From the VC ...

Higher Education, post-West

I recently spoke to the heads of the University's research schools and centres about Australia's higher education system after the West Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy.

Prior to my presentation, the heads of schools had heard about lost opportunities in higher education over recent years. The juxtaposition was deliberate: the Institute of Advanced Studies is looking to recognise as early as possible, and capture, the benefits of new opportunities in the higher education environment of the future.

Of course, the tricky bit is anticipating what a review committee, presumably still formulating its own views, is likely to recommend. Nevertheless, while the success rate for specific predictions is likely to be modest, I do not believe that the task is impossible. Review committees do not invent the future. Indeed, if there is to be any acceptance of their recommendations, there is a presumption that a review committee with an entirely different membership would reach a somewhat similar position.

The higher education sector is not divorced from the prevailing paradigms and expectations of society in general - including governments and their senior advisers. While the conservative view is that the durability of the university as an institution lies in its ability to transcend and remain constant in the face of changes around it, in truth that durability lies more in the university's ability to adapt successfully to those changes - while not losing its commitment to its fundamental values. Just as societal demands become manifest in both government and institution decisions, so they are reflected in the deliberation and output of committees such as West.

So what will the sector look like when the dust settles? It certainly will not be markedly changed in terms of the number of universities. There will continue to be growth in the sector but it will largely come from other than school leavers. The notion of the government dictating a return to a small number of universities in our capital cities and a gaggle of lesser-

designated institutions elsewhere is not consistent with the realities of the electoral sway of regional Australia.

Similarly, although I believe it is short-sighted policy, we will not see increased government funding to universities through operating grants.

Higher education funding policy changes, which give universities more ability to increase income from tied government and non-government sources, are more consonant with the philosophy of the current government and its Canberra power elite. These changes will serve a double purpose, they will tilt the balance of responsibility for meeting the costs of higher education further away from the government to the individual user: an entirely intended outcome.

At the same time, although it is not likely to be acknowledged, such changes will also widen that university divide which did not officially exist in the Dawkins' Unified National System: a divide which is electorally dangerous unless managed carefully. Traditional discipline-based degrees will retreat in larger part to the 'central' universities. Those universities will also take an increasing proportion of honours year and postgraduate students. The other universities will concentrate on professional courses and lifelong learners, and possibly develop more along liberal arts college lines.

The relative decline of the operating grant will also impact upon research. I believe that the force of the argument for markedly increasing the proportion of the operating grant distributed on the basis of research performance will prevail. This will further concentrate that part of untied higher education funding which is intended to support Australia's basic research effort into the small number of universities equipped to carry out this task.

There is much more I could write about. I have not mentioned off-shore activities, alliances between Australian universities, and flexible learning both on and off-campus.

The crystal ball is cloudy but much of the above is a pretty safe bet.

Deane Terrell