Blame for focus on research over teaching lies in government policy

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

A Productivity Commission report released this week included a host of recommendations across health, education and carbon pricing. The report’s commentary and criticisms of the higher education sector caught Scott Morrison’s eye: “We have a university system more preoccupied with (research) publishing than improving teaching standards,” the Treasurer said.

As Malcolm Turnbull likes to say, that’s a penetrating glimpse of the obvious. The comments by Morrison imply that the sector is somehow to blame for its focus on research over teaching, which shows an alarmingly poor understanding of cause and effect.

Universities prioritise research over teaching because they are incentivised to do so, by governments no less — indeed, in particular by the federal government, of which Morrison is a senior figure.

In other words, he and his cabinet colleagues are responsible for the system that rewards a focus on research over and above teaching in Australian universities.

No one in government should need a report to inform them of the effect of their own policy decisions. If Morrison thinks it’s a problem, change the policy. If he’s looking for someone to blame, find a mirror.

The report also identified a concerning feature of the higher education sector: the drive to overload postgraduate courses with foreign students. Why does this happen? Because overseas students are full-fee paying students, helping underfunded institutions to make up for funding shortfalls that long have been imposed on universities in this country.

Our institutions are poorly funded by world standards and punch well above their weight compared with like-for-like universities overseas. Given the ever enlarging teaching loads and reduced research funding available, it’s remarkable Australian universities continue to rank as high as they do.

Don’t get me wrong; the uncapping of student places at universities without deregulating the system has put enormous strain on Australian universities as the system tries to cope with being half pregnant, caught between the old system and the new era of deregulation embraced in so many of the world’s top universities.

Again, all of these problems have been caused by government, not the higher education sector, which is shaped by public policy decision-making in Canberra.

The era of uncapped places (legislated by Labor) has increased student numbers and, in doing so, has lowered teaching standards.

Larger lectures and tutorials (which have become mini lectures) dislocate students from their academics.

Having more students in courses leads to more junior academics taking tutorials, which can further dislocate students from their lecturers.

The need to keep teaching costs down (as senior and ambitious academics focus on their research) results in more casual academics doing classroom work.

Online teaching can be a great way of delivering study opportunities to a wider market in more innovative ways, but it also comes at the expense of old-fashioned face-to-face classroom content, which is invaluable in my opinion.

Many industries are being disrupted in the internet age, including the media, retail and travel sectors. Not all are being improved by the changes. Universities are likely to be further disrupted by online offerings and we need to be careful we don’t lose sight of the value of classroom teaching.

But getting back to the issue that seemed to surprise our Treasurer — that academics prioritise research over teaching — this occurs because funding, promotion and institutional rankings are all driven by research.

Our system incentivises academics to spend inordinate amounts of their time applying for research grants, which often buy them out of their teaching. While most academic workloads are split evenly between teaching and research, the pathway to a professorship is driven by one’s publications, not student evaluations of teaching performance.

While teaching is the public face of universities, research outcomes are a vital part of our society. University research has delivered everything from scientific and technological breakthroughs to reform principles for democratic institutions and governance. Unlike think tanks, which often begin their research with an ideological imperative, university research (in its purest form) should simply let the findings drive the inquiry. The independence of academic research should give those relying on such research greater faith in its accuracy. Academics aren’t simply the higher education equivalent of teachers — they research and teach. And the two skills sets are not necessarily intertwined.

A complex array of performance indicators are fed into an equally complex system for ranking universities globally, but front and centre is the quality and quantity of research institutions churn out. Despite the fact university rankings are largely driven by research outcomes rather than teaching quality, those same rankings act as bait for foreign students when choosing where to travel and undertake studies.

It’s a vicious cycle: universities need to drive up their research outcomes in a depressed financial setting. They therefore use casual academics to cover teaching loads to free up academics for their research. That research improves rankings, which help attract foreign students.

Large foreign student numbers distract from a domestic student focus. It also highlights the disconnect between good research and good teaching.

If the government is serious about improving standards at Australian universities, especially when it comes to teaching outcomes, it will resolve the impasse between deregulation and the uncapping of student places. It’s hardly surprising that more graduates are unemployed, underemployed or not employed in areas directly relevant to their studies when so many more Australians are obtained higher degrees.

While I’ve been critical of the Treasurer for stating the bleeding obvious when it comes to issues with the delivery of higher education in this country, at least he’s focusing on addressing the problems. Too often when governments look to reform education they start at the school level.

This misses the importance of improving the way teachers (just for starters) are taught when undertaking their own studies. If the Productivity Commission has uncovered concerns about teaching within our universities, that includes the teaching of teachers.

There is little point in tipping more and more money into our schools to improve learning outcomes if we don’t start by examining what and how teachers are taught while obtaining their higher degrees.

Peter van Onselen is a professor at the University of Western Australia and Sky News presenter.