Higher Education Review Process

Varieties of Excellence: Diversity, Specialisation and Regional Engagement

3. policy context

53   Diversity in the Australian higher education system has been a priority for successive federal governments as noted by Meek & Wood:

…every official statement on higher education since the Green Paper has stressed the need for a more diverse and responsive set of higher education institutions.
(1998, p.4)

54   The Martin Committee (1964) recommended a deliberate diversification of Australian higher education, which resulted in the establishment of colleges of advanced education (CAE) with missions clearly differentiated from universities. The colleges were conceived as mainly teaching institutions, and although they were not prevented from undertaking research, they were not funded for it. There was, however, during the 1980s, an increasing convergence by the 47 CAEs with the 19 universities, particularly in terms of the length, type and range of courses offered by each sector (Meek & Wood, 1998, p.31). 

55   The 1988 White Paper articulated a vision of a Unified National higher education system in which “our institutions have differing strengths and characteristics, and should maintain the positive aspects of these differences” (Dawkins, 1988, p.7). Concentration and selectivity in research were considered to be necessary and the introduction of the research quantum competitively assessed research performance for funding purposes. 

56   The Unified National System (UNS) was created as the result of amalgamations, mergers and rationalisations of the 66 institutions that had existed in the previous system. The criteria for joining the UNS included a requirement that an institution have 2 000 Equivalent Full-time Student Units (EFTSU). Around 8 000 EFTSU were needed for an institution to be treated as having comprehensive involvement in teaching and research. A key element of the financing policy framework was a degree of ‘normalisation’ of funding per student place within broad bands of fields of study and by level of study. The aspirational ‘norm’ quickly became a research-intensive, comprehensive institution. 

57   The criteria established by the Australian Vice Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC) for membership supported such a norm. Its criteria included the need for an institution to have a fundamental commitment to the training of researchers and for an institution and its staff to have an appropriate research record together with research plans and capabilities (see Meek & Wood, 1998, p.36). There were also quantitative criteria focused on the proportion of research grants, refereed publications and doctoral qualifications per the number of staff. 

58   The combined effect of the various policy settings of the UNS, led Maling and Keepes (1998) to conclude: 

…there is little if any of these criteria … to encourage diversity in terms of programs or differing types of institutions within the New Unified National System.
(1998, p.36) 

59   The policy framework appears to have driven the newer universities to emulate the old in terms of their academic orientation and direction, and many of the old universities to introduce courses that had been the traditional province of the new universities. The result was convergence not differentiation.

60   The Ministerial statement Higher Education: Quality and Diversity in the 1990s (Baldwin, 1991) reviewed the changes implemented as a result of the 1988 White Paper. It reinforced the commitment to a diverse system, despite the claims by some that the removal of the binary divide had led to a loss of diversity:

The Government for its part has pursued the objective of building on the strengths of the former binary divide and has sought to encourage diversity.
(Baldwin, 1991, p.11)

61   The juxtaposition of quality and diversity in the policy statement was seen by some as an assurance to the “community that the quality of higher education continued to be of a high standard” (Meek & Wood, 1998, p.39). 
62 Prescribed notions of a university were further reinforced by the quality reviews conducted by the Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (CQAHE) in the early nineties. One of the members of the Committee concluded that:

…the outcome was generally seen as reinforcing a concept and status of a University (sic) as an older well established institution with a strong emphasis on research.
(Maling & Keepes, 1998, p.40) 

63   The reforms to research and research training outlined in Knowledge and Innovation (Kemp, 1999) were built around the “need to support and reward research excellence; to build critical mass in areas of opportunity” (1999, p.iii). Minister Kemp’s paper explicitly acknowledged that “government funding incentives do not sufficiently encourage diversity and excellence” (1999, p.2). The move to performance-based funding for research and research training is having a significant impact as universities identify their areas of research strength and focus resources in these areas. The policy framework, over time, could provide opportunities for greater differentiation between institutions in their research profiles.

64   The benefits or otherwise of a performance-based funding model for higher education and approaches to the funding of research are covered in a previous paper, Setting Firm Foundations: Financing Australian Higher Education.

65   The model of a university generated by most recent policy statements and incentives has arguably maintained a homogenous conception of an Australian higher education institution. 

The introduction of the unified national system has had the unintended consequence of strengthening rather than weakening resistance to differentiation and the shared ideal of what is a university continues to encourage conformity. Initiatives are needed to achieve the diversity so essential to maintain our universities into the next century.
(Gallagher, 1994) 

some possible responses

66   A number of possible options have been raised in relation to the issues in this section. This question has been included for consideration and discussion: 

• What are the elements of a policy framework that will facilitate the development of alternative models of higher education and greater diversity within the Australian system?

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