Symposium Towards Excellence in Higher Education

Symposium Towards Excellence in Higher Education Time: 9:00 – 12:30, June 4, 2016 Venue: RMS 206 Theme: Efficiency and Effectiveness, Accountability and Autonomy

Internationalization, Prof. Kai-ming Conceptualization first comes from classification

Trends in HE  Rebuilding national system  Repositioning the private sector  Revisiting student learning  Internationalization

Levels of internationalization  L1 One-way communication  L2 One-way mobility  L3 International membership  L4 Collaborations  L5 Two-way exchange  L6 Isolated international sector  L7 International campus

Language is critical factor!!

Lead-in, Dr. Nopraenue

Issues to be considered, governance at different levels  Recent transformation – national level  Alignment between reforms and laws on institutional practices  Impact of increasing autonomy – options

Possible answers  Inaccurate to depict one single form of HE governance  Variations on HE governance model

Thailand  Autonomous university, self-generated fund  Autonomy is not an answer to everything  QA in charge of accountability, funding expenditure is randomly checked by auditor  Dual-tracks systems of civil servants and university employees – Cluster 2

Prof. Kai-ming’s Comments No definite private/public funding resources Funding, Example of Harvard University  Private university  60% from project, 30% tuition, 10% donations  65% of project funding goes to university, 35% goes to individual  50% scholarship used in need-blind admission policy  Scholarship used to for students from low-income family, annual income USD60,000; after financial crisis, raised the bar to middle income family, annual income USD120,000 -160,000  Largely proportion of funding comes from donation - 38 billion USD

Dr. Molly’s Comments  Tensions between state and institution  Accountability and autonomy as a trade-off - the university wants more autonomy, the government want you to be accountable

4 th Group presentation, Dr. Nopraenue Group members from Cambodia, Mongolia, and Laos

Governance and autonomy Cambodia:  Everything is under tight control of government  Parent ministry – 15 parent ministries  Current reform: new reforms agenda on governance and financing - draft level  Guideline from parent ministry for technical advice  PAIs can recruit part-time staff, public universities - government officials

Mongolia  MECX controls all the universities, MECS reports to MOF  Academic freedom –MECS  Finance - MOF

Laos  4 public universities under Ministry of Education and Sports, 1 under Ministry of Health of health  Academic freedom – MOE  Finance – government  Staffing - government officials

Case 8 Cambodia  Members from government  Decision-making from the rector/government

Case 9  Irrelevant - all three countries no need to respond to media

Case 10  Fundraising - all three countries no systemic fundraising initiatives

Case 11  How do you evaluate? – Mongolia: Office of Academic and Student Affairs  Is there appeal way? – Cambodia, Laos: Feedback box – informal way  How the evaluation is being used?  Evaluation used for teaching development but not for promotion

Summary, Prof. Kai-ming Evaluation, Example of Harvard University  Questions like how will you introduce this course to other people, tutor, and diversity of the course?  Students completed the evaluation like write essays, the university will compile and archive the paragraphs into the library for future student and teacher use  UC Berkley, evaluation results even published

How to fix the kind of carelessness and bargaining?  Students are serious about the evaluation  Depends on what you want from the evaluation

Why should we have academic autonomy?  Exploring the unknown  Preparing for failures - science  Expressing the odd - social sciences You are not told what to do.

Autonomy NOT limited to academics, also applies to professionals Example as Medical doctors  Though answerable to hospital authority, patient  Professional autonomy based on professional training, knowledge, and judgment  Autonomy at his/her discretion for the patient, it’s a right  Think about what I am doing, betterment of society?

Media cases Academics’ interest  Academic autonomy – academic conscience, research area  Employee welfare – promotion, go beyond from autonomy  Freedom of speech - public intellectual contribute to society, should be protected  Speech is taken as an action in East Asia

Fast development in Mongolia and Cambodia  Moving fast, new stage in months  Decision-making meets dilemmas and tensions Summary, Dr. Molly Neo-liberal ideology occurs in every country  Marketisation  Increasing autonomy – on university appointment  Increasing public accountability - QA/ KPI  Managerialism – systems used in private sectors adopted by the public universities  Managerial control

Democratic Governance, Prof. Kai-ming Democratic administration – difficult  Basic: voting – approaching political officers / Australia case: must vote  Second: participate in consolidating? / decision-making, population control  Who owns the university? - Society owns: university council  Notion changes a little bit, now constituency of university council involves non- professionals in decision-making process

HKU Case on Democratic Administration, Prof. Gerard  1990s full democracy - Outflow of talents, due to reunification of HK and motherland in 1997  Dean elected by the members of faculty – democratic election of university leadership  VC cannot do anything – complicated decision-making process  What is the skillset of university council members?

Response from Prof. Kai-ming  What we want – voice from grassroots  Senate - one paper cost 6 years to pass  Tricky politics, government may change overnight  Academic integrity