wrong people in management. Usually, individual students and faculty members may also be very open-minded towards innovation. Unfortunately, they often have a lack of power to provoke reforms. Finally it should be admitted that, similar to many of the problems described above, e.g. friction at the rector's level, conservatism in larger universities can also be compared to that in Western universities.

Transition towards autonomy Currently, there is great interest in GEE countries in renewing and founding more autonomous universities and colleges. In line with the reform movement, victims of the former regime, who were often university professors and faculty members, are being rehabilitated. In general, a withdrawal from state interference can be observed. Some universities have not fully adjusted to the new autonomous position. We will illustrate this phenomenon by taking the situation in Bulgaria and the Slovak Republic as an example. In a con-

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe 177 tribution of Delemarre and Dey (1994) the current position of higher education in Bulgaria is analysed. Early in 1990 the HE institutions gained more autonomy, and proposals have been put to Parliament such as the development of short-term post-secondary education, new degrees, integration of scientific research and education, accreditation and democratization of the governing boards of HE institutions. Bulgaria made a transition from a totalitarian to a democratic society and started with the reinstatement of worthy national educational traditions through the use of foreign experiences and by trying to overcome the dogmatic characteristics of Bulgarian education. The Ministry of People's Education is being reorganized by various unions of artists and intellectuals as well as social associations of educational workers, researchers, politicians and public figures. During a national scientific conference held in Sofia, in June 1991, new social functions and ideas of education were discussed. Some principal needs in the management of education in Bulgaria are: further decentralization and school autonomy, increased responsibilities of educational personnel, freedom of speech, mandates, competitive principles and democratic styles in education management, and diminishing the extent of administration (Angelov, 1992, p. 103). We turn now to some management issues in the Slovak Republic (Gwyn, 1994, pp. 22-4). In the collaborative TEMPUS links with the West, a clear emancipation process can be noticed. There is now a strong preference in Slovakia that either the contractor or the co-ordinator, or both, should be Slovak. Thus, the responsibility transfers increasingly to the GEE. Some of the management problems are the transfer of money across European borders which often causes frustrations by contractors of programmes, the recruitment of suitably qualified (administrative) staff while salaries which would recognize their responsibilities cannot be paid. Another management problem is the autonomy of faculties. From the point of view of the Commission of the EU, it is a requirement that the contractorship of a TEMPUS programme is held by a legal body, which normally would be

defined as the university. In Slovakia, however, the relationship between the legal status of the University and that of the faculty is a highly contentious one: both are legal entities. As an indicator of democracy generally within higher education in Slovakia, faculties have their own senates, councils and budgetary control, according to a government Act of 1990. Sometimes, a distrust of the function of rector may be observed, a distrust which originated from the tradition of the former regime of admitting only the politically reliable to the post. Any move to extend the power of the university, and by implication that of the rector, is seen as a move backwards towards centralized control of the universities. The same resistance is likely to occur with the foundation of a supporting office, such as a TEMPUS office, at the university level. The rector's position therefore is often a mission impossible: for a rector to refuse a letter of endorsement of one of the faculties would be to precipitate a crisis. In addition, there is often a lack of experience in project management and lack of coordination: as a consequence, some universities are unable to coordinate their international activities, such as applications and course development. Gwyn describes how more than one university in Slovakia put forward TEMPUS proposals for the 1994 selection which were in active competition with each other. This situation risked creating an impression of institutions as being unable to coordinate their activities. The opportunity was missed to present proposals according to carefully prepared plans which demonstrably serve the widest interests possible within the university. Finally, in particular the large scale mega-universities in the capital cities often suffer from heavy administration. They have extra difficulties with coordination, circulation of information and a lack of cohesion. Smaller universities, up to 8000 students, may tend to be more transparent to the outside world and to themselves. The above described crisis over the autonomy of faculties seems to be less acute in the smaller universities where cross-faculty cooperation is more easily established. Often, rectors are more aware of innovation and coordination of EU actions.

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Curriculum reforms A very important issue related to the development towards autonomy is the issue of academic standards. To what extent will each institution be able to meet the academic standards required in international academia? Who will control the quality of the curriculum and who will judge the quality of the recently joined international partners in the field? A GEE respondent said 'Sometimes you get very strange Western people in the East'. Western programmes may create their own 'kingdom' in the GEE. Thus, licensing procedures should be developed by the government to control quality. Otherwise you get a devaluation of standards, a fleamarket of certificates. Here we will discuss the cases of Hungary and CSFR. The reform of Hungarian education started in 1972, when the political leaders adopted a party resolution on education. This resolution aimed at modernizing the curricula and the content of teaching. In the opinion of Bathory (1992, p. 27) however, the resolution postponed the similarly necessary reform of school structure and of educational administration. It even prohibited research and development to improve the educational structure. In the 1970s and 1980s the curricular innovations were criticized and only after the Education Act of 1985, which promoted the decentralization of education administration as well as the liberalization of curricula, could an important step forward in the reform process be made. From 1990 onwards, not only the state, but also churches, foundations and private individuals could establish schools in Hungary. The churches were given back several schools which had been their former properties. The need for a reformulation of the 'history' content in the curriculum is remarkable. Essays by the author Gyorgi Konrad, popular also in Western Europe, are now used in the classroom. A less dogmatic and 'true' curriculum is being developed. The current political elite generally feels that it is necessary to return to national traditions. By this, they primarily mean the national and Christian values and only secondly the objective of being integrated into Europe. In order to illustrate the turbulent educational scene, Bathory (1992, pp. 29-38] describes the

issue of the content and curriculum, the school structure and educational evaluation. During the past 40 years, the Marxist-Leninist ideology dominated the content and curriculum. Nowadays, the autonomy of schools and teachers is seen as a strategic factor towards liberalization of education. Autonomous schools mean a high degree of freedom in determining the content and curriculum. Recently a 'National Core Curriculum' has been introduced, applicable only for compulsory education. In addition, in the former socialist regime, research and development (R&D) related to the school structure were stopped. Nowadays R&D, including methods of comparative education, are being developed. Finally, during the last two decades, international educational evaluations and research have been carried out. Benefits of this kind of research include methodology development, the contact with the West ('window effect') and system-level analyses. The last type of analyses indicated, e.g., even in 1970 that Hungarian students' average achievements were generally inferior to those in other countries. As a result, silent reading methods were accentuated. On the other hand, research indicated the effectiveness of Hungarian mathematics and science. The relatively high achievements of Hungarian students in science are explained by the fact that the political and professional (academic) interest in science coincided. As in the other GEE countries, in CSFR reforms were undertaken in the late 1980s. One of the main changes was the new Constitution of 1989, whereby the communist influence on HE was abolished. Strictly controlled education was replaced by freedom, independence and political pluralism. In 1989 some important curriculum changes were effected. Marxism was replaced by a variety of philosophical orientations. Various textbooks have been removed though new, unbiased textbooks are not available yet. Therefore, as in other eligible countries, it is not unusual for newspaper articles to be used in the classroom. Another important change concerns teaching foreign languages. Russian is no longer obligatory in schools and students can freely choose amoung English, German, French, Russian (very unpopular), etc. Prucha (1992, p. 90) observes a serious problem

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

connected with this change: where to recruit qualified teachers in modern languages and how to employ several thousand teachers of Russian? With regard to vocational and polytechnical training, schools were allowed to deviate up to 30 per cent from the prescribed curricula. Universities were given autonomy and became politically quite independent. Deans and rectors are no longer nominated on political grounds but are elected in a democratic way. A new institution at universities is the academic senate, which also has student representatives. The admission criteria are the full responsibility of each institution and are based on student abilities and achievements.

2 Ambiguous position of research During the communist regimes, several important fields of knowledge and research were located outside the university in Academies of Science with affiliated research institutions. These institutions often had enormous (research) potential because they sometimes had the sole right to award research degrees such as the PhD or DSc. Through this development, the range of scientific work of the 'full' universities decreased. The traditional unity of teaching and research was often destroyed, which led to a wasting of finances and human capital. Also, it frustrated information exchange. Last but not least, it isolated HE and training from scientific advances. What caused this ambiguous position of research? In the opinion of Berg and Vlasceanu (1991, p. 15) it was more important for university graduates to be trained as doers than as thinkers (scholars), ready to implement manpower needed for production plans. On an ideological level, it was assumed that research would propagate disloyalty and scepticism, which was entirely incompatible with a totalitarian world view. In a contribution by Amsterdamski and Rhodes attention was given to R&D policy in GEE. They saw the deep separation between research and education and the degradation of the scientific standard of some schools as a fundamental problem (1993, p. 390). In addition, many research

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institutions sometimes have excellent scientists who do not take part in the education process. For some, this seems intolerable, but at the same time it has proved very difficult to change. Others, however, do not consider the division between research and teaching as that dangerous, though they see the lack of curriculum-related research as very dangerous. Generally speaking, the incorporation of the Academy institutes into the universities is acceptable neither to the Academies, nor to the universities. Faculty members would strongly resist it, either because of the inferiority of the research standard, or because their jobs depend on the quantity of students, or for both of these reasons. In the new economic system, research work is often organized in various self-supporting centres. Unfortunately, researchers often have to operate under very poor conditions, such as low incomes and the continual battle against the 'brain drain'. In 1989 for example, progressive taxes on wages were introduced in the former USSR. This measure led to the total stagnation of HE research. A restoration of the traditional ties between teaching and research is needed, to overcome a further decline of HE quality. This unification process might threaten the position of the Academies of Science and affiliated institutes. In general, the reputation of research has not been affected negatively by the poor conditions described above. However, Prucha (1992) mentions one positive development in CSFR. In former days, universities were not supported as centres of science and research as in Western countries. Instead, the best researchers worked at the Academy of Sciences, isolated from regular teaching staff. Since 1989 there has been an effort to transform universities into centres of excellence for teaching and research. Thus, for example, the new Institute of Educational and Psychological Research (IEPR) at the Faculty of Education, Charles University in Prague, now performs studies in comparative and international education. On the one hand the mission of IEPR is to transmit foreign educational theories and practical innovations into CSFR. On the other hand IEPR will create some empirically based knowledge about the real state of educational progress in CSFR schools.

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Finally, recent law proposals in Bulgaria demonstrate an attempt to overcome the isolation of research. It is envisaged to cancel the division between research and education, which would not be in favour of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. As a survival strategy, various research institutions of the Academy have now entered into the market of commercial training and contract research. A further integration of research and education is important for the quality of HE. Only then, can the latest research findings be integrated in the curricula. Another example is given by Miihle, describing the existing gap between the Academy of Sciences and the normal type of higher education. At the University of Szeged there are 50 faculty members in biology for 400 students. At the Szegeder Academy for Biology however, there are 200 researchers employed (Miihle, 1994, p. 921). Thus, it is very dangerous that, due to the continuing gap between teaching and research, there is an ongoing brain drain and at the same time a lack of state support. As a result, a lot of the scientific power will disappear or has already disappeared. Nevertheless, none of the GEE countries has seriously considered the complete closing down of the Academies of Sciences.

3 Lack of reciprocity in IFM In many existing mobility programmes there was, until recently, a noticeable imbalance at various levels. Firstly, there was a mismatch in the quality of exchange candidates (GEE students and faculty members) willing to come to Western countries (an important incentive for faculty members was the additional source of income) and their Western counterparts, who were much less interested in visiting GEE institutions. Kallen directed a EURACE (European Academic Research) programme. He described the situation as it was on the eve of the great transition, in 1989. Until that point, all Western Europeans who applied to go to GEE institutions could get a grant. On the other hand, in GEE countries, four to five candidates applied for

any one place available in Western Europe. Obviously, this resulted in a lack of reciprocity. Highly qualified (graduated) faculty members of GEE institutions who had, quite often, learned the language of the host country, which gave them an enormous advantage, were sent to Western Europe while less qualified and lower-ranking faculty members were sent to GEE. There were tensions and misunderstandings, which were also caused by the more hierarchical educational order in GEE. Political criteria usually played a role in the selection of GEE candidates. In the past, this often resulted in the selection of senior faculty members or senior administrators without much competence in the field in question. This had a boomerang effect: visitors from the East were not taken seriously and were kept far away from top-level research. Secondly, there was an imbalance in the average length of stay abroad of GEE exchanges, which was much longer than their Western counterparts. Therefore, the kinds of activities visitors could engage in were more intensive than those of their Western colleagues in GEE. Another reciprocity problem was caused by the different fields of interest. GEE faculty candidates were particularly interested in natural sciences, technology and postgraduate studies, and less in the social sciences. The Westerners were interested in GEE languages and, increasingly, in social and political matters. In general, Westerners tend to think that the academic level in GEE was and is low. Only insiders knew that in various theoretical subjects GEE was far ahead. In a number of areas GEE academic training goes far beyond the possibilities offered in the West. This did not, however, change the negative image Western faculty members had of a 'backward and uninspiring' GEE. Furthermore, there is an imbalance in choice of country within the EU. GEE faculty members prefer the most developed Northern and Western countries of Europe instead of the less developed Southern countries. To overcome the lack of reciprocity, it is important that the needs and starting levels of the candidates are identified more clearly in advance. Zalai (p. 47) underlines that the HE systems of GEE are not comparable and are too quickly and mis-

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe 181 takenly classified with the terminology of the Anglo-Saxon educational tradition. Though some of the problems described above still exist, it is surprising to see how fast these trends are changing. The mismatch in the exchange quota is diminishing rapidly. Nowadays, an increasing number of Western faculty members (and students) are intellectually and politically interested in staying in GEE for research or study purposes, though not yet for longer periods of time. In addition, GEE students are becoming interested in a broader range of training such as MBA training.1 Let us now take a closer look at the more recently established mobility schemes within TEMPUS. The figures show clearly that there is an imbalance in faculty mobility between East and West. Thus, for example, in 1990 316 staff members travelled from Slovakia to the EU and only 177 Western staff members to Slovakia. In 1993 these figures were 446 for Slovakia to EU and 251 staff members vice versa (Gwyn, 1994, p. 77). It should be admitted that the number of mobility grants depends very much on the requirements of the programme. There are programmes (JEPs and others) which require that two-thirds or 80 per cent goes to GEE. Thus, the imbalance in exchange numbers is created by the criteria of the programme itself. Gwyn argues that the major benefit of staff mobility, as seen by the GEE representatives themselves, has been the establishment of contacts and collaborative networks. Staff mobility has been a vehicle to help the GEE institutions back into the mainstream of European academic development. So far, it remains unclear what the possible impact of these mobility flows is on e.g. implementation of new curricula or the design of new courses.

4 Available know-how Unlike the West, the GEE countries, until recently, had no lack of know-how, but a lack of appropriate (for the real life) know-how. On the one hand there

are enormous surpluses of highly trained faculty members in specific sectors. For instance, there are twice as many doctors and engineers in the former USSR as there are jobs available for them. On the other hand there is a serious need for adequate linguistic skills in HE. The lack of linguistic competence in Western languages has been, and sometimes still is, an obstacle in EastWest collaboration. In some cases this means that exchange candidates prefer to study in e.g. Britain or France instead of Denmark or the Netherlands, though GEE experts living in smaller countries like the Netherlands and Denmark deny that the language is an obstacle. They can communicate in English, though the linguistic subject (Dutch, Danish, etc.) still remains a problem. Kozma (1993, p. 37) sees the language gap as a serious problem too. In his opinion the understanding of foreign languages is closer to the nineteenth-century view than twenty-first-century requirements. Higher education systems under Soviet influence were not generally interested in developing a common tool for communication, is his explanation. In a regime of isolation, outside communication and influence were avoided as much as possible. Besides, there is a great need for adequate managerial skills. Often GEE personnel are not familiar with Western management and organization theories. Due to the long tradition of Sovietization and repression, the middle and lower management levels in an organization are reluctant to take decisions; this group is procedure-oriented and so leaves this responsibility to top management. Thus, for example, in the case of Offices for International Relations at universities, the management problems of understaffing and lack of professionalism are obvious and should be solved. Often agreements are signed by the top of a university without much understanding of their expected managerial consequences at lower levels in the organization. The general need for managerial skills can be illustrated by the following case from Bulgaria. In the recent past technological innovations were implemented through the Soviet model. These innovations often turned out to be useless,

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because of an absence of managerial insights and incentives. The secretarial level was not interested in the objectives defined by the Board of the organization. Krasteva (1992, pp. 130-3) analysed the former 'information revolution' of the Communist Bulgarian state. This Communist state started building an infrastructure and curricula to teach young people to use the new technology. It was declared that information technology would entirely transform production, management, education and everyday life. In practice the introduction of information technologies progressed irregularly. Large expensive systems were built which were not put to efficient use and did not bring about an improvement in management, or a change in the pyramidal structures. At the same time the introduction of new technology in the private sphere was strongly limited. Computers were considered investment goods and not designed for private customers. The price was unacceptable in any case. Finally, as in most other GEE countries, there is a lack of qualified faculty members. In Bulgaria you may find a group of travelling faculty members from Sofia, presenting lectures all over the country. There is a high demand for management and marketing courses. Quite often this demand is more like a fashionable trend, like 'Rock and Roll' in the 1950s. It is rather tragic that 50 per cent of the faculty members in HE were appointed for ideological rather than for academic reasons. In 1991 Paspalanov, the ViceMinister of Education, therefore started a programme for quality control and accreditation (de Wit, 1991). It seems that each country is absolutely alone in undertaking its reforms. Hardly any solutions for similar problems in neighbouring GEE countries are adopted in their own region. So there is hardly any transfer of problem-solving strategies and know-how between the different GEE countries. On the contrary, German, French, British or American models are considered for adoption, usually without taking into consideration how different the political and economic circumstances were in which these models were gradually worked out, and in which they are operating at present.

5 Appreciation of local know-how The general tendency in GEE is to intensify the contacts between East and West and to keep the regulations at a minimum. Many faculty members are fluent in German and English and are eager to learn European languages. There is a serious concern that there may be an overdose of information and training offered in GEE countries and by GEE universities. They are flooded with glossy brochures, interesting offers to come to the USA or Western Europe and to take part in training courses. So far many of these offers have been accepted without question. The first evaluations show that quite often there was a mismatch between offer and demand. Zalai (1990, p. 47) underlines that the HE systems of the former socialist countries are not readily comparable to the corresponding systems evolved in the AngloSaxon tradition. This fact seems to be often neglected and as a result of this the educational programmes and degrees of the countries in question are too quickly and mistakenly classified in the terminology of the Anglo-Saxon educational system. Therefore, the needs and starting-levels of the candidates should be identified more clearly in advance. In the case of Hungary, a noticeable specificity of this system is that the diplomas given by almost all professional schools are considered to be of university rank. The institutions are in fact called universities. For example, Medical University, Polytechnic University or, which may sound strange, University of Wine-growing and Horticulture, and so on (Zalai, 1990, p. 48). It would be an arrogant Western approach to underestimate the local capacity. Contzen (1991, p. 143) sees the geopolitical upheavals as one of the crucial dimensions of the long-term future of European university research. He indicates that in several of the GEE countries, an ancient tradition of scientific life, which has given Europe and the world some of their greatest scientists, has managed to survive under difficult conditions. Centres of excellence in fact exist in many places. The quality of mathematical research in Hungary is common knowledge, as is the work of the Polish physicists, the Czech chemists, and the biologists and physicists in former East Germany. To a very

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

large extent, this life of research is due to the universities. Also in computer business, real progress has been made in the GEE countries. Frangois Micol, Eastern European manager of the US software company Borland International, is one of many Westerners impressed by the general level of education in the GEE: These are countries where higher maths qualifications are common' (Hotopf, 1992, p. 48). Some GEE computer software products are selling well in the West. The company Recognita makes software for scanners, devices that can read text and pictures into computers. Its latest product, GO-CR, enables even tiny handheld microcomputers to read text and the company is selling its products in Japan and the USA. Hotopf (1992, p. 49) also gives an example of assembling personal computers in Hungary: in spring there were at least 40 Hungarian companies assembling machines using 80,486 chips — which means the Hungarians were technically ahead of many Western countries. Some Hungarian companies have even set up buying offices in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

6 Motivation of faculty members The reform of higher education systems in GEE has started with significant motivational handicaps because of unfavourable psychological and cultural circumstances. The lack of qualified and experienced faculty members is one of the major constraints. It is partly a problem of skills and knowledge, partly a problem of motivation. Some circumstances which influence this process negatively are: 1. The apparent danger of political apathy in GEE. Sandi (1992, p. Ill) observed a lack of psychological involvement in public affairs, emotional detachment from community duties and restraint from political activity. Even young people, who were in the front lines of the mass revolution, are now passive, showing little interest in participating in politics. They often emigrate or work illegally in Western countries.

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2. Repression of intellectuals. Unfortunately many faculty members have become demotivated because of the former regime. The attitude was to 'wait and see', not to take any initiative, to avoid risks, to fear witch-hunts and to follow the rules. There were no market ideas developed in the system, and later on marketing was prohibited. According to Mitter (1992, p. 22) faculty members found themselves concerned with the task of sharing 'the' Marxist-Leninist values, which ran against their own convictions. At the same time, most faculty members were confronted with contrasting values in their families. This situation resulted in schizophrenic attitudes among faculty members. In some professions, great moral damage has been done, e.g. some medical scientists were used for political and cultural repression. Kallen (1991, pp. 11-25) described the repression of the intellectuals as 'science fiction'. 'Leading a double life' seems to have been an essential condition for the moral and intellectual survival of GEE intellectuals. 3. Intellectual distance from the local community. Geremek and Teichler (1992, p. 10) describe the difficulties encountered by GEE universities providing community services, for example through public lectures and advisory activities. Many faculty members hesitate to become involved in direct services to the local community, because these services might not match the quality of scholarship. In addition, time shortage might play a role. On the other hand the faculty members are viewed by the local community as snobbish, too intellectual and unable to solve practical problems. 4. Demotivation of students. Many students are not achievement-oriented because their prospects are bad. The labour market is underdeveloped and students have a very limited career perspective. As far as an academic career is concerned, the current position of faculty members is not a hopeful example to them: the majority of the current academics have tenured positions and only a few are contracted for a limited time. As a result the career advancement and promotion for younger generations is blocked. Besides, the salaries of intellectuals are lower than for manual workers or new businesses. 'Coming out from a basically pas-

184 Sylvia G. M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis sive educational process they adapt strategies to minimize work and bargain to ease their way to the diploma' (Zalai, 1990, p. 55). In the case of Hungary, there is a declining tendency in the chances to complete university, given that the maturity examination, a certificate for enrolment in tertiary education, is completed. The younger the cohort, the slimmer the chances are of success at this level. One of the explanations for the decrease in the transition rate to university level is that larger proportions of recent cohorts are completing secondary education. On the other hand, Hungarian educational policy is also responsible for the situation in which tertiary education cannot accommodate all candidates who have completed maturity and wish to continue their studies. Robert (1991) describes an increase in the proportion of young graduates accepting manual labour for which they are overqualified. The motivation of these graduates is financial, since the labour market, including the second economy, offered them better incomes than could be earned in academic professions. In De Wit's opinion (1991, p. 11) the situation of Bulgarian students is very problematic too. Since 1989 various university institutions have been founded without any quality control. Major motivations were the ambitions of the various regions to fund their own university. Planned quality control is non-existent. The consequences for students, and indirectly demotivating faculty members, are unfortunate. No matter where you get your degree, be it from the University of Sofia or from an institute of professional education, the value of your diploma is the same. As a result, on the labour market and abroad, graduates are not selected on the basis of their real level. Also, there is no fair competition between graduates. 5. Demotivation of faculty members. There is a serious disillusionment among the initiators of the reforms. The optimism of 1989 has gone, for reasons such as serious budgetary difficulties, the most severe in Poland. Furthermore, in the global process of transition, it is quite clear where we are coming from, but it is not clear at all where we are going. In addition, there are ideological differences in opinion concerning where to go. Thirdly, some institutions are hardly reformable. For exam-

ple, despite strong criticism, the status of the Academies of Sciences has not been changed anywhere (see also Section 2). Part of the academic community is not interested in the reforms at all, except for those who are not afraid of competition. This would lead to evaluation of their academic achievements by the same criteria of competence and excellence as those operating in open science and education systems. Other problems in the direct working environment of faculty members leading to demotivation are the following. First, the existence of too many and too big research institutions; in the R&D sphere young scientists cannot be hired, and so are looking for emigration or employment outside the R&D sphere. This results in a deep generation gap. Furthermore, for many years, conformists rather than intellectually independent faculty members were appointed and currently, the replacement process is severely endangered for financial reasons. In addition, the salaries remain very low and the academic career is thus becoming less attractive for young able people. The principle 'last in first out' is daily practice. In case of reduction of staff, first of all young scientists who are not tenured have to leave. Finally, there is a strong hierarchy of posts, degrees and titles. To get to the top of the hierarchy takes too long for even the ablest people (Amsterdamski and Rhodes, 1993, pp. 383-94). Last, but not least, the bad facilities provided for research laboratories, libraries, etc. could be added.

7 External brain drain The brain drain effects vary among GEE countries. Most GEE countries are already 'brain-drained' and the experts have left for Western countries. Two major elements characterize the recent wave of brain drain from GEE (Kallen, 1994). Firstly, the fact that besides intellectual and scientific resources there is also a massive loss of cultural capital, both in terms of persons and of goods. Secondly, the fact that most of the loss of resources is constrained within the borders of the country, thus leading to internal brain drain. External brain

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

drain has been going on for many years in most GEE countries, and consequently has created a tremendous lack of expertise. The loss of their intellectual and cultural resources may be dramatic to the long-term growth of CEE's academic systems and therefore Western governments sometimes prefer not to know the size of the problem. In Kallen's opinion emigration from GEE has consistently been characterized by an overrepresentation of highly skilled, including highly qualified and experienced older scientists and highly motivated and dynamic young ones. Obviously, these professionals take care of themselves once they leave the home country, and take care of their relatives and their scientific dedication as much as they can. Their decision to leave often is very understandable and it is practically impossible to prevent professionals from leaving their home country. In the GEE case, the definitions of the concepts to be used sometimes are confusing (for definitions, see Section 1). For example, the distinction between internal and external brain drain is unclear, because of the rapid political reconstruction of GEE. In addition, the distinction between mobility and international exchanges on the one hand and brain drain on the other has become indefinite. Thus, for example, in many of the most prestigious Russian research institutions many faculty members have accepted assignments abroad. Most of these scholars are still on the staff roll of their institutions, while at the same time having fixed-term appointments elsewere. An important distinguishing element of brain drain versus mobility and exchange is the 'damage' factor. Brain drain often created an intellectual erosion in local communities. On the whole, the leavers are much younger than the stayers. The damage to research is greater than to teaching. Especially the international companies in GEE hire young staff from higher education and research. The greatest damage is, however, the moral one (Kallen, 1994). Higher education and research have suffered from a severe loss of prestige, caused by a decline in funds and in numbers of staff and increase of student numbers. Especially in HE institutions in smaller countries, the departure of key people in

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society, as faculty members are, has damaging effects. The loss of their intellectual and cultural resources may be dramatic to the long-term growth of CEE's academic systems. Smaller countries have obviously suffered most; e.g. Slovakia and Slovenia are much more vulnerable to the departure of a few top specialists than are the larger countries. Some 'new' countries, such as Siberia, will probably suffer from brain drain in the near future. In these relatively young countries, there is an increasing danger of external or international brain drain. What are the numbers involved in external brain drain? The number of highly skilled faculty members, such as medical and technical scientists and engineers, leaving GEE increased in the last decade. Very few reliable data are available on brain drain. To give an indication, the total number of East-to-West migrants is greater than from Europe to North America after the Second World War. The present brain drain in e.g. the former USSR is the largest this century. What causes external brain drain? External brain drain of faculty members is often based on a multitude of factors. Their emigration is much more an escape from the present-day situation rather than a convinced choice of a specific destination (different from Western IFM). Thus, there are more pushing than pulling factors involved. Some of the pushing factors in the home country (and pulling factors in the host country) will be described here. Firstly, ethnic migration is the largest cause of brain drain, e.g. highly qualified Russian Jews emigrated to Israel. Consequently this country is, through brain gain, becoming the Japan of the Middle East. Emigrants have no confidence in the prospects of former USSR and are looking for prosperity and stability. In principle there could be a positive side-effect to this for Soviet (GEE) universities, namely an increase of international contacts through former colleagues, though, in practice, it happens to become an additional channel and information-link for further brain drain. Furthermore, economic factors play a role. The potential emigrant compares factors such as present and potential income, security, regularity, long-term development of the economy of

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the two countries. Often there are decreased (labour) possibilities in the home country. The university salaries are often much below the level of the private sector, and thus form an important push factor towards external brain drain. Highly qualified young researchers, often of the Academy of Sciences, may find better-paid jobs abroad. Other factors are related to opportunities for advancement in one's profession: the question of unemployment and underemployment. Even members of the Academies of Sciences sometimes see their professional opportunities decreasing. Grzelak (1993, p. 419) describes how Polish faculty members lose their 'academic dedication' and leave universities because they find more attractive jobs abroad, in private companies or in the state administration. Causes are, besides the economic factor of low salaries at universities, the decline of social prestige of an academic career and finally, recent transformations which have opened up new job opportunities like consulting, marketing and management. Furthermore, cultural, historical and institutional factors may play a role. The potential emigrant considers the similarity of language, e.g. German or English. Emigrating faculty members must be proficient in this respective language, particularly in its technical and scientific vocabulary. In technical sciences, the international mathematics vocabulary makes communication with colleagues easier. Incidentally, former colonial ties may play a role, e.g. between Romania and France. Through these historical links the educational systems of the home country often tend to see the old colonial country as a model. Other factors concern the working environment and lifestyle. The decision to leave may be influenced by one's knowledge of the professional milieu and of the existing lifestyles in the potential host country. The faculty member will compare the conditions. One may feel frustrated by the working conditions in the home country, i.e. machines that are constantly defective, the need to fill in forms for each activity, etc. Thus, for example, Wilson (1993, p. 435) mentions some obstacles hindering successful TEMPUS operations, mainly provoked by the GEE infrastructuree itself, such as the severe limitations in

the core financial support available to higher education institutions: the low salary levels of faculty members mean they frequently have to take a second or even third job in order to survive, with the attendant lack of time and commitment for their university functions. Besides, technical problems played a role in TEMPUS, e.g. regulations concerning the acquisition of equipment, bad communications and/or telecommunications facilities in certain GEE countries (fax, telephone lines). Finally, visa problems were often observed, preventing the free movement of persons (particularly in the Baltic States, Bulgaria and Romania in relation to some EU member states). Furthermore, there are imperative factors or political reasons which may cause emigration. For example, persecutions based on ideological considerations. Also, many professionals are tired of politics and local circumstances. Sometimes, faculty members or one of their relatives played a political role in the former regime and therefore have compromised themselves. They may now feel 'persona non grata'. Factors as described here may result in provisional migration and only a few of these emigrants may return to their home country. External brain drain may be caused by recruitment and sending policies in the Western host country. Obviously, the triggers for migration are not one-sided. The host country may have an active recruitment policy. Thus for example, the USA, the UK and Canada have regularly promoted the selective migration of faculty members from developing countries. In the case of GEE, flows from former East Germany to former West Germany can be mentioned. Universities in former West Germany actively recruit faculty members, i.e. researchers from former East Germany, such as medical staff, and higher salaries make it very attractive for GEE faculty members to be involved. About 30 per cent of Hungarian researchers were (temporarily) in USA, Canada, Japan, etc. Kozma (1993, p. 38) warns about isolation of GEE faculty members. Promising young scholars flee to the West, while the (former) university establishment still holds the power, whatever it really means, and creates a small empire from which there is no way out than an escape via international exchange. Another ex-

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

ample is Australia, with the particularity of being both a receiving and a sending country by receiving almost as many physicians as it loses (Sanchez-Arnau and Calvo, 1987, p. 63). To a certain extent, the current policies of various Western countries towards further internationalization of HE also result in active two-sided flows, though it is doubtful if one can still speak of brain drain in these cases. Another factor to external brain drain may be the willingness of a faculty member to return to the country in which he or she has studied, sometimes several years earlier. Often, the fact that they know the country and its language gives them increased job opportunities. For instance, most Pakistanis studying abroad go to the UK, the main emigration destination for these citizens. Private circumstances are a driving force, too, to leave the home country. Some faculty members may have family abroad, and a family reunion is envisaged. A better future for the children may play a role. Also, the burden of daily life in GEE, securing good housing and food for the family, may take so much of someone's time, that there is hardly any time left for doing research or updating one's knowledge. The emigration is then triggered as being a survival strategy. Finally, the emigrant may want to broaden his/her horizon and take the chance to see something of the world. Though, in practice, full emigration is not necessary to realize this goal. In summary, a faculty member may emigrate for a multitude of reasons, such as family circumstances, as well as economic reasons. What are the social and economic implications of external brain drain? In Kallen's (1994) opinion the brain drain of highly qualified people will damage the level of a country's social, cultural and economic development. How can we qualify economic losses? In GEE countries the state has until now supported almost the whole cost of education and much of the costs of research. But, contrary to what one might think, higher education in GEE was not cheap. In addition, the budget item 'foreign earnings' is even more difficult to calculate. Academic incomes are far lower than in the West, in Central Europe by a factor of 10, in Eastern Europe by a factor of up to 100. On the other hand there are the non-economic losses that have indi-

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rect economic implications such as deterioration of the social climate, loss of reputation of a field of higher education or research, damage to the cultural climate and the like. Impressive direct arid indirect economic losses may thus be calculated. Kallen (1994) suggested the idea of disbursement by the profiting party of at least part of the direct cost of emigrants' education and training. What happens with the brain-drained experts? Many are offered work in their field of specialization, under better working (and research) conditions than at home. But also the majority of the internally brain drained (see also Section 8) accept work either totally different from their former employment or at a lower level of qualification, as there is rather little employment available that corresponds to their former one. In Kallen's opinion, the great majority will definitely be lost for academic work. Brain drain thus represents a considerable loss of investment, in forgone earnings and in opportunities for reconstruction. Finally, why does the brain drain issue attract so little attention in the international world? Kallen (1994) sees several reasons for this. On the one hand, it is very likely that brain drain is perceived as an embarrassing issue and provokes contradictory feelings. The donor countries and institutions experience a certain justified pride if their highly qualified faculty members are offered work in prestigious foreign institutions. The reaction of the brain-drained experts themselves is often a mixture of pride and self-justification on the one hand, and a certain feeling of guilt and responsibility towards their home country and institution on the other. The most directly concerned partners may have a clear interest in brain drain and do not favour too much attention and publicity around the issue. In Kallen's opinion, academic mobility through programmes such as TEMPOS causes relatively little loss of talent from GEE. But, as indicated above, there are other sources of internal and external brain drain that are at work and that will continue to be at work for many years to come, in particular, ethnic and political factors related to the enormous discrepancies in economic welfare between the countries and regions concerned.

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8 Internal brain drain Besides this process of external brain drain, of which the total numbers are unknown, the factors causing internal brain drain are multifold too. It is generally assumed that the total extent of internal brain drain within GEE is much greater than the external brain drain. What causes internal brain drain in industry? Often internal brain drain is caused by Western investors, such as banks and insurance companies, 'buying' highly qualified experts such as staff from the local competitors or faculty members from neighbouring research labs. This erosion process may result in poorly staffed local industry left behind with fewer chances of surviving in the new economic circumstances. Van Zanten (1992, p. 11) of the Dutch ING Bank is experienced in starting ING Bank offices in GEE and attracting local expertise. In his opinion the local staff with an academic background is highly qualified, has good fluency in English and is very ambitious. The major problem is the poor qualification, and often absence, of middle managers in GEE companies. As a result, increasing tensions and movements in the labour market can be observed. What causes internal brain drain in universities? Also at universities an internal brain drain is manifest, caused by the actual collapse of government funding of HE and other factors mentioned above. Only faculty members showing little initiative and accepting low salaries remain. These people never have been active members of the former Party. Thus, for example, the knowledge of the most qualified faculty members in socio-political sciences has become outdated. Nowadays, some of these experts may be so much in demand to play an active role in political reform that little time remains to improve their training and research. Due to the above described budget crisis, the best faculty members are leaving for new careers and developing businesses, to compensate for their poor university salary. They may start their private businesses and continue a part-time appointment at the university. In these few hours they cannot contribute much to research or teaching. Often this part-time appointment is also 'used' to give them access to the university facilities such as

a photocopier, computer, telephone lines and library. Obviously this double workload leads to a reduction of quality in higher education. In government institutions a similar development can be observed. Finally, some may consider brain drain as being a normal phenomenon accompanying, and inherent to, worldwide open science. From this point of view, brain drain cannot be prevented even if it is particularly dangerous under the present circumstances of the transition period. In addition some may not see so much negative effects of internal brain drain, because, in the past, the sciences and industry were completely divided. There were no know-how centres, like in the West. Both 'worlds' didn't know they needed each other. From this angle it is not negative, but understandable that (international) businesses are looking for the best scientists. The negative point in it is that the GEE state budget is so poor and faculty members are so badly paid that there are no experts left.

9 Conclusions: dilemmas to be resolved Reasons to be critical On the one hand recommendations should be formulated concerning the internal structure of GEE HE systems, such as finding solutions to the problems of cooperation with the Academy of Sciences. As far as the student population is concerned, a further increase of student awareness of the need for quality seems important. This awareness can be encouraged by introducing tuition fees and by strengthening the influence of students' unions. To accompany the various internal reforms, competent HE leadership is necessary to manage the process carefully. The government should develop a facilitating framework. On the other hand, recommendations concern the GEE HE systems and their external and international relations; some meaningful phases towards international cooperation will be discussed later in this Section. It is clear that international collaboration should reinforce the strategic think-

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

ing of the institutions concerned. In this respect, EU mobility programmes towards a further integration of member states increasingly will have a GEE dimension. Continuing opportunities occur for those with experience and contacts in either GEE or the West. Nevertheless, there are obvious reasons to be critical at this stage of development. First, some of these reasons will be discussed here, and, where possible, recommendations will be added as well: 1. The absorption capacity of HE institutions in the East and West is doubtful. Also in Western Europe many HE institutions can hardly meet international demands and the fast transitions in the EU. These institutions, in particular institutions for professional training, are still in a phase of implementing ERASMUS, COMETT and other European programmes. New programme offers to collaborate with GEE institutions create further high demands on the organization and the faculty members. This problem is similar and even more complex for GEE HE institutions. Not only do they intend to reform the complete curriculum, but they also wish to improve the appropriate knowhow. In the preceding Sections we have seen that the lack of qualified and experienced faculty members, responsible for implementing the reforms, is one of the major constraints. It is partly a problem of skills and knowledge, partly a problem of motivation. 2. There is a reason to be critical about the high expectations and the pressure on institutions of HE in East and West. Seidel (1991-92, p. 68) warns about this effect, especially concerning the former West German institutions as a result of the German unification. Former DDR institutions have to suffer from high expectations, not only at the national level but also at the supra-national level. In addition the expectations of the HE institutions themselves are similarly high. 3. There are reasons to be critical about the benefits of (re)training of GEE faculty members in Western countries. Although there are very positive results to be mentioned, uncritical application of retraining offers can become counterproductive to an institution or even a GEE country as a whole and in the end this may lead to external brain drain. To make retraining courses in the

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West into a success, GEE trainees should be proficiently prepared in the language of instruction. For example, if a course is taught in English, it makes no sense to send trainees with a high academic level but with a poor command of English. If possible, training should be given in the reform countries themselves including local case studies and case writing. To explain this further, we will take a closer look at the theory of Quintini-Rosales (1994, pp. 17-20). He described how developing countries are seeking for know-how and use the retraining strategy as a way to acquire know-how. In his opinion, the development of a country is seen as a learning process through which people acquire the necessary knowledge. With this obtained knowledge one is able to maximize the benefits that can be derived from available resources. He particularly refers to the mobility of experts in the case of Third World countries at different stages of development and describes some approaches for seeking knowledge for development. These approaches are meaningful to discuss within this context of the development process in GEE countries. The first approach concerns 'adoption'. The most advantageous exchange is one in which persons with knowledge and culture that the receiving nation highly values decide to adopt that nation as their new country. This is, no doubt, the best kind of immigration, when another nation has invested significant resources to educate and train highly skilled persons. The adoption strategy is very rare in the GEE situation. In the second approach a temporary stay in the host country is envisaged. When highly qualified experts arrive in a developing country without the determination to stay, there may be no net benefit for the host country. The degree of commitment of this 'roving' personnel will definitely not be the same as that of permanent immigrants. It is not unusual for these experts to derive important experiences from their temporary stays and to take such knowledge abroad without leaving behind any clear benefits to the developing country. Furthermore, an alternative approach may focus on sending young people abroad for education. This is the most popular approach for seeking

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knowledge for development. In the opinion of Quintini-Rosales it may also be the most inadequate. Young inexperienced people are usually insufficiently familiar with their own environment. Abroad, they are exposed to knowledge specially selected to respond to the most demanding needs of an advanced society. This may, but more probably will not, be what the developing society needs the most. When the young people return home they have two choices: to go into the knowledge business either by teaching or doing research, or to go into professional work.

Intermezzo: TEMPUS Obviously, the approach of sending young people from the East to the West is applied frequently through EU mobility programmes. Thus, for example, within some TEMPUS projects, the group of postgraduates is envisaged for training abroad. These people have already a professional background and it is hoped that they will therefore return to their home country. Wilson (1993, pp. 429-36) describes the benefits of faculty mobility within TEMPUS. The projects have personal and institutional benefits. At the personal level faculty members not only gain new skills and knowledge but also benefit from exposure to different cultures, teaching and research environments and acquire additional language skills. At the institutional level, retrained teachers who continue their teaching careers at the same institutions are able to implement this new knowledge within their departments, using teaching and research materials brought from their partner institutions during their own courses. On the other hand, teachers retrained through TEMPUS are more attractive on the job market and often have the possibility of more lucrative positions in private enterprise. This is especially true in subjects such as management and computing. Some institutions require teachers to sign a 'declaration of intent' to return before agreeing to their study periods abroad. The success of TEMPUS projects is often in the hands of the faculty members involved. In suc-

cessful projects there is a strong personal commitment of all partners, in particular a high degree of initiative of GEE partners along with sustained support from the institutional management, i.e. the success of a project often depends on its being supported strongly by individuals pushing for reform. Another success factor is the careful selection of faculty members to be retrained, with regard to age, position, language ability and attitude to change (Wilson, 1993, p. 433). Shock therapy is the fourth approach and happens when politicians, who are usually poorly educated, fall into the hands of educated but inexperienced professionals who have no practical knowledge of public service or private enterprise. These leaders may promote drastic changes through shock therapy without any rational support and without the knowledge, commitment, and cooperation of those most affected, thus creating chaos and confusion. This approach is very common in GEE countries. Thus, for example, the fast developments in Poland are sometimes compared with the image of shock therapy. Some people argue that this radical approach is the best way to overcome barriers of the past. Because, if you planned a (slow) step-by-step strategy instead, people would complain about every detail of the changes. Quintini-Rosales concluded that a good development requires a master design that considers the learning capabilities of all those concerned. It means cultural changes and searching for new markets with national leadership but without central control. It means no miracles, but hard rational work opening the right doors and closing the wrong ones. Above all, it means an ethical revolution, where all those who have been most favoured, in the land or abroad, have the strongest commitment to help the less fortunate. The effort must be people-oriented, remembering that the market is made of all people. Development is for people! 4. Privatization. A specific problem is the privatization of institutions, often initiated through or as a result of international collaboration. Should further privatization be recommended or not? There are some more or less successful examples of recently founded private HE institutions, all

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe 191 trying to overcome some of the hindrances inherent to the GEE mainstream university system. Thus, for example, in Prague a branch of the Central European University is founded and financed by the Soros Foundation, and in Bratislava the Academia Istropolitica. Often these institutions offer courses in 'modern' disciplines, such as management studies, law, environmental studies and modern languages. Sometimes a further privatization of HE, e.g. specific courses or offices, is recommended to overcome some of the current problems. But privatization can be very dangerous, because it may undermine the public system, because the latter will not undergo a parallel change. Furthermore, privatization is often more costly because the two parallel systems have to be maintained and commercial prices may decrease the access of large groups of students. So far, it is not expected that private initiatives will influence fundamentally the traditional HE structures. But what should be done if for example the only solution to the current problems of a local TEMPUS office seems to be privatization? One solution may be to ask Western authorities to talk with their GEE counterparts. This may help. 5. A final and most crucial question in the context of this chapter is: how can internal and external brain drain be avoided? In developing countries special programmes have been launched to facilitate the return of academic emigrants. For example, India offers its emigrants short-term contracts so that they may cooperate in research projects and hold academic positions in Indian universities during their sabbatical years. Another example making international mobility easier is TOKTEN, the programme for the Transfer of Know-How through Expatriated Nationals, launched by the UN Development Programme (Sanchez-Arnau and Galvo, 1987, p. 68). The intention of this programme is to facilitate the temporary return of expatriated technicians and scientists to their home countries for short periods of time, generally no longer than four weeks and free of charge, to contribute to teaching or research. Travelling and accommodation costs are subsidized by the UN. Some host institutions give modest remunerations and some sending institutions

continue giving them their normal salaries during absence. In a few cases, e.g. the Technical University of Sofia in Bulgaria, there are formulated internal rules for IFM. This was necessary because due to the increasing number of international collaborative projects and the structural absence of faculty members it caused, the stability of home teaching and research was more and more in danger. Some rules are that for each international visit, permission of the university is necessary. In addition, international visits for the purpose of language learning are not encouraged. In principle the language-learning facilities are available in the home institution. This university formulated specific criteria for the length of visits. We have seen that it is essential for future success to keep the talented people at university institutions. It will be crucial how many students can become future multipliers. Finally, a case is given of an international project, with the goal to overcome the brain drain problem. In a collaborative programme between Moscow University and Tilburg University it was decided that students after completion of their course and return to the former USSR - are by contract obliged to work for a certain period of time as a lecturer in HE, though no real sanctions can be defined beforehand. By doing so, a loss of knowledge can be avoided. These conditions are comparable to (former) regulations in developing countries.

Towards international partnerships of expertss Some meaningful steps towards international partnerships and at the same time overcoming problems of brain drain, are firstly the increase of international networks, preferably founded and developed by the faculty members themselves. In turbulent and uncertain periods HE institutions prefer weaker forms of networks like framework agreements, joint investments in Research and Development (R&D). Crucial in international network building between HE in East and West will be an equal relationship between the partners,

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motivated by mutual benefit. Aspects to bear in mind are, e.g. business ethics: reflection on your own implicit (ethnocentric!) values and norms and an avoidance of uncritical aid-relationship. This would be a threat to the cultural identity of GEE partners leading to an increased dependency on the West. The result could be a massive brain drain. Secondly, in the opinion of politicians, the labour market for graduates will be increasingly a single Europe without boundaries. But there is still a long way to go to give all Europeans the same living standards. Anticipating these demands means giving high priority to further improvement of technological and language skills. A third step towards international partnerships could be to facilitate tailormade international meetings and conferences supported by international organizations such as UNESCO, the OECD, the Council of Europe or the Academies of Science in GEE countries themselves. These events should meet the direct demands of the GEE participants. Thus, for example on a recent conference on 'management of small and medium-sized enterprises in GEE' about 25 GEE directors of SMEs were invited (Amsterdamski, 1993). They accepted the offer but, afterwards, they were very disappointed with the outcome of the conference. They had hoped (perhaps naively, but often there is a lot of vagueness about the purposes of certain offers) to get the opportunity to have business meetings with Western counterparts. They expected to meet Western SME directors to discuss export potential, joint ventures, etc. In the end, what they got was a highly academic conference with some side-visits to (multi)national companies. Some participants felt very frustrated. Although the trip was fully paid by the donor, they experienced a personal loss to their own small company, due to absence of about one week. Thus, the more tailormade meetings and conferences to create partnerships should look very carefully to the dynamics of offer and demand in the East and West. The meetings could be initiated on a bilateral basis between universities. Highly qualified faculty members should be appointed to key positions in HE institutions to process this kind of activity. A next step is the concern for management developmentt programmes in the various GEE organi-

zations. These programmes, e.g. outplacement and training of trainers and development of a new adequate administrative cadre, could help to avoid a further brain drain and assist faculty members to find new opportunities. For example, a technical department starting an interdisciplinary course in business administration could benefit from an expert in economic sciences. Finally, given the large numbers of migrated faculty members to the West, a positive spin-off could be created for the home institutions. Similarly to how alumni organizations function, motivated 'members' living abroad could act as ambassadors to their home institutions. In our case, this could give a new incentive to emigrated faculty members in the West who became jobless or were forced into unskilled labour. Last but not least, we have to acknowledge that the reform of HE can be impelled only by limited conflicts between the interests of the HE establishment and the interests of society. Another, and in the framework of this chapter most relevant, step towards international partnerships, is the further international mobility of highly qualified faculty members while at the same time preventing further brain drain. On a (trans)national level, Kallen (1994) sees partial remedies to brain drain. Not only voluntary agreements between countries, institutions and/or agencies could be signed. These agreements could establish rules of 'correct behaviour' such as they exist in schemes for academic mobility (TEMPUS, etc.). Kallen also proposed an instrument that would primarily derive its legitimacy from ethical considerations. This instrument would have the status of a covenant, elaborated under the aegis of an international organization that is actively involved in academic matters and that would be signed by all those of its member institutions who so wish. As far as future policies on an institutional level are concerned, care should be taken to involve well qualified experts in these East—West flows instead of second-rate ones. In the learning process itself, regular checks should be made to ensure there is a real transfer of knowledge and motivation. The know-how cannot simply be 'imported'. Preferably, a long-term learning process

Mobility or Brain Drain? International Faculty Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe

should take place in GEE countries themselves. Western specialists should be in a GEE country for a longer period of time to feel like an equal partner in everyday practice. In future East-West mobility schemes, emphasis should be on institutions, and not on individual faculty members. As far as EU schemes are concerned, the Treaty of Maastricht even forbids individual applications. How could these flows be financed? In some countries there are instruments to move people around on a mutually exclusive base, such as, between Italy and France, the Integrated Action programme including about 1 million FF to grant 100 projects. It does not cost money, only administration. An alternative financing procedure is to find a top-up grant provided by a host institution or an external agency to cover the extra costs of the visiting faculty member himself or of the home institution because of replacement, etc. In Brussels there is currently some debate about a 'European Grant Holder' status (Kehm, 1994) to safeguard mobility of faculty members throughout Europe. This card should facilitate free movement with guarantee of salary, social security, taxes and work permit. In any case, it should be made visible to the higher education system and within the government policy that there is some responsibility for mobility of experts who will return to their home country to transfer the 'fresh' knowledge to the benefit of the home institution. Each university within a particular partnership should define objectives at departmental level in qualitative terms or quantitative terms, e.g. 'we want 10 per cent of our teaching or research done by foreign faculty members'. To give a helping hand in the process of partner-search, one or some transnational donors could develop a catalogue of job vacancies in institutions, e.g. published through Internet. This could help the younger faculty members in particular. Because, in general, professionals know where they want to go in Europe and worldwide, they know the places. Another step in the direction of international partnerships could be the establishment of an 'international chair' to create a shared professorship of both Eastern and Western experts. This chair could be part of a Thematic Network within TEMPUS or SOCRATES, preferably on a multilateral basis. Furthermore, the inter-

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dependence of teaching and research needs attention. An interlinkage related to the specific subject area is important to ease expert mobility. Because, teaching is often only considered in terms of'extra workload' and at the same time of limited added value to the subject area expertise. It is not an either/or issue; the challenge is how to increase the number of participating experts. Though currently only very few GEE institutions can make use of the electronic facilities such as Internet, one could raise the question to what extent international mobility of experts between East and West could be promoted through electronic communication. The answer is that these new multimedia will certainly support but never replace the face-to-face meetings between East and West. The justification for physical mobility of experts is that it usually offers an intensity of communication which cannot be matched by any technology. Electronic communication is beneficial indeed in international work, once personal relations have been established.

Note 1 The first results of the International Management Centre in Budapest show that MBA graduates are becoming eager to go into joint ventures and some get wellpaid jobs. So far, there are no signs that these graduates frequently get job-offers in Western Europe or the USA.

Referencess Amsterdamski, S. and Rhodes, A. (1993) Perceptions of dilemmas of reform: remarks and interpretations concerning a study by the Vienna Institute for Human Sciences. European Journal of Education, 28 (4), 379-402. Angelov, T. (1992) The development of education in the Republic of Bulgaria during the transition from the totalitarian to the democratic society, in W. Mitter et al. (eds), pp. 103-20. Bathory, Z. (1992) Some consequences of the 'change in regime' in Hungarian public education, in W. Mitter et al. (eds), pp. 27-40. Beckers, H. and Zalai, E. (1992) The role of higher education in transition to market economy and industrial

194 Sylvia G. M. van de Bunt-Kokhuis restructuring. Discussion paper, TEMPUS Conference, Brussels (October), pp. 1-12. Berg, C. and Vlasceanu, L. (1991) Higher education and the One-Europe concept. Higher Education in Europe, 16(4), 4-17. Bunt-Kokhuis, S. van de (1993) Reforming higher education in Eastern Europe. Higher Education Management, 5 (3), 317-32. Contzen, J. P. (1991) European integration and university research: an overview. Higher Education Management, 3 (2), 137-44. Delemarre, M. and Dey, A. (1994) Balkanisering van het hoger onderwijs in Bulgarije. Unpublished paper. NUFFIC, TEMPUS Office. Geremek, B. and Teichler, U. (1992) The role of higher education in transition to political democracy and pluralistic society: new situation of higher education in society. TEMPUS Conference, Brussels (October), pp. 1-15. Grzelak, J. (1993) Higher education in Poland: four years after. European Journal of Education, 28 (4), 413-20. Gwyn, R. (1994) The Slovak Republic. Country Monograph No. 1. TEMPUS, EU. Hotopf, M. (1992) The East hunger for megabytes. International Management, 47 (2), 48-9. Kallen, D. (1993) Western Europe and the reconstruction of higher education in Central and Eastern Europe. Higher Education Policy, 6 (3), 22-7. Kallen, D. (1994) Brain drain: an opportunity or a treat for development. Higher Education Policy (December) (in press). Kallen, D. and Neave, G. (1991) The Open Door: PanEuropean Academic Co-operation. Bucharest: CEPES, UNESCO European Centre for Higher Education. Kehm, B. (1994) Encouraging Mid-Term Staff Mobility. Final draft report, Liaison Committee. Brussels: CRE and EU (October). Klasek, C. B. (ed.) (1992) Bridges to the Future: Strategies for Internationalizing Higher Education. Illinois: Association of International Education Administrators. Kokhuis, S. (1985) Educational theory in a transcultural perspective: some consequences for teaching, in W. Mitter and J. Swift, Bildung und Erziehung, Beiheft 2/1. Koln: Bohlau Verlag, pp. 143-59. Kopp, B. von (1992) The Eastern European revolution and education in Czechoslovakia. Comparative Education Review, 36 (1) (February), 101-13. Kozma, T. (1993) The invisible curtain: academic mobility in Central and Eastern Europe. Higher Education Policy, 6 (3), 36-40.

Krasteva, A. (1992) 'Ode to totalitarism' or, does the information society have a chance in Bulgaria? Futures, 24 (2), 130-7. Kreitz, R. and Teichler, U. (1992) Erasmus Teaching Staff Mobility: The 1990/91 Teachers View. PrePublication Report. Kassel. Lajos, T. (1993) Perspectives, hopes and disappointments: higher education reform in Hungary. European Journal of Education, 28 (4), 403-11. Lillebo, A. Now what, Eastern Europe? European Business Ethics Newsletter, 4, 3. Mitter, W. et al. (eds) (1992) Recent Trends in Eastern European Education. Proceedings of the UNESCOWorkshop. Frankfurt am Main: German Institute for International Educational Research. Miihle, E. (1994) Riickkehr nach Europa. Osteuropa (October), 907-25. Prucha, J. (1992) Trends in Czechoslovak education, in W. Mitter et al. (eds), pp. 83-102. Quintini-Rosales, C. (1994) People and technology: a systems approach to national development processes. MIT Management (Spring), 17-20. Remes, S. (1992) East European future scenarios. Futures, 24 (2), 138-43. Robert, P. (1991) Educational transition in Hungary from the post-war period to the end of the 1980s. European Sociological Review, 7 (3), 213-36. Sanchez-Arnau, J. C. and Calvo, E. H. (1987) International mobility and recognition of studies, diplomas and degrees. Higher Education in Europe, 12 (3), 62-8.. Sandi, A. M. (1992) Restoring civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe. Futures, 24 (2), 110-17. Schmidt, H. (1993) Handeln filr Deutschland. Reinbek: Rowohlt; Weesp: Nilsson and Lamm. Seidel, H. (1991-92) Hochschulen in einem sich wandelnden Europa. U&H Tijdschrift voor Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs,, 38 (2), 55-70. UNESCO (1990) Human Development Index. Paris: UNESCO. Wilson, L. (1993) TEMPUS as an instrument of reform. European Journal of Education, 28 (4), 429-36. Wit, H. de (1989) Perestroika in het Hoger Onderwijs. We hebben hier tegenwoordig wel erg veel democratie. Visum Nieuwss (June), 5-7. Wit, H. de (1991) Hoger Onderwijs in Bulgarije heeft kwaliteits-controle nodig. Visum, 8 (3) (November), 11-12. Zalai, E. (1990) Higher education in Hungary: needs for reform and international cooperation. Aula, Society and Economy, (2), 47-55. Zanten, P. van (1992) ING-Bank ervaringen in OostEuropa. NFMD seminar paper (November).

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Reforms in Higher Education in Malaysia

MOLLY N . N . LEE Introductionn Many countries have witnessed the rapid expansion and diversification of higher education in the last two decades. This rapid expansion has not only brought about increased student enrolments but the social class from which the students are drawn has also expanded, and hence, the consensus concerning the nature and purpose of higher education as defined by a small elite group has also disappeared. Today higher education is a contested concept. The traditional view that the role of higher education is to conserve and transmit the high culture to an elite group no longer holds. There are different views on the roles of higher education that have emerged from different theoretical perspectives. According to the human capital theory, there is a close relationship between economic growth and human capital; and higher education is defined in terms of the 'needs' of the economy. Higher education institutions have the main responsibility for training a country's higher level professional, technical and managerial personnel. Every nationstate is geared towards economic growth; therefore, it is not surprising that each government would expand higher education. However, higher education can also be defined in terms of its cultural role. According to the functionalist perspective, higher education plays an important role in forging the national identity of the country and providing an avenue for upward mobility. But the conflict theorists would disagree and argue that dominant groups in modern societies attempt to monopolize control of access to higher education

so as to maintain their elite positions. On the other hand, the institutional perspective maintains that there is a worldwide cultural system which includes beliefs in the economic and political efficacy of higher education. As part of the world culture, tertiary education becomes institutionalized in nearly every country throughout the world. Both the elites and the masses see higher education as legitimating their claims for privileged positions within the modern sector of the nation. Furthermore, higher education can be defined in terms of its research function. Higher education produces and disseminates knowledge through research and teaching. Higher education is seen as being oriented towards the individual as well as towards society. It is seen as a form of consumption as well as investment. Whatever its role may be, higher education continues to be an interesting area of research, especially with respect to its reforms and the debates surrounding these reforms. The rapid expansion of higher education has brought about many unfavourable consequences, especially in the developing countries. In many of these countries, enrolment has grown at a faster pace than resources, resulting in the decline of teaching and learning quality; and low internal and external efficiency (Salmi, 1991). Over the years, the cost of higher education continues to increase, and there have been scarce public funds for higher education due to keen intersectoral competition. The decrease in resource availability as well as inefficiency in resource utilization have led to deteriorating infrastructure, like inadequate staffing, overcrowded classrooms, poor mainten-

196 Molly N.N. Lee ance, and scarcity of recurrent material inputs (World Bank, 1993). Consequently, there is a decline in the quality of teaching and research, and a rising problem of mismatch and graduate unemployment. In view of the emerging crisis in higher education, many countries have sought ways and means to improve the performance of higher education. Most of the reforms in higher education are aimed at improving the quality of teaching and research, increasing external efficiency and achieving greater equality. Some of these reforms, among others, are directed to the university structures, innovations in the curriculum, and alternative modes of financing. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the higher education reforms in Malaysia as a case study which aims at highlighting the issues that have brought about these reforms and the emergent issues that may have resulted from these reforms. In general, these issues are related to questions like how many students should have access to higher education? what and how should they learn? and how to improve effectiveness and efficiency of the higher education system? More specifically, this study focuses on the governance, access, relevance and efficiency of the higher education system in Malaysia. Issues relating to autonomy and accountability; equity and quality; general education and specialized education; and the balance between teaching and research, are analysed in terms of the debates that surround these issues.

Higher education in Malaysia The higher education system in Malaysia which started with a few elitist public institutions has expanded tremendously over the last 25 years through the establishment of first- and second-tier institutions in both the public and private sectors. Today there are nine universities and five secondtier tertiary institutions in the public sector and about 140 post-secondary private institutions in the country. The enrolment rate at the tertiary level was about 20 per cent of the age cohort in

1989 (Malaysia, 1991). The rapid expansion has been fuelled by strong social demand for higher education, seen as the main avenue for social mobility and social justice, and facilitated by the universalization of secondary education. As the system expanded, new kinds of institutions were added into it, resulting in a stratification within the system. At the apex are the public universities, whose functions are to promote national integration and unity; to provide trained and skilled human resources; and to rectify existing imbalances in educational opportunities among racial groups (Sharom, 1985). Next come the colleges, polytechnics and other technical institutions designed to meet specialized needs and the everincreasing demand for post-secondary education. In the past, the Malaysian government had very strict control over the establishment of new institutions of higher learning, but in recent years, it has been more liberal in encouraging the 'privatization' of the education sector. In the 1980s, there was a phenomenal growth in private education especially at the post-secondary level. In 1990, there were 35,600 students enrolled in private institutions of higher learning, of whom 14 per cent are studying for a degree, 46 per cent for a diploma, and 40 per cent for a certificate (Malaysia, 1991). The growth of private education has come about for various reasons, which include the growing demand for higher education, the limited number of places in public institutions, and the greatly increased cost of overseas education. The development of higher education in Malaysia has been shaped by internal social demands as well as external forces of the international arena (Lee, 1994a). As discussed above, the expansion of higher education is partly a response to internal demands like income redistribution, rising social demand, and the need for skilled human resources. Like many universities in the Third World, Malaysian universities have looked to the major metropolitan institutions for leadership and often follow curricular and other practices from these institutions (Altbach, 1982). In the past, the British model had permeated and dominated the higher education system in Malaysia in terms of its university structure, academic programmes, and assessment of standards; but in recent years, the

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trend is towards adopting many aspects of the American higher education system like the 'unit/ credit system', continuous assessment, and multidisciplinary programmes. Despite the dominant influence of Western models in the system, efforts have also been made to link the development of higher education to the local social, political and economic context. One such effort is to change the medium of instruction from English to the Malay language throughout the whole education system. Today, all public institutions of higher learning use the Malay language as the medium of instruction. Efforts have also been made to offer indigenous curricula like Malay literature and Islamic studies. The International Islamic University was established to strengthen cooperation and friendship among Islamic countries by providing facilities for Islamic studies, and training skilled human resources on the basis of Islamic principles. The stress is on the philosophical assumptions and beliefs of Islam concerning knowledge, which is a radical attempt to break away from the dominance of Western knowledge (Selvaratnam, 1989). Besides, there are also some innovative programmes found in the Malaysian higher education system. One is the Off-Campus programme in Universiti Sains Malaysia which was first established in 1971 with the aim of providing an opportunity for working adults to have a university education through distance teaching (Wong and Lee, 1992). Another is the twinning programmes that are found in many of the private colleges. In Malaysia, the 1969 Higher Education Act does not allow any private institutions to confer degrees, but restricts them to only diploma and certificate courses and degrees conferred by foreign universities through the twinning programmes (Kamal, 1992). As such, there is no choice for many private colleges but to twin with overseas institutions in the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, and other countries to offer various types of degree courses and professional qualifications. The above is a brief description of the profile of the higher education system in Malaysia. In the following sections, reforms pertaining to university governance, access to higher education, undergraduate education, and the balance

between teaching and research are examined in greater detail.

Governance: autonomy versus accountability The governance of all Malaysian universities and colleges comes under a common legislative framework known as the Universities and University Colleges Act of 1971. This Act stipulates that no university shall be established except in accordance with the provision of this Act. Under this Act, the government has full authority over student enrolments, staff appointments, curricula and financing (Malaysia, 1971). For example, no faculty can be appointed or course be introduced without prior consultation with the Ministry of Education. This Act also forbids students or faculty to be involved in any political activities or in affiliation to any political party or trade union. In short, the Malaysian government exercises tight control over the provision of higher education and has resorted to legislation to gag both the dons and students from being key participants in shaping public discourses and national debates. The relationship between academic institutions and the state is largely dependent on the issue of autonomy and accountability. In many countries, the state has played the increasing role as the provider of funding for higher education; and at the same time, higher education has become the apparatus of the modern state in supplying qualified human resources and sustaining the cultural self-understanding of society (Barnett, 1985). The state and academic institutions, especially the universities, are constantly engaged in the redefinition of their mutual relationship, with the former insisting on more autonomy and the latter demanding more accountability (Albornoz, 1991). Autonomy means the 'power to govern without outside control'; and accountability means the 'requirement to demonstrate responsible actions to some external constituencies' (Berdahl, 1990, p. 171). The key issue here is what is the proper

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balance between the competing interest of state accountability and university autonomy? The traditional idea of academic governance stresses the importance of autonomy, and academic institutions have tried to insulate themselves from direct control by external agencies. However, with the increase in size, scope, importance and cost of higher education, there have been immense pressures from those funding higher education, mostly the state, for accountability from institutions of higher learning (Altbach, 1991). On the one hand, too much autonomy might lead to a higher education unresponsive to society; and on the other hand, too much accountability might destroy the necessary academic ethos. Academic freedom and university autonomy, though related, are not synonymous. According to Berdahl (1990), Academic freedom is that freedom of the individual scholar in his/her teaching and research to pursue truth wherever it seems to lead without fear of punishment or termination of employment for having offended some political, religious or social orthodoxy, (p. 171)

Academic freedom is directed more at the individual level, whereas campus autonomy operates at the institutional level. Institutional autonomy can be further differentiated into substantive autonomy and procedural autonomy (Berdahl, 1990). Substantive autonomy is the power of the academic institution in its corporate form to determine its own goals and programmes, whereas procedural autonomy is the power to determine the means by which these goals and programmes will be pursued. In exploring autonomy issues, Berdahl (1990) argues that it is helpful to know whether the state is intervening in procedural or substantive matters. He maintains that the state ought to stay out of any issues which threaten to lessen the academic freedom of persons undertaking teaching and research at institutions of higher learning. The crucial domain is substantive autonomy, and government should not interfere with the 'heart of academe'. However, neither academic freedom nor institutional autonomy can ever be absolute. What is needed is a constructive partnership between the state and academic institutions with sensitive mechanisms for bringing

together the state's concern with accountability and academic concern with autonomy. In the context of Malaysia, all public institutions of higher learning are totally funded by the government. The universities have emerged as major national institutions and, therefore, the government not only exerts its authority over broad policies but also presides over the detailed operations of the universities. Furthermore, the government not only demands accountability for how public funds are spent but also seeks to ensure that public institutions of higher learning provide the kinds of training and research programmes which contribute to human resource development in line with national priorities. As discussed above, the political and administrative control of the universities by the state was legally enshrined in the Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (and its amendments in 1975). This act was conceived within a broader national framework of constitutional and policy reforms which was considered to be more appropriate for a 'fragile' multiracial society in which disparate aspirations of the population, particularly of the majority Malay community, had to be met (Selvaratnam, 1989). Academic freedom in terms of freedom to teach, research and publish are subjected to governmental approval, and this is deemed necessary because Malaysia has not yet developed sufficient sophistication to permit total freedom in this respect. In the interest of the public as a whole it is necessary that the academics should conform to the Universities and University Colleges Act that has been laid down by parliament to play down racial and religious animosities (Amir, 1981). The higher education system in Malaysia is very much a state-controlled system. All the public institutions of higher learning are funded and regulated by the state and, similarly, all private institutions are required to be registered with the Ministry of Education. The Minister of Education holds both administrative and political authority over all institutions. Vice-Chancellors of universities are appointed by the king and all academic appointments must be sanctioned by the government. All public institutions do not choose their students, instead all admissions to universities

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come under the responsibility of the Central University Admission Unit. The 1975 Amendments of the Universities and University Colleges Act further restrict campus autonomy by curbing faculty members' and students' involvement in political activities. In sum, higher education institutions are required to be accountable for their academic and management performance. The issue here is how closely does the state intervene in the core elements of the academic institutions such as the authority to appoint and promote academic staff, the content and mode of instruction and research, and the setting of academic standards and assessment of performance? Based on the above analysis, the Malaysian government, for political expediency, intervenes directly in these core areas, imposing considerable containment on the autonomy of the public institutions. This has led to a call for a more independent form of university governance and more campus autonomy. Interested parties, like the academicians, have been calling for the setting up of a higher education council that is directly answerable to parliament, instead of the Ministry of Education. The government can grant charters to universities, specifying their freedoms and autonomies; and set up buffer agencies or mechanisms to distribute public funds to public institutions. It is hoped that the state would change its dominant role in the provision and the financing of institutions to a less interventionist role whereby it supervises and monitors the development of higher education. Its main responsibilities would be to provide a conducive environment establishing broad policies to guide public and private higher education and to offer incentives to meet national training and research needs. For example, there has been pressure to modify the 1971 Act so as to allow foreign universities to set up branch campuses in the country and to make Malaysia the higher education centre in the ASEAN region. If the government needs the active participation of the private sector to provide higher education, then it has to formulate clear-cut policies concerning private education, like the establishment of a national accreditation board, and provide financial incentives to private institutions

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for offering technical programmes (Lee, 1994). There should be more institutional autonomy whereby universities can determine the content of both instruction and research, and the selection of academic personnel should be left to the academics, especially at the department or faculty level. Undergradute studies and courses should be designed and approved solely by academics and departments or faculties rather than as directed by the senate of the university or ministry of education. There should be a shift from a 'state control model' to a 'state supervisory model' of higher education system which involves decentralizing for increased autonomy and accountability (World Bank, 1993).

Access: equity versus quality This section examines the issues relating to the distribution of higher education among competing social groups. The key question is: who determines who gets access to higher education? According to Reid (1991), there is a distinction between 'increased access' and 'wider access'. Increased access refers to the quantitative expansion of higher education in the sense of making more higher education available to a greater number of students, whereas wider access refers to the creation of a less homogeneous student population drawn from all social groups. So the issue here is: wider access for whom in terms of gender, class, race and regions? Access to higher education is a salient issue relating to equity and quality. A prevailing educational dilemma facing most countries' systems of higher education is how to design a selective process which increases representation of traditionally underrepresented groups without sacrificing the academic quality of the entering class (World Bank, 1993). In many countries, limited resources come into direct conflict with increasing demands for access to higher education, especially from minority groups. According to Miller (1990), decision-making concerning higher education involves three key

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factors - resources (human and material), access and quality. If greater access is desired, then to maintain quality, greater human and fiscal resources are required; if greater quality is the target, then either decreased access or increased resource will be needed; and if fiscal resources are diminished, either decreases in personnel, access, and/or quality will be needed, (p. 46)

There is always tension between access and quality, and the issue may be interpreted as 'more means worse?'; 'more means different?'; or 'more means better?' (Ball and Enggins, 1989). Very often in the pursuit of excellence, students are selected and admitted to institutions of higher learning through a merit system, and doing so excludes a sizeable number of students from the disadvantaged groups. To overcome this problem, many countries have implemented 'affirmative action policies' whereby a specified number of admission places for minority students who do not meet the regular academic admission standards are set aside for the disadvantaged groups. To fill these quotas for minority students, applicants are usually judged by less vigorous admission standards. While some quota-admitted students may have done well in their studies, many have also dropped out. Thus affirmative action policies often involve important trade-offs between equity and efficiency. However, preferential admission policies aimed at increasing the participation of previously excluded groups will not adversely affect the quality of higher education only if the overall selectivity is high and the quality of academic secondary education is reasonably uniform (World Bank, 1993). Otherwise, manipulation of meritocratic admission criteria is often fraught with difficulties. In the case of Malaysia, the government views access to higher education as a means of restructuring the Malaysian society and eliminating the identification of ethnic community with economic functions. For the past 25 years, there have been concerted efforts to provide more educational opportunities for the Bumiputras1 and to increase Bumiputra representation in the various professions and occupations in the modern sector. To

achieve this objective, the Malaysian government implemented the 'racial quota' policy whereby student admission to public institutions of higher learning and the appointment of academic staffing in these institutions are based on racial quotas in favour of the Bumiputras. Bumiputra students have a different access route to university education, for most of them sit for the Matriculation examinations which are set by each of the universities for their own pre-university classes; while the non-Bumiputra students sit for the Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Menengah (Higher Secondary Education Certificate) which is set by the Malaysian Examination Syndicate. Needless to say, there is a great discrepancy in the academic quality of the students that are admitted to the universities based on these two kinds of examinations. Under the racial quota policy, not only the appointment of academic staff needs to reflect the ethnic composition of the country's population, but also greater Bumiputra representation in key administrative positions in the universities (Jaspir, 1989). The implementation of this policy has eroded one of the deeply entrenched academic traditions, which is to admit students and to appoint faculty members based on merits. This preferential treatment policy may have been extremely successful in increasing the Bumiputras' participation in tertiary education, but it has also brought about many other unforeseen consequences. This policy has led to the emergence of an even more polarized society instead of promoting national integration. Because of the quota system and the limited number of places in the public institutions of higher learning, many non-Bumiputra students who are just as qualified are denied places locally and are forced to go overseas at very great expense or to seek further education in the private colleges. Consequently, this positive discrimination policy has generated interethnic conflict and increased communal tension (Lee, 1994). Furthermore, there is also a definite decline in the quality and efficiency of public higher education. A study by Karthigesu (1986) shows that the percentage of Bumiputra students obtaining the higher classes of degrees is lower

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than that of non-Bumiputra students, no matter if it is an arts degree, science degree or professional degree. This goes to show that in giving greater attention to equity issues in educational and occupational opportunities, less demands have been made on the quality of student outputs (Jaspir, 1989). Moreover, the external efficiency of the Malaysian higher education system is problematic as reflected by a certain amount of mismatch between graduates and occupations. A study on higher education and employment recorded a fair degree of mismatch between high-level scientific personnel and the needs of the labour market (Fatimah et al., 1985). According to Mehmet and Yip (1985), the Malaysian government scholarships for higher education are not geared to the development of the professional type of manpower, but rather to the production of generalists. Graduates in the professional fields represented only 23.3 per cent of the total. As a result, there is a surplus of generalist graduates and at the same time an acute shortage of scientific and professional graduates. This problem is further exacerbated by an imbalance in the higher education system where graduates at the degree level far exceeded the number of graduates in both the diploma and certificate levels (Lee, 1994). In attempting to redress social inequity by implementing a quota system in both admission practices and appointments of faculty and administrators, the higher education system becomes inefficient and graduates are produced at a significantly higher cost due to poorer academic performance and greater likelihood of repetition. Equity issues in higher education will not be effectively addressed in the long run unless determined efforts are also made to increase educational opportunities for disadvantaged groups at all levels of education (World Bank, 1993). One way to ensure good quality higher education is to take measures to reduce the variability in the performance of secondary school graduates and enlarge the pool of eligible candidates for admission to higher education. In the context of Malaysia, the government set up special residential science schools and junior science colleges so as to provide special secondary science education to Bumiputra students.

In addition, each of the universities runs preuniversity, matriculation, pre-medical, prescience, and pre-engineering programmes for Bumiputra students (Selvaratnam, 1988). These moves were aimed at improving the supply of suitable Bumiputra candidates to be admitted to science-based courses at the tertiary level. However, most of the Bumiputra students with good academic results are sent overseas on government scholarships leaving those with lesser qualifications to enter local universities. In assessing the quality of higher education, one does not only examine the entry standards and alternative access routes but one also needs to look at the exit points and the purposes of higher education. If one of the purposes of higher education is the production of qualified human resources for the economy, then it is essential that we examine the employers' perception of the graduates, that is, we need to listen to the voice of the labour market in accepting the products of the system (Barnett, 1992). Unfortunately, many of the local graduates in Malaysia cannot obtain employment in the private sector, especially in the multinational companies, because they are not fluent in English. Peer review is another method of assessing quality, and in this case we have to listen to the voices of the professional bodies. Although many of the professional degrees conferred by the Malaysian universities are recognized worldwide, the locally produced medical degree is problematic because it is not recognized by the British Medical Association. Yet another way of interpreting the quality of higher education is to examine the quality of the student's educational experience, that is, the 'value-added' during the process of higher education (Ball and Enggins, 1989). The value-added approach in viewing educational excellence focuses on what is taught and how it is being taught and evaluates the scope and rigour of the curriculum. It also takes into consideration the contextual constraints, opportunities, and improvement in performance (Morgan and Mitchell, 1985). The following section examines issues relating to the undergraduate curriculum and reforms pertaining to it.

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Relevance: general education and specialized education An ongoing concern in any educational system is deciding on what and how students should learn. Two competing schools of thought prevail in guiding the development of undergraduate education in universities. One is learning for its own sake, and the other is the instrumental theory of 'utilitarianism', that is, learning what is applicable and useful (Ball and Enggins, 1989). The debate on the undergraduate curriculum revolves around the issue of relevance — should the student 'learn more and more of very little' or 'know less and less of more and more'? In the literature, the former is usually referred to as specialized education and the latter is general education. General education is that part of a student's whole education which looks first of all to his life as a responsible human being and citizen, whereas specialized education is that part which looks to the student's competence in some occupation (Report of the Harvard Committee, 1945). In recent years, the trend in higher education is towards specialized education. Throughout the world, there has been a conviction that the university curriculum should provide relevant training for a variety of increasingly complex jobs (Altbach, 1991). It has been argued that in view of the knowledge explosion, it is quite impossible for one person to learn all that there is to know. The pragmatic view of undergraduate education is for students to immerse themselves in a particular branch of study and prepare themselves for some specialized career. Therefore, the function of a university is to train students for highly scientific and technical skilled jobs. The Malaysian education system has been, for a long time, geared towards early specialization. Students had to make a choice of studying in either the arts or science stream at the upper secondary level, and this specialization continued at the pre-university level. At the undergraduate level, students enrolled themselves in specific professional programmes like engineering, medicine, teaching, and others, even in the freshman year itself. This approach towards university education may be more economical as compared to

the American system where professional studies do not start until the postgraduate level. However, it also has its limitations in that early specialization often leads to 'narrowness' and 'inflexibility' on the part of the individual (Report of the Harvard Committee, 1945). The recent reforms in both the secondary school curriculum and undergraduate curriculum in Malaysia reflect the importance of providing a broad-based general type of education which aims at developing an allrounded individual. As from the early 1990s onwards, the arts and science streams were abolished and under the new secondary school curriculum students can choose both arts and science subjects at the upper-secondary level. The undergraduate curriculum has also become more broad-based. For example, at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, there are more and more core courses like Malaysian society, Islamic civilization, critical thinking, philosophy of science, which are compulsory to all undergraduates. Furthermore, science students can take a minor package from any of the arts areas and vice versa. This is very much in line with the Malaysian educational philosophy which stresses the importance of developing the intellectual, moral, spiritual, and physical aspects of the individual. As mentioned above, the argument against specialized education is its narrowness because in a rapidly changing society, specific knowledge can easily become outdated. Given the pace of economic progress and technological advancement, the specific training that the students obtained in universities may no longer be applicable when they enter the labour market or soon after. In criticizing the vocationalization of higher education, Husen (1991) maintains that Evidently in-depth study in a given field generates solid competence in that particular field but easily leads to a narrow perspective and weakens the ability to acquire new knowledge when the subject matter learned becomes obsolete, (p. 182)

He recommends a core curriculum that provides a common frame of reference for all undergraduate students. To him, undergraduate education should emphasize underlying intellectual, scientific and technological principles rather than provide too narrow specialized knowledge. In gen-

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eral, employers would prefer a little less specialist subject knowledge and a little more on what has become known as 'transferable personal skills' (Wagner, 1989). Employers expect graduates to possess skills like numeracy, literacy, communication, teamwork and leadership skills as well as attitudes like loyalty, courage, optimism and the sheer ability to work hard as a member of a team. To many, the best kind of initial higher education is general education which aims at the 'cultivation of the intellect' as well as 'practical wisdom' (Brubacher, 1965). This is usually carried out in an elective system where students are allowed to choose, within certain limits, among a great variety of courses and thus compose their own curriculum for the first degree. But this system does have an inherent flaw because if we leave general education to self-interest then, sometimes, its standard may fall prey to the students' 'get by' attitude. In other words, the students apply themselves to satisfy the minimum requirements of social conventions but little or no more. Such attitude and practice would jeopardize the 'pursuit of excellence' as the enshrined goal of university education. To overcome this shortcoming, it is imperative that there should be some prescription whereby the students are not given total freedom of choice so that the kind of general education offered is not something that is formless, that is, the taking of one course after another, but rather it is an organic whole whose parts are integrated in serving a common aim (Report of the Harvard Committee, 1945). In short, undergraduate education should avoid early career choice and should allow students to explore their own inclinations by exposing them to a wide variety of courses.

Efficiency: balance between teaching and research Knowledge is at the heart of higher education. The dual role of higher education is to produce and disseminate knowledge. The dilemma faced by many universities is how to perform the dual tasks of generating new knowledge through research

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and imparting already existing knowledge through teaching. A long-established view is that research and teaching should go hand in hand in universities. 'Scholarship' should be common to both research and teaching which makes the two conceptually indivisible (Westergaard, 1991). It has been argued that faculty members should engage in both teaching and research for not only would they impart the most updated knowledge to their students but also they are unlikely to mislead their students through ignorance (Ben-David, 1972). However, the principle of the unity of teaching and research has been in contention, especially in Great Britain. In recent years, the debate is whether research should be decoupled from teaching. The common argument in Britain is that teaching in higher education can be sound without the back-up from staff engagement in research (Westergaard, 1991). If the country is moving towards mass higher education, then one should reexamine the relationship between research and teaching. If more students mean more teaching, it should not necessarily mean more research, for research can be uncoupled from teaching and limited to a small number of selected institutions. The split between teaching and research would result in a stratified system of higher education which is emerging in Britain where there are some research universities, some institutions that combine research and teaching, and others that teach only. In Malaysia, universities do expect their academic staff to teach and be involved in research. However, the Malaysian universities have a relatively low rate of research productivity (Jaspir, 1989; Haris, 1985). The seeming reluctance of local academics to get involved in research is basically due to the weak research environment that prevails in Malaysia. The lack of motive to do research can be attributed to several factors such as lack of time due to heavy teaching load; lack of finance and equipment; and lack of academic leadership from senior faculty members. The inability of Malaysian universities to produce research has led the government to establish specialized research institutes like the Rubber Research Institute (RRI), the Malaysian Agriculture Research and De-

204 Molly N. N. Lee

velopment Institute (MARDI), the Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (PORIM), the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER), and others. These research institutes were set up to study specific problems relating to national development and to do the bulk of R&D work. The separation of research from teaching at the institutional level can deprive the institutions of higher learning of important infusion of funds and talents. But that does not mean that there cannot be a division of labour among the academic staff within the institutions or departments. Not all academics are competent researchers nor are they all good teachers. It is quite unrealistic to expect that every teacher should be capable and motivated to become a competent researcher who would make original contributions to their fields of expertise. Therefore, it may be necessary to acknowledge the natural division of labour among the academic staff so that each would have the time and resources to perform well in their chosen specialties.

Conclusions The issues that have emerged from the higher education reforms in Malaysia are not at all unique to this particular country, but rather they are comparable to other countries. Many higher education systems are engaged in reforms which aim at improving academic quality; increasing both internal and external efficiency; and achieving greater social equality. How should higher education institutions be governed and financed? Who should get access to higher education? What and how should students learn? How can higher education be made more cost-effective? This is a Malaysian case study which analyses the issues relating to autonomy and accountability; equity and quality; general and specialized education; and the balance between research and teaching in institutions of higher learning. However, these are some of the common concerns of all nations in their efforts to expand and diversify higher education.

Note 1 Bumiputra means 'native of the soil'. This term is used to mean the Malays and other indigenous tribes such as the Kadazans and Dayaks. The Bumiputras enjoy 'special privileges' as enshrined in the Malaysian Constitution (see Article 152 of the 1957 Malaysian Constitution).

References Albornoz, O. (1991) Autonomy and accountability in higher education. Prospects, 21 (2), 204-13. Altbach, P. G. (1982) Higher Education in the Third World: Themes and Variations. Singapore: Maruzen Asia. Altbach, P. G. (1991) Patterns in higher education development: towards the year 2000. Prospects, 21 (2), 189-203. Amir, A. (1981) Staff and faculty development in the Universiti Sains Malaysia, in Staff and Faculty Development in Southeast Asian Universities. RIHED Research Series. Singapore: Maruzen Asia. Ball, C. and Enggins, H. (1989) Higher Education in the 1990s: New Dimensions. Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press. Barnett, R. A. (1985) Higher education: legitimation crisis. Studies in Higher Education, 10 (3), 241-55. Barnett, R. A. (1992) Improving Higher Education: Total Quality Care. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and the Open University Press. Ben-David, J. (1972) American Higher Education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Berdahl, R. (1990) Academic freedom, autonomy and accountability in British universities. Studies in Higher Education, 15 (2), 169-80. Brubacher, J. S. (1965) Bases For Policy in Higher Education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Fatimah, H. D., Jasbir, S. S., Dhamotharan, M. and Samuel, M. (1985) Higher Education and Employment in Malaysia: The Experiences of Graduates. Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Malaya. Haris, G. T. (1985) Constraints on research in Malaysian universities. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 13 (2), 80-92. Husen, T. (1991) The idea of the university: changing roles, current crisis and future challenges. Prospects, 21 (2), 171-88. Jaspir, S. S. (1989) Scientific personnel, research environment, and higher education in Malaysia, in P. G.

Reforms in Higher Education in Malaysiaa 205 Altbach (ed.), Scientific Development and Higher Education. New York: Praeger. Kamal, S. (1992) Economic growth and education reform: some fundamental issues of educational policy. Paper presented at the Seminar on 'Educational Restructuring and Economic Growth: Role of the Private Sector', Kuala Lumpur, 1992. Karthigesu, R. (1986) Distribution of opportunities in tertiary education in Malaysia: a review of the fifth Malaysia plan. Pendidik dan Pendidikan, 8, 34-47. Lee, M. N. N. (1994a) Higher education in Malaysia: global influences and internal demands. Paper presented at the Annual CIES Conference, San Diego, 1994. Lee, M. N. N. (1994b) Private higher education in Malaysia: social implications. Educational Journal, 21 (2) and 22 (1), 157-68. Lee, M. N. N. (1996) Higher education, in K. S. Jomo and Ng Suew Kiat (eds), Malaysia's Economic Development. Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, pp. 317-40. Malaysia (1971) Universities and University Colleges Act, 1971. Kuala Lumpur: Government Printer. Malaysia, Ministry of Education (1991) Education Statistics of Malaysia 1989. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa Pustaka. Mehmet, O. and Yip, Y. H. (1985) An empirical evaluation of government scholarship policy in Malaysia. Higher Education, 14,197-210. Miller, R. I. (1990) Major American Higher Education Issues and Challenges in the 1990s. London: Jessica Kingsley.

Reid, E. (1991) Access and institutional change, in T. Schuller (ed.), The Future of Higher Education. Buckingham: SRHE and the Open University Press, pp. 45-54. Report of the Harvard Committee (1945) General and Special Education, in J. D. Margolis (ed.) (1965) The Campus in the Modem World. Toronto: Macmillan. Salmi, J. (1991) The Higher Education Crisis in Developing Countries. Background Series no. PHREE/91/37. Washington, DC: World Bank. Selvaratnam, V. (1989) Change amidst continuity: university development in Malaysia, in P. G. Altbach and V. Selvaratnam (eds), From Dependence to Autonomy: The Development of Asian Universities. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Sharom, A. (1985) The relevance of American higher education model for Malaysia, in P. Altbach (ed.), An ASEAN-American Dialogue: The Relevance of American Higher Education to Southeast Asia. Singapore: RIHED. Wagner, L. (1989) Access and standards: An unresolved (and unresolvable?) debate, in C. Ball and H. Enggins (eds). Westergaard, J. (1991) Scholarship, research and teaching: a view from the social science. Studies in Higher Education, 16 (1), 23-8. Wong, S. Y. and Lee, M. N. N. (1992) Bridging the formal and non-formal mode: a comparative study of distance higher education in Asia. Paper presented at the VHIth World Congress of Comparative Education, Prague, 1992. World Bank (1993) Policy Options for Higher Education Reform. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

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Reforms in Higher Education: Culture and Control in the Middle East

K.E.SHAW Since 1945 there has been a considerable increase in the number of universities in the Middle East from the eight which existed in 1940 to more than 70 in the early 1980s and a few more since then. As they have emerged from colonial rule, and then as they began to benefit from oil revenues (sometimes indirectly as in the case of Jordan) even the smaller states set up their own institutions, and the larger ones such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt soon had several. The continuing high birth rate and the increasing maturation of the school systems will probably mean more expansion, but more recently the rate of increase in higher education institutions has declined. To talk of reform in a pattern of higher education which is so new, where most of the effort has gone into founding and working up institutions often on green-field, or at any rate brown-sand, sites, might seem rather premature. However, there are signs that these institutions have consolidated and are beginning to take stock of themselves. Useful studies by locals (Ahmad, 1987; Al Farsy, 1994; Al Naqeeb, 1988; and especially Anabtawi, 1986,1993) have begun. There is wide scope for PhD and MPhil research by Middle East nationals supervised in the West, on this topic. Reform of higher education is not a parochial issue. It is a distinguishing characteristic of universities that they have an international dimension; their reform does not take place, as it were, under a bell-jar, isolated from wider trends in the world. A lot of what I shall be saying certainly draws attention to special contextual characteristics of the Middle Eastern region. We should not forget, though, that through Islam the region has

important links with countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and others in South-East Asia and the Maghreb, and that many candidates from the Middle East study in the West, where most of them seek their doctorates. Through its use of Western curricular patterns and learning resources, further links with the West exist, however suspicious of these influences some local groups may be. Through oil, trade, debt and military supplies most of the Middle Eastern states are drawn deeply into the system of world capitalism, with consequences that are matters for lively debate. None of them is a democracy. Higher education and the intellectuals are controlled and managed by the powerholders. But the situation is full of potential for change. My intention, then, is to draw attention to issues that are widespread in the domain, drawing on a broad range of writing by local commentators, recent vists to the Gulf, and discussions with PhD candidates in this field over the years. Inevitably I write from within the British and American traditions of higher education practice and research. I shall argue that the case for reforms has been well made and bring together proposals made by locals about directions such reforms may take. An important purpose of this will be to add to the rather limited resources available to Western academics who undertake to supervise research in this field. Conceptualizing or theorizing such studies is one of the main difficulties which often face local candidates who have good access to data and are keen to carry out research in the Middle East. They are not helped by the fact that as Barnett (1990) argues, despite the volume of writing in the West,

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the domain remains fragmented and incoherent. We still lack a comprehensive theory of higher education. There is no elaborated educational theory of what is essentially characteristic of higher education and what differentiates it from secondary and further education, or of the roles it plays in promoting the economic, social and political purposes of societies, more especially those in which it is newly established. In this chapter I shall rely heavily on ideas put forward by Rupp and Lange (1989). Using these as a general framework I shall evoke some of the chief features of the contexts in which higher education operates in the Middle East, stressing the cultural dimension and the positions of the intellectuals rather than the political and economic factors which have had ample exposure. I shall then move on to the reforms, recognizing however that the favourable circumstances that would allow forward movement to take place are still distant in most cases.

Tools of analysis Rupp and Lange stress that in seeking to explain how societies persist through time, One well known view holds that every society searches for means to maintain the social order, to control social change, and to create bonds with its members by requiring them to conform to social norms, expectations and forms of behaviour that prevail in that society. One of these means is education. (1989, p. 669)

Recalling arguments by Bourdieu (1969, 1979) they suggest that groups compete not only about the distribution and control of economic capital and about social resources, but also about cultural capital and cultural power. Pedagogics and curriculum are, besides religion, important fields of cultural contest. Contested power is exerted in the cultural domain much as power is exerted in the economic domain, for purposes which include domination and its own legitimization. Bourdieu distinguishes cultural capital as symbolic goods and cultural resources, the possession of which symbolic properties conferred by higher education, such as critical awareness, specialized

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knowledge and how to apply it, articulateness, conceptual tools, metaskills, capacities and competencies, frequently confers social power and improved chances of access to political power. Different groups in society not only differ in possession of these different forms of capital, but they also differ in the power to determine what is valuable capital and what is not. (p. 671)

The dominant groups, through their ability to control crucial definitions and decisions, notably over cultural and academic appointments, exert great power over meanings attributed to symbolic goods. They will also influence the distribution of important meanings, usually disseminating them preferentially amongst their own group and withholding them from others, often by linguistic means. In the Middle East this happens in part through the emphasis on classical Arabic, French and English as languages of instruction. In the West these contestations take place between governments and their critics in the intelligentsia, and in this higher education normally plays a major part, especially in relation to educational reforms. We shall see that this is less the case in the Middle East. The whole domain of cultural contest about higher education there, and the processes it employs, are matters well worthy of research directly or as part of the theorization of more general empirical studies. There is a degree of competition in setting up higher education institutions especially in the Arabian peninsula. The ruling groups in the Gulf, however, are not all sophisticated and may have no more hidden agendas than staying in power and controlling resources. Many are likely to look for no more sophisticated understanding of higher education than would be provided by simple functionalist accounts of the social benefits universities produce: doctors, engineers and teachers skilled personnel to provide services. Looney (1994) has shown that even when there is clear evidence of overproduction of graduates, and even PhDs, so that gross skill mismatches with market requirements occur, the surpluses are absorbed locally. I have not encountered much theoretically informed discussion in English which might be of value to those in the Gulf who have to face basic

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strategic policy issues, or research them, at the level of the institution.

Marketable skills and intellectual distinctionn In the West, the university as the house of intellect has increasingly been supplemented in the twentieth century by the university as the school for skills. Government-dominated bodies such as the research councils which allocate funding have greatly increased their leverage. With the coming of mass tertiary education the universities have been inserted into a real world open to a wide range of direct pressures. Painful adaptive change has accelerated. In contrast, in the Middle East the university as the school for skills developed very rapidly after 1945, leaving the house of intellect, particularly as regards basic research, well to the rear. There, the universities sit at the top of educational systems which are mostly free but not compulsory, and in which repetition of grades and drop-out rates are very high. Access to higher education is restricted to rather affluent, urban, middle-class groups, particularly when it comes to study abroad. Whilst the Middle East shares in the financial cut-backs which are affecting universities in the USA and the advanced nations generally, there the centrally planned shake-ups which are also affecting most aspects of university life, both administrative and academic, in the West are much harder to plot. Politically speaking, the universities in the Middle East appear to be on the sidelines of decision-making. Despite the new more open economic policies [infitah],, Tibi (1988) has claimed that much of the impact of Western economies and consumerism has not been to promote Westernization in the good sense -modernizing, raising living standards of the masses and social justice - but to dominate and to support reactionary regimes. This is a kind of 'bridgehead' Westernization, destined to increase dependency and accentuate cultural retrospection. For him, much of Western education in the region is a superficial bolt-on, with potential

for maladjustment between education and society, 'colonizing the mind' not the territory. If legitimacy remains the ongoing question for Middle Eastern governments, authenticity remains the ongoing issue for education. The growing presence of Islamicist groups which have strong convictions on what constitutes authenticity is important here, but except in Iran their influence is exerted largely from the street and from groups among the students rather than from the academics. Nevertheless, political Islam versus Western thought and values is a fundamental area of contestation about cultural power and resources and how they are used.

The local context of higher education Higher education in the Middle East is largely a transplanted system originally set up by missionaries and colonial administrators from Europe and America. Like China, but unlike, for example, Africa, there existed in the Middle East a tradition of higher learning, especially in Islamic religious studies and law. This had been established since the tenth century in intellectual centres such as Fez, Tunis, Baghdad, Damascus, Qum, Nishapur, and most notably in Cairo in the mosque/ university of Al-Azhar. This curriculum, teaching approach and traditions, and all that Islamic studies stand for, remains part of the conte'xt into which Western-style higher education, at the beginning, was inserted. It affects the climate of schooling, the foundation on which higher education rests, and it affects research and study for higher degrees, the crowning achievement of higher education institutions. Two universities in Saudi Arabia, Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud and Islamic University in Madina al Munawwara, and three in the West Bank/Gaza are wholly devoted to Islamic studies. In Iran, the universities in Teheran, after remaining closed for some years, reopened with modified Islamic curricula for 'acceptable' students in 1983. Very large numbers of students study Islamic culture and literature, sharia law and religion, not only in Qum and Al

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Azhar, but in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. This, together with the struggle to replace French with Arabic as the language of instruction in Algeria, indicates that the struggles in the cultural domain continue strongly. So also does the resurgence of Islamic education in once-secularized Turkey. In Syria, the 'socialist' element in Baathist ideology has opposed the Islamic elements in higher education and sought to combat Islamicist zealotry with savage violence at times. In the Gulf, religious invocations in the introduction to printed books and at the beginnings of classes - even those in Western languages - together with recitation of the Quran at degree-conferring ceremonies, are not mere matters of form. Much, therefore, of the cultural capital and its symbols is authenticated by Islam; but the precise use that is made of it is a research area. The French, having a large number of colonies, and convictions about their civilizing mission, established the University of Algiers in 1909. American missionary enterprise established the American University in Beirut in 1920 (on a foundation dating from 1866); French Jesuits also established their higher education institution which dates officially from 1881. The Americans set up a university in Cairo in 1920 whilst the Hebrew University was set up in Jerusalem in 1925. Cairo University, destined to become the great influential university of the Middle East, opened in 1908 after much resistance from Cromer, who had not much cared for his experience of higher education in India. It limped for some time, especially during the 1914-18 war, but took off after it was refounded in 1925. Higher education developed very rapidly in numbers under government pressure throughout the Middle East, after the 1960s. As multi-faculty, fully operational institutions, then, the great majority are 'new' in the British sense of 'new universities', and many, especially in the Gulf, the West Bank and Libya, have not seen much more than 25 years of working life, if that. Some were created out of conglomerations of pre-existing institutions raised to university status, but also others were created on entirely new sites, such as Al-Ain and Sultan Qaboos, and were not the result of promoting less prestigious, but still experienced, institutions. Whilst few of them

witnessed the protracted struggle between French and English expatriate staff that characterized prewar Cairo, they were rarely able to manage with fully localized staff, though the number of Westerners is now quite limited. Academic staff are as much part of labour migration as building and construction workers; indeed university education in sending countries has suffered severely from the migration of university teachers to oilrich countries. Sudan is a clear case. One consequence is that a large proportion of staff are foreign nationals on three-year contracts. Lacking security, they are easily controlled; but they are less motivated by long-term purposes such as research. Research on Middle Eastern higher education, at any rate in English, remains very largely at the descriptive level. A trawl through the leading journals of comparative education is not very rewarding (in comparison, say, with what appears on Chinese higher education), nor is there a great deal in Middle Eastern journals. It is not difficult to find PhD dissertations submitted to American universities which deal with aspects of higher education. They are informative and much more up-to-date than the few textbooks normally to be found on the topic in larger libraries. They are rarely deeply theorized or critical, and often rely on exceptional opportunities for access to administrative data on staff, student access and enrolments, curriculum, the conditions in which the institution was founded and the stages of its growth. Most established Middle Eastern teaching staff find many obstacles to research, outside science, technology, agronomy, engineering and the like, often in specialized institutions. Unlike Western academics, amongst whom there are large numbers who regularly, sometimes obsessively, write about higher education, Middle Eastern staff have little of the developed self-critical tradition which is represented in European and American books and journals. Much that is of value in throwing light on the context and climate of higher education there is to be found in work on loosely related topics such as the intelligentsia, the media and the increasing consumerist lifestyle which brings exposure to Western assumptions at a much deeper than conscious level amongst the middle classes. Material

210 K.E. Shaw is also to be found in political commentaries, and the ongoing discussion about the uneasy coexistence of Western and Islamic traditional cultures with their views of knowledge, tests of truth, and lifestyles generally. The cultural situation, let me insist, is contested, but the details need to be more clearly established. For example, Sharabi (1988, ch. 2) concludes that there is neither genuine traditionalism nor authentic modernity. It is amongst the modernized intellectuals that duality and contradictions are most apparent. Yet interaction amongst the political elites and their political and bureaucratic counterparts is inadequate. The tradition of providing inputs into public policymaking in Islamic countries is virtually absent (Mehmet, 1990, p. 177)

Relations with the state None of the governments currently in place in the Middle East is a democracy. The boundaries within which they rule are in large measure lines drawn on maps by foreign diplomats, soldiers and administrators in the colonial and mandate period. These arbitrary boundaries demarcated states which have achieved a certain permanence with the passage of time. But the passage from state to nation is still in process. In recent years, coming to terms with economic realities as these are understood by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, with their neo-liberal and monetarist outlooks, has raised once more and in a more painful way than in the 1970s the issues of nation-building alongside economic growth. How can it be promoted? Who are the active participants? Behind the surface issue, then, of the relationship of universities to governments in these states lies the deeper question posed by Hermassi (1993): what is the nature of the symbolic bond between the rulers and the ruled, and how is it influenced by such matters as the prosperous or adverse fortunes of the oil industry, the activities of the transnational companies, the rise of political Islam, the pressures of consumerism, population growth and migration? In the Maghreb,

Morocco has been hit by the costs of the Polisario war, Algeria is politically and socially divided, Tunisia struggling to modernize its economy. In Egypt and Jordan, as elsewhere, the bond has been put under greater stress by continuing high natality, urbanization, exploitation of the agricultural sector by artificial pricing policies, widespread unemployment and the decay of ideologies that sustained the liberation struggles. It is not surprising that we find Khouri (1983) writing of the paralysis of the Arab states in the face of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon: This paralysis stems from the fact that the domestic political structure of every Arab state precludes the genuine consensus building which is required to involve people actively in political, economic or military mobilisation. Deep commitment to nationhood is lacking in most Arab countries because the individual citizen is not involved in making the decisions that determine his or her daily life pattern, (p. 115)

It was possible to be moderately optimistic about a steady movement from the post-colonial state to the new self-confident nation in the period after liberation. Now, after the economic stringency of the 1980s, the struggle in Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq war, Afghanistan, the invasion of Kuwait and the enduring tensions with Israel, it is much more common for writers to question whether the state can, in fact, create the nation in the Western understanding of that term, and hence what the role of state-sponsored higher education in nationbuilding might be. The earlier linear/evolutionary theorists of development were more confident in the 1960s. More recently interest has tended to focus on obstacles in the way of transition to nationhood, and on redefinitions of the notion of government (Salami, 1987; Sayigh, 1991). This has intensified in the many studies of infitah, the economic policy that involves a larger role for the private sector and the scaling back, in Hermassi's phrase, of the Leviathan state as initiator, entrepreneur, regulator, and source of unitary ideology. In these circumstances relationships between universities and the state cannot be characterized in any simple way; indeed they are another central research issue, or will be when it becomes possible to get access to the data. The concept of civil

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society has emerged since the late 1980s (Gellner, 1991; Kumar, 1993) and there is scope for research on the contribution higher education might make to this notion as it applies in the Middle East. The intelligentsia are aware of their weakness in the face of the authoritarian state; they are in many respects incorporated into government and bought off by government employment. There are thus strong disincentives to research and commitment to writing about public policy that are critically informed by political science and sociology. The opportunities for academics and others to come together for public discussion and study of such issues are few. Any one of the more than a hundred Washington think-tanks employs more people than all those working in public policy research in the whole of the Middle East (Rabie, 1992). Yet the exclusion of higher education personnel from nation-building in the longer term is unthinkable, particularly in the light of the emergence of such countries as Japan, and later Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea into prominence as successful trading economies with a powerful higher education input, despite often autocratic styles of government. Jordan stands out as one Middle Eastern state with an effective educational system and respected higher educational institutions, despite its dependency on foreign powers, its lack of resources and the extremely complex political situation in which it has existed since the end of the First World War. In the Middle East a genuinely critical stance, in the best sense, towards all research and especially into the huge political and economic problems that face these states is still far from common and yet an urgent necessity. Turkey has in some respects shown what can be done and might be achieved elsewhere by etatisme in modernized forms in promoting movement towards responsible selfreliance rather than further movement into dependency on the world capitalist system. Research which produces more books of the stature of Mehmet (1990) is needed to confront these tasks, country by country. The role of higher education in development is itself a research issue in these states, and one that will be clarified in action, by active contributions, practical as well as

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theoretical as circumstances allow, to mobilizing the populations and building consensus. The relationship with the state is clearly one of control. The struggle is for an increasing measure of participation. But if the intellectuals were able to take a strong position in consultative assemblies and participate in the development of these states in ways which enabled them to draw closer to real power, many threats would be presented to the currently influential families and groups, and to the rulers. Thus they are incorporated or go abroad. A blind eye is often turned to their nonprofessional and sometimes illegal activities in the economic sphere. It would not be turned to political activity. Moore (1991) sums it up when he writes: Rulers made universities turn out instrumental technicians and ideologues to staff the state administrations and governing parties, not an intelligentsia that might produce or reproduce social meaning, offering grounds for legitimacy and a measure of social participation, (p. 6)

The intelligentsia, the bureaucracy and the condition of higher education staff In the Middle East education has emerged as the key factor in social stratification (Hermassi, 1987, p. 38). Higher education both creates the intelligentsia and relies heavily on the existence of the intelligentsia as a support group and a constitutency, even though the latter in general are not part of the power elite and in the main sit on the sidelines awaiting a role. Unlike the West, where industrialization came first and created outlets for the educated class, in the Middle East education came first without many agencies other than the state to provide employment. Hence although the Middle East has fewer university institutions than the United Kingdom by itself, there is an overproduction of graduates and massive emigration. Those who remain behind have filled the ranks of the bureaucracy. Some of the 'rentier' states in the Gulf are distributive rather than productive, and state employment distributes work for the edu-

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cated as welfare distributes goods and services for society at large. This has a distorting effect on higher education since degrees in the arts and humanities until recently guaranteed government employment as much as or even more than science and technology. Those with professional qualifications move abroad to Europe and America in substantial numbers. Those who remain behind are riven by all kinds of splits and fall prey to many forms of political, social and economic frustration. Graduates from Egypt, Sudan and Jordan who migrate to the Gulf deprive their countries of origin of the returns for the cost of educating them, as well as opting out of the process of development there, save that their remittances assist the balance of payments at home whilst the good times last. The recent experience of Yemen and the Palestinians expelled from Kuwait show that the position of expatriates is unstable. There are those like Russell (1988) who argue that this exchange of migrant intelligentsias is creative and integrative for senders and receivers, because it leads to setting up agencies and organizations to manage the flows and their social effects. But it remains true that these groups, whether expatriates or citizens, are excluded from decision-making, distrusted and marginalized, and the more active are stifled. Their legitimate function of preparing the masses for mobilization is cut off by governments with conservative and socially narrow purposes (Abul, 1992]. One very obvious outcome is that in all of these cultures there is a swollen, slow-moving bureaucracy which offers work but not necessarily prospects, which is usually poorly trained in administration, ultra-cautious, frequently insensitive and middle-class, out of touch with the life of the masses, hierarchical and lacking initiative for innovation.. The most obvious case is Algeria, where one of the consequences of frustration with the bureaucracy has been a turning to political Islam and extremism. What sorts of groups outside government can bargain about public policy when economies are manipulated for political ends? Can higher education? There is no tradition of popular sovreignty in Arab political thought for universities to exploit. But at a deeper level, shared notions of loyalty, justice, responsibility and au-

thority exist as what Eickelmann (1987, p. 180) calls 'practical ideologies'. In discussions of cultural contestation these need to be analysed and articulated so that they can be built on. Too much can be made of the apathy, malaise and silence in the face of cruel regimes by the Middle East intelligentsia. Whilst there is great need of selfanalysis, critique and the rejection of myths, cultural as well as political, there are many courageous and outspoken Arab writers whose participation in the debate deserves research attention (Abu Khalil, 1993).

The Muslim intelligentsia Although frequently ignored by Western writers who are alarmed by the excesses of the Islamicist activists, a Muslim intelligentsia exists alongside the Westernized one. It is true that most of the extremists are poorly educated and draw their understanding of Islam from the spoken word and from simple and simplifying tracts (Boulares, 1990). This form of Islam is markedly ideological, and performs ideological functions much as exhausted doctrines such as Arab socialism and panArabism have in past decades. Even where, as in many of the Gulf states, its followers eschew violence and prudently abstain from public violence of language, female students may, for example, be told by zealots to cover up even within the bounds of the university campus itself. Some do, but others rebuff the advice. As it is understood by educated and thoughtful Muslims, Islam can certainly stand beside Western liberalism as a worldview with highly developed moral content and values. But for many convinced Muslims, nationalistic aspirations and their commitment to Islam hamper a deep acceptance of Western knowledge and its attendant values. Only in Turkey under Ataturk was a Muslim-dominated educational system taken firmly in hand and thoroughly secularized; yet even now there is a Muslim cultural and political reaction there. Early Middle Eastern reformers favoured the teaching of Western science and technology, but

Culture and Control in the Middle East

as Rahman (1982), in a very clear and balanced book, explains, the existing systems of thought and education have great potential for accepting change without real innovation. The leading institution, Al Azhar, evolved very slowly in its acceptance of Western knowledge. Really rootand-branch reform had to await Nasser in the 1960s. Many orthodox Muslims are provoked into conservatism by the vigorous inflow of Western ideas, and a thousand years of the ulema tradition, despite its undoubted riches, retreats behind its defences and continues to stagnate. At some point, if higher education is to take deep root and be fully authentic in the local culture, the two traditions must interact productively. Rahman makes a very persuasive point central to his argument: Muslim orthodoxy is deficient in philosophical intellectualism, pure thought and a genuinely critical approach in the best sense of the term. Alongside the ambivalence of the governing elites about creating an educated class which might turn to dissidence, this stance holds back research creativity, particularly at higher levels of university education, and helps to explain why most doctorates are gained in the West. Rahman argues that popular Islam (and particularly ideological Islam, I would add, though it does much for the poor and the masses) has made no contribution to critical rethinking, to motivating their latent cognitive capacity on the basis of a real grounding in traditional culture in any depth. This philosophical approach to Islam is an important task for higher education. It ties in with many aspects of the continually discussed question of identity in the Arab world, and with development to nationhood in which the cultural element is as important as the economic and political. Religious education takes up a quarter or more of the time in many state schools, and is in need of curriculum development informed by critical and philosophical approaches that can only be developed in higher education. Amongst the more orthodox, suspicion of Western thought, lifestyles and values transmitted by the media (Saudi Arabia has insisted on cable television in an effort to control this medium) sometimes reaches the point of cultural panic. The rulers, ever conscious of their weak legitimacy and unsure of the commitment of their populations, are very reluctant to

213

confront anything that is culturally sensitive, and persist with post-colonial systems and curricula which do not in the main offer training to exercise responsibility in a free, modern society. At all levels from the elementary school upwards, Islamic education is in a vicious circle. Without sincere and committed teachers with a modern critical approach there is little chance of the creative spark igniting the minds of the students. Yet without this creativity where are the good teachers, the Islamic intelligentsia, to come from? From the Muslim point of view philosophical and genuinely intellectual modernized study of the Quran and the Hadith is capable of supplying the values, meanings and purposes which so many Muslims find missing in Western 'materialistic' science and knowledge. Such studies would also have their part to play in redressing the balance in higher education where the arts and humanities are often not as esteemed as science, medicine and engineering. In states seeking nationhood and identity, and to avoid the intellectual domination of other cultures, all departments of higher education are valuable, not the utilitarian ones alone (Hetland, 1984). Some voices, including those of Muslim women, have been heard to argue that more modern readings of the tradition are possible than those which underpin the current distribution of power, culturally as well as politically. Present regimes in parts of the Middle East, with insensitive and remote bureaucracies and economic policies which bear heavily on the masses, may be promoting political and ideological Islam in the short term. Higher education is one locus where a more philosophically critical awareness of Islam, however carefully it may have to be expressed for the present, may take place.

The institutional context We can now turn more specifically to universities as institutions and employers of members of the intelligentsia. There are very great differences between states as diverse as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan

214 K. E. Shaw

and the UAE in terms of their higher education systems. For a deeper understanding, empirically based and fully theorized studies of these systems, country by country, in European languages as well as Arabic, are a pressing need. The remarkable concern with itself that has been shown in the last decades by higher education in the United Kingdom and the United States has hardly begun to develop in the Middle East among insiders who are experienced field researchers. There are many reasons: the prevailing lack of autonomy of universities; the large number of staff who are seconded on contract to newer institutions and do not wish to jeopardize renewal of their contracts; the emphasis on teaching, to the disadvantage of research, in education, the humanities and social sciences; and not least, lack of a coherent theory. Carrying out a large active research project which goes beyond collating official documentation and local written material from the administrators is often seen by staff as a suspect activity. Less admirable motives, such as desire for promotion or a Western doctorate, are imputed, rather than an acceptance of advancing knowledge and influencing policy, so that cooperation is less easily gained than in the West. The questionnaire still rules, and qualitative ethnographical elements in research which requires interviews, especially if taped, encounter difficulties. International conferences, even when subsidized, have no difficulty in attracting Western scholars interested in the current situation in Middle Eastern higher education, but it is less easy to attract Middle Eastern participants, to find papers of publication standard or to draw in administrative personnel with something to say about the current evolution of the system. Limited political participation is intensely frustrating. The Western tradition of using university personnel as consultants and as participants in policy discovery, as well as commentators and critics in the media, is not well established. The intelligentsia are too frequently tamed and marginalized, and sometimes terrorized, as currently in Algeria by extremists. If they serve as ideologues, as Makiya (1993) has written, it may be 'of pure hate'; rarely of human rights or liberalism. More often they remain silent. He goes on:

For the reality is that (any) cultural aristocracy barely exists any longer in the Mashriq; it is locked away in suffocating isolation or fragmented and scattered in exile. This cultural elite had its independence wiped out throughout the Mashriq by a combination of tyranny, tribalism, and corruption. And this in spite of the fact that there are more highly educated Arabs today than there have been in the past, and that such educated Arabs are present in all Arab countries, (p. 51)

Passionate as this language is, there are too many works by distinguished Arab writers such as Boulares, Tibi, Sharabi, or Laroui with words like 'crisis', or 'problem' in the title referring to the plight of the educated, for its message to be brushed aside. The intelligentsia need opportunities to engage with the state in partnership if they are to find a more dignified and constructive role. So far few such opportunities have been on offer. The gap is filled in too many cases by army officers, sheikhly families, foreign advisors, autocratic rulers and their relations. Higher education staff then, not surprisingly, have a low profile, concentrate on teaching and on interests outside the institution, and tend to keep their research in technical areas. There is no equivalent to the British University Grants Committee, which for so many decades acted as a buffer between the government and the institutions. Instead institutions often relate to the government directly through their Vice-Chancellor, usually a government appointment, who leaves academic affairs and administration to a secondary figure. In the Gulf states members of the leading families must each be allocated their domain in the state apparatus, so that it is not unknown for the university to be the personal fief of a notable. Lower down, the rest of the university deals with the ministry, the local educational bureaucracy. The bureaucrats are functionaries who operate in a very strict hierarchy, with little discretion, and often little professional preparation in public administration. Educational bureaucrats are not often those with a professional knowledge of the field; they operate slowly, but their offices are open to articulate locals so that continuous lobbying and influence are brought to bear. Caught up in the political, cultural and bureaucratic milieu, many of the higher education in-

Culture and Control in the Middle East 215 stitutions have difficulty in aligning their strategic policy with that of the government. Consensual, integrated and clear national objectives and accepted norms have not been made public and arrived at by open debate. Anabtawi (1993) speaks of'debilitating immobilism'in many of the institutions and of inability to link up with a distinctive Arab legacy to unite them reassuringly with the past - unlike, say, Japan. Amongst the results is considerable imbalance in studies. After schooling, the survivors often arrive at higher education socialized to transmissive teaching, dependency on the text. Most come from the comfortably-off families. They are frequently hierarchically differentiated by their scores on the final school/ university entrance examination. The best students are allocated to medicine, the least qualified to domestic science and physical education. Scientific output is 0.5 per cent of that of developed countries, and the staff generally have far fewer publications than those of their Western equivalents, in part because of the lack of local journals. Outside Cairo, Algiers, Baghdad and a few other longer-established institutions such as those in Lebanon, a research culture is poorly developed save in technical specialisms such as oil and engineering. Only in the richer oil states do academics have reasonably paid tax-free incomes and subsidized lifestyles. Good administration and a supportive academic sub-culture are often better abroad. The ranks are filled with Egyptian, Sudanese, Palestinian, Jordanian and other Arabspeaking contract staff. The transnational companies rarely work closely with the universities. A PhD holder may be rebuked publicly by a narrowly educated Imam whose culture is entirely traditional. In such a situation many Arab graduates feel psychologically dependent on patrons and an inward self-distrust which hampers cooperative research ventures. Women, however, tend to do better at schooling and are well represented in higher education. After graduation many are discouraged from studying abroad and their talents are seriously underused in the more traditional societies, which may be paying huge salaries to expatriates to do work well within the capacity of women if the culture would allow it. Especially in the Gulf there is duplication of facili-

ties since each state must have its own institution to keep up with the others. Like the new ministry buildings, there is something emblematic about the university. The entrepreneurial and business elite with managerial skills and experience, where it exists, rarely has much to do with higher education institutions, greatly as the latter need such experience to strengthen their own administration. At the moment they can jog along at the margin of public life. Participative political regimes will require more managerial decision and forcefulness of a much higher order, especially for policy formation. Improving the status of higher education staff by better conditions of salary, security and promotion, in return for tighter appraisal and better research performance, is essential. Staff development, the other major requirement beside leadership, takes time. Motivation, zest for enquiry and commitment are built slowly, along with confidence, unity and willingness to cooperate in the institution. Academic mobilization can succeed, as many examples in the West show. But it rests in some measure on self-scrutiny and mechanisms for monitoring how freedom and initiative are used, as a taken-for-granted aspect of academic life.

Conclusion As we come to draw the threads together, we can see that there is plenty of activity amongst the intellectuals, men and women, especially in Egypt and the Maghreb. Human rights, women's position in society, the idea of civil society, dialogue with traditional Islam, participation in decisionmaking are recurring topics. Yet whilst many activists are university teachers most of the activities are pursued independently of the universities; rapid growth and strict control have edged the universities out of the mainstream of public life. The scramble for employment means that generally students have a low profile politically most of the time, save where they join in pursuing Islamicist objectives in the street. Much of the

216 K. E. Shaw

most vigorous writing available in the West is by those who have emigrated and work in European and American higher education. Despite constant references to impending changes the state of institutionalized crisis seems somehow to be managed. Leadership succession happens fairly smoothly, and save in Algeria, conflict at present is damped down, though far from solved in for example Sudan, Afghanistan, Morocco and amongst the Palestinians. Given that King Hussein, Mr Peres, Mr Assad and Saddam Hussein have been on the scene for a long time, there could be a rash of leadership changes presently, but there is little reason to suppose that moves towards democracy are imminent. The best that can be hoped for at present is slightly better government. With little prospect of political participation it appears unlikely that higher education will be mobilized to national tasks. They will continue to be certificators of white-collar specialists and technical personnel in the main. As we suggested at the beginning, tight control of higher education to minimize criticism and promote cohesion and conformity to the purposes of the regimes, including efforts to define what counts as appropriate higher education knowledge, continues, mostly with a measure of success. The regimes will continue to exert power in the cultural domain to dominate potentially dissident groups and bolster their claims to legitimacy. The older ideologies of the post-liberation period, Pan-Arabism, Baath, Arab socialism, seem faded and less capable of providing symbolic meanings that release energy and commitment, so that the political Islam of the streets remains as the only visible contestant. But 'Islam is the answer' has no developed political or economic programme in any detail; it is a movement of protest and socio-moral critique of governments, but essentially another ideology with little to offer university academics. If there is some relaxation of control and more resources become available, some ways forward for higher education can be foreseen. In most Middle Eastern countries, with the possible exception of Turkey, there has been growth, but all-round, balanced development has rarely been attempted

for long. In the absence of other non-governmental research organizations or study groups, universities are at present the only places which could sustain larger-scale interdisciplinary research into problems of national development and public policy that goes beyond merely acting to contribute to information systems for government planning. To do so they would have to build up a research culture in the social science and cultural knowledge areas currently not of high standing. This would probably involve internal structural changes to make available rewards and promotions for such efforts, and would certainly need dynamic leadership. Higher-degree programmes in public policy analysis, planning, development-related studies, and administration would give the intelligentsia a base for informed participation in public life. This is where the idea of civil society, building from the bottom up on the basis of the existing women's and civil rights groups, diwaniyyas, professional associations and the like, becomes relevant. It is more than just a matter of a better balance of studies and a research culture. There is a need for - in the best sense - a critical spirit, an emphasis on rational cognition, philosophically informed rather than heaping up facts and theories to support conclusions already settled in advance: as Anabtawi (1986) says, the promotion of active critical cognition by rational processes of constant investigation. He goes on to stress that this needs much more open and creative approaches in higher education administration. All these initiatives would need reformed and well-supported public education at pre-university level, highquality teacher education and curricular reform (Shaw and Badri, 1995). Such an atmosphere might produce more graduates endowed with the capacity to tolerate ambiguity and criticism, to accept reality and sustain long-term commitment whether in the bureaucracies or the private sector, the multinational companies or the social services. Such developments take time and patience, and also the steady and continuous self-scrutiny by higher education institutions as a taken-for-granted aspect of their institutional culture, part of academic working

Culture and Control in the Middle East 217 life. It is essentially in that sense that higher education reforms in the Middle East are pressing. Obviously the Middle East has no monopoly of these needs. We are all adapting and developing. The programme for them is not much different from the programme for us. Our task in the West is not dispensing complacent advice based on a longer experience, but sharing the thinking and the agendas that have developed amongst us, mostly quite recently, in the hope of framing the questions better and making positive steps towards constructive measures as mass higher education become more and more a reality. The international dimension cuts both ways. The important thing is a critical and informed discussion which adds to evidence and theory.

References Abu Khalil, A. (1993) Review of K. Makiya, Cruelty and Silence. Middle East Journal, 47 (4), 655-706. Abul, A. J. (1992) The contribution of Kuwaiti intellectuals in the development process. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Essex. Ahmad, A. A. (1987) A comparative study of the university administration system in the states of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Exeter. Al Farsy, F. N. J. (1984) Omanisation and staff development of academic staff in Sultan Qaboos University. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Exeter. Al Naqeeb, M. M. (1988) The academic profession in Iraq. PhD dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA. Anabtawi, S. N. (1986) Palestinian Higher Education in the West Bank and Gaza: A Critical Assessment. London: Kegan Paul International. Anabtawi, S. N. (1993) Arab institutions of higher learning, in I. Ibrahim (ed.), Arab Resources. London: Groom Helm. Barnett, R. (1990) The Idea of Higher Education. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. Boulares, H. (1990) Islam: The Fear and the Hope. London: Zed Books. Bourdieu, P. (1979) La Distinction. Paris: Minuit. Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J. C. (1969, Eng. trans. 1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage Publications.

Eickelmann, D. F. and Piscatori, J. (1990) Muslim Travellers. London: Routledge. El-Kenz, A. (1991) Algerian Reflections on the Arab Crisis. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Gellner, E. (1991) Civil society in historical context. International Social Science Journal, 43 (3), 495-510. Hermassi, E. (1987) State building and regime performance in the Greater Maghgreb, in G. Salami. Hermassi, E. (1993) The second stage in state building, in I. W. Zartman and W. M. Habeeb, Politics and Society in Contemporary North Africa.. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Hetland, A. (1984) Universities and National Development. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International. Joffe, G. (1993) North Africa: Nation, State, Region. London: Routledge. Kazem, M. I. (1992) Higher education and development in the Arab states. International Journal of Educational Development,,, 12 (2), 113-22. Khouri, R. G. (1983) The modern record, in P. Searle. Kumar, K. (1993) Civil society: an enquiry into the usefulness of an historical term. British Journal of Sociology, 44 (3), 375-96. Laroui, A. (1976) The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual. Berkeley: University of California Press. Looney, R. E. (1994) Manpower Policies and Development in the Persian Gulf Region. Westport, CT: Praeger. Makiya, K. (1993) Cruelty and Silence. London: Jonathan Cape. Mehmet, O. (1990) Islamic Identity and Development. New York: Marcel Dekker. Moore, C. H. (1991) Introduction, in A. El-Kenz. Rabie, M. (1992) The politics and economics of oil. Middle East Politics, 1 (1), 97-106. Rahman, F. (1982) Islam and Modernity. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Reid, D. M. (1990) Cairo University and the Making of Modern Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rupp, J. C. C. and Lange, R. de (1989) Social order, cultural capital and citizenship. Sociological Review, 7, 668-705. Russell, S. S. (1988) Migration and political integration in the Arab world, in G. Luciani and G. Salame', The Politics of Arab Integration. London: Groom Helm. Salame, G. (ed.) (1987) The Foundations of the Arab State. London: Groom Helm. Sayigh, Y. A. (1991) Elusive Development. London: Routledge. Searle, P. (1983) The Shaping of an Arab Statesman. London: Quartet Books. Sharabi, H. B. (1988) Neopatriarchy. New York: Oxford University Press.

218 K. E. Shaw Shaw, K. E. and Badri, A. (1995) Management concerns in UAE state schools. International Journal ofEduca- tion Management, 9 (4), 8-13.

Tibi, B. (1988) The Crisis in Modern Islam. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

19

Crisis in the Public Universities in Kenya

DANIEL N.SIFUNA Background The history of higher education for Kenyans until the mid-1950s is a story about Makerere College in Uganda. Makerere College which started as a technical college in 1922 was recommended to award diplomas by the De La Warr Commission of 1937. Following the report of the Royal Commission on Higher Education in the colonies, commonly known as the Asquith Commission, in 1943, the college started offering degrees of the University of London in the 1950s. The first Kenyan institute to provide higher education was the Royal Technical College of East Africa situated in Nairobi. Its establishment followed the recommendation of a committee chaired by G. P. Willoughby in 1949 that the Kenya government should set up a technical and commercial institute in Nairobi to provide for fulltime and part-time instruction for courses leading to the Higher National Certificate offered in Britain, and prepare matriculated students through full-time study for university degrees in engineering and allied subjects not provided by Makerere. The East Africa High Commission assented to an Act establishing the college in 1954 after obtaining a Royal Charter. The funds for construction came from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund. Meanwhile the Asian community had started an institution of higher learning in memory of the late Mahatma Gandhi (Gandhi Memorial Academy). The two institutions were merged into one college in March 1956 and established departments of arts, commerce, science, engineering, domestic science, architecture and surveying. The three-

year courses led to special certificates, not degrees. Meanwhile two working parties on higher education in East Africa, one by Sir Alexander CarrSaunders in 1955, and another by John F. Lockwood in 1958, recommended that each East African territory should establish a university col' lege (Furley and Watson, 1978). Following this recommendation the Royal Technical College began to conduct degree courses in 1961. Like Makerere it enjoyed a special relationship with the University of London, and its name was changed to the Royal College of Nairobi. In 1963 it became University College, Nairobi and with University College, Dar es Salaam and Makerere University College formed the Federal University of East Africa. With the dissolution of the University of East Africa, University College, Nairobi was transformed into the University of Nairobi. This was inaugurated by an Act in 1970. Kenyatta College, a teachers' training institution situated a few kilometres outside Nairobi, became a constituent college of the University of Nairobi (University of Nairobi, 1970). In January 1981 a presidential working party on the second university in Kenya was appointed to make general recommendations on the implementations of the government decision to establish a second university before the end of the 1979-83 Development Plan period. The decision to establish a second university in the country without discussion, and subsequent ones that have led to the proliferation of institutions of higher learning, should be interpreted in the context of wider policy formulation. Policy formulation style in Kenya

220

Daniel N. Sifuna

has always centred on the person of the president. He sets the pace and tone of government policy through slogans and pronouncements. This style normally applies to all spheres of life, such as social, political, economic and educational matters. Most major policy pronouncements in the country are associated with the president who is supposed to be the source of wisdom and the one who gives the policy drive, blessings and legitimacy. It does not matter who initiates and moves the policy to the centre, but the credit always goes to the president. Since a decision had been taken to establish a second university through a presidential directive, the working party was not asked to determine whether a second university should be established, but how it should be done and what shape it should take. The working party was to review the higher education system in relation to development objectives of the country and to recommend how the proposed university could best assist in their achievement. It was to recommend a philosophical framework within which the proposed university could best serve the interests of the Kenyan society and complement the already existing colleges, universities and institutes of science and technology (Republic of Kenya, 1981). In this context, the working party, in rationalizing the need to establish a second university, simply confirmed the social demand for university education and repeated the usual statements about the shortage of highly skilled manpower. It did not examine the effective demand for university-level skills in the economy, essential information for the execution of its terms of reference, particularly determining in which areas the new university should specialize. On the basis of its report, the government went ahead and established a second university, Moi University near Eldoret, in 1984 (Sifuna, 1990). Following a series of presidential pronouncements, fully-fledged universities were established at Kenyatta (1985), Egerton University (1987) and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (1994). There is also Maseno University College, which is a constituent college of Moi University, and Kisii University College, constituent to Egerton University. The table above

Table 19.1 Student enrolment in public universities 1987/88 and 1991/92 Year

Postgraduate

Undergraduate

Total

1987/88

1154

15,337

16,491

-

1988/89

1424

19,900

21,324

29.3

1989/90

1775

23,048

24,823

16.4

1990/91

1782

36,781

38,563

55.4

1991/92

1726

38,836

40,563

5.2

Percentage increase per year

Source: Republic of Kenya, Economic Survey, 1989,1991, 1993.

demonstrates a steep rise in student enrolment between 1987 and 1992 which is a result of presidential decrees. The social demand for university education in Kenya is quite high, and the president's decision to establish more and more universities has some public support. There have, however, been political motivations, when the upgrading of some colleges to university status has been done to rally the support of certain communities to the political establishment. This has also been reflected in the 'bastardization' of the selection process for political considerations. With the ascendancy of President Moi to power in 1978, there was the introduction of a special quota system of admissions which has in a large measure benefited members of his ethnic group. This policy in many ways has meant that high-scoring candidates in the entrance examination have been bypassed because of their ethnic origin. The low-scoring and at times unqualified and generally ill-prepared students are admitted purposely to achieve ethnic balance (Emenyonu, 1990). This chapter discusses the main elements of the Kenyan public university crisis. These include their limited autonomy with regard to their relationship with the state, and budgetary issues which have resulted in serious decline in the quality of education.

Crisis in the Public Universities in Kenya

University autonomy and academic freedom From the earliest beginning of the university in the Middle Ages, down to the present century, autonomy or self-government has been the key ingredient in the ideology of institutions of higher learning (Perkins, 1978). University autonomy implies the freedom of the university as a political unit to have its own internal government and governance (West, 1983, p. 29). It involves the freedom of a university to select its students and staff and to determine the conditions under which they remain in the university, to set its own standards and decide to whom to award its degrees; to design its own curriculum and to decide how to allocate among the different categories of its expenditure, its income from state or private sources (Taiwo, 1980, p. 159). Closely related to autonomy is the concept of academic freedom. It implies the right of a university teacher to search for knowledge, truth and excellence, and to impart the knowledge so acquired without any interference or hindrance. It involves the freedom of members of the academic community which underlies the effective performance of their functions of teaching, learning, practice of arts and research (Ajayi, 1990, p. 191). In more practical terms academic freedom is the freedom of a member of the university staff to write or speak the truth as he/she sees it without fear of dismissal, demotion, withholding of merited promotion, adverse salary adjustment or censure by academic supervisors or by authorities outside the university. It should, however, be pointed out that academic freedom does not mean that the university teacher is free of all constraints and has no duties correlative to his/her rights to freedom or is totally free of the possibility of sanctions. It also does not mean unqualified job protection. One is expected to preserve scholarly objectivity, to refrain from using his/her position for extraneous purposes, to be accurate and to exercise appropriate restraint, and to show respect for the opinions of other people. It does not mean pursuit of research irrelevant to national or societal needs of the country.

221

Academic freedom also does not make absolutely inviolate a person's status as a member of staff in the university. The status can be terminated for 'good cause', which may include proven incompetence, immorality and failure to perform teaching and research functions. The immunity from university or external sanctions based on one's teaching and research also does not immunize those activities from scrutiny, criticism and evaluation. Any freedom interpreted in those terms would certainly be dysfunctional and inimical to the interest of society (Ajayi, 1990; Mudenge, 1993). University autonomy and academic freedom, however, very much depend on the prevailing political system, since democracy by its nature guarantees autonomy while authoritarian forms of political organization deny the concepts of autonomy and academic freedom. In an authoritarian system, the activities of the state are normally centralized, and the university is treated as an appendage of the government. In order to have a clear picture of the nature of the crisis that is facing public universities, it is important at this juncture to discuss briefly the state of the political system in the country. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Kenya has been embroiled in political crisis since independence from Britain in 1963. The seeds of an autocratic presidency were sown in 1964 when the minority opposition party, the Kenya African Democratic Union, voluntarily dissolved itself and joined the Kenya African National Union. The merger made Kenya a de facto one-party state. The first president of the country, Jomo Kenyatta, a nationalist leader of mythic proportions, soon became known as 'Mzee' or the 'Father' of the nation. Although the independent constitution provided for a parliamentary democracy, in the absence of an opposition political party, Kenyatta quickly created a highly centralized, authoritarian state (Gillies and Makau wa Mutua, 1993). Attempts to create new parties like the Kenya People's Union were violently resisted. The Kenya People's Union formed in 1966 was banned in 1969 following an anti-government demonstration in Kisumu in which scores of people were killed by the presidential guard. The government took some steps to silence dissent. To legalize repression, it had in

222

Daniel N. Sifuna

1966 passed the Preservation of the Public Security Act, the detention law. With the end of an official opposition, President Kenyatta amassed enormous power and created a personality cult to rival the self-indulgence of most feudal monarchs. Any outspoken members of parliament were silenced, reducing that institution into a rubber-stamp of government policies. The press, which was owned or controlled by the government, often repeated the official doctrine without commentary. Trade unions were placed under government control and indeed government control, real or self-imposed, extended to virtually all sectors of society (Gillies and Makau wa Mutua, 1993, p. 12] By the time Kenyatta died in August 1978 he had crafted a highly authoritarian one-party state. President Moi assumed the presidency almost immediately,, and to win support from the people, he released all political prisoners and detainees. However, he continued the repressive style of leadership by becoming intolerant of dissent. In September 1979, he ordered the expulsion of student leaders and the closure of the University of Nairobi after students criticized the government's decision to bar former opposition leaders from contesting the general elections. This was followed in 1980 by the banning of the Academic Staff Union. To block dissent, which was clamouring for the formation of another political party, the government introduced an amendment to the constitution in parliament in 1982 that made the country a de jure one-party state. From then on, the government became increasingly intolerant of dissent and started detaining its critics, who included university teachers. These were accused of teaching subversion. The increasing intolerance and repression created an atmosphere in which a pro-democracy movement started to take concrete shape. A middle-class cadre of lawyers and clergymen, politicians and other professionals started to openly attack the one-party state. This movement, coupled with international pressure for reform, led to the repeal of section 2A of the constitution in December 1991, which led to the registration of opposition political parties and general elections under a multi-party constitution in December

1992. The repeal of the constitution and the holding of multi-party elections, however, did not change the repressive nature of the political atmosphere, because authoritarian laws, which vested immense power in the presidency, were left intact. Since the multi-party elections, the country continues to be governed in the same style as that of the one-party era. This political environment has undoubtedly been inimical to the development of university autonomy and academic freedom. Ironically, during the inauguration of the university of Nairobi, Kenyatta assured the university that there would be minimum government interference in the running of the university. He declared: While never ignoring or betraying the most precious functions of an academic body, this University must gear itself at once and with the constructive zeal to all needs and realities of nation-building. At the same time, any healthy university must be governed more by freedoms than by restraints for this reason, we have enshrined within the University Act the greatest possible autonomy in terms of organization, teaching and research. If the mind of the nation is to flower, through this university then professors and lecturers must be free to teach their subjects faithfully, while students and research workers must feel free to pursue the truth and publish their findings without fear. (Kenyatta, 1970)

This declaration did not reflect the reality of the university at the time. According to the University Act and Acts which established other public universities, these institutions are supposed to be autonomous. Although to some extent the universities have enjoyed some degree of autonomy in student admission and staff recruitment, government involvement in their running is routine. For all the public universities, the President of Kenya is the Chancellor. While this relationship could afford unique access by the university management to the executive arm of the government, it has commonly been used as a pretext for intervention by the president in university affairs often without consultation either with the ministry responsible for university affairs or with the university itself. Many of his interventions have put universities in the intolerable position of being dictated to or interfered with by their own titular head, acting not in terms of authority conferred by

Crisis in the Public Universities in Kenya

the university statutes, but by virtue of his presidential power. The chancellor also appoints and dismisses vice-chancellors, who in a majority of cases are not the most able administratively and academically, but politically loyal to the establishment from within the ranks of academic staff. The chancellor's powers have extended to the appointment of other key university administrators often in violation of the University Acts and statutes. The government also nominates most members of the university councils. While academic staff and student representatives to the councils are usually elected by their respective constituencies, key members of the councils, such as the chairman, his/her deputy, the minister of education, permanent secretaries of ministries dealing with universities are nominated by the chancellor. In all the public universities more than 60 per cent of the council members are nominees of the chancellor. Under this system of appointing council members, it has often turned out that government views become particularly dominant in council deliberations and it easily steers university affairs in the government's favour with full protection of the law (Mwiria, 1992). This system of university governance has seriously undermined public universities' autonomy and academic freedom. The government has on many occasions used the councils to order university closures, implementation of government directives in the number of students to be admitted, terms and conditions of service for university staff, teaching and travel agendas and by requiring them to obtain official research and travel authority. Academic staff have been victimized and marked down even within the universities for exercising their freedom of association, freedom of speech and for criticizing university policies or powerful individuals within the universities. With increasing repression in the political system a situation developed where any form of critical analysis from staff and students in the universities was equated with a preference for 'foreign ideologies', which was taken to mean Marxism or communism. The reprisals against people thought to be involved in such subversive activities have been serious. These have included

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police harassment, denial of official clearance, denial of promotions and withdrawal of passports to prevent them from travelling outside the country. Such punitive measures and threats have stifled academic freedom which is the basis for intellectual production (Nkinyangi, 1983, p. 212) The university administrations which are not selected on merit but on other dubious considerations in a large measure contribute to the erosion of academic freedom and autonomy within their institutions. When such administrations are selected they quickly surround themselves with intellectual sycophants who help them to identify and, if possible, weed out or frustrate the 'enemies' of the new administration. The administration also collaborates with state security agents. There have been cases of academics working for the state security, the Special Branch, with the sole purpose of spying and reporting on their colleagues. Some of them do this because of poverty and therefore the need for some extra income. In many cases the academic staff have allowed themselves to be an extension of the government not only in working for the Special Branch, but also in being drafted by literate and semi-literate politicians into government appointments. In search of appointments, academicians dance around the politicians and allow themselves to be used to intellectualize the rampant corruption and mismanagement within the government. A typical example of this was during the 1992 general elections, when a good section of academics circulated a lot of lies and propaganda about the achievements of the ruling party, KANU, and formed several lobby groups to campaign for the president. These included YK 1992, Academics for Moi, Toroitich the Year 2000 and several others. To reciprocate, the establishment normally pays them very handsomely in cash rewards and with government appointments as ministers, advisors, permanent secretaries, commissioners, and directors to boards of scores of useless inefficient and corruption-ridden parastatals which the government has resisted IMF and World Bank pressures to privatize lest it loses opportunities for political patronage. The issue is not that such corporations are inefficient, but that these appointments are usually accompanied with free cars, free petrol,

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free housing and other perks of the office including the opportunity to award very lucrative contracts and make other important contacts (Ibonvbere, 1993, p. 53). In this way public universities succeed in replicating what is taking place within the wider society. What is, however, most interesting is that as soon as these academics are given political appointments, they not only turn their backs on the universities, but actively assist the political establishment in destroying the universities and undermining their autonomy and academic freedom. The structure of the internal universities' governance is also a major obstacle to the enhancement of academic freedom. The council which determines policy authorizes the creation of faculties and departments and is the appointing authority for all staff, and as already pointed out before is quite undemocratic in its representation. Below the council is the senate, which is responsible to council for academic, financial and administrative management of the university. Senate meetings are chaired by the vice-chancellor and are by and large dominated by chairmen of departments who are nominees of the vice-chancellor. Under the senate are faculty boards and individual departments which are responsible for academic and administrative affairs of the university. In most of the public universities only the dean's position is elective. The internal university structure is a real obstacle to academic freedom. Beginning at the top one only needs to participate in senate discussions to see the high level of intellectual fraud and academic dishonesty as well as how mediocre reasoning triumphs over rational thinking in the public universities. While universities lack basic educational facilities, millions of shillings are often spent to host senate members in expensive hotels, organize graduation jamborees, welcome the chancellor, furnish the vice-chancellor's and others' offices as well as provide monthly luncheons to professors. Very little meaningful discussion usually takes place in senates due to the autocratic nature of the vice-chancellors. The institutions of heads of departments and directors of institutes who are appointees of vice-chancellors suppress participatory decision-making at the de-

partmental level and tend to ignore the views of academic staff if these are seen to conflict with those of the administration. They also victimize those members of staff with whom they have had differences. In many cases such disagreements have revolved around the holding of contrary opinions on academic or administrative matters (Mwiria, 1992).

Budgetary issues The persistent sour relations between the government and universities have not augured well for the latter's financial support. This has been demonstrated increasingly through budgetary cutbacks and general neglect of problems facing the universities. The state has made the universities appear responsible for the country's development by implying that they hamper the good work the government does for the benefit of the people. This has been as a result of many protests by students and academic staff (Nkinyangi, 1983, p. 212). The consequence of this attitude of the government towards the universities has been a serious decline in funding. Long before the Structural Adjustment Programmes, the government had embarked on a policy of substantial cuts in grant allocations to universities (Nkinyangi, 1983). While in 1980 it spent around US$3402 per student, in 1983 it dropped to US$1521, and by 1988 it had dropped to around US$1000 in recurrent expenditure (World Bank, 1988). The World Bank and IMF Structural Adjustment Programmes have worsened the state of government funding of universities. The so-called rationalization programmes carried out on an ad hoc basis without any meaningful justification whatsoever, the imposition of fees on students, reduction or cancellation of student subsidies, privatization and commercialization of universities are recommendations which, though well intentioned, have not been suitable for the fragile economy of the country (Onyejekwe, 1993). The World Bank seems to have convinced the Kenya govern-

Crisis in the Public Universities in Kenya

ment that university education is not necessary. If it is required at all, it should be organized and run like a business, a process which will make it 'qualitative' by restricting it to serious and rich students only. The Structural Adjustment Programmes, coupled with a 'wild' expansion of universities together with the government's seemingly diminishing enthusiasm for university education, have created a major crisis in the universities. The implementation of these policies has worsened an already bad situation as there have not been enough facilities to satisfy the basic demands of the members of the universities (Rwomire, 1993). A major problem that has worsened the funding of public universities is the government's failure to rationalize a machinery for determining and allocating budgetary resources for universities. In many universities in Commonwealth Africa, a number of intermediary bodies and other instruments have been created to handle university funding. The logic of intermediary bodies is based on the proposition that public universities require large resources for needs which are highly specialized. In order to protect the universities' interests and adjudicate between competing claims, a statutory body outside both the civil service and the universities is set up, to provide a bridge between the two. The body is largely staffed by university people so that the universities can make their case in the confidence that it will be understood and properly judged. The intermediary body becomes the advocate of the universities' needs before government. It also has the responsibility of consulting the universities and advising government on university policy and interpreting policy once decided to the universities. It divides the budgetary cake between universities using the official policy priorities and planning criteria which are known to all concerned. The universities then receive their grants of public funds from the intermediary body, not the government, in order to avoid the suspicion of political bias (Coombe, 1991, p. 18). In Kenya the Commission for Higher Education (CHE) was established in 1985 under the provisions of the Universities Act with some of the following major functions.

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•

To plan and provide for the financial needs of university education and research, including the recurrent and non-recurrent needs. • To coordinate long-term planning, staff development, scholarships and physical development of university education. • To provide liaison with government departments and the public and private sectors of the economy in matters relating to overall national manpower development and requirements. • To determine and recommend to the minister the allocation of grants of money for appropriation by parliament to meet the needs of university education and research and review expenditure by university of monies appropriated by parliament. • To advise the minister on the establishment of public universities. These functions gave considerable statutory powers to CHE to run university education. Ironically only one of its statutory functions, the accredition of universities, has been uppermost since its secretariat became operational in 1986. The mushroom growth of private universities has focused the commission's energies in developing accreditation instruments to regulate and permit the award of charters. The Commission for Higher Education, according to its statutory powers, is expected to play an active role in budgetary matters of the university. In practice all the public universities continue to argue their individual budgetary submissions with the treasury, liaising with each other and collectively through the Committee of ViceChancellors, and, where necessary, carrying their cases to the office of the president who is chancellor of each of them. Interestingly vicechancellors, who are normally represented on CHE and praise its work on the accreditation of private universities, effectively bypass the CHE when it comes to their own plans and budgets. They defend the institutional autonomy which each university enjoys by virtue of its own statute, and clearly reject the notion of ceding part of it to CHE. They believe that the rationalization of departments and related planning issues are best handled by freely negotiating them among them-

226 Daniel N. Sifuna

selves. For budgetary control public universities favour a statutory University Grants Committee separate from the CHE and seem to have drafted legislation to this effect which has not yet been presented to parliament (Coombe, 1991). The consequence of vice-chancellors' bypassing the CHE has been a disproportionate allocation of grants to the universities. Grants have been allocated to the different universities depending on the ability and influence of each vice-chancellor to lobby with the treasury of the Ministry of Finance and the favour he/she commands with the president.

Quality of education Quality of university education in Kenya is a very broad area to be discussed adequately in a short chapter of this nature. This section will briefly focus on educational facilities and resources, the teaching staff and students. The following quotation about the state of some of the Nigerian universities graphically captures the quality of education in the public universities in Kenya. While figures are damning, the reality on the campuses themselves are quite scandalous. Physical evidence of decay abound showing overcrowding in hostels and classrooms. A room designed to accommodate two or four students sometimes takes between eight and twelve. Consequently septic tanks overflow and are not collected, shortage of water has become a permanent feature in campuses, classrooms are clogged, small essentials such as chalks and dusters are not available, teachers are few, underpaid and frustrated and students are malnourished, angry and touchy. Few researches are undertaken, books and journals are hopelessly outdated, more students fail, much more take solace in prostitution, drug abuse and occultism and violent secret societies reenacting medieval antics and strange bestialities which swathe the campus in frightful dark ages togas. (Cited in Ibonvbere, 1993, p. 65)

As already shown in the background section, public universities in Kenya have expanded very rapidly within the last decade or so. The high number of student admissions was not matched with the provision of teaching facilities and resources, especially lecture halls and halls of resi-

dence. As a result lecture theatres which were meant to accommodate 100 students are now expected to house ten times this number. It is now a common feature in most of the public universities for students to listen to lectures while standing outside flooded lecture theatres. Tutorials are quite rare. This overcrowding is extended to the libraries which house outdated books and journals, and also to the residential quarters and dining halls. Attempts to split large classes to enable the lecturer to repeat a lecture three to four times have not worked satisfactorily. Most aspects of the existing facilities and equipment in the universities are in total decay, with broken tables and chairs in storage (if not exposed to the attention of visitors) and most telephone lines likely to be out of order. The strain on the facilities and resources is exacerbated by their continuous use throughout the calendar year. Following frequent closures of universities there emerged since the mid-1980s a backlog of students that necessitated a double intake. Since the facilities cannot accommodate extra intakes, let alone the regular intakes, this has meant that various groups of students are forced to complete their semesters at different times within a given academic year. This means that most student courses take longer than necessary. The rapid expansion of the universities also had a far-reaching effect on the quality of the teaching staff. To recruit academic staff for the public universities, the tendency has been towards relaxing the recruitment and promotion criteria. In practically all the universities, a PhD degree is no longer a requirement for tenure, and publications are a less important criterion for judging who should be promoted. Consequently many of the academic staff who in the past would not have qualified for university teaching are now doing so. Moreover, it is no longer possible to attract competent staff from abroad to teach in the public universities. The implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programmes has worsened an already bad situation since the real value of wages can hardly carry a professor for one week, even the very best of academics. The following is a succinct description of the quality of academic staff in the public universities in Kenya.

Crisis in the Public Universities in Kenya

The vast majority of our academics in the universities have no business there. They neither teach nor do any research worth the name. Some of them stay up to a decade without publishing a paper or attending any professional meeting. But they get promoted by playing ethnic and religious politics, obtaining political interference, boot-licking and politics of opportunism and gift-giving. Many continue to miseducate students by recycling old and outdated ideas and others simply allocate grades without reading examination scripts because they do not have the time they need more time to farm, run their food stalls, sit and drink at the staff clubs or engage in local politics. Unfortunately, it is this reactionary, unproductive and corrupt segment of the academic community that controls political power and makes critical decisions. Given their tenuous relations to teaching and research as well as their general insecurity because of their intellectual capacities, they are often in the forefront of seeking reasons why students' unions should be banned, why certain academics should not be promoted, why persons from certain ethnic groups should be sacked or not allowed to hold certain offices ... (Ibonvbere, 1993, p. 61)

The politicization of the universities coupled with the increasing proletarianization process that has taken place among the members of the university over the last decade has led the academic staff in all the public universities to demand registration of the umbrella staff union, the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU). Government refusal to register the union led to a nationwide university strike in November 1992 which paralysed academic activities in all the public universities. The members demanded the unconditional registration and official recognition of an umbrella staff union, the total depoliticization of the administration and management of public universities, the withdrawal of all security police from monitoring university lecturers and the restoration of representative student unions in public universities (Otieno, 1993, p. 13). The 'good boys' among the academic staff, mainly those who have supported the regime since the 1992 general elections, constituted themselves into an anti-strike group and argued that the registration of an academic union would lower the esteem and dignity of the universities since as multiple degree holders, the lecturers ought to leave things like trade unions to people like waiters, machinists, drivers, tailors and sugar cane plantation workers (Otieno,

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1992). They advised the government to go for academic staff associations in the public universities. The government readily responded to their advice to establish registered staff associations which have totally failed to attract membership from the academics. The impasse is yet to be resolved. What we have discussed about university facilities, resources, academic staff administration and the quality of education has a strong bearing on the students as members of the university community. Students' major preoccupation is with learning and related issues. Issues related to facilities, resources and the quality of instruction directly affect them. As already discussed students in public universities are experiencing problems which their counterparts over a decade ago did not face. Halls of residence are overcrowded and lack basic facilities. With regard to lecture halls they attend lectures standing, and often it is difficult to hear the lecturer or see the board on which he/she is writing notes. Those who cannot see do their best to copy from the notebooks of those who can. After class, if any money is available a handout can be purchased from the lecturer. It is his/her sideline, a supplement to the salary which has been eroded by currency devaluation and inflation. The lecturer recommends readings but the titles are not in the library. The World Bank report on education in sub-Saharan Africa vividly captured this situation as follows: chemists who have not done a titration; biologists who have not done a dissection; physicists who have never measured an electric current; secondary science teachers who have never witnessed, let alone themselves conducted, the demonstrations central to the curriculum they teach; agronomists who have never conducted a field trial of any sort; engineers who have never disassembled the machinery they are called upon to operate; social scientists of all types who have never collected, or conducted an analysis of, their own empirical data; specialists for whom the programming and use of computers is essential who have never sat before or tested a program on a functioning machine; lawyers who do not have access to recent judicial opinions; medical doctors whose only knowledge of laboratory test procedures is from hearing them described in a lecture hall - qualitatively deprived graduates such as these are now appearing in countries that have been hardest hit by the scarcity of non-salary inputs ... (World Bank, 1988, p. 75)

228 Daniel N. Sifuna

Students more than their lecturers have been very conscious of the deteriorating conditions of their universities and the economic and political situation in the country. The government, fully aware of the force they can unleash against it, has devised ways and means of containing them. The most common method has been to terrorize them by use of security forces. Public universities are always in turmoil or are closed following clashes between security forces and students. Many students since the Kenyatta era have served jail sentences for daring to complain or criticize corruption, human rights abuses and mismanagement of universities. For a long time university academic staff have been hostile or indifferent to students' struggles against the oppressive regime in the country and poor management of universities. They are generally blind to, or unsympathetic to, the deteriorating conditions in which students study and live. A majority of the academics never go near the students' hostels to see for themselves the conditions of squalor, filth and diseases in which their students live and study. Apart from indifference, academics generally fear possible victimization from the university authorities who might interpret student-staff solidarity as incitement. To silence the students the government, in collaboration with the universities' administrations, has attempted to depoliticize them by denying them an umbrella student union for all public universities. Student associations for respective campuses have been created instead. Apart from planting security personnel in the student community, the government has tried to neutralize their militancy by bribing sections of the student body with large sums of money and channelling their activities through the political leadership which is sympathetic to the ruling party and hails from the students' home districts. Generally manipulation has not succeeded in completely silencing students from voicing their concerns about problems that affect them. They continually complain about reduced allowances, the condition of residential facilities, the declining academic standards, their limited representation in university governing bodies such as the

council, senate and other university organs, and poor communication channels with university authorities and the government.

Conclusion The crisis which Kenyan public universities are going through has been precipitated by an authoritarian political system that is not responsive to problems of the wider society. The political leadership in the past, and more so under the present government, has never seen education as a weapon for national development, liberation and reconstruction. The country is not blessed with leaders who have experienced and who clearly understand the true value of education and the dynamic role of higher institutions in the process of national mobilization and development. The government most of all does not seem to have shown much respect for either the constitution or laws that govern the running of universities. Until the government respects these laws the crisis in the public universities is likely to persist. It is only by respecting the constitution and laws that it will refrain from interfering with the autonomy of universities and thereby encourage academic freedom. This will in turn democratize decisionmaking processes within the universities by allowing wider representation of staff and students in key university governing bodies. Such a measure will enable staff and students to have more say in deciding who the top university administrators will be and allow for some degree of accountability to the university community by these top administrators.

References Ajayi, K. (1990) Academic freedom and university autonomy in reaction to human liberty: Nigeria as a case study, in E. D. Kaba and L. C. A. Rayaben (eds),

Crisis in the Public Universities in Kenya Relevant Education for Africa. Yaounde: Professor World Peace Academy. Coombe, T. (1991) A Consultation on Higher Education in Africa. A report to the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, London. Emenyonu, E. N. (1990) New perspectives for African universities in the 21st century, in E. D. Kaba and L. C. A. Rayaben (eds), Relevant Education for Africa. Yaounde: Professor World Peace Academy. Furley, O. W. and Watson, T. (1978) A History of Education in East Africa. New York: NOK Publishers. Gillies, D. and Mutua, Makau (1993) A Long Road to Uhuru: Human Rights and Political Participation in Kenya. Montreal: International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. Ibonvbere, J. O. (1993) The state and academic freedom in Africa: how African academics subvert academic freedom. Journal of Third World Studies, 10 (2). Kenyatta, J. (1970) The Challenge of Uhuru. Nairobi. Mudenge, S. I. G. (1993) Reflections on academic freedom. Political and Economic Monthly, 7 (1). Mwiria, K. (1992) University Governance: Problems and Prospects. Washington, DC: Technical Department, Africa Region, The World Bank. Nkinyangi, J. (1983) Who conducts research in Kenya?, in S. Shaeffer and J. A. Nkinyangi (eds), Educational Research Environments in the Developing Countries. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.

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Onyejekewe, O. O. (1993) Some disturbing trends in tertiary education in Africa, in I. de Villiers (ed.), Proceedings of the Southern African Congress on the Restructuring of Education. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council. Otieno, S. (1994) The plight of academic freedom in Kenya. The Kenya Jurists, 4 (1) (June). Perkins, J. A. (1978) Autonomy, in The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education, Vol. IIA. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 578-83. Republic of Kenya (1981) Second University in Kenya: Report of the Working Party. Nairobi: Government Press. Rwomire, A. (1993) Conflicts and tensions in Africa's universities, in I. de Villiers (ed.), Proceedings of the Southern African Conference on the Restructuring of Education. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council. Sifuna, D. N. (1990) Development of Education in Africa: The Kenya Experience. Nairobi: Initiatives Ltd. Taiwo, C. O. (1980) The Nigerian Education System. Lagos: Thomas Nelson. University of Nairobi (1970) Calendar. West, T. D. (1983) Of Politics and Education. Bendel State University, Ekpoma, First Foundation Day Lecture, March 1983. World Bank (1988) Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment, Revitalization and Expansion. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

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Revitalizing University Education in Africa: Addressing What Is and What Is Not an Issue from Kenya's Perspective

OKWACH ABACI Introduction Everywhere in Africa, governments are committed to the development of higher education on the premise that university education is perhaps the most crucial institution in the development of human resources. The pronouncements at the Mbabane (1985) and Harare (1987) meetings by the leadership of the region's institutions of higher learning about the urgent need to develop university education were consistent with the African articulated policy framework enunciated by the Organization of African Unity in its Lagos Plan of Action for the Economic Development of Africa 1980-2000 (1981) and in its Africa's Priority Program for Economic Recovery 1986-1990 (1985). The paramount importance of higher education for Africa's future was also expressed in the World Bank document Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (1988). In Kenya, for example, the government has undertaken a comprehensive review of education and training programmes and has articulated a long-term policy for development and management of the sector (GOK, 1981,1988b, 1989). Over the last ten years, university education has taken the largest share of national expenditure in education. Today, the figure stands at about 55 per cent. At the same time, social demand for university education has also increased considerably. For example, enrolment in the public universities has increased from 2502 in 1982/83 to 20,837 in the 1990/91 academic year and currently the figure

stands at over 40,000 students (Abagi and Okumbe, 1993; GOK, 1994). Although there have been some striking successes in higher education in Africa, for example, in increasing enrolment, putting up fancy buildings, and conducting some quality research, university education everywhere in Africa is incrisis. Although some countries have somehow managed the situation better than others, in nearly every region universities lack enough teaching resources/facilities. Lecturers are underpaid, causing low morale in their work. Strikes by lecturers and students have become part and parcel of university life. Another disturbing observation is the mass exodus of qualified staff from public universities. Besides, everywhere in the region, governments tightly control the operations of the universities and have politicized these institutions of higher learning (AAU, 1991; Kilemi Mweria, 1992). In recent years, there have been some interesting studies and debates about the growth and crisis of university education in Africa (AAU, 1991; Blair, 1992; Eicher, 1984; Kilemi Mwiria, 1992; Kwapong, 1992; World Bank, 1988). However, studies and discussions about how specifically to address the problems or crises have been somehow elusive in Eastern Africa. We believe that it is useful to explore the specification of the problem(s): origins, evolution and state of the art of public universities, but it is also pertinent to address how to curtail and/or solve the identified problems. It is from this perspective, therefore, that I react to

Revitalizing University Education in Africa Daniel Sifuna in the previous chapter, 'Crisis in the public universities in Kenya'.

Crisis in higher education: the issues The chapter by Daniel Sifuna has confirmed what many reformists in higher education in Africa have not bothered to critically address and study. That is the realization that the growth and advancement of public university education in Africa is a complex process which will only be resolved by undertaking holistic social, economic and political steps and cannot be achieved at once through government decrees and tight controls. Experience in more industrialized nations has indicated that reform in education is a long process which needs proper planning, coordination and continuous monitoring and evaluation of what has been implemented on the ground. In Kenya, as in many African countries, the conceptualization of university autonomy and academic freedom is complex. It is complicated because of the nature of the political environment and cultures which exist in the country. The 'global', perhaps generally accepted, definitions of university autonomy and academic freedom have been given by Sifuna (1997): University autonomy implies the freedom of the university as a political unit to have its own internal government and governance, (above, p. 221) In more practical terms academic freedom is the freedom of a member of the university staff to write or speak the truth as he/she sees it without fear of dismissal, demotion, withholding of merited promotion, adverse salary adjustment or censure by academic supervisors or by authorities outside the university, (above, p. 221)

Such definitions directly challenge the established political system in a developing country like Kenya. In a country where political centralization is the guiding philosophy, the political atmosphere is full of patronage, and ethnic thinking is the order of the day, university autonomy and academic freedom, as they have been defined, seem to be, in the eyes of the government, antithet-

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ical to the very existence of the country as a nation. The situation is made worse by the fact that the public universities depend directly on government finances. Without funding from the central government, all public universities will be no more. The government, therefore, rationalizes its tight control of university administration and academic matters from the point of view that 'you have to closely monitor not only how your resources are being used but more crucially to what use they are put'. As clearly pointed out by Sifuna the political culture in Kenya that has been cultivated since independence in 1963 would definitely not allow public universities to run independently. University autonomy and academic freedom have been conceptualized differently by the government and the university academicians and students! The government on the one hand feels justified in controlling the running of public universities and their curricula. Thus, it has been fighting to maintain its control by all means. On the other hand, the university community (lecturers and students) are still struggling to free themselves from such control. As a result of this struggle, the university programmes have been disrupted, and equality of teaching and research has declined considerably. We believe that the central role of universities is the development of qualified human resources and helping in the process of national development through teaching and research. As Sifuna and other studies cited in this chapter have shown, in many African countries public universities have so far not been able to perform these roles effectively and efficiently. Various factors have been identified as militating against the smooth operation of public universities. At the heart of the matter is the fact that the role of public universities has been curtailed because of erosion of universities' autonomy and academic freedom. Many African governments have been suspicious of universities and have decided to keep a tight control over them. It is interesting to note that decisions affecting university administration, curriculum, academic personnel, and university timetables tend to be decided and are closely monitored by the central government. Many university academic staff have been victimized politically

232 Okwach Abagi and either jailed, sacked or sent into exile. These have been the major sources of universitygovernment conflicts (Kilemi Mweria, 1992; Sifuna,, 1997). It has also been pointed out that public university education in Africa has been confronted with uncontrolled expansion and increased enrolment of students due to high social demand. This expansion is politically expedient to most of Africa's governments. As a result of 'unnecessary' expansion, the quality of teaching and research has declined. There is overcrowding, inadequate staffing, poor physical facilities, and low morale among university personnel. This has led the employers, particularly those in the private sector, to question the quality of graduates from our public universities. Government control and lack of sufficient resources have made the universities dependent on the government for funding. However, on many occasions the governments are not in a position to provide adequate funding for the universities. This has produced dependency on external funding for teaching and research facilities. Such dependency has made external donor agencies introduce conditionalities which are affecting the operation of public universities. As mentioned by Sifuna, the World Bank/IMF-initiated cost-sharing programme has already penetrated our public universities with serious negative implications (above, pp. 224-6). From recent studies and writings, we confidently conclude that many public universities in Africa are living in a period characterized by political, economic and educational crises. Politics in Africa is in disarray with too much centralization of power and the belief that all present and future problems, including those in education, can be overcome through forced ideologies and decrees. The main reason for these crises, we believe, is the lack of integrating professional and sectoral planning and the assumption that university lecturers are always opposed to the government of the day. Today, in my opinion, the central issue facing university education in Kenya, as in other African countries, is not how public African universities originated, how they have been growing and what

problems they face. The issues as we approach the year 2000 hinge on three questions: • •

•

How can universities develop themselves so as to move away from government control? What sorts of goals should be set by African governments on higher education? Investment in this sector of education is a very expensive venture; thus governments must be clear about what the public universities are for. Does the government of Kenya, for example, know what kind of university is relevant for our national development? What kind of public university is affordable? Scholars writing on the public university crisis in Africa usually fail to address squarely what kind of university is affordable in different countries. At the same time, there is less focus on the actual magnitude of financial assistance the public universities get or are able to get from the government and what implications this has on the universities as separate entities.

I feel that writings and studies on public university education should reflect a development agenda and an orientation towards developing such institutions, not just discrediting them. The university fraternity and the government should use their experiences, energy and resources to come up with alternative development models to solve the crisis in our public universities. We must move away from the culture of deception where the government system keeps on denying the existence of problems in our institutions of higher learning. At the same time, university scholars should be bold enough to move a step further from presenting the state of the art and pointing accusing fingers at the government. Scholars should use their professionalism and experience to discuss and disseminate innovative models to bail our public universities out of the crisis. Such an approach would remove the defensive attitude among the operators, particularly those government officials in charge of education. Perhaps the starting-point is the initiation of dialogue between the government and the university fraternity. Sociologists tell us that in any

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broken social institutions, dialogue among participants should be the starting-point of restoring confidence and solving problems that interfere with the achievement of institutional goals. The idea of dialogue suggests the direction in which we have to think. We need, as soon as possible, a national symposium to discuss the pertinent issues affecting our public universities and work out a viable plan of action for their independent development. More than ever before, the development and prosperity of Kenya's public universities rest on how well the nation progresses politically. Revitalizing the political system is a prerequisite for solving the crises in our public universities. This is one of the pertinent issues which need an urgent solution. We believe it is necessary therefore for the government and the university community to sit down and initiate and nurture the development of a new culture and moral values and to change political structures and assumptions. The cultures of deception, lies and fear which have controlled not only the running of our political system but also the growth of our public universities must be ended. Certain requirements need to be taken into consideration: •

University academics should be taken seriously as scholars who have knowledge and skills and who are willing and capable of assisting the government in developing the nation in general and education in particular. They are not rebels who must be controlled and condemned at all costs! • The development of new political and education cultures should be dialogical in nature and based on trust and partnership. • In situations characterized by extreme forms of control, oppression and exploitation, a struggle for liberation will automatically occur through resistance, civil disobedience and sabotage. Thus there must be a cordial liberation process. • It is true that at present public universities lack resources to run their affairs; but what is decisive, in our view, is that institutions of higher learning should be left to develop a culture of

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their own. In other words, universities should be left to become self-reliant, innovative, confident and flexible. As things stand now, the relationship between public universities and the government is generally one of conflict. Both sides are suspicious of each other and hardly share compatible ideas and views. This has tended to guide research and writing on public universities, thus perpetuating the crises in our education system. It is our feeling that it is the responsibility of both parties to address the crises. The starting-point is that the public universities must be allowed to develop as separate entities.

Public universities must develop themselves The prevailing stand-off between the government and the public university fraternity threatens the future of higher education in Kenya. Continuing government interference will cause the collapse of higher education in the country. What is clear is that the present tight control of public universities is illusory and should be treated as a passing cloud. This is because it is unsuitable either for the development of higher education, in terms of teaching and research, or for the production of qualified human resource. At the heart of the debate about public universities is the central question: Do public universities face a crisis because the government and students spend too little on them or because of the dictatorial way in which they are organized and managed? In general, we are inclined to the opinion that the problems of our public universities are rooted in their structure and governance. As indicated by Sifuna, our public universities symbolize the over-centralization and bureaucratic rigidity that afflict government in general. The central problem is that public universities cannot stand on their own feet. Government bureaucracies that exercise monopoly control over their running prevent them from being innovative and flexible.

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The Kenya government can help the public universities. By harnessing the knowledge, experience and power of the academics, encouraging independence, competition and innovation, the public universities can be radically re-structured to improve the quality of higher education and research in the country. The promise of choice lies in letting public universities become self-supporting systems. Giving the universities their autonomy and freedom (defined in this chapter as independence of government control and political interference) is intended to increase the rate of change by making it possible for university administrators and academics to try out different and innovative forms of supporting the institutions of higher learning. The move to liberalize public universities in Kenya would require several coordinated steps. First, Public Universities Acts need to be changed to remove full government control and expose public universities to self-governance. The new Public University Act could seek to foster independence and efficiency within the institutions of higher learning. The government or the Ministry of Education will have minimum responsibility for managing or controlling public universities. On the other hand, university administrators, scholars and students will have to create new and viable alternatives for running the institutions while at the same time improving quality and research. University independence is not intended to antagonize the government. Its likely effect is to stimulate quality in higher education and service to the nation. The new-look public universities will have to be accountable both to the public - for meeting specific national goals - and to parents and students, who will be free to send their children to other public or private universities. At the same time, this independence will weed out political patronage at the university and will prevent the institutions from employing inefficient administrators and managers, dormant and lax lecturers and professors. It will also do away with unnecessary or irrelevant faculties and departments which are currently an unnecessary burden to the public universities.

Second, public universities must operate as income-generating entities. Once autonomy and freedom are restored, public universities will have no option but to be aggressive in coming up with innovative strategies to raise money. The startingpoint will be to liberalize university education in the sense of making entry and exit flexible. The current policy is that students are admitted directly after sitting for Form Four national examinations. Once they are admitted to the university for a course, the students have to study continuously until they graduate. It is our opinion that students should not have to join university straight from secondary schools and should not be forced to stay there for four years to graduate with a basic bachelor degree. This kind of flexibility has been operating very well in more industrialized nations. Public universities will have to charge reasonable fees for tuition and restrict or abolish boarding facilities unless they are really necessary. Where students get money to pay for their education will not be the problem of the university, but that of the parents, students themselves and the government. For example, students can seek direct loans from the government or banks or work for some time, save money for university education or have a sandwich programme in the form of university-work-university. Lecturers and professors will be hired and fired on the basis of their qualifications and dedication, not only in teaching but also in raising money for the university in the form of research and consultancies. The consultancy potential at the university would have to be made use of. Public universities would have to create opportunities for aggressive scholars to establish consultancy firms within the university premises. There would have to be a deliberate effort to sell consultancy services to the public and other sectors. Third, public universities must be goaloriented, entrepreneurial and efficient in supporting their programmes. They will have to start massive campaigns to raise money for survival. They could, for example, enter into negotiation with private companies and organizations to sponsor or support departments or centres. Such agreements can also be with various ministries. This can be in

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the form of paying salaries for professors in that department for a period of time or financing a research and development project within a department or faculty. This means that a faculty and a private company would have to form a partnership and work together in defining and meeting specific students' and partners' goals. Combined work- and school-based courses could be developed. This would offer individuals an opportunity of pursuing a job apprenticeship. Such individuals would be sponsored by public and private employers. Such job-based education would benefit public universities by promoting links with the outside organization. Since employers would be sponsoring individuals for such training and offering some support resources, public universities would be raising money to develop marketable skills. At the same time public confidence in our universities would be restored. In the spirit of Harambee - pull-together which has become a house function in Kenya, public universities could organize fundraising meetings of all sorts, for example, calling rich individuals and members of the public to fundraising meetings; organizing plays, shows and fairs, etc. Existing physical facilities, which usually lie idle most of the time, particularly during long vacations, and resources such as land can also be used extensively to raise money. Universities have to invest wisely by putting up good quality structures like halls or theatres which could be hired by outsiders. Marketing such structures becomes crucial. Universities would have to compete with hotels in hosting conferences, workshops and seminars. Those public universities with land should develop it agriculturally. This will help the institutions in terms of food supplies. Public universities should initiate and strengthen alumni organizations. Alumni can support the universities by raising funds for them and participating in university affairs. Several rich individuals who currently hold senior positions in society can be targeted as a source of income and wisdom. Public universities should also think of raising capital for investment. For example, a university can initiate and register a limited company.

Fourth, since university education will become more important in the coming decades as a vehicle of research and development, the universities must set up standards for professional qualifications, must produce knowledge and technologies and further the growth of democracy in the country by raising political conciousness. As suggested before, the potential of our public universities is great, but it is not taken sufficiently into consideration in government planning. Changes in government policies by deliberately using the scholars at our universities would not only improve the role of our universities in development, but would also improve government-university relations. Fifth, related to the above, public universities must attract and retain qualified academic and non-academic staff. Experience has shown that there is an exodus of qualified and active academic staff from the universities to other sectors. This is because of low remuneration and poor terms of service. At the same time, there are many unqualified and lax personnel (academic and nonacademic) who have no serious business at the public universities apart from perpetuating political patronage. Besides, lack of commitment by the university administration and bureaucracy has pushed senior and experienced researchers to work at least part-time for external agencies. The external consulting opportunities have become part and parcel of basic income for university dons. Terms of service for university staff should be reviewed to make lecturers do their work effectively. Good working environments would make public universities compete fairly with other sectors while improving the quality of education and research in the country. Sixth, the donors and agencies, like the World Bank, CIDA, UNESCO, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, ODA, and DSE, among others, should work together with public universities in drawing out modalities and supporting movements towards the autonomy and freedom of such institutions. We appreciate the support such agencies are giving to public universities currently. However, we feel that they should move a step further by helping to democratize the institutions. Governments should be a major target for change in their attitudes towards public universities. Pub-

236 Okwach Abagi lie campaigns through workshops and seminars could be organized and funded by the donor community. Democratization of public universities should be considered as one of the conditions for donor aid to governments. Another alternative is to support the universities directly to make them self-sufficient. Some of the proposals given above could be directly funded by external agencies. Finally, improving planning and management systems of public universities is another area of priority. Strengthening the capacity of public universities and their departments to plan, manage and monitor activities within the higher education sector is of crucial importance. We need to depoliticize education and give educational professionals the opportunity to guide policy in education. African governments and donor agencies will have to work out modalities towards building a sustainable and viable support system for higher education. The task involves better planning and coordination, better use of available resources, efficient communication and information systems, and employment of qualified staff. In-service training for staff on a regular basis is a crucial issue here.

Conclusion Notwithstanding their radical stance, African scholars who write about the public university crisis are right to point out the decay of academic and research excellence in the continent. As they do so, they effectively raise questions about the role of such institutions in Africa and whether governments should be spending such huge sums of money on them. What has been elusive is the discussion of innovative strategies which would help such institutions to meet their goals and the requirements of the job market. We believe that reform initiatives mark a fundamental change in the philosophy governing university education in Kenya, in that it should reflect a break with past tight control and monitoring of public universities and high reliance on government financing of education. The Kenya

government should give public universities a chance to develop as autonomous institutions. The government must create an enabling environment by first and foremost accepting that there are alternative ways of supporting public university education. The conventional belief that public universities are centres of subversive activities and the confrontational style of dealing with university scholars and students must be done away with. This will be part of democratization which is an integral part of genuine development. Universities themselves should also show that they are ready to be free to move independently towards improving teaching and research. They have to restructure their internal systems by changing their attitudes and approaches to planning and management practices. Public universities, just like other private educational institutions, must be more goal-oriented, more entepreneurial and must show signs that they are in a position to stand on their own feet. With the belief that the demand for quality university education will continue to grow in Kenya, as in other African countries, the challenge for the next decade is how to manage the greatly expanded university system effectively in the context of fiscal austerity so that the benefits of the expansion can be realized. The scale of the philosophical and structural change is so great, however, that very bold and innovative approaches are required. We have to wake up, swallow our pride and initiate dialogue between university scholars and the appropriate government ministers and officials. Only then will public universities move towards improving performance and quality of teaching and research, thereby contributing effectively to the development of the country in general and education in particular.

References Abagi, J. O., and Okumbe, P. (1993) Financing of University Education in Kenya. A commissioned study submitted to the Ministry of Planning and National Development. Nairobi: Government of Kenya.

Revitalizing University Education in Africa Association of African Universities (AAU) (1991) Report of Roundtable on Cost-Recovery and Alternative Funding of African Universities, 8-10 December, Banjul, The Gambia. Blair, R. D. D. (1992) Financial Diversification and Income Generation at African Universities. AFTED Technical Note no. 2. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Coombs, P. H. (1985) The World Crisis in Education: The Views from the Eighties. New York: Oxford University Press. Court, D. and Kinyanjui, K. (1986) African education: problems in a higher-growth sector, in R. J. Berg and J. S. Whitaker (eds), Strategies for African Development. Berkeley: University of California Press. EGA (Economic Commission for Africa) (1986) Africa's development priorities and the role of institutions of higher learning. EC A/AAU Third Conference, Harare, Zimbabwe. Eicher, J. C. (1984) Educational Costing and Financing in Developing Countries: Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. Staff Working Paper no. 655. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Government of Kenya (GOK) (1981) The 8-4-4 System of Education. Nairobi: Government Press. Government of Kenya (1988a) Development Plan 1988-1993. Nairobi: Government Press.

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Government of Kenya (1988b) Education and Manpower Training for the Next Decade and Beyond. Sessional Paper no. 6. Nairobi: Government Press. Government of Kenya (1988c). Statistical Abstract. Nairobi: Government Press. Government of Kenya (1989) Economic Survey. Nairobi: Government Press. Government of Kenya (1994) Economic Survey. Nairobi: Government Press. Heyneman, S, P. (1984) Improving the quality of education in developing countries. Finance and Development, 20,18-21. Kilemi Mweria (1992) The role of good governance in resolving internal and external university conflicts: The experience of Anglophone Africa. Paper prepared for the World Bank (AFTED Division). Nairobi: The World Bank. Kwapong, A. (1992) Recent trends in governance in African universities: the challenge of scientific and intellectual leadership. Paper presented at the DAE Working Group on Higher Education, 10-12 February, Nairobi, Kenya. Sifuna, D. N. (1997) Crisis in the public universities in Kenya. Chapter 19 of this volume. World Bank (1988) Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment, Revitalization, and Expansion. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

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Markets in a Socialist System: Reform of Higher Education in China

CHENG KAI-MING Introduction China's education has been undergoing reform since the 1980s. The reform is partly a government initiative, but is mostly prompted by rapid changes at the foundations of the economy and the society. The general trend in the reform is decentralization in the administration and financing of education. This is prompted by the increasing significance of the market in the economy and the consequent demand for autonomy and flexibility in educational institutions. The reform in higher education follows this general trend. The higher education institutions have gradually moved away from the rigidity caused by bureaucratic control, but the influence of the market is not totally favourable. The reform has recently taken two major steps: introduction of fee-charging and abolition of job allocation. These steps have caused more fundamental overhaul of the socialist system. During the process there were understandable debates and dilemmas when the system broke away from the conventions of an orthodox socialist ideology. However, such controversies did not last long, and were soon overtaken by the very practical dilemma caused by disparity over the different parts of the vast nation.

The need for reform in higher education The system before the reform was one which was no more than part of a centralized machinery.

Administration, staffing, curriculum and research in higher education all occurred under definite formulae stipulated by the central government. This imposed extreme rigidity on the system. This rigidity had been with the system for such a long time that it not only hindered progress in the institutions, but it also created an ethos among institutions where progress was nobody's concern. The kind of rigidity that existed in China's higher education was not just the reflection of bureaucracy normally found elsewhere. It was also a demonstration of the inefficiency a socialist system could incur when everything was totally planned by the central authority. In order to visualize the features of the higher education system before the reform, a description of some of its major aspects may prove useful. Higher education was seen as an essential element in manpower planning, as a way to provide the production system with the adequate quality and appropriate distribution of personnel across different economic sectors. To start with, the number of places in institutions and the programmes offered by the institutions were part of a unified national plan. Staffing, admissions and funding followed as a consequence. Candidates sat for a national unified examination which covered the entire country. They were allocated to various institutions according to national plans and examination performances. Candidates were also given limited options of studies, but in practice there was little personal choice. Upon graduation, students were appointed to various work positions again according to the national plan. 'Obey na-

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tional allocation' was always a motto for graduates of higher education. There was practically nothing of a 'job' available outside the national plan, unless one chose to return to the village and became a rural peasant. All expenditures during higher education study were supported by the government. Indeed, at the high times of conventional socialism, there were no resources which were outside the government treasury. Provincial governments, which also provided funds for higher education, were seen as no more than a branch of the central government. All funds were earmarked for specific purposes. Hence, administrators often made no distinction between income and expenditures. There could be times when funding in certain categories was not adequate; but the solution to this was to ask for more in that particular category. In the days before the reform, there was a fixed price for everything (it was not really price in the normal sense of the term). The notion of economizing the funds available and optimizing the use of such funds was not known to Chinese administrators. In this context, efficiency was a non-issue. Under the conventional socialist system, each member of the staff was a member of the state cadre (ganbu1). There was no free choice of jobs; not even private exchange of jobs as existed in the last decades of the former Soviet Union. As such, each member of a university, for example, was owned by the university. Unless there was a national need for transfer, most likely a member would stay in the same university for life. As such, the university was expected to provide all that was needed for the entire living of its members. Until the mid-1980s, the 'salary' for a university graduate was a mere US$12.2 This was meant for food and subsistence. Otherwise, all living facilities were provided by the state: housing was provided at token fees (often one or two US dollars for a flat); medical care was free; children's care and education were also free. There were even heavy subsidies for items such as newspapers and magazines, hair-cutting, bicycle maintenance, and

heating (coal for the North) and cooling (cold drinks for the South) (Cheng, 1990). Upon retirement, members retained almost all of these benefits, plus pensions which were often 75 per cent to 100 per cent of their last salaries. As a consequence, universities were comprehensive complex communities which took care of every aspect of their members' lives, from the day when they were assigned a position in the institution, to the day they died. Sometimes their dependants were virtually also taken care of. For example, if their dependants' families had stayed in the university quarters, there was no way to terminate their residence even after the death of the parents or grandparents. 'We run everything except funeral homes and cemeteries', as Chinese university presidents were often quoted. This is still largely true even after all these years' tremendous reforms in various aspects. Universities expend tremendous efforts and resources in areas which are totally unrelated to academic endeavours. A department head in a Chinese university, as a common example, has the responsibility to make arrangements for its members' accommodation, because he or she is the comprehensive leader. The department head is at times also expected to be a counsellor and is even expected to settle disputes among members' families. In a way, the Chinese universities painted a very rare illustration of what orthodox socialism would look like when it was put into full practice. However, the universities were only a microcosm of the larger scene where all institutions and enterprises worked under similar situations. The system of higher education is deep-rooted in a very fundamental social fabric and is intertwined with other systems with which universities coexist. Hence, reform in higher education can only be seen as part of a larger reform. On the one hand, reform of the larger system inevitably prompts reform in higher education. On the other hand, however, any reform of the higher education system inevitably touches upon fundamental issues and brings pain. Nevertheless, reform in higher education is still spectacular.

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The early reform Sparkles of reform in higher education emerged as early as 1979 when Jiaotong University in Shanghai launched an institutional reform (Shanghai Jiaotong University, 1984, 1985, 1988). Jiaotong University obviously was not the only institution which attempted reform in those years, but the reform in Jiaotong University was seen as the most comprehensive and aroused much attention. The general theme of the reform was to establish an accountability system in the university in anticipation of enhancing flexibility and efficiency. Central to the Jiaotong reform was the creation of a series of 'responsibility-accountability systems' (gangwei zerenzhi) which would hold members accountable for whatever they were responsible. The 'responsibility-accountability system' for each administrative division contains stipulations about the terms of reference for each office, the size of the staff, job description for each post and the relevant appraisal schemes. In some cases, there were also stipulations of the code of practice (Shanghai Jiaotong University, 1984). Introducing such accountability could be seen as no more than establishing a bureaucracy in Max Weber's sense of the term. However, this was seen as a great positive step in a battle against rigidity and inefficiency. The accountability that the reform sought to establish was a sharp contrast to the totally ideological control during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), when performances were subject to ideological correctness and appraisals were carried out as a matter of class struggles. Reformers in the Jiaotong University saw staffing as the critical point of change. The 'responsibilityaccountability system' was a way to make the jobs and performance of each member visible. Such a system laid the foundation for a number of potential reforms. First, this provided a basis for rationalizing the staff size and staff structure. Over the years until the reform, the strict manpower planning had ironically caused serious mismatch between what was needed in the manpower and what was allocated by the state. The macro-planning which was based on projected targets had become increas-

ingly unrealistic when it came to the grass-roots who found it difficult to operate exactly according to plans. Full-employment policies had also created over-supply and hence under-utilization of manpower. Universities were no exception. Universities were staffed with personnel which was hardly justified by its tasks. There was a high teacher/non-teacher ratio (around 2:3 in the early 1980s) and an extremely low teacher/student ratio (around 1:4 in the same years)(Ministry of Education, 1984, pp. 30-3). The accountability system provided a means to reveal the match or mismatch between the actual needs and the reality in staffing. Second, as a consequence, the reform helped justify the economization of manpower. In the first five years of the reform, Jiaotong University succeeded in dismissing more than 500 members of its staff (Shanghai Jiaotong University, 1984, p. 15). This was unprecedented and almost inconceivable in pre-reform China. There was no dismissal as such in China, because all members of the university were members of the national cadre and the university had no power to make dismissals. Moreover, since there was no unemployment and no job-market as such, the university had to find a way to place these dismissed members. In practice, the university expended tremendous efforts in introducing these redundant members to other work units, and in internal reshuffling in order to best utilize their expertise. Even then, it was estimated that the university was still over-staffed by around 700 members; 300 of them were teachers (p. 16). Third, one of the prime targets of the reform was the salary system. The idea was to associate salaries with performance. This was possible only when the responsibility of the members was made explicit and their performance assessable. Because of the responsibility-accountability system, members of the university were given room to strive for better incomes. Meritocracy for the first time took over from absolute egalitarian distribution of resources. In the Chinese saying, this broke the 'big rice-pot' where people ate the same pot of rice regardless of individual contributions. Fourth, for the same reason, departments and other sub-divisions in the university gained some

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financial autonomy and hence administrative autonomy. Apart from the attempt to 'pay according to work', departments were also encouraged to generate their own incomes. Such incomes were not allocated by the state and hence there was only loose control over their uses. There were other innovations launched in other universities at the time, but Jiaotong University was outstanding in being bold to challenge many of the basic assumptions people held. Revolutionary it was, yet the Jiaotong experience did not lead to much controversy at the policy-making level. It was unanimously applauded by almost all members in the leadership in the central government and in the Party. All of them highly commended the Jiaotong reform (Shanghai Jiaotong University, 1984). This was understandable in an era where drastic reforms to move away from the old system were essential to the legitimacy of the central government. Jiaotong University was regarded as a pioneer in this direction. Dissatisfaction arose, however, at the grass-roots level. The idea of accountability was totally foreign to people working in institutions which had been domesticated by the state for more than 30 years. The idea of rewarding merit performance was well accepted in a Chinese community, but the consequence that people might lose their means of living if they did not perform was totally unacceptable. However, the latter was the crux of the entire reform. Controversies did arise within the campus, but such controversies were soon overtaken by more dramatic changes in the larger community. In hindsight, the Jiaotong University reform was only modest when compared with the reforms that followed. The success of the Jiaotong experience, as well, was soon overtaken by other more dramatic changes in the system. Nevertheless, the Jiaotong reform was extremely revolutionary at the time when it was launched. It was a breakthrough in the ideology when the state was still seen as the sole provider. Remuneration according to merit was seen as capitalist. Indeed, much of what was done in the Jiaotong reform was expanded in the national reform that came later. The accountability system paved the way for the introduction of contracts in staff appointments. Thereafter, most

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institutions introduced an 'appointment system' whereby teachers received a virtual annual contract as a way of mutual agreement about responsibilitiess and expectations of performance, despite the fact that dismissal was still quite difficult.

The reform in finance The substantial reform in higher education came formally in 1985 when the Communist Party announced a systems reform in which higher education was a part (Decisions, 1985). The real turn of the tide started with the reform in finance. It was at a time when reform in the rural economy had borne fruit. Communes,3 which had once been regarded as a great step forward towards communism, were dismantled. Farmers were allocated land and individual endeavours were encouraged. Farmers' incomes immediately increased significantly. Decentralization and privatization then started in the industrial sector. Factories were given autonomy in their finance and personnel. Therefore, there emerged manpower needs outside the state plan, and there was money floating around to buy manpower to cater for such needs. In a nutshell, for the first time in a socialist country there was a 'labour market'. It was the existence of this 'labour market' that made the advocated reforms in higher education possible. The following paragraphs will discuss what is known as 'commissioned training' and 'institution-run enterprises' as typical cases which illustrate changes in the finance of higher education.

'Commissioned training'' As early as the late 1970s, there emerged students who were admitted to universities in a special category known as daipei students. Many of these students had lower examination scores than was required. They secured places in the universities ., by paying a fee. 'Daipei' literally means training on

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behalf of the ones who pay, or 'commissioned training'. The little extra money that parents or employers could now afford and the inadequacy in university funding made this a natural deal that benefited both parties. This alerted the government. Daipei was seen as a non-state operation and was under suspicion. In 1978, the State Council issued a circular to contain the practice of'commissioned training'. The circular labelled 'commissioned training' as 'against the regulations of admissions' and as a matter of 'corruption' (State Council, 1978). In 1981, there was a State Council directive which aimed at eliminating fee-paying students who again secured admission outside the state plans of recruitment (State Council, 1981). Charging fees and admitting extra students were seen as totally unacceptable. Such an attitude did not last long. The economic reform changed people's perceptions about state plans and the value of money. In a matter of only three years, the attitude towards commissioned training changed almost diametrically. In 1984, in a circular issued jointly by the State Education Commission, State Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance, the central government not only endorsed the notion of 'commissioned training', but also regarded the practice as a way to expand the potential capacity of higher education institutions, to create new sources of funding, to strengthen the relations and co-operation between institutions and the employers, and to construct channels whereby institutions supply specialized manpower to non-state and individual enterprises. (State Education Commission et al, 1984; writer's translation)

It is noticeable that the change did not bring with it any debate on the policy arena. Despite the earlier directives in 1981, commissioned training had become a reality in most institutions. The circular of 1984 was seen to be no more than an endorsement of what was a reasonable solution when the government was not able to provide adequate funding. Such a solution occurred when alternative funding was readily available where there was a market demand. The circular of 1984 therefore was a milestone which marked an official deviation from orthodox socialist notions of state plans and state appropriation.

'Commissioned training' now spreads over almost all disciplines. The typical practice is for an enterprise (or a government department, or a provincial authority) to request the institution to provide training for the enterprise. The two parties then enter a contract where the institution provides training services. In return, the institution receives a fee for recurrent costs and often also some funding for partial recovery of the nonrecurrent costs and even capital constructions. Internally, the funds thus secured are distributed with a percentage top-sliced by the institution. The larger share goes to the relevant department. There is the general convention that the department has to spend a substantial percentage of these additional resources on the 'improvement of teaching facilities'; the remaining part usually goes to teacher benefits. The students in these training programmes are either (a) recruited locally with lower scores, (b) recruited by the commissioning enterprise or (c) members already in employment with the enterprises. In any case, 'commissioned training' allows obtaining extra income by teaching extra students. From a macroscopic point of view, this is a device which (a) taps into resources other than the government treasury and (b) enhances the efficiency of institutions because they are virtually teaching more students with the same staff. The evolution of the 'commissioned training' is typical of the reform process in China. The device emerged as a practical solution to real needs. The needs led to innovations which were unprecedented and were primarily unacceptable to policies of the time, but they demonstrated the success and benefits of the device. The change in the larger context also made what used to be unacceptable acceptable. The device then became endorsed by government policy and was promoted as part of the national reform. The same happened to other practices of income-generation.

Institution-operated enterprises Universities also carry out commercial or industrial operations which generate income. Typical of these are factories operated by the institutions.

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Such factories are often situated on the campus. They are owned by the institution, often with one vice-president as its virtual manager. Such factories are privileged by preferential treatments in taxation. They may sometimes obtain low-interest loans from the government for start-up purposes. The income generated by the factories is handled by the institution. Often, such income is distributed for the improvement of facilities, staff benefits and re-investment in the factories. Other operations include shops, restaurants or hotels run by the institutions. Other institutions started developmental operations such as 'labour companies' which provide all kinds of manpower and jobmatching services. Others have started investments beyond the campus. Such income-generating operations started as a sign of liberalism and were at first welcomed as a breakthrough in ideology. The success of some of these operations has proven to policy-makers a relief to the government's financial burden. This has in turn made such operations a permanent alternative to government funding and this is repeatedly confirmed by policy. Under the framework of'multiple channels of resource collection', institutions are practically encouraged to devote attention to these income-generating activities. In reality, all higher education institutions have to rely heavily on income-generating activities which are often known as 'school-operated enterprises' (xiaoban canye). The 'school-operated enterprises' are in fact given an official status in the newly enacted Law of Education (Zhongguo Jiaoyu Bao, 22 March 1995). Article 58 of the Law says The state adopts preferential policies to encourage and facilitate schools [and institutions] to develop work-study programmes and social services and to develop institution-operated enterprises, with the proviso that such activities do not affect normal education and teaching. (Writer's translation)

Policy controversies In other words, institutions are expected to draw resources from various income-generating activities. This has become an expectation, and govern-

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ment funding has taken this into account. In the early 1990s, state appropriation supported only about half of an institution's expenditures; the other half had to be paid with income generated by the institutions themselves. Again, what seem to be acceptable and feasible at the policy level may not be seen as favourable at the grass-roots levels. Academics are generally dissatisfied with the situation, and voices for greater state appropriation have become commonplace in all kinds of fora. Voices of opposition are also heard at the People's Congress which hears representatives express strong discontent with the financing situations. Arguments against the reliance on institutional income-generation are manifold. First, the general tendency for institutions to go for alternative ways of acquiring resources has become necessary because of the inadequate allocation from the government. The pressure for income-generation has also distracted the institutions from their major intellectual undertakings. Second, in the short run, higher education institutions have become more sensitive to the needs of the community, because extra income comes forth only when there is a need for contributions from the academics. But such needs are often purely manpower-oriented or profit-driven and are hence shortsighted and may not benefit academic developments in the long run. Third, inadequate income has also prompted individual academics to divert their attention to private operations for income-generation. They are said to have 'gone into the sea' when they are forced to tolerate a damage of their scholarly image and to explore their own ways of generating income in order to make a living. All these do not seem to have affected the policy-makers in including institution-generated income as an expectation for institutions. The real dilemma policy-makers face is the disparity that arises because of the new financial arrangements. To start with, there is immense disparity among institutions and indeed among disciplines in the business of income generation. In terms of 'commissioned training', for example, the most prosperous disciplines are those with the highest market values: foreign languages, accounting and at

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one time law. Disciplines such as physics and chemistry, which had commanded supreme honour in the 1950s and 1960s, have become the most desperate losers in the competition for clients. Being geared to the labour market, the prosperity of 'commissioned-training' programmes also suffers from fluctuations. Programmes in legal studies, for example, were in great demand in the mid1980s when the entire nation was establishing its legal system, but have become very rare in the 1990s when the labour market in the legal profession has been saturated with very young members. There is even more serious disparity among regions. The institutional income-generation activities have made the institutions highly reliant on the local economy. This has been a problem with the general move towards decentralization where central allocation is replaced by local contributions and non-government resources. In higher education, 'commissioned training' is in high demand only in regions where (a) there is a highly prospering economy such that there is a need for extra manpower, (b) there is significant development of new economic sectors which are not satisfied by the traditional supply of manpower as planned by the state and (c) the local employers are wealthy enough to 'purchase' training programmes from the institutions. Likewise, institutional factories prosper only as spill-overs of a prospering larger economy in the region. It is difficult to conceive that a higher education institution could run a successful enterprise when the general economy in the vicinity is underdeveloped. The regional disparity has caused much dissatisfaction among institutions in the less-developed provinces, mostly in the western part of the country. There has been an overt resentment that 'reform policies are policies for the east'. The east refers to the coastal provinces where the economy develops rapidly and hence institutions benefit more from the reform. To institutions in the west, the financial reforms have put them into difficulties which they cannot overcome by their own efforts. As a typical example, the improvement in salaries in higher education is uneven, putting institutions which are in difficult areas into deeper difficulties. Against all reports about success stor-

ies of the reform, the country is divided in attitudes towards it.

Further reforms If the reform in educational finance has caused institutional changes in higher education, then the more recent reforms are more fundamental and may overhaul the entire notion of a socialist system of higher education. These are related to feecharging for all students and job-seeking for all graduates.

Fee-chargingg Fee-charging started in the 1980s only on a small scale. Students who paid fees were those who were supposed to be 'ultra-plan', that is, they were admitted beyond the state plan of student intake. Again, this was seen as irregular and institutions were allowed to admit only very few such students. Such students often possessed scores lower than the normal admissions level. They were virtually 'buying' their entrance by paying a fee. In the early days of fee-charging, the small number of fee-charging students were often supported by private enterprises which were in need of manpower. There were also others who were paid for by their parents who were rich farmers or newly emerged entrepreneurs. Fee-charging has become a national policy as will be seen later. Full-scale fee-charging has become a definite policy, but its evolution from free higher education occurred in a matter of only a few years. In 1992, the State Education Commission allowed institutions directly under its control4 to admit up to 25 per cent of its students in the 'commissioned training' or 'fee-paying' categories. Both categories allow the institutions to charge the clients in one way or another. Fee-charging is therefore legitimized. In 1993, the State Education Commission experimented in some 30 pilot institutions with

Markets in a Socialist System: Reform in China

what is known as 'merging the rails'. The rails refer to two routes by which students are admitted: (a) those who were admitted because of public examination scores and therefore were within the state plan and hence supported by the state (i.e. free from fees) and (b) those who were admitted because they were willing to pay a fee, often with scores lower than what was required. The experiment was to eliminate the difference between the two routes, or 'rails', such that both types of students have to pay a fee, but both of them were admitted with a unified (but lower) score requirement. The standard fee was RMB 1000-1800 (US $200-360 by 1993 exchange rate) per annum. In other words, fees are no longer a substitute for examination scores. This is seen as more equitable to the Chinese community. It is a reflection of a Chinese version of equity which honours meritocracy as the criteria for allocation. The scheme is generally seen as feasible. In 1994, more institutions entered the scheme and practised 'merged rails'. There is a general policy that in the year 2000, all institutions are expected to practise the same. Equity is but one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is that all students will have to pay. Advisors to the policy-makers advocated fees as high as 25 per cent of the student unit costs.5 The present recovery rate is only 4.64 per cent.6 This is a real revolution in China's higher education. Fee-charging is part and parcel of a comprehensive overhaul of higher education in China. As mentioned earlier, higher education was seen as an act of the state to prepare manpower for 'socialist construction'. Hence the admission procedures were selections of the fittest for the state. Once a student was selected, he/she was seen as part of the state manpower machinery and hence should be totally supported by the state. The legitimation of fee-charging is virtually an indication of the changed nature of higher education. It undermines the fundamental notion of state control in the socialist framework. There is still heavy subsidy from the government, but this is done elsewhere in other countries. The very notion of cost recovery belongs to the economics of a capitalist system. It is not very clear how exactly the evolution has taken place. Evidence all indicates that the in-

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troduction of fee-charging was mainly a move to lessen the burden on the government. This is consistent with the entire philosophy underlying the decentralization of finance in education (Cheng, 1994a). However, passing the financial responsibility to students assumes that individual students are also stakeholders in the undertaking of higher education. It virtually admits that the returns to higher education are no longer only a gain to the state; it admits there is a value in higher education for the individuals. The recognition of individual values is a fundamental deviation from the ideology by which the People's Republic operated in its first 40 years. The converse of this argument is that when students pay, then they have a say in the higher education which they 'purchase', or partially 'purchase'. That the students are willing to pay would mean that they expect returns to their private lives, such that what they pay is value for money. This is perhaps the very cause that underlies the viability of fee-charging. This helps explain why fee-charging is feasible in some places, but also why it is difficult in others. The fees charged by institutions vary. Although the State Education Commission allows institutions under its direct control to charge only a standard fee, other institutions follow different norms. The fees vary from discipline to discipline, and from place to place. Popular disciplines where there is a privileged market, such as foreign languages and accounting, charge much higher fees than, for example, physics and chemistry. Institutions in Guangdong in the prosperous south also charge much higher fees than their counterparts in the underdeveloped west. Practically, fees vary in the range of RMB500 to RMB3000 (US$62.5-375 by 1994 exchange rate). It is interesting to notice that the levels of fees are determined by the market value of their graduates, rather than by their actual operation costs. However, it also works against the very culture where education is seen as the legitimate ladder for social mobility. For centuries, education and examination has been seen as the most legitimate means of merit measurement, which has gained its credibility because of its detachment from the wealth of the family. In ancient times, success in

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education was rewarded by appreciation and appointmentt by the Emperor. In contemporary China, university entrance is the most valuable incentive for schooling. Even in the socialist context, university study is almost the sole means whereby a rural youth can gain urban status and hence work in the modern sector. It is this hope on the education ladder that has motivated the mass of rural parents to send their children to schools,7 hence the high enrolment rates in basic education.8 But such a motivation is valid only when there is no price tag attached to higher education. The introduction of fee-charging to all has aroused much worry among parents, particularly those in rural areas. The government is prompted to establish student assistance and loan schemes in order to soothe the worries,9 but it is foreseeable that fees will remain a barrier to rural parents. Despite all these worries in the community, policy-makers remain convinced that fee-charging is the direction for reform in higher education. It is premature to assess the implications of such a reform upon the entire education system. Apparently, cost-recovery is used as a casual argument for lessening the financial burden to the government, without much serious study into the actual returns to graduates of higher education. Very likely, the financial relief gained by the government may soon be overtaken by the discouraging effect of fees to parents' confidence in the education system.

Job-seekingg Job-seeking and fee-charging are twin dimensions in the reform. As was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, graduates used to be allocated positions in various work units according to a centralized national plan. To be exact, 'jobs' in the normal sense of the term were non-existent in China before the reform. Each and every position in any work unit was part of the state machinery. Higher education institutions were meant for manpower preparation for the state and hence students were allocated positions upon graduation. A

major reform in China's higher education is to abandon the allocation system and put graduates into the free job market. There is another overhaul. The manpower planning concept was deeply rooted in the entire education system. In order that university graduates fit the national plan of required manpower, university programmes were geared to national needs. However, in order that the required numbers of students went into the respective programmes, students upon secondary school graduation were 'educated' to abide by national needs. 'Obey allocation' was the doctrine. In order the achieve that, secondary schools took in the right number of students, they were again 'educated' to obey national plans when they graduated from junior secondary schools, and so forth. With the system in practice for more than 30 years, state allocation had become an order of life and had become an ideology.10 Indeed, people used the term 'allocation' (fenpei) for the process from school to work or from university to work. Terms like employment are only recent in China because employment in the employer-employee sense of the term was non-existent in China during the past 40 years. Theoretically there should be a perfect match of manpower supply and demand under such strict manpower manipulations. The result was quite the opposite. The rigid planning had deprived the manpower of adapting itself to changes. Apparently, there were far more aspects that affected the manpower needs than planners could cope with. In the last years before the reform, there was a serious mismatch of manpower which had created irrational qualification structures as well as wrong types of training. The strict manpower planning had also forbidden mobility of personnel and hence deprived the system of solutions to many of the personnel problems. The manpower and personnel system in China was perhaps the most inefficient in the world, and allocation of jobs was the crucial element in this system. With the reform in the economy, the system started to break down in the 1980s. The breakdown was not due to policy concerns to enhance efficiency, but rather, due to changes in the economic reality. At least three changes in policy

Markets in a Socialist System: Reform in China

have been significant: the permission for foreign investment, the establishment of private enterprises and the emergence of individual entrepreneurs. Each of these have created jobs in the normal sense of the term. For the first time in the history of the People's Republic, employment and nt self-employmentnt have become possible and one can work outside the state system. Graduates are now given an alternative to state allocation. These new opportunities for work are often more attractive in incomes and provide better room for individual development. From the very first days of the economic reform, a job market emerged. The job market was small but significant. Understandably, at the beginning, there was considerable unease about graduates working outside the state allocation system. Until the late 1980s, graduates who did not take up state allocation were seen as deviant. Many of them had to pay a compensation11 as a way of penalty. The argument was that the state had paid for their study, yet they opted not to work for the state. Graduates who opted out of the state allocation system also ran the risk of losing social security. Those who worked for foreign investment companies, for example, despite the high salaries, had to forgo their rights to medical care (which was provided by the state almost free), housing (which was allocated at token rent) and other benefits. Hence, graduates who opted for free employment were the bold ones and were the exceptions. All this unease was soon overtaken by the rapid developments in the society since the late 1980s. Added to the much-expanded sector of private enterprises, local and foreign, the state enterprises have also gained ample autonomy in their management and hence their control of personnel. Even in the state enterprises, contracts have replaced life-long appointments. 'Fire and hire' has also become a lifestyle in many parts of China. In most of the urban areas, medical insurance systems have replaced free state medical services. Most of the developed areas have also started commercializing living accommodations, such that flats can now be bought on a market. That is, while the state used to control provision of all facilities for living, now they can be purchased by money.

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Starting from the early 1990s, free job-seeking has become the preferred option for most graduates in coastal cities. Instead of huge and complex exercises to allocate each graduate to a job, the practice has been for the higher education institutions to conduct what are known as 'supply-demand face-to-face' exercises, where the potential employers and the graduates meet and select each other. Only those who are left unselected were allocated jobs, most likely in the less desirable occupations or units. In this context, the government plans to abolish the job-allocation system altogether. Plans are set that by the end of the century there will be no allocation of jobs for higher education graduates. This is in keeping with the general trend of liberalizing higher education from tight state control. Such a policy is readily accepted in the more developed cities. Indeed, the policy is no more than legitimizing what is being practised. There are plenty of free jobs around and there is high incentive for job-hunting on one's own. However, the change of policy is likely to face difficulties in the less-developed regions. In these regions, there are far fewer job opportunities beyond the state sector. In these less-developed regions, full employment is achieved only through the strong intervention of the government, regardless of the actual manpower needs. There is virtual overemployment, such that if allocation is abolished, there is the risk of immediate high unemployment. The government, in the orientation of moving towards a market economy, may want to move away from full-employment policies, but it will have to face the social problems that will arise from unemployment.. Nevertheless, the abolition of job allocation is a real breakthrough in the higher education system. It causes a fundamental change in the accountability system of higher education, from pure state control to the inclusion of consumer elements.12 What is most essential is that the abolition undermines the very basis of manpower planning. The concept of choice, which was never there, has become part of the lives of the new breed of graduates (Cheng, 1994b). The reform goes far beyond the system.

248 Cheng Kai-ming

Conclusion China undergoes a reform which is unprecedented in human history. To recover from an extremely centralized and strictly planned system, the pains are perhaps as great as the achievements. To those who are more familiar with the ways of a capitalist system, much of the reform in China's higher education is no more than going back to normal. Such a process may face difficulties which are not paralleled elsewhere, but the process may also lead to new problems (such as disparity) which are readily shared by other systems. Nonetheless, the orientation of moving away from unnecessary human restrictions is always to be welcomed.

6 This is due to the fact that since 1989, all students are each asked to pay a token fee of RMBlOO-300. 7 Empirical studies to support this argument can be found in Cheng (1995). 8 The official figures show an incredible net enrolment ratio of over 98 per cent, which is obviously true in most rural towns and many developed rural areas. 9 A very elaborate discussion can be found in Zhang (1995). 10 A detailed discussion can be found in Cheng (1994b). 11 At the rate of, for example, over RMB10,000, which was almost ten times one's annual income in those days. 12 This follows Maurice Kogan's notions of normative accountability. See Kogan (1986).

Referencess Notes 1 The term ganbu is often mistaken by China observers as meaning members of the leadership. The broad sense of the term refers to all those who are employed by the state but who are not factory workers. 2 Renminbi (local currency) 42, at an exchange rate of US$1 = RMB3.7 in mid-1980s. 3 Communes were communities (at the township level, of populations of around 10,000 each) organized into a production unit. Farmers in the communes were totally engaged in communal work. They owned no land and received no salary. They received their share of the harvest according to the work-score they attained during the year's work. 4 There are generally three types of controlling bodies for higher education institutions: the State Education Commission, the other central ministries and the provincial governments. Although the State Education Commission is the overall administrator of education, it has direct control on non-academic matters only over 35 institutions (1995). The other institutions are financed through the respective ministries and provincial authorities. The State Education Commission's institutions are often seen as leading institutions both in terms of academic status and in terms of reform. 5 For example, Min and Chen (1994) presented plans for two scenarios of higher education development. The more vigorous plan requires a 25 per cent recovery of unit cost. Hu (1994), who belongs to a different school of thought, incidentally concurs at the same rate.

Cheng, K. M. (1990) Financing education in mainland China: what are the real problems. Issues and Studies: A Journal of China Studies and International Affairs, 26 (3), 54-75. Cheng, K. M. (1994a) Issues in decentralizing education: what the reform in China tells. International Journal of Educational Research, 21 (8), 799-808. Cheng, K. M. (1994b) Young adults in a changing socialist society: post compulsory education in China. Comparative Education, 30 (1), 63-73. Cheng, K. M. (1995) Provision of Basic Education in China: Case Study in the Province ofZhejiang. Paris: International Institute for Education Planning. Decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Reform of the Educational Structure (27 May 1985). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. Hu, R. W. (1994) Chinese education: development and perspectives. Paper presented at The Fourth International Conference on Chinese Education for the 21st Century. Shanghai, 15-20 August 1994. Kogan, M. (1986) Educational Accountability. London: Hutchinson. Min, W. F. and Chen, X. Y. (1994) Financing Chinese higher education in the new market economy: reform in resource mobilisation, allocation and utilisation. Paper presented at the international workshop on 'Reform of higher education and training of university administrators', organized by UNDP, 19-21 May 1994, Shanghai. Ministry of Education (1984) Achievement of Education in China: Statistics 1949-1983. Beijing: People's Education Press.

Markets in a Socialist System: Reform in China 249 Shanghai Jiaotong University (1984) Shanghai Jiaotong Daxue guanli gaige chutan (An Initial Study of the Administrative Reform in Shanghai Jiaotong University}. Shanghai: Jiaotong University Press. Shanghai Jiaotong University (1985) Shanghai Jiaoda de jiaoyu gaige (Educational Reform in Shanghai Jiaotong University). Beijing: People's Press. Shanghai Jiaotong University (1988) Shanghai Jiaoda de jiaoyu gaige (Educational Reform in Shanghai Jiaotong University), Vol. II. Shanghai: Jiaotong University Press. State Council (1978) Guowuyuan guanyu gaodeng xuexiao 'daipeishen' wenti de tongzhi (Circular about students of commissioned training in higher institutions), in State Education Commission (ed.) (1991), p. 206. State Council (1981) Guowuyuan pizhuan Jilinshen renmin zhengfu guanyu wosheng bufen goadeng yuanxio juban suowei 'zifei' daxue di qingkuang he chuli yijian di baogao (State Council's endorsement and transmission of the report from Jilin province about 'fee-paying' universities operated by some of the

higher institutions in the province), in State Education Commission (ed.) (1991), pp. 207-9. State Education Commission (ed.) (1985) Jiaoyu tizhi gaige wenxian xuanbian (Selected Documents about Reform in the Education System). Beijing: Education Science Press. State Education Commission (ed.) (1991) Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo xianxing jiaoyu fagui huibian 1949-1989 (People's Republic of China Collection of Current Educational Stipulations 1949-1989). Beijing: People's Education Press. State Education Commission, State Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance (1984) Gaodeng xeuxiao jieshou weituo peiyang xuesheng de shixing banfa (Pilot scheme for admission of commissioned training students by higher institutions), in State Education Commission (ed.) (1985), pp. 83-9. Zhang, M. X. (1995) Equity and student financial support policies in China. Paper presented at the inaugural conference of the Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, 15-19 May 1995.

22

The University in Africa: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities

ALISON GIRDWOOD Introductionn This contribution looks at the way in which the university was established as an institution in Africa, and the roles it has been expected to fulfil during its short history. The chapter gives a brief overview of the conditions currently experienced by many African universities, linking these to the structures and expectations created by the commissions which set up the first major African universities. The legacy created by the establishment of a specific model of higher education has contributed in part to the difficulties experienced by African universities today; and, while such difficulties are by no means unique to Africa, the scale of their impact upon institutions has been considerably more severe than in many parts of the world. Deteriorating conditions brought about by under-resourcing and rapidly rising enrolments have been exacerbated both by the financial conditions which prevail upon the African continent, and by the nature of the relationship between universities and the state in many African countries. Discussion in this chapter is limited largely to Anglophone Sub-Saharan Africa, and specifically excludes South Africa, where educational structures are very different and are bound up with that country's political character and history.

Background There are approximately 97 universities in Africa today, most of them public institutions funded

almost entirely by government. While they were established in different phases, many of the Anglophone universities were built on a model selected in the 1940s - basically a high-cost, residential institution, established out of town, and thus having a separate infrastructure of roads, housing, sanitation systems, etc., and a large number of staff employed in service roles. Traditionally, although this pattern is changing, students have not paid fees, and have been paid living allowances (sometimess equivalent to or even in excess of an average wage). Universities were initially well-equipped in terms of libraries and other facilities, and were intended to be research institutions which could participate in international fora. Many of these institutions were established as small elite institutions, and are now catering for a mass education system with budgets which have declined in real terms and inadequate (or poorly maintained) facilities. Research output is low. Despite the rapid growth in the number of institutions (from six in 1960 to the present number), and rising enrolments, the participation rate remains low: a recent study has shown that for the 36 African nations for which data were available over the period 1975-90, the average enrolment ratio for SubSaharan Africa was 178:100,000 inhabitants. Comparative figures were 845:100,000 for Asia; 1849:100,000 for Latin America; and 3045: 100,000 for the G-10 countries (the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium) (Negrao, 1994, p. 13). Further, a 1988 World Bank study estimated that the proportion of tertiary graduates in African populations was 0.4 per cent, whereas in other

The University in Africa: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities

developing countries the figure was closer to 6 per cent (World Bank, 1988, p. 70). Despite these figures, expenditure upon higher education (as a proportion of education budgets) is high, largely because of the high-cost model of higher education, and the fact that cost-recovery (from students) is low. To speak of 'the African University' is of course an oversimplification; there is no such thing. There are other types of universities, notably the Francophone model (also high-cost), the landgrant model transported from the United States (e.g. Nsukka University in Nigeria), and there are a few private institutions (largely religious in origin).. Nonetheless, there are certain broadly observable features in higher education across SubSaharan Africa, and there is a long tradition of attempts to define precisely what 'the African university' is, and how it should serve its nation. Critical and reflective works have been published from the 1960s to the present (UNESCO, 1963; Yesufu, 1972; World Bank, 1988; Brown Sherman, 1990; Coombe, 1991; Ajayi, Goma and Johnson, 1994), and these overlap with a series of theoretical works on the role of the university in the development process (Thompson and Fogel, 1976; Hetland, 1984; Coleman, with Court, 1993). However, despite these many examples, and despite recent attempts to further this debate (the Association of African Universities commissioned a number of publications for discussion at a major colloquium on the issue in January 1995), it is apparent that many institutions are simply too busy merely coping with adverse circumstances to have much opportunity to reflect upon their contribution to the development process and their role within their societies. But how did this situation arise? Leaving aside the unexpectedly difficult economic situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, why was the model of a highcost institution with residential accommodation introduced as a norm for the continent, when it must have been apparent that it would not be financially sustainable? For Anglophone universities, the answer lies in colonial history, during the period at which it was becoming apparent that independence would be granted to the (then) British colonies.

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The emergence of the African university It is perhaps worth pausing to look briefly at the history of the African university, and its peculiar position within the public consciousness of many countries. The history of the African university is closely bound with the hopes and aspirations of the immediate post-independence period, when the university as an institution was assigned an important part in the twin processes of nationbuilding and development. Expectations of the university as an institution were unrealistically high, and the functions it was expected to fulfil grew as the needs of the emerging nations became apparent. Disillusion now reflects - to a certain extent - the frustration and disillusionment of Africa's post-independence history; or, as a recent study has (perhaps controversially) described it, the 'transition from colonialism to neocolonialism, increasing dependence and underdevelopment' (Ajayi et al., 1994, p. 48). Some of the published commentaries appear to suggest that there has been a fall from a former 'golden age' of African university education. While this is debatable (King, 1991), it is true that the African university became a cherished symbol, closely bound up as its emergence was with the independence of the continent from colonial domination in the 1960s. Examples of the aspirations which African universities, once established, were required to fulfil abound in the literature: As [a world institution] it must assume the basic functions and responsibilities that attach to a university: to teach and impart knowledge as an end in itself and for the edification of society; to seek and discover Truth which for centuries has defied the genius of man; to disseminate its finding to all, so that mankind generally and the African in particular may shed the shackles of ignorance and want, and the world may be a better place in which to live... As the birth of the truly African university is coeval with national independence, so will African freedom be dependent upon the continued existence and vitality of the university. (UNESCO, 1963, p. 17)

As any student of education, particularly in developing countries, will know, education holds a strong significance in countries where educational

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attainment may represent the only means of escape from wretched economic circumstances (see Assie-Lumumba, 1993, p. 64). Beyond this, however, there was always a great longing for higher education in Africa, from well before the arrival of independence in the early 1960s, with the university as an institution acquiring deeply symbolic connotations. From the latter part of the nineteenth century, there had been a number of articulate and impassioned calls for the provision of higher education in Africa from well-educated professional Africans (almost exclusively in West Africa), and from missionaries, who had provided the first educational opportunities for Africans, at a time when this was not a priority for colonizing nations. There were some early achievements such as Liberia College at Monrovia, which formally opened in January 1862, and Cuttington College in Harper, Cape Palmas, which opened in 1889 (Brown Sherman, 1990). Fourah Bay College, a theological seminary in Sierra Leone, was founded in 1827 and introduced courses in higher education in 1876, in response to heavy demand from students. It was affiliated to Durham University, was expected to be self-funding, charged fees, and was almost always in financial difficulties (Ashby, 1966). Higher education for Africans was not however given serious consideration by the British government until well into the twentieth century, when British policy towards the colonies had changed, and self-rule was seen as a likelihood. Only when financial provision was potentially available under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940 was there any realistic prospect for the development of a system of higher education. After much consideration of which type of higher education to introduce, the model selected was that of the high-cost, internationally recognized elite institution. The Asquith Report, entitled The Report of the Commission on Higher Education in the Colonies (Cmnd 6647,1945), was thus to be of great significance for African universities, as it established a pattern of higher education which was to outlast the concepts on which it had itself been founded. The Report stated as a fundamental principle that 'An institution with the status of a university which does not command

the respect of other universities brings no credit to the community which it serves' (Asquith, 1945, p. 13), and the so-called 'Asquith Colleges' were therefore linked in a formal relationship with the University of London, to ensure that their standards were equivalent to those in British universities. The early African universities were designed to train the elite for leadership, and to provide breadth and depth of education, rather than narrow professional training. This system had a specific and finite task: that of preparing peoples for self-government (Asquith, 1945, p. 14). However, once self-government had been achieved it would follow that provision of education would have to broaden, and it was already known that demand was high. Long-term projections were not, however, included within the Report's recommendations, nor were these issues given attention. The 1960s saw large-scale expansion, and a change in the rationale for higher education. A major influence on the development of higher education was the report of the Ashby Commission on post-secondary education, which emphasized that higher education was a national investment, and established links between higher education and economic development. The report recommended substantial expansion of higher education systems, and the specific introduction of manpower planning as the rationale behind African educational planning. This accorded well with the national aspirations of newly independent nations, and the process of expansion was taken up on a wide scale. The model which was perpetuated was that of the high-cost 'gold standard' institution recommended by the Asquith Commission. Statistically minute numbers of individuals were therefore able to aspire to employment in the modern sector, at direct cost to the poor. A major concern in the early days of the African universities was that of 'Africanization', in both curriculum development and research, as well as the task of training new academic staff to take over teaching positions from expatriate personnel. The question of 'relevance' and the role of the African university were therefore key issues, and gave rise in part to the notion of the 'Development University', in which universities were to undertake

The University in Africa: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities

research or participate in development projects in the rural areas. Universities therefore found themselves required to fulfil an increasing number of disparate functions, including both an academic function and a significant diplomatic role. They were also supposed to be key actors in the development process. Inevitably, many institutions became stretched beyond their declining resources.

The African university in the 1990s The adverse circumstances now faced by universities are severe, and it is widely acknowledged that many African universities are in a state of crisis. While the precise nature of this crisis is only partially documented, a growing number of testimonies exist, citing both difficulties in purely material terms, and the devastating impact that deteriorating conditions have had upon the morale of staff and the education they are able to provide to students. An often-cited quotation, for example, is that given by Trevor Coombe in his report on a Consultation on Higher Education in Africaa (1991), prepared for the Ford and Rockefeller FFoundations: One of the abiding impressions . . . is the sense of loss, amounting almost to grief, of some of the most senior professors in the older African universities as they compare the present state of their universities with the vigor, optimism and pride which the same institutions displayed twenty or thirty years ago. It is not just the universal regret of age at the passing of youth, nor the sad awareness that a generation of unique academic pioneers has almost run its course. It is also the grim knowledge that the nature of the university experience today is profoundly different for many teachers and students, so different and so inferior that some wonder whether it can rightly be called a university experience at all. (Coombe, 1991, p. 2)

While Coombe's report and numerous other accounts suggest that there is in fact some room for optimism, it is also essential that there must be change if conditions are not to deteriorate further. The prospects are daunting. As institutions, universities are notoriously resistant to change, and the economic environment in which African uni-

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versities operate is an extremely difficult one. With only a few exceptions, public universities in Africa are dependent on governments for approximately 90 per cent of their funding (Negrao, 1994, p. 4), and the funding allocated has declined or fluctuated in real terms over recent years (e.g. Gaidzanwa, 1994, p. 8). A recent study has shown that public expenditures for higher education over the period 1980-87, when adjusted for inflation, increased at less than half the rate of the increase in enrolment (Eisemon and Kourouma, 1991, p. 7). Further, in some institutions, long-term planning has proved virtually impossible as government funding will fluctuate on a monthly basis (Mwiria, 1992, p. 14). In others, the mechanisms for determining the allocation of funding from governments have simply failed to operate for long periods (Eisemon et al., 1993, p. 16), and most institutions receive funding on at best an annual basis, making long-term planning difficult. Countries involved in or emerging from periods of serious internal conflict are in an even more difficult, and sometimes anomalous, situation: for example the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, for which the government is able to provide only 28 per cent of the university's operating budget. The remaining 72 per cent of its recurrent costs - largely provided through expatriate teaching staff - is provided by foreign donors (World Bank, 1991, p. 42). Such conditions leave little flexibility either for institutional change or for autonomous decision-making. While there is internal and external pressure to reduce the proportion of educational expenditure on higher education, the real value of grants to higher education has in fact declined steeply. At the same time, enrolments in many countries have increased sharply. In the 1988 World Bank study Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, figures indicated that the cost of educating a student in higher education was 60 times greater than for a primary school pupil; in 1993 Eisemon and Salmi put that figure at 200 times for Makerere, for the 1990/91 session (Eisemon and Salmi, 1993, p. 155). Real per-student expenditures for Makerere had however declined about 40 per cent between 1987 and 1990, largely because of inflation and currency devaluation. A HEDCO study (also at Makerere)

254 Alison Girdwood

indicated that the 1988/89 education budget was only 21 per cent of the 1970/71 level, and that percapita expenditure had fallen to about 13 per cent of its original value, because of the large increase in the number of students (Eisemon and Salmi, 1993, p. 155). Mwiria (1992) notes that in the 1990/91 academic session, the universities of Zambia, Ghana (Legon), and Makerere received 79, 53 and 34 per cent respectively of their requested budgets. In a detailed study of the situation at Makerere, Eisemon et al. note that prior to the 1990/91 financial year the Ministry of Finance did not give out guidance on the levels at which budgets might be likely to be met, and, as a result, the university regularly received only about one-third of the budgets it had prepared. Furthermore, the budget, once submitted, is extremely inflexible, and all disbursement must be reviewed and approved by government. Virement is possible only to a very limited extent and, as a result, a proportion of a budget which was in any case insufficient can go unspent (Eisemon et al., 1993, pp. 17-18). Student numbers have increased dramatically, without any consequent increase in facilities. In some cases, institutions may not have the autonomy to determine the level of student intake, but may be told to accept a certain number. In Kenya, for example, student numbers increased from 8000 in 1984 to 40,000 in 1990 (Woodhall, 1992, p. 17). Mwiria argues that although the introduction of 'double intakes' in Kenya has reduced the cost of higher education per capita, this has been at the expense of the quality of the education provided (Mwiria and Nyukuri, 1992, p. 66). Graphic illustrations abound of the situation faced today by staff and students in the majority of African universities. All aspects of university life are affected, from basic living conditions to the difficulties associated with undertaking any form of advanced research. Library provision and the availability of books and journals is a basic indicator, and the evidence suggests that such provision has dropped very dramatically: in 1989 the University of Addis Ababa had to discontinue subscription to 1200 journals (Berhanu, 1994), and there is a need throughout the continent for up-todate texts and scholarly publications. At Make-

rere, a visitation report commented that a department might get ten books for 600 students, or a single book for 50 (Eisemon et al., 1993, p. 28). In another recent report, Carol Priestley quotes from a SWETS report which states that more than 10,000 subscriptions were supplied in the 1970s. In the 1980s this had fallen to just over 1000, and the number in 1992 was less than 100. Most African university libraries have not had any funds for periodicals for the past two to ten years (Priestley, 1992, p. 2). Beyond the provision of books, there is a question over the provision of space, as noted in a recent study: 'At the University of Zimbabwe, severe book and journal shortages resulted from the increased enrolments. In 1980, the student numbers stood at 2,240 while the library could seat only 500 (excluding lecturers). In 1983, the library was extended to seat 1,200 users and yet 4,000 staff and students needed to use it. Since 1983, there has been no extension to the library while the student numbers continued to rise, peaking at 9,288 in 1989. By then, the number of staff and students had grown to over 10,000' (Gaidzanwa, 1994, pp. 9-10). Salaries in African universities have dropped dramatically, and the study conducted by Eisemon et al. (1993) showed that the average salaries of support and maintenance staff and those of professors ranged from US$4.70 to US$22.70 a month, with the vice-chancellor receiving only $4 more. It is a commonplace that many staff have second jobs, and some even undertake 'dual employment' within the same institution. Living conditions are difficult, with numerous students living in rooms designed for one or two. A further example by Eisemon et al. (ibid.) may serve to illustrate: Most of the halls of residence are accommodating students far in excess of their capacities, so that hall libraries and common rooms have been turned into sleeping places, and the resultant crowding everywhere seriously militates against serious academic endeavor. This overcrowding is extended to the toilets and washrooms, most of which ceased to function a long time ago and the unsanitary condition arising ... where open sewage is a common sight, students have been compelled to sponge themselves in their room and to relieve themselves in places other than the toilets. The prevailing situation cer-

The University in Africa: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities

tainly is a very serious health hazard throughout the campus. (Makerere Visitation Campus (1991), quoted in Eisemon et al., 1993, p. 41)

The agenda for reform: the World Bank's analysis There is widespread belief that this situation must change, and indeed reform is taking place in many countries (notably Ghana, which has introduced major reforms). However, any study of the university in Africa in the 1990s will take World Bank literature as a key reference point, and the Bank's 1988 analysis Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment, Revitalization and Expansion still dominates current debate. A recent study for the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations (Coombe, 1991) and a series of publications commissioned by the Association of African Universities (Akin Aina, 1994; AssieLumumba, 1994; Berhanu, 1994; Gaidzanwa, 1994; Mohamedbhai, 1994; Mwiria, 1994; Negrao, 1994; Sawadago, 1994) have attempted to introduce new perspectives and to broaden the debate. However, in almost all cases the discussion is underpinned by the analysis and prescriptions for reform presented in Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. This tightly written study identified the following areas in which higher education in Africa was said to be underperforming significantly, and in which change was required. Quality. The study conceded that hard evidence of a decline in quality was not available, and its analysis was therefore confined largely to that of non-salary inputs, in particular chemicals and laboratory equipment. It was said that instruction in universities had been reduced to 'little more than rote learning of theory from professorial lectures and chalked notes on blackboards' (World Bank, 1988, p. 75). Following on from a series of graphic examples of inadequate facilities, the study mourns: chemists who have not done a titration; biologists who have not done a dissection; physicists who have never measured an electrical current; secondary science teachers who have never witnessed, let alone

255

themselves conducted, the demonstrations central to the curriculum they teach; agronomists who have never conducted a field trial of any sort; engineers who have never disassembled the machinery they are called upon to operate; social scientists of all types who have never collected, or conducted an analysis of, their own empirical data; specialists for whom the programming and use of computers is essential who have never sat before or tested a program on a functioning machine; lawyers who do not have access to recent judicial opinions; medical doctors whose only knowledge of laboratory test procedures is from hearing them described in a lecture hall - qualitatively deprived graduates such as these are now appearing in countries that have been hardest hit by the scarcity of non-salary inputs. (World Bank, 1988, p. 75)

The World Bank paper concludes firstly that it is now the shortage of non-salary inputs which is the 'governing constraint' upon the quality of higher education in Africa, rather than the number and level of training of academic staff — a situation which represents a reversal of that in the early 1970s (World Bank, 1988, p. 74). Secondly, the paper states t h a t ' . . . in its stock of high level skills and in its ability to generate knowledge and innovation, Sub-Saharan Africa is falling further behind . . . Tertiary education discharges ever less effectively its principal responsibilities' (World Bank, 1988, p. 75). High costs and the internal and external efficiency of the universities. The 1988 study draws particular attention to the high-cost structures of African universities and the costs of the subsidies provided to students. An inappropriate mix in the graduates produced. Despite general concern at the low participation rate in higher education in Africa, the Bank draws attention to the problem of rising graduate unemployment, and to the consequent need to constrain output (both in circumstances of high overall graduate unemployment, and also where there is a high proportion of graduates with degrees in the arts and the humanities, and consequent shortages of technological skills in the labour market). The burden carried by public sources of funding. Financing was said to be 'socially inequitable and economically inefficient' (World Bank, 1988, p. 70). Emphasizing firstly that the cost of keeping a student in higher education in Africa was on

256 Alison Gird woodd

average between six and seven times greater in Sub-Saharan Africa than in Asia, and nine times greater than in Latin America; and, secondly, that the cost of publicly supporting a student in higher education was 60 times greater than in primary education (World Bank, 1988, p. 75), the study suggested that the additional resources recovered might be increased and used more efficiently to improve the quality of higher education, 'despite limited economic prospects and the unremitting need for public austerity' (World Bank, 1988, p. 77).

The means of reform The World Bank study recommended measures to address these problems, and these now form the basis for much of the reform being undertaken in Africa. Measures suggested have included the increase of pedagogical inputs and establishment of centres of excellence, but have focused primarily upon financial and structural reform. Measures to achieve the reduction of unit costs include costsharing by the beneficiaries of higher education; measures to facilitate the introduction of private universities; income-generating schemes (viewed reasonably positively in recent reports by Blair, 1992, and Woodhall, 1992); use of national service, student loans, graduate taxes and an educational credit market. Most controversially, it was suggested further that successful implementation of policies to improve higher education would release scarce funding for investment in primary and secondary education (World Bank, 1988, p. 68). Not surprisingly, the suggestion that there had been over-investment in higher education and the prescriptions put forward in Education in SubSaharan Africa generated fierce debate. While programmes of reform have been initiated in a number of countries, notably Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria and Botswana, many have sparked off student rioting and resulted in periods of closure of institutions. The Bank itself acknow-

ledges that implementation has been difficult and the results not always encouraging (World Bank, 1994). Nevertheless, alternative options seem few, other than a perpetuating cycle of decline.

Relationship with government Recent works, particularly from the World Bank (Saint, 1992; Neave and van Vught, 1993; World Bank, 1994), have begun to focus more closely upon the relationship between the government and the state. In many cases this is problematic, both in political terms and in financial terms. It was recognized from an early stage in the development of African universities that this was likely to be difficult, as the following shows: 'As the African governments in the 1970s define their objectives more clearly and as the universities seek greater relevance and take more seriously their role in the development process as allies and critics of government, the clearer becomes the inevitability of friction, if not confrontation' (Ajayi, 1972: in Maxwell, p. 245). Confrontation has been frequent, and has resulted at times in institutional closure, or, in some cases, human rights abuses or harassment. These difficulties are in part constitutional, as many universities have the head of state as the university chancellor, and many university governing bodies are composed largely of nominees of the head of state, leading to a lack of autonomy, well beyond that of financial dependency. This relationship is emerging as a crucial issue in African higher education, as most institutions have been affected by long periods of closure, following student disturbances, and other disagreementss with government. It is suggested by some authors that, to undertake reform in a manner which is likely to be more successful than previous attempts (i.e. if the university is to undertake 'ownership' of proposed reform), universities must have greater autonomy to take both financial and policy decisions. The 'state supervision' model is suggested (Neave and van Vught, 1993;

The University in Africa: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities

World Bank, 1994) as a means to determine their own mission, and to plan for this in a more systematic way than is possible in many institutions at present. Whether this solution is in fact feasible is more open to question, as the university remains a visible symbol and a possible source of criticism. The African university has had a short and turbulent history, and institutions now face complex and difficult choices. Accounts suggest that they are doing this with courage, and in the face of difficulties of a magnitude most employees of northern institutions would find difficult to estimate (Coombe, 1991). A number of African institutions have begun to undertake in-depth and constructive self-reviews and these seem to be showing grounds for some optimism (Court, 1991, pp. 5-7). Combined with increased autonomy, and the possibility of retaining income generated by the institutions themselves, it is possible that there will be real change, and that this change will finally be towards the truly African university.

References Ajayi, J. F. (1972), cited by I. C. M. Maxwell in Changing patterns of university development overseas: the search for local relevance. Centre of African Studies, Edinburgh University. Ajayi, J. F., Goma, L. K. H. and Johnson, G. A. (1994) The African experience with higher education. Association of African Universities, Ghana. Akin Aina, T. (1994) Quality and relevance: African universities in the 21st century. Association of African Universities, Ghana. Ashby, E. (1966) Universities: British, Indian and African. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Asquith, Cyril (1945) Report of the Commission on Higher Education in the Colonies. Cmnd 6647. London: HMSO. Assie-Lumumba, N. T. (1993) Higher Education in Francophone Africa: Assessment of the Potential of the Traditional Universities and Alternatives for Development. Washington, DC: World Bank. Assie-Lumumba, N. T. (1994) Demand, access and equity issues in African higher education: past policies, current practices, and readiness for the 21st century. Association of African Universities, Ghana.

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Berhanu, A. M. (1994) Universities in Africa: challenges and opportunities of international cooperation. Association of African Universities, Ghana. Blair, R. D. D. (1992) Financial Diversification and Income Generation at African Universities. Washington, DC: World Bank. Brown Sherman, M. A. (1990) The university in modern Africa: toward the twenty-first century. Journal of Higher Education, 61 (4) (Ohio State University). Coleman, J. S. with Court, D. (1993) University Development in the Third World: The Rockefeller Foundation Experience. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Coombe, T. (1991) A Consultation on Higher Education in Africa: A Report to the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. London: Institute of Education. Court, D. (1991) Issues in higher education: a note from East Africa. Norrag News 11 (Norrag, Edinburgh/ Geneva). Eisemon, T. O. and Kourouma, M. (1992) Foreign assistance for university development in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Paper prepared for Senior Policy Seminar on Improvement and Innovation in Higher Education in Developing Countries. Washington, DC: World Bank. Eisemon, T. O. and Salmi, J. (1993) African universities and the state: prospects for reform in Senegal and Uganda. Higher Education,, 25 (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands). Eisemon, T. O., Sheehan, J., Eyoku, G., Van Buer, F., Welsch, D., Masutti, L., Colletta, N. and Roberts, L. (1993) Strengthening Uganda's policy environment for investing in university development. Washington, DC: World Bank. Gaidzanwa, R. B. (1994) Governance issues in African universities: improving management and governance to make African universities viable in the nineties and beyond. Association of African Universities, Ghana. Hetland, A. (ed.) (1984) Universities and National Development:: A Report of the Nordic Association for the Study of Education in Developing Countries. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell. King, K. J. (1991) Aid and Education in the Developing World. Harlow: Longman. Mohamedbhai, G. T. G. (1994) The emerging role of African universities in the development of science and technology. Association of African Universities, Ghana. Mwiria, K. (1992) University Governance: Problems and Prospects in Anglophone Africa.. Washington, DC: World Bank. Mwiria, K. (1994) Enhancing linkages between African universities, the wider society, the business community and governments. Association of African Universities, Ghana.

258 Alison Gird wood Mwiria, K. and Nyukuri, M. S. (1992) The management of double intakes: a case study of Kenyatta University. Paris: UNESCO (HEP). Neave, G. and van Vught, F. A. (1993) The winds of change: government and higher education relationships across three continents. A Report to the World Bank. Paris/Twente: IAU/CHEPS. Negrao, J. (1994) Adequate and sustainable funding of African universities. Association of African Universities, Ghana. Priestley, C. (1992) Study on a Commonwealth Journal Distribution Programme. London: Commonwealth Secretariat. Saint, W. S. (1992) Universities in Africa: Strategies for Stabilization and Bevitalization. Technical Paper 194. Washington, DC: World Bank. Sawadago, G. (1994) The future mission and roles of the African university. Association of African Universities, Ghana.

Thompson, K. and Fogel, B. (1976) Higher Education and Social Change: Promising Experiments in Developing Countries, Vol. I. New York: Praeger for International Council for Educational Development. UNESCO (1963) The Development of Higher Education in Africa. Paris: UNESCO. Woodhall, M. (1992) Financial diversification in African higher education. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank (1988) Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment, Revitalization and Expansion. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank (1991) World Bank capacity building study on Mozambique. Draft extracts. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank (1994) Higher Education: The Lessons of Experience. Washington, DC: World Bank. Yesufu, T. M. (1973) Creating the African University: Emerging Issues of the 1970s. Ibadan: Association of African Universities.

23

Limits to Change in University Education in Poland

KEITH BRUMFITT The Polish university education system

Background to the project

After the completion of eight years in primary school, pupils transfer to their secondary school at the age of 15. Different secondary schools offer different curricula covering professional, craft and academic disciplines. For students who wish to proceed to university there is a need to pass the matriculation examination of the secondary school as well as the university's entrance examination. Each of the ten universities in Poland has its own entrance examination and these differ between different faculties within each university. Once at university, students face a five-year academically rigorous programme in order to gain their magister degree - equivalent to a British MA. For those who do not complete the magister, there is the possibility of a Diploma — equivalent to a British BA. University education is popular with students and parents, and the numbers entering university have continued to rise since the reforms of 1989 (Holdsworth, 1994). The number of students at university has risen partly as a response to the high employment rates for graduates compared to other members of society, but also because the numbers entering university are no longer set by the Ministry of National Education in response to the needs of the economy. Since 1990 each university faculty has decided its own student intake, resulting in an increase in the age participation rate from 12.9 per cent in 1990 to 16.3 per cent in 1993 (The Times Educational Supplement,t, 26 August 1994, p. 9).

In 1992, the TEMPUS Office of the European Union awarded a three-year contract to a consortium of Dutch, British and Polish universities for a Joint European Project. The aim of the project was to help with the implementation of innovation in teaching and learning in two Polish institutions, a university and a teacher training college. The University of Brighton and the Hogeschool Gelderland in The Netherlands were responsible for working with two faculties in the Polish university to enable staff to change their teaching and learning approaches in the disciplines of business administration and economics. The project had been designed to meet the published priorities of the Polish TEMPUS Office in 1992. The start of the project coincided with the Polish university changing the nature and content of its business and economics degree courses. These changes were due to occur, partly because of the needs of the economy and partly because of the demands made by students in this new economic environment. The university, prior to the project starting, had decided to reduce the number of units, within the degree, based-on public administration and state organization and to increase the number of units involving market-style economics, accounting, marketing and law. These changes would reflect the move away from the curriculum needed for a communist-style economy to one that met the needs of a rapidly developing, market-based, Western-style economy.

260 Keith Brumfitt

Characteristics of the Polish degree programmes The Polish university is a large institution employing 1750 academic staff with 18,200 students. In 1992 the courses within the faculties of business administration and economics demonstrated the following characteristics: • • • • • •

an emphasis on subject disciplines a high value placed on underpinning theories development of students' academic skills very little contact with employers or businesses few lecturers with experience of working in a Western-style business or industry an emphasis on oral examinations as a means of assessing learning

The content of these degree courses is controlled by a Central Council for Higher Education. For a university to change any degree programme, approval needs to be gained from the Central Council which defines the subject programme as well as the minimum requirements for each course. This Central Council is organized and controlled by academics and there appears to be resistance to change (Padmanabhan, 1995). Our analysis, on initially working with Polish colleagues, led us to believe that the curriculum was determined mainly by the agenda of members of the academic community, rather than the interests of other groups in society. In addition the skills, as opposed to the knowledge, gained by graduates from these Polish faculties reflected the skills regarded as important by the academic community. Other sections of society, such as employers, the government and potential students, which may highly value other more general skills appeared to have no influence over the content of the degree courses. Skills such as problem-solving, communication and personal skills which have been highlighted by the UK's National Council for Vocational Qualifications (Jessup, 1991) were not addressed in the Polish degree programmes. Poland has 90 public higher education institutions, of which ten are universities (Ministry of National Education, 1993). The university pro-

vides a traditional academic education, characterized by understanding a subject discipline, the study of subject knowledge, the presentation of theoretical arguments and the development of a critical awareness of the subject studied. This contrasts with the more vocational programmes on offer in other Polish institutions of higher education. Since 1990, with the passing of the 'Act on Schools of Higher Education', there has been the development of a dual system, characterized by different approaches to learning, different course content and shorter degree programmes (OECD, 1995). This divide between universities and the other higher education institutions (technical universities, agricultural academies, academies of music, etc.) is very strong, and some members of the university's staff are reluctant or unable to move towards a more vocational approach. There are similarities between the two parts of the developing dual system in Poland and the current UK higher education system, where some institutions have introduced modular degrees, core skills and study programmes and work closely with potential employers of graduates. Using Barnett's (1994, p. 62) Skills in Higher Education model, the Polish system could be shown to be at the top left-hand corner on the diagram in Figure 23.1, at a point such as A. As mentioned earlier, the Polish university was seeking to change its degree programmes. These changes would have resulted in the degree programmes adapting to the world of work and the changing economic circumstances. The planned changes could be considered as moving to a position such as B on the diagram opposite. This change would reflect the reduction in the importance of the academic community in determining the curriculum and the recognition that students needed to be prepared for employment in the new economic circumstances. The need for the Polish university system to change to reflect the needs of the economy has been well documented (Padmanabhan, 1995, p. 11) and this process was in place in 1992. The project that we started in 1992 tried to help the university move one step further, to a situation such as C, where there was recognition of the importance of skills that were of wider use in society.

Limits to Change in University Education in Poland

Figure 23.1

261

Skills in higher education

Different expectations The project began with Polish, Dutch and British members of the team having different agendas and expectations. At the start of the project there was an agreement about preparing the Polish graduates for the world of employment. Historically this had been achieved, in the UK, by considering both course content as well as teaching and learning methods. Boys (1988, p. 114) highlighted three key features of UK undergraduate provision in business studies: integrated courses, skills teaching and supervised work experience. Although these elements were not the only way to ensure the introduction of general skills, relevant to the world of work (as in Barnett's model), they formed a starting-point for discussion. Other more vocational aspects of higher education were considered such as integrating information technology throughout the degree programmes, developing inter-disciplinary degrees and writing course material to deliver more vocational degree courses. The Polish members of the team were initially concerned with ensuring that the content of the new programmes, which were relevant to the world of work, matched the content currently taught at UK universities. One way of ensuring this comparability was to use the same key textbooks as the UK universities. The concern with textbooks, translated into Polish, was a recurring theme throughout the three-year project. Wojciechowska (1995) makes reference to similar issues in mathematics, and it therefore seems that this is

not something that is characteristic of business and economics courses. We believed the different expectations had arisen for the following reasons: •

the Polish university, rather than faculty members, had agreed to the whole project; • members of the Polish faculties had not been involved in the initial planning meeting when the contract was formulated; and • there was a need to address the immediate requirements of teaching relevant content. This initial mismatch in expectations was to result in continued difficulties and resistance throughout the project.

The development of the project As the Polish university was committed to change, for the reasons outlined above, the project team concentrated on two main areas. This, we believed, would allow undergraduates to benefit from a more general higher education and allow them to find employment more easily. The project addressed two main issues: •

the introduction of cross-disciplinary skills into the undergraduate degrees; • the introduction of some vocational elements into undergraduate and postgraduate courses within the business administration and economics faculties.

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Keith Brumfitt

These two issues would have to address both the content of courses, as well as the teaching and learning experiences of students. The planned changes in course content were continuing alongside this project, but any attempt to change the teaching methodology was a source of tension. In practical terms, any change in emphasis would involve Polish students in a more practical range of business and economics activities. These new activities would include: • • • •

decision-making, problem-solving and group discussions about business matters; participation in work placement programmes as part of their degree; the use of case studies to highlight business principles; an appreciation of the economic alternatives facing their own economy.

These changes would require a reduction in the emphasis on knowledge. Students on graduation were likely to be employed in a 'doing' environment rather than a 'knowing' environment. The proposed changes were intended to prepare students for this experience in employment. For the Polish students to engage in this type of learning, the lecturing staff needed to be aware of and introduce teaching and learning styles that would allow students to demonstrate the required skills and competences.

The implementation of change The organizers of the project, aware of the resource constraints facing the Polish university, tried to develop a model that would fit the needs and experiences of the Polish undergraduates. This involved helping the Polish faculties develop their own curriculum and teaching methods. The need for a Polish curriculum, developed by Polish academics, seemed to us to be the only solution in the new economic environment. It was clear, both from our visits to Poland and from conversations with Polish colleagues, that the speed of economic change was far outstripping the speed of educa-

tional change. Consequently, there was a recognition that the existing degree programmes were not adequately preparing students for the world of work. Whether the changes, planned by Polish colleagues prior to the start of this project, would be sufficient to meet the new demands of employers was not certain. To some extent it appeared that these planned changes would allow the Polish system to duplicate the curriculum offered in Western European universities in the 1980s. After much discussion the team decided to try to develop a business and economics curriculum, along the lines suggested by Williams (1994) in his work in Russia, which was: • broadly based; • delivered using active learning techniques; • founded on the context of the developing market economy. Our thinking on curriculum design was also influenced by the work of the Economics and Business Education Association (1994) which was recommending that students need to be given more responsibility for their own learning and should have the opportunity to plan, organize, carry out and be responsible for their own study. Although their work indicated that increasing the individual's responsibility for learning was likely to lead to more unpredictable outcomes, there was a resulting increase in student motivation and interest. Once the model of curriculum development had been agreed, the team set about changing the content and methods of delivery to try to design a competence-based degree programme. The intention was to develop a competence-based model which would help to develop students' knowledge and their ability to use this knowledge in new situations. The organizers emphasized the joint development of both academic and professional competences through the encouragement of action learning. We hoped to introduce the idea that students could learn and acquire these professional competences via professional practice where they were supported by skilled practitioners. This support would occur during periods of work experience undertaken alongside or as part of the university-based degree course. This model

Limits to Change in University Education in Poland 263

of professional practice, outlined by Bines (1992), would attempt to bridge the divide between the academic skills of the university's courses and the demands from the students for a degree course that would prepare them for the changing nature of the Polish economy. Any move to a competence-based system would involve changes to the assessment pattern. At the start of the project the Polish university system of assessment involved students individually completing a short oral test at the end of a 'programme' within a degree course. Each of these tests would take the lecturer fifteen minutes and would be marked on a 1-5 scale (with 3 equal to a pass). With a group of 100 students in each year group this was a very time-consuming way of assessing each student's performance. The framework of a competence-based system, such as Winter's (1992), allowed the team to focus on the nature of any new course and how it would have to be assessed. The criteria for assessment of these competences was inevitably going to have a major influence on the design of undergraduate courses and we believed the teaching and learning would need to change to reflect the competence-based assessment approaches. The criteria in Winter's framework: • • • • • •

commitment to professional values; continuous professional learning; affective awareness; effective communication; executive effectiveness; effective synthesis of a wide range of knowledge; and • intellectual flexibility,

to university education. These barriers were not identified before the project started, but became evident during the three years. The barriers created by national, institutional and faculty pressures can be summarized as: National barrier - Central Council influence The introduction of a new programme of study within a degree course is not a straightforward matter of validation by the university. Approval needs to be sought from the Central Council for Higher Education which defines subject programme requirements. This Central Council is organized and controlled by academics who appear to have little experience of degree programmes which emphasize general skills, competencebased assessment and vocationalism. At the end of the project there were plans to introduce one new unit into the degree programme. This unit, marketing research methods, would involve students working with employers and developing active learning skills and the competence required to engage in marketing research. To achieve the introduction of this unit of study, the lecturer had gained support from the whole faculty and the case would be put forward for consideration to the Central Council.

Barriers that prevented change

Institutional barrier - academic excellence Universities in Poland have a very high status compared to the other institutions of higher education. With only ten universities in the country, there is constant pressure for each university to maintain its academic excellence. Each university believes this excellence is maintained by the volume and quality of research output as well as the number of staff completing their 'habilitation' (post-PhD professorial qualification). While it would be wrong to suggest teaching responsibilities were regarded as unimportant, there was a clear emphasis on the importance of research and the maintenance of the university's position in the unofficial national league table.

The project faced four main barriers to achieving its twin objectives of introducing crossdisciplinary skills and a more vocational approach

Faculty barrier - aspirations and expectations In the original application to the Tempus Office the Polish university agreed to look at teaching

demonstrated just how different this new approach to learning would be, compared to the traditional Polish system whose characteristics were recorded earlier in this chapter.

264 Keith Brumfitt and learning in an attempt to change the approach of the faculties concerned. The staff from the Polish university who participated in the project were particularly concerned to use this opportunity to enhance their own research. There was considerable mismatch between the individuals' expectations and aspirations compared with the overall objectives of the project. This mismatch, which was entirely understandable given the career system in Polish universities which places such a strong emphasis on publications, reduced the scope of any changes that could be introduced. One main example of this occurred during the study visits to the UK where individual staff, who normally had limited access to Western Europe, made their own research their main priority. Faculty barrier- understanding a Western view of 'vocational' But our courses are vocational, all the students get jobs. The students have started to have part-time jobs. They and their families are all involved in work.

Even at the end of the project, such comments, expressed in the quotations above, reflected a different understanding of competence and vocational degrees. Many of the activities and activelearning approaches that had been demonstrated and experienced during the project were considered interesting new ideas, but the underlying change in approach at degree level was not fully understood. It is difficult to be certain whether this failure was because the approach was seen to be inferior to the existing Polish model of subjectbased, academic skills or due to a failure on the organizers' part to friake the model of learning explicit.

Dilemmas facing the university sector The pressures to change in response to the economic circumstances facing Poland are very strong. Individuals and institutions appear to rec-

ognize the need to adapt to the growing demands from students and increased expectations from society at large. Particular dilemmas arise over: •

the needs of the emerging market economy visa-vis the traditions of the university sector's academic courses; • the need to involve industry, potential employers and other external agencies in the design, delivery and evaluation of courses; • low salaries for university staff, resulting in extra employment outside the university and the perception that university work is the source of basic income and not a full-time job; • limiting student expectations to those that can be fulfilled. All of this pressure to change is occurring within a system that has severe financial constraints. There are limited opportunities for institutional change when 85 per cent of a university's limited funds are spent on nationally determined salaries (OECD, 1995, p. 41).

Results of the project At all times, the participants of the project (both Polish and Western European) were faced with the barriers listed above and these constrained some of the changes we would all have liked to implement. The project, which ended in August 1995, partly met the objectives we had set for ourselves. The changes that occurred due to the project will be sustainable, though the changing economic circumstances in Poland are likely to force further adjustments to university education. There is continued pressure to change the current system and this has been identified in the OECD report on the Polish education system (OECD, 1995, p. 38). The pressure to move to a more Western Europeanstyle system which involves modularity, credit accumulation and transfer, changes to assessment strategy and vocational skills will continue to cause tension within individual universities. This

Limits to Change in University Education in Poland

is particularly the case when academics earn very low wages (currently the average salary for university lecturing staff is 65 per cent of the average salary in the manufacturing sector of the Polish economy1). Despite the barriers to success and the problems facing the university system and Poland in general, the successes of the project could be identified as follows.

The impact on undergraduates As part of the project a large number of Western European and Polish students had undertaken study placements in other countries. This had a very large impact on the student population, though it did lead to more pressure for change in the Polish university.

The lack of resources The continual problems with a lack of resources for Polish lecturers could not be addressed through such a small project. There was some success in changing perceptions on what would make appropriate resources in the Polish context. At the start of the project there was a great emphasis on ensuring the Polish university was using the same textbooks as British universities. This was echoed by both Polish staff and students. At the end of the project, there was some acceptance that having the same books, albeit in translation, was not the main way to change the curriculum and teaching and learning experiences of students.

Changes to the curriculum The faculties within the Polish university continued to change their curriculum, in the light of student expectation and the reforms of the Polish economy. The pace of change was slightly quicker than had been planned, due to the influence of the project. There was, however, no transformation into a competence-based, vocational curriculum which emphasized general skills of value in the world of work.

265

Changes to teaching methodology Some lecturers have introduced new ways of working with their students. The most noticeable change has been the use of real case studies of Polish businesses to highlight principles and theories. In some cases this material is presented as a group activity where students are encouraged to form their own views on the appropriateness of the action of the business. These new teaching and learning methods have not been used by all lecturers, partly because of a lack of appropriate resources and the cost of duplicating material for the case studies. Changes to assessment By the end of the three-year project, the oral assessments for the year-one students had been replaced by written examinations in some subjects. There was increasing pressure for other subject areas to change their approach, and consideration was given to changing the year-two and -three examinations along similar lines. Our experience of trying to introduce more vocational teaching and learning methods demonstrated that we could only have limited success without much wider support within the Polish university education system. However much individual lecturers and faculties wish to change their curriculum, there are very significant hurdles to overcome.

Conclusions Other projects, run by staff in different institutions, have had more success in introducing a vocational element into colleges within Poland (see for example Furnborough and Simpson, 1994). Their success was based on four factors: • • •

practical activities, selected and managed by the Polish partners; a 'bottom-up' approach to development; a developmental approach that takes account of the experiences of the participants;

266

•

Keith Brumfitt

an enthusiasm, developed by Polish partners as they are able to create solutions to their own problems.

This success has occurred in the college (16-19) sector, where it appears there is less rigidity. Whether their success could be replicated at university level is questionable as the ability of university staff (both from Poland and Western Europe) to make the changes necessary to adapt to changed student expectations and a changing economic environment is very limited.

Recommendationss The opportunity to make significant changes to university education appears to be restricted. Despite this there are projects that can be beneficial, not least schemes involving undergraduate or postgraduate placements or exchanges. The opportunity for students to experience and reflect upon their Western European placement will be of greater benefit than continued work by outside organizations to change the university education system. Large changes will occur due to internal pressure from within the Polish economy rather than by the influence of innovatory projects that can, at best, be marginal to the main work of Polish universities.

Note 1 University administrator's comments in Ksiaz, Poland, 1995.

Referencess Barnett, R. (1994) The Limits of Competence. Buckingham: Open University Press. Bines, H. (1992) Issues in course design, in H. Bines and D. Watson (eds), Developing Professional Education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Boys, C. (1988) Business studies, in C. Boys, J. Brennan, M. Henkel, J. Kirkland, M. Kogan and P. Youll (eds), Higher Education and the Preparation for Work. London: Jessica Kingsley. EBEA (1994) Teaching and Learning the New Economics. London: Heinemann, p. 40. Furnborough, P. and Simpson, A. (1994) Transnational partnerships, in Training Tomorrow, pp. 23-4. George, P. (1992) Quoted in M. Bines, Issues in course design, in H. Bines and D. Watson (eds), Developing Professional Education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Holdsworth, N. (1994) The Times Educational Supplement, 7 June, p. 19. Jessup, G. (1991) Outcomes: NVQs and the Emerging Model of Education and Training. London: Palmer Press, (p. 81). Ministry of National Education (1993) Directory of Polish Universities and Other Higher Education Institutions. OECD/Polish Ministry of National Education (1995) Heview of Educational Policy in Poland. Padmanabhan, L. (1995) The Times Higher, 7 July, quoting from the OECD/Polish Ministry of Education report (1995) Review of Educational Policy in Poland. The Times Educational Supplement (1994), 26 August, 9. Williams, S. (1994) Economics and business education in the New Russia: 12 months on. Economics and Business Education, 2 (4:8), 174. Winter, R. (1992) The assessment programme competence-based education at professional/ honours degree level. Competence and Assessment, 20,14-18. Wojciechowska, A. (1995) Change in education and the mathematics teacher's role in Poland. The Curriculum Journal, 6 (2), 35-239.

Name Index

Abagi, O. 230-7 Abu Khalil, A. 212 Abul, A. J. 212 Academic Audit Unit (AAU) 36 Acker, S. 128,129, 135, 136, 138, 140 Adelman, C. 84-91 Adelman, H. 14 Advisory Board for the Research CCouncils (ABRC) 79 AFC 29 Agar, D. L. 126 Ahmad, A. A. 206 Ajayi, J. F. 251, 256 Ajayi, K. 221 Akin Aina, T. 255 Al Farsy, F. N. J. 206 Al Naqeeb, M. M. 206 Albornoz, O. 197 Aldrich, H. E. 139 Alexander, J. C. T. 158 Alexander, R. 86 Alston, P. L. 158 Altbach, P. G. 196, 198 Amir, A. 198 Amsterdamski, S. 179,184,192 Anabtawi, S. N. 206, 215, 216 Anderson, L. 63 Angelov, T. 177 Anweiler, O. 165 Ashby, E. 252 Ashworth, J. M. 47 Asquith, C. 252 Assie-Lumumba, N. T. 252, 255 Association of African Universities (AAU) 230 Association of University Teachers (AUT) 35, 43, 122, 130 Atkins, M. 119, 122 Atwater, C. D. 132 AUT Woman 128 Aziz, A. 129 Badri, A. 216 Bagilhole, B. 128-37 Ball, C. 47, 200, 201, 202

Ball, S. J. 77, 78 Barber, M. 146, 150 Barlow, J. 58-66 Barnett, R. A. 3-11, 20-2, 54, 55, 75-6, 81,197, 201, 206, 260-1 Bartol, K. M. 140 Bathory, Z. 178 Becher, T. 18, 47, 49, 53, 54, 78, 105 Beckers, H. 173 Belanger, C. 51, 52 Ben-David, J. 50 Benne, K. D. 12 Bennet, C. 139 Berdahl, R. 197, 198 Berdahl, R. O. 23 Berg, C. 179 Berhanu, A. M. 254, 255 Bertilsson, M. 50 Biggs, J. 63 Billing, Y. D. 139,140 Bines, H. 262-3 Birch, W. 48, 49, 76 Black, J. L. 158 Blackburn, R. M. 33-46 Blackmore, J. 141 Blair, R. D. D. 230, 256 Blake, D. 47-56, 54 Blau, P. M. 36 Boulares, H. 212 Bourdieu, P. 207 Bourgeois, E. et al. 25 Bourner, T. 15 Boyer, E. 18 Boys, C. 261 Bray, M. 102 Brodinsky, B. 164, 165 Brown, G. 119,122 Brown, P. 145 Brown Sherman, M. A. 251, 252 Brownstein, L. 48 Brubacher, J. S. 203 Brumfitt, K. 259-66 Bunke, C. R. 158,159 Bunt-Kokhuis, S. G. M. van de 171-94 Burgess, T. 116

268 Name Index Cabinet Office 18 Calvo, E. H. 187,191 Campbell, D. D. 28 Canada Social Science and Humanities Research Council 40 Candy, P. C. 58, 63-5 Cape Breton County Economic Development Authority 40 Cardenas, J. 160 Carnall, C. A. 117,126 Carnegie Foundation 84, 132 Carroll, Lewis 14 Cassin, A. M. 38 Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 158,162 Centre for HE Policy Studies 97 Cheema, I. 61-2 Cheng, K. M. 238-49 Chickering, A. 52,53 Chin, R. 12 Clare College, Cambridge (Statutes) 33 Clay, J. 144-53, 152 Clune, W. (in Fuhrman) 159 Coates, R. 150 Cohen, M. D. 77 Cole, M. 70, 72,146 (in Hickey) Coleman, J. S. 251 Colletta, N. (in Eisemon) 253, 254-5 Collins, R. 42 Commission of the European CCommunities (CEC) 25 Committee on Employee Morale 43 Committee of Scottish University PPrincipals (CSUP) 660-1 Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) 120, 122 Contreras, A. R. 158, 159 Contzen, J. P. 182 Coombe, T. 225, 226, 251, 253, 255, 257 Coombs, P. H. 115 Council of Ontario Universities 42 Court, D. 251,257 Court, S. 37 Cowan, B. J. 115-27 CUCO 128, 135 Daniel,). 47,51,52 Daniel, J. S. 61 Davaa, S. (in Bray) 102 David, M. 138 Davis, O. L., Jr (in Shaver) 159 Davydov, V. V. 164 Decisions of the CCCP of China 241 Delamarre, M. 177 Delamont, S. 131

Department of Education, Northernn lIreland (DENI) 16 Department of Education and Science 34, 120 Derrida, J. 4 Dey, A. 177 Dhamotharan, M. (in Fatimah) 201 Dneprov, E. D. 165, 167 Dudovitz, R. L. 129 Duke, C. 23-32, 48, 49, 54 Eicher, J. C. 230 Eickelmann, D. F. 212 Eisemon, T. O. 253, 254-5 Eklof, B. 158,162 Elmore, R. E. 158, 159 (in Fuhrman) ElsterJ. 139 Elton, L. 80, 81 Embling, J. F. 18 Emenyonu, E. N. 220 Enggins, H. 200, 201, 202 Entwistle, N. 61 European Commission see Commission of the European Communities Eyoku, G. (in Eisemon) 253, 254-5 Farr, W. D. 50 Fatimah, H. D. 201 Feldman, S. 134 Finkelstein, M. 132 Finn, C. E. 159 Finnegan, R. 49 Fischer-Galati, S. 157 Fitzpatrick, S. 158, 162 Florax, R. J. G. M. (in Kaiser) 96 Florida State Postsecondary Planning Commission 93, 97,100 Fogel, B. 251 Fuhrman, S. 159 Fulton, O. 26, 136 Furley, O. W. 219 Furnborough, P. 265-6 Gadhia, S. (in Clay) 152 Gaidzanwa, R. B. 253, 254, 255 Gaskell, S. M. 55 Geiger, R. L. 105 Gellert, C. 105 Gellner, E. 211 Geremek, B. 183 Giddens, A. 5,138, 140 Gillies, D. 221,222 Girdwood, A. 250-8 Goedegebuure, L. 105 Goma, L. K. H. 251 Goodlad, J. I. 88,159 Gorbachev, M. S. 162 Gornick 135

Name Index 269 Gosobrazovanie SSSR 162 Gouldner, A. W. 44 Government of Kenya (GOK) 230 Grant, J. 142 Gray, F. (in Hickey) 146 Gray, H. 117 Greed, C. 135 Greenaway, H. 120 Greenfield, T. B. 77 Griffiths,]. 116 Grundy, T. 118 Grzelak, J. 186 Gwyn,R. 173,177,181 Hall 135 Halsey, A. H. 14,132,134 Hamed, M. 15 Hammersley, M. 48 Handy, C. 53,118,119 Hansard Society 128 Haris, G. T. 203 Hart, A. 129 Harvard Committee 202 Harvey, L. J. 94 Hawkins, A. C. 131, 133 Helburn, S. W. (in Shaver) 159 Henderson, B. 51 Hermassi, E. 210,211 Hetland, A. 213, 251 Hickey, T. 146, 149 Hicks, D. 69 Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) 29, 35-6, 85, 88-91 Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) 15, 16, 86 Hill, D. 70 Hillgate Group 70 Hoffman, A. J. 157-70 Holdsworth, N. 259 Holmes 103 Homan, R. 69-74 Hosking, G. 162 Hotopf, M. 183 Hrabinska 173 Hudson, C. M. (in Hoffman) 159 Hudson, H. D., Jr. 157-70 Human Resources Development Canada 42 Hunt, P. 36 Husen, T. 202 Ibonvbere, J. O. 224, 226, 227 Jacka, K. 71, 72 James, E. 105,107 Jarman, J. 33-46 Jarratt Report 54, 121, 122 Jasbir, S. S. (in Fatimah) 201

Jaspir, S. S. 200, 201, 203 Jessup, G. 260 Johnson, G. A. 251 Johnsrud, L. K. 132 Jones, A. 165 Jones, B. 120 Kahan, A. 158 Kahle, J. B. 135 Kaiser, F. 96 Kallen, D. 172, 180, 183, 184-5, 187, 192 Kamal, S. 197 Kandel, I. L. 92 Kane, W. 51 Kanter, R. M. 131, 140 Kaplan, G. R. 158, 159, 160, 161,168 Kapto, A. E. 164 Karmel, P. 105 Karthigesu, R. 200 Kaufman, D. R. 132 Kazemzadeh, F. 107 Kehm, B. 193 Kenyatta, J. 222 Kerblay, B. 163 Ken, S. T. 164,165 Kettle, M. 149-50 Khouri, R. G. 210 Kilemi Mweria 230, 232 King, K. J. 251 Klasek, C. B. 171 Knoll, J. H. (in Titmus) 23 Koelman, J. B. J. (in Kaiser) 96 Kogan, M. 18,47,53,54,105 Kolb, D. A. 62 Kopp, B. von 174 Kourouma, M. 253 Kozma, T. 181, 186 Krasteva, A. 182 Kreitz, R. 171 Kumar, K. 211 Kwapong, A. 230 Lajos, T. 175 Lancaster University, Unit for Innovation in HE 37 Lange, R. de 207. Lauglo, J. 92 Lawn, M. 140 Leavis, F. R. 14,15 Lee, M. N. N. 195-205 Leverhulme/SRHE 85 Lewis, A. 160 Lipman-Blumen, J. 129-30 Loder, C. 18 Looney, R. E. 207 Lukes, S. 1 150-1 Lyotard, J.-F. 4

270 Name Index McCulloch, M. 75-83, 81, 138-43 McKeown, M. P. 93 McLean, M. 92, 157 Maclure, J. S. 15 McNay, I. 12-13, 14-19 Makiya, K. 214 Malaysia, Ministry of Education 196,197 March, J. G. 77, 78 Marqusee, M. 18 Marriott, S. 24 Marx, K. 163 Massy, W. F. 105 Masutti, L. (in Eisemon) 253, 254-5 Maxwell, I. C. M. 256 Mehmet, O. 201, 210, 211 Michael, S. R. 118 Miller, G. W. 119, 120 Miller, H. D. R. 23 Miller, J. et al. 12 Miller, R. I. 199 Ministry of Education (China) 240 Mitchell 201 Mitchell, J. M. 129,131, 132 Mitina, L. M. 167 Mitter, W. 183 Mohamedbhai, G. T. G. 255 Moodie, G. C. 23 (in Berdahl), 76, 80, 84 Moore, C. H. 211 Morgan 201 Morgan, G. 38 Morley, L. 138, 139 Mouzelis, N. P. 141 Mudenge, S. I. G. 221 Miihle, E. 180 Mutua, Makau 221, 222 Mwiria, K. 223, 224, 253, 254, 255 National Commission on Excellence in Education (USA) 157 National Union of Students (NUS) 55 Neave, G. 105, 256 Nechaev, N. 165 Negrao, J. 250, 253, 255 NIACE 18 Niblett, W. R. 48, 49 Nkinyangi, J. 223, 224 Norman, D. A. 58, 59 Nova Scotia Budget Address 34 Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education 34, 38 Nyukuri, M. S. 254 Dates, T. 58 OECD 105, 107, 110, 116, 264 Okenfuss, M. J. 158 Okumbe, P. 230 O'Leary, V. E. 129, 131, 132

Olsen, J. P. 77 Onyejekwe, O. O. 224 Orfield, G. 160 Orton, J. D. 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 Otieno, S. 227 Otter, S. 62 Padmanabhan, L. 260 Partington, P. 80, 81 Perkin, H. 15 Perkins, J. A. 221 Petrovskii, A. V. 164 Pollitt, C. 84 Popper, K. R. 103 Powney, J. 86 Priestley, C. 254 Prucha, J. 173,174,179 Psacharopoulos, G. 115-16 Quintini-Rosales, C. 189-90 Rabie, M. 211 Rahman, F. 213 Rajagopal, I. 50 Ramsden, P. 59-60, 61 Reeves, M. 23, 48, 53 Reid, E. 199 Republic of Kenya 220 Reynolds, P. A. 79 Rhodes, A. 179,184 Riabov, V. 164 Riding, R. 61-2 Robert, P. 184 Roberts, L. (in Eisemon) 253, 254-5 Robertson, J. (in Hickey) 146 Rothblatt, S. 18 Rowen, B. 159 Rowntree, D. 60 Rumelhart, D. E. 58, 59 Rupp, J. C. C. 207 Russell, C. 17, 81 Russell, S. S. 212 Rwomire, A. 225 Sabel, C. F. 40 Saint, W. S. 256 Salame", G. 210 Salmi,]. 103,195,253-4 Salter, B. G. 79, 80 Samuel, M. (in Fatimah) 201 Sanchez-Arnau, J. C. 187, 191 Sandi, A. M. 183 Sawadago, G. 255 Sayigh, Y. A. 210 Schacher, M. (in Kazemzadeh) 107 Schapiro, B. J. and H. T. 23 Schien, E. 118

Name Index 271 Schon, D.A. 62 Schultz, D. 131, 133 Schumacher, C. 51, 52, 53 Schumacher, E. F. 52 Scott, P. 23, 30 Scott, W. R. 36 Scottish Higher Education Funding Council 95 Scriven, M. 89-90 Sear, K. 51, 52 Seidel, H. 173, 189 Selveratnam, V. 197,198, 201 Shanghai Jiatong University 240, 241 Sharabi, H. B. 210 Sharom, A. 196 Shattock, M. 17 Shaver, J. P. 159 Shaw, K. E. 206-18 Sheehan, J. (in Eisemon) 253, 254-5 Shils, E. 76 Sifuna, D. N. 219-29, 231, 232 Silver, H. 86, 87, 89-90 Simpson, A. 265-6 Sinel, A. 158 Skilbeck, M. 54 Smith, T. J. 73 Sodagar, B. (in Hickey) 146 Spalding, S. (in Bray) 102 Spitzberg, I. J. (in Berdahl) 23 State Council (China) 242 State Education Commission et al. (China) 242 Steube, W. (in Kazemzadeh) 107 Stoddart, J. 86, 88 Stone, L. 116 Strike, K. 84 Sutherland, M. 131,132 Szekely, B. B. 162, 163 Taiwo, C. O. 221 Tancred, P. 142 Tapper, E. R. 79, 80 Teichler, U. 171,183 Thomas, K. 129, 134, 135 Thomas, R. 52, 53 Thomas, R. G. 63 Thompson, K. 251 Tibi, B. 208 Tight, M. 24 Timpane, M. 160 Titmus, C. 23 Trow, M. 3,51,76,84 Tuck, K. 130 Turner, D. A. 92-104, 93 Turner, S. 144, 146,147 Uchitel'skaia gazeta Underwood, S. 80

162

UNESCO 173,251 Universities Funding Council/Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council 94, 99,100, 102 University Grants Committee (UGC) 122 University of Nairobi 219 US Department of Education 157,158 Usov, V. 165 Utley, A. 76 Van Buer, F. (in Eisemon) 253, 254-5 Vlasceanu, L. 179 Voskresenskaya, N. 157 Vught, F. A. 96 (in Kaiser), 105, 256 Wagner, L. 23, 30, 203 Walker, D. 41 Ward, D. 54 Warnock, M. 80 Warren-Piper, D. W. 87, 129 Wasser, G. 116 Wasser, H. 105 Watson, K. 75, 76,115 Watson, T. 219 Weaver, T. 15 Webb, S. 145 Weber, M. 141 Weick, K. E. 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 Weidman, J. C. (in Bray) 102 Welsch, D. (in Eisemon) 253, 254-5 West, T. D. 221 Westergaard, J. 203 Whitaker, M. (in Hickey) 146 Wilkins, C. (in Clay) 152 Williams, G. 105-14 Williams, P. R. C. 115,117 Williams, S. 262 Willmott, H. 36 Wilson, B. 50 Wilson, L. 186, 190 Wilson, T. 129 Winch, P. 7 Winter, R. 263 Wit, H. de 182,184 Wittgenstein, L. 3 Wittpoth, J. (in Titmus) 23 Wojciechowska, A. 261 Wong, S. Y. 197 Woodhall, M. 256 Woodley, A. 24 World Bank 106, 108, 196, 199, 201, 224, 227, 230, 250-1, 253, 255, 256 Wyatt, J. F. 48, 49 Yeatman, A. 14 Yesufu, T. M. 251 Yip, Y. H. 201 Yoder, J. D. 131

272

Name Index

Zalai, E. 173,175,180-1,182,183-4

Zanten, P. van 188

Subject Index

accountability 35-8, 42, 53-4 in Malaysia 1197-9 Africa, HE reforms in 250-8 introduction 250 background 2250-1 emergence of the African university 251-3 means of reform 256 relationship with government 256-7 universities in the 1990s 253-5 World Bank's analysis 255-6 see also Kenya, HE in agents, producers and consumers see market forces America 2000 (USDoE) 157-61 passim Ashby Commission (1966) 252 Asquith Commissions (1943/1945) 219 Assessing Students: How Shall We Know Them? (Rowntree) 60 assessment 5 by students 60-1,8 8-91 changing politics of 85 Association of Teachers in Colleges and Departments of Education (ATCDE) 148 Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions (ATTI) 1148-9 Association of University Teachers (AUT) 35, 43, 119, 122, 130 Australia, HE reforms in 17, 58 autonomy, challenges to 7 79-81 Axworthy Report (1994) 441-2 bias, issue of 70-3 cultural milieu 771-3 legitimation 770-1 brain drain see faculty mobility, international Bulgaria, HE reforms in 176-7, 180, 181-2, 184, 191 Burnham Technical Report (1953) 147 Canada, HE reforms in 33-46,50,51-2 corporate linkages, setting up 440-1 course reorientation 441-2 The Crisis' 34-5 and private-sector management traditionss 335-8 senior administration, growth of 38-40 students and teachers 42-3

conclusionss 443-5 Carnegie Foundation 18, 84, 132 Central Arrangements for Promoting Educational Technology in the UK (DES) 120 Central and Eastern Europe, HE reforms in 171-94 introductionn 1171-2 external brain drain 1184-7 historical and political conditionss 1172-9 conservatism and organizational gaps 1175-6 curriculum reforms 1178-9 economics and culture 173-4 from assistance to international partnerships 174-55 transition towards autonomyy 1176-8 v internal brain drain 188 know-how, available 1 181-2 lack of reciprocity 1 180-1 local know-how, appreciation of 1182-3 motivation of faculty members 1183-4 research, ambiguous position 179-80 conclusionss 188-93 reasons to be critical 188-90 TEMPOS 1190-1 towards international partnershipss 1 191-3 Centre for Higher Education Studies (CHES) 18 change, management of 26-8, 75-83, 115-27 introductionn 75 autonomy, challenges to 779-81 key to see staff development nature of university 775-6 process of change 39-40 stability as change and competition 778-9 university as an organization 777-8 conclusions 81—2 see also learning skills; senior administration, growth of; staff development China, HE reforms in 238-49 introductionn 238 early reform 2240-1 financial reform 241-4 'commissioned training' 2241-2 institution-operated enterprises 242-3 policy controversies 243-4 further reforms 244-7 fee-charging 244-6

274

Subject Index

job-seeking 246-7 need for reform 238-9 '21-1 Project' 15 conclusionss 248 Church as HE sponsor, the 17 'clip card' (Denmark) 112 'Co-op' programmes, Canadian 42 collegiality 47-56 accountability, quality and management 53-4 community, scholarship and scale 48-50 creation of ever larger institutions 51-2 international dimension 550-1 policy challenges 47-8 smaller scale, defence of 52-3 conclusionss 554-5 'commissioned training' in China 241-2 commodification 28 community, scholarship and scale 48-50 Conference of University Administrators (CUA) 123 conformity, towards bureaucratic 884-91 assessment by students 888-91 changing politics of 85 equity and quality 884-5 university merit and funding 85-7 in USA 87-8 Consultation on Higher Education in A Africa (Coombe) 253 consumers, producers and agents see market forces corporate linkages, setting up 440-1 Credentialist Society, The (Collins) 42 Crisis in Higher Education (Reeves) 48 Czech Republic, HE reforms in 93, 100, 173-4, 178-9, 191 Dawkins reforms 15 De La Warr, Commission (1937) 219 discourse, concept of 6-8 discrimination see inequality and sex discrimination diversification 3 and elitism 23-32 core dilemma 23-4 quality v quantity 2 8-31 social functions of HE 26-8 university and mass HE 24-5 pragmatics and dogmatics 114-22 response 20-2 'dual' funding 440-1 Eastern Europe, HE reforms in see Central and Eastern Europe Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) 40 Economics and Business Education Association 262

Educating the Reflective Practitioner (Schon) 62 'Education and culture' (Gaskell) 55 Education in Sub-Saharann Africaa (World Bank) 230, 253, 255, 256 elitism 23-32 core dilemma 23-4 quality v quantity 28-31 social functions of HE 26-8 university and mass HE 24-5 enterprise culture see market forces equity and quality 884-5 ERASMUS student exchanges 25 Ethics and Education (Peters] ) 70 EURACE programme 180 'European Grant Holder' status 192 European Union, HE in 15-16, 84, 97-9, 174-5 faculty mobility, international 17, 171-94, 209, 212 introductionn 1171-2 external brain drain 1184-7 historical and political conditions 1172-9 conservatism and organizational gaps 1175-6 curriculum reforms 178-9 economics and culture 173-4 from assistance to international partnerships 174-55 transition towards autonomy 176-7 internal brain drain 188 know-how, available 1181-2 lack of reciprocity 1180-1 local know-how, appreciation of 182-3 motivation of faculty members 1183-4 research, ambiguous position 179-80 conclusionss 188-93 reasons to be critical 188-90 TEMPUS 1190-1 towards international partnerships 1191-3 funding 18, 225 in China 2241-6 formula 92-104, 112 introduction 92-3 alternative approach 94-6 defined 993-4 dilemmas and debates 1100-2 output measures 996-7 policy studies and prospects 99-100 and political process 97-9 conclusionss 1102-3 Funding Councils HEFCE 29, 35-6, 75, 79-81, 88-91 HEQC 15, 16, 86 SHEFC 95 UFC/PCFC 94, 95, 99, 100, 102 in Kenya 224-6 private-sector/student contributions 108-12

Subject Index university merit and 885-7 graduate tax 110-11 Hale Report (1964) 120 Hansard Report (1990) 128 Harvard Committee Report (1945) 202 Higher Education Corporations 149-50 Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) 29, 35-6, 75, 79-81, 88-91 Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) 15, 16, 86 Houghton Committee Report (1974) 148 Human Capital and Mobility Programme 175 Humboldt Foundation 172 Hungary, HE reforms in 173-4, 175-6, 178, 180, 184,186 Idea of a University, The (Newman) 49 IFM see faculty mobility, international inequality and sex discrimination 128-43,151 introductionn 128 bastions of male power 1128-9 bias, cultural 770-3 findings 129-34 career aspirations 130 discrimination 1133-4 family commitments 129 positions of power 1130-1 recruitment and selection 129-30 relationships with male colleagues 132 relationships with students 133 roles of women academicss 1132-3 women academics in a minority 131-2 negative effects on HE 134-6 maintenance of male power 1134-5 male-based knowledge 135 responsibility to students 136 wastage of talent 135 conclusions 136 response 138-43 introductionn 138 alliances and coalitions 1140-2 challenging the status quo 138-40 conclusions 142 international reforms in HE 50-1, 87-8, 155-266 Africa 250-8 Kenya 219-37 Canada 33-46,50,51-2 Central and Eastern Europe 171-94 see also Bulgaria; Czech Republic; Hungary; Poland; Slovak Republic; Soviet Union China 238-49 European Union 15-16, 84, 97-9, 174-5 Malaysia 195-205 Mexico 17, 92 Middle East 206-18

275

USA 24, 51, 52, 87-8, 157-61, 167-8 Islamic HE 197, 208-9 Jarratt Report (1985) 54, 122 Kenya, HE in 219-37 crisis in public universities 219-29 autonomy and academic freedom 2221-4 background 219-20 budgetary issues 224-6 quality of education 226-8 conclusions 228 revitalizing university education 230-7 introductionn 2230-1 issuess 2231-3 need for development 233-6 conclusions 236 labour market, course reorientation towards 41-2, 44,182-3 learning skills 58-66 learning society, the 8-9 higher learning for 21-2 'Learning Styles Inventory' (Kolb) 62 Learningg to Teach in Higher EEducation (Ramsden) 59-60 Malaysia, HE reforms in 195-205 introduction 1195-6 access: equity equality 199-201 efficiency: teaching and research 203-4 governance: autonomy v accountability 197-99 HE in Malaysia 1196-7 relevance: general and specialized education 202-3 conclusions 204 management culture, changing 33, 67-153 change, management of 75-83 formula fundingg 92—104

inequality and sex discrimination 128-43 judging quality: bureaucratic conformity 884-91 political correctness 69-74 principals, agents, producers and consumers 105-14 staff developmentt 115-27 teacher unions, role 144-53 market forces 3, 5, 33, 105-14 introductionn 1105-6 marketization of HE 112-13 private contributions 108-12 real markets 106 some empirical evidence 1106-8 mass HE 24-5, 47-56 accountability, quality and management 553-4 community, scholarship and scale 48-50 creation of ever larger institutions 51-2

276

Subject Index

international dimensionn 550-1 policy challenges 447-8 smaller scale, defence of 52-3 conclusions 54-5 metalearning 21 Mexico, HE in 17, 92 Middle East, HE reforms in 206-18 institutional context 213-15 intelligentsia, bureaucracy and staff 211-12 local context 208-10 marketable skills and intellectual distinction 208 Muslim intelligentsia 212-13 relations with state 210-11 tools of analysis 207-8 conclusions 215-17 mobility, faculty see faculty mobility, international Nation at Risk, A (NCEE) 157,160 National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) 1148-9 National Union of Teachers (NUT) 146-7 Nova Scotia, HE reforms in see Canada Open University 16, 18, 49-50 Organization of African Unity 230 'Oxbridge' model 14-15, 30, 38, 49,145 PHARE programme 176 Poland, HE reforms in 186,190, 259-66 background to project 259 barriers to change 263-4 development of project 261-2 different expectations 261 dilemmas 264 implementation of change 262-3 Polish degree programmes 260-1 Polish system 259 results of project 264-5 conclusions 265-6 recommendations 266 policy challenges, HE 47-8 political correctness 69-74 introduction 69-70 bias, issue of 70-3 cultural milieu 771-3 legitimation 770-1 monitoring of dynamics 73 conclusions 73-4 polytechnics, former 14, 16, 39, 47, 54, 121, 145, 149 funding 94, 95, 99, 100, 102 postmodernism 4-5 pragmatics see diversification private foundations as HE sponsors 17 private-sector management traditionss 35-8 producers and consumers see market forces

professional associations see teacher unions in HE purpose and role of HE 11-66 collegiality 47-56 diversification and elitism 23-32 diversity, pragmatics and dogmatics 14-22 learning skills 58-66 rationalization 33-46 reinstating idea of HE 33-13 quality in HE 18, 79-81, 96 HEQC 15, 16, 86 judging 884-91 assessment by studentss 888-91 equity and quality 884-5 politics of assessment 85 university merit and funding 885-7 in USA 87-8 in Kenya 226-8 in Malaysia 199-201 v quantity 228-31 rationalization 33-46 corporate linkages, setting up 40-1 course reorientation 41-2 The Crisis' 34-5 and private-sector management traditions senior administration, growth of 38-40 students and teachers 42-3 conclusions 43-5 Reflective Practitioner, The (Schon) 62 reinstating idea of HE 3-13 introduction 3-4 discourse, concept of 6-8 learning society 8-9 postmodernism 4-5 conclusions 9—11 response 112-13 research ambiguous postion in GEE 179-80 HE and 14,18,31,37,49,132 Reynolds Committee (1986) 79 Robbins Report (1963) 49

35-8

scale, defence of smaller 52-3 scholarship and scale 48-50 senior administration, growth of 38-40 process of change 39-40 reorganizing the system 38-9 sex discrimination see inequality and sex discrimination Slovak Republic, HE reforms in 174, 177, 178-9, 181, 185, 191 social functions of HE 26-8 Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) 123 SOCRATES programme 175 Soros Foundation 176, 191

Subject Index Soviet Union, educational reforms in former 92, 157-8, 161-8, 179, 185, 191 staff development 115-2 7 introduction 115 bridge between policy and practice 119-26 backward glance 119-24 way forward 124-6 change in universities 115-17 management of change 117-19 Standing Conference in Educational Development (SCED) 123 teacher unions in HE, role 35, 144-53 introduction 144 ATTI to NATFHE 148-9 changing the future 150-1 Higher Education Corporations 149-50 period of transformation 147-8 professional association or trade union? 146-7 virtuous beginnings 144-6 conclusions 151-2 Teaching Standards and Excellence in Higher Education (Elton and Partington) 80 technical education movement 144

277

TEMPUS project 174-5,177,181, 186,190-1 TOKTEN programme 191 '21-1 Project' (China) 15 unemployment 26, 33 United States, educational reforms in 24, 51, 52, 87-8, 157-61, 167-8 funding 93, 94, 97-9,106 Universities Funding Council/Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council 94, 95, 99,100, 102 Universities' Staff Development Unit (USDU) 123 Use of Audio-Visual Aids in Higher Scientific Education, The (Jones) 120 vouchers, student

111-12

women academics, discrimination against see inequality and sex discrimination Work and Politics (Sabel) 40 World Bank 106, 108, 157-8, 224-5, 227, 230, 250-1, 255-6 zero base budgeting 94