Charting the future of the higher education sector needs a little imagination

Author and higher education specialist Ant Bagshaw. Picture: David Geraghty

As the year draws to a close, we are ever nearer to seeing the report of the Universities Accord process led by Mary O’Kane. As a policy development activity, the work has been enormous.

And it’s not just the formal activities that have consumed the sector’s attention. The accord has been the topic of discussion at every event, in every news outlet and on every campus across the country.

I remain sceptical that the accord will up-end higher education in Australia. Though, as it stands, we see indications of the government’s direction of travel for the sector.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare is prepared to lead a more interventionist policy agenda. The approach to treat universities less like market actors will come as relief to many in the sector, though others who have succeeded in the marketised system may find the transition a challenge. But this is currently a directional steer, not a course for a radically different destination.

If I’m right, and the sector is not wholly transformed by the accord but only nudged a little, then the task of leading the contemporary university won’t change that much. Ultimately, they all have a tripartite mission to provide high-quality education, enable impactful research and deliver a broader social impact. These are the essential qualities of our universities, albeit they vary by location, emphasis and history.

Achieving success in each of the three dimensions is becoming harder as resources tighten. This is a year when three-quarters (or so) of our universities face budget deficit. Domestic demand continues to weaken. Inflationary pressures increase costs faster than income. There is an imperative for our universities to deliver more with the same, or less, resource.

The pressure to become more efficient isn’t unique to Australia. It’s a narrative we see in other similar systems such as New Zealand and Britain. Governments will struggle to see higher education as an investable proposition when compared against the other pressures on the public purse. There just aren’t enough voters for whom higher education is a salient issue.

How should universities respond? First, we need to embrace the realities of the situation and not simply to bury our collective heads in the sand. And second, we need to find ways to make the future university a more inclusive and humane place. There are too many staff for whom the contemporary university is a place of insecure or unrewarding work, and students who find the experience disappointing.

In my new book, Higher Imagination: A Future for Universities, I make the case that universities need to use their unusual position as quasi-autonomous institutions to shape their own destinies.

They can use their capabilities in research to be learning organisations, constantly seeking improvement. But rather than pursue a ruthless efficiency agenda, they also need to make the case for the inherent inefficiency that lies in research. To receive the rewards of intellectual inquiry, we should recognise the risks too.

The main route to future success in universities lies in adopting much more rigorous approaches to designing and delivering education products.

This means reshaping what it means to be an educator in the contemporary university. It’s time to see education as a corporate activity, and the driver of the rewards that enable the university to make its full impact across the mission.

By contrast, we need to liberate researchers to do their best work. We should invest in a portfolio of research through deliberate actions rather than accident or path dependency. We also need a strong focus on the broader impact of universities to ensure they do their best for communities.

One of the risks in painting pictures of the future is focusing effort too narrowly on that which is currently measured. Performance indicators matter. Australian universities are some of the most successful in the world, and tight measurement of performance has been key to this success.

The future university needs more than performance. It needs joy. Universities are people businesses, and for our institutions to attract and retain talent, and for them to be the places where people do their best work, we need to pay more attention to the human side. The joyful university knows that access to positive work environments is inequitably distributed, and that needs to change.

Often, the higher education sector enjoys the exploration of “the problem” rather than emphasising the search for solutions.

Equally, there is a tendency to advocate for more resources regardless of the political and policy context. Asking for more money is hardly a bad thing, it’s just that we also need ideas for when there isn’t any cash.

In seeking imaginative solutions (though not too fanciful or far-off concepts), I think we can walk the fine line between celebrating that which is great about the sector we have now and reshaping it for the better.

Ant Bagshaw is a senior adviser in LEK Consulting’s global education practice and author, in a personal capacity, of Higher Imagination: A Future for Universities, available now.