The Australian Universities'Review

Published By NTEU Vol. 36 1993, No Z

FEATURE - MARKETING EDUCATION

MARKETING EDUCATION IN THE 1990s: AN INTRODUCfORY ESSAY

HIGHER EDUCATION AS A COMMODI1Y: THE LONG BROAD TAPESTRY

CENTRALISED DECENTRALISATION: SLOANISM, MARKETING QUALIlY AND HIGHER EDUCATION

EDUCATION, MARKETS AND THE CONTRADICTIONS OF AsIA­ AUSTRALIA RELATIONS

THAT'S EDUTAINMENT: REsTRUCTURING UNIVERSITIES AND THE OPEN LEARNING INITIATIVE

A JOY FOREVER (AND ITS PRICE): ENGLISH AND THE MARKETS

THE MARKETISATION OF TERTIARY EDUCATION IN NEW ZEAlAND ARTICLE

AUSTRALIAN HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE RELEVANCE OF NEWMAN REVIEW ARTICLE

00 \D o PASfORAL SHADES: SIDNEY ORR AND THE ERaTICIStmON OF 1FACHING 00, 00..... 00 REVIEWS o Z r:J) r:J)...... BOARD Profc:;ssor Le.'llcy Johnson (Chair), Professor John Anwyl, A1isociate Professor Ian Luwc, Ms Anne Learmonth, Professor Ralph I--Iall, Dr Terri Australian Seddon, Mr Simon Marginson, Dr Mandy Lcvcratt and Ms Julie Wells. - " REVIEWS EDITOR Dr Terri Seddon Universi ies' eVlew Published NTEU STAFF Vo!' 36 1993, No 2 Mandy Levcratt (Editorial), Simon Roberts (Production) and Anastasia Kataidis (Proof reading and administrative support) EDITORIAL POLICY CONTENTS The Australian Universities' Review (A UR) is published by the National 'Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). Editorial policy is determined by the Editorial Board. The journal is not bound by NTEU policy. It aims to be a forum for the discussion of issues confronting Australian universities FEATURE: MARKETING EDUCATION with particular reference to those matters which concern NTEU. These can be broadly categorised as institutional issues and staff issues. The institu tional issues are those covered by such topics as the social role ofinsti tutions of higher education; fu ndingand thc role offunding bodics; Marketi~g edueation in the 19908: An introductory essay Jane Kenway, Chris Bigum, governmem education policy; public debate about education; Commonwealth/State relationships; private sector involvemcn t in higher education; co-ordination and rationalisation of tertiary education; education inquiries; recurrent and further education; fees; studem assistance; studcm Lmdsay Fltzclarence and Janine Collier ...... 2 access and participation; the changing position of the student in higher education; research funding and policy; debates about the disciplines; the development of new areas of teaching and research; pedagogic practices in higher education (iflcluding as rclated to equal opportunity issues); Higher education as a eommodity: The long broad tapestry Colin Richardson ...... 7 university autonomy and accountability; university and departmental government. The staff issues cover such topics as salaries and conditions; promotion procedures; discrimination in employment; affirmative action; research management; professional development issues including Centralised decentralisation: Sioanism, marketing quality and higher education Peter outside studies programmes (study !eave) and conference !eave. Watkins ...... "...... 9 In each of these areas articles will be assessed on their intrinsic merit by independent referees in the light of the contribution which they make to the important issues of the day confronting the Union, whether the articles in themselves support or oppose Union policies. Priority wi!! be Education, markets and the contradictions of Asia·Australia relations given to articles which arc considered to be of broad interest to staffin tertiary and higher education. Responses to previously published articles arc encouraged ~ AlJR aims to facilitate discussion and debate. Don Alexander and Fazal Rizvi ...... 16 edutainment: Restructuring universities and the Open Learning Initiative Contributions Chris Bigum, Lindsay ~'itzclarence and Jane Kenway in assoeiation with Janine Collier and Contributors should include three (3) copies of their manuscripts. Do not send any disks. Carol·Anne Croker ...... 21 Detailed notes for contributors are on the inside back cover. Contributions shou ld be sent to the Editorial Board, The Australwn Universities'Rroirw, C/- NTEU, PO Box 1323, City Road Post Office, South joy forever (and its price) :English and the markets McKenzie Wark ...... 28 Melbourne, Victoria, 3205. Phone: (03) 254 1910, Fax: (03) 254 1915 The marketisation of tertiary education in New Zealand Book Reviews Michael Peters, James Marshall and Bruce Parr ...... 34 Rooks for review should be sent to the Reviews Editor, The Australitlff Universities' Review, C/- NTEU, PO Box 1323, City Road, South Melbourne, ARTICLES Victoria, 3205. Fax: (03) 254 1915. AI! correspondence concerning reviews should be sent to this address. The AUR Reviews Editor, Dr Terri Seddon, can be contacted directly at Monash University faculty of Education on (03) 565-2774, higher education and the relevance of Newman The policy of The Australian Universities' !&oiew is to review only books dealing either with higher education or with matters pertinent to issues in Coady and Seumas Miller ...... 40 higher education, This is understood broadly: the statement of 'Editorial Policy' abovc provides a guide. REVIEW ARTICLE Subseriptions shades: Sidney Orr and the eroticisation of teaching Jeffrey Minson ...... 45 1994 annual subscription rates: surface postage paid Mo (Australia and New Zealand); $45 (Other); $50 (Overseas airmail). Overseas payments should be made by bank draft in Australian currency. REVIEWS Correspondence concerning subscriptions should be sent to The Australian [kiotnities'Rrview, C/- NTEU, PO Box 1323, City Road Post Office, South Melbourne, Victoria, 3205. Going round in circles Simon Marginson '" ...... 49 rationalism as a political program ,I IN Nevile ...... 50 Advertising The tail wagging the dog Seumas Miller ...... 51 Rates are available on application to Simon Roberts C/- NTEU, PO Box 1323, City Road Post Office, South Melbourne, Victoria, 3205 Phone: (03) 254 1880, Fax: (03) 696 9466 Developments in sehool and publie assessment Roger Peddie ...... 52 The Australian Uniuer.rities' Rt:Ufw (formerly Vestes) is published twice

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new breed of university public relations personnel are also expected notions of markets and marketing operate both ideologically and rapid and highly politicised developments that have taken place in this suggests that a decade from now thl';; likelihood is that we will be to become knowledge brokers and entrepreneurs, out into the tautologically; they are self rather than other serving. Indeed, markets broadcast education and suggests that current and future develop­ trying to come to grips with forms that we can't even imagine at this 'market place' to promote and sell what they have to to persuade are not premised on the notion of faimess, equality or cu1tural ments and their implications are best understood when lecated within students to need what the particular university wants them to need. inclllsivity. White their proponents make the claim that there is the context of global electronic infonnation networks. It also suggests the light or the rapid grmvth of market forms in education and the There is something of a contradiction between these two sets of general benefit from competitive self interest, they also argue that that if TV Open Learning (or its technological equivalents) can effect sparsity of research evidence with regard to it, a strong warrant exists imperatives; that between satisfying 'needs' (to the extent that it is those who play according to the rules invented by the market and are economies which institutionalised education cannot, then it is likely for serious and sustained inquiry into the various types of markets in possible to identify them) and producing them. Indeed, such a best at the game deserve the greatest rewards. to be seen as the way of the future. The paper hints at some of the operation, the ditferent processes which generate, sustain and flow contradiction lies at the heali of any market system although as those In all sectors of education, poorly planned, uncoordinated and, in implications for teaching and learning suggesting that in the long term from them and the educational, social, cultural and economic benefits in the advertising industry know, the latter tends to take precedence many senses, uncontrollable developments have occurred in the the educational centre of gravity may well shift away from institutions and costs involved. A considerable number and order of research over the former.) Either way, all University disciplines are now drawn marketisation of education. Certainly the state continues to attempt to such as universities and indeed away from the state itself. Indeed, questions arise in this regard. Those of concern to policy makers into the debate about the relationship between knowledge, rnarkets hold the reins in these marketisation processes. In the tertiary sector globa1 markets in education may emerge. include the question as to whether the exposure of education to market and marketing. it has used financial rewards and penalties to reshape the system, at The intensification of market forms in public education is not, as we modes actually achieves its intended objectives. Does it mean that McKenzie Wark's paper focuses on English as a discipline in crisis, the same time as orienting it towards labour, commodity and educa­ have already indicated, a uniquely Australian experience. Literature education better serves Australia in the new global economy? Does it He draws on the marketing metaphor as a rhetorical device to tional markets. The enclosure of the tertiary and schooling sectors from the U.K. and the U.S. demonstrates clearly that it is happening mean that its quality improves? What are the likely consequences for challenge both traditional and dominant notions of English and within corporate management frameworks and the development of in these two countries and, as Geoff'Whitty (1991) suggests, it is the steering capacity of the state? Another order of questions pertains cultural literacy and 'esoteric post structuralist' literary criticism. In competencies based education can also be understood as mechanisms happening in Japan and elsewhere too. In their contribution to this to the management and promotion of educational markets. How are Wark's view English is in crisis because it has failed to keep pace with designed to steer the direction of public sector involvement in collection Michael Peters, James Marshall and Bruce Parr discuss the ideas about education as marketable property developed and then contemporary cultural changes and no amount of marketing to the education markets. Indeed, the Commonwealth Government has marketisation of tertiary education in New Zealand in tenus of the 'sold' to the education community? What discourses are mobilised in students of today, to governments or to the culture industry itself will recently engaged in a belated attempt to impose some ethical and restructuring of the public sector and the crises of the welfare state. the process and what are their implications for education itself? What rescue it from its increasing irrelevance. What will rescue English, he educational order on what threatens to be market driven chaos in the They briefly outline the 'reforms' to tertiary education carried out infrastructure exists for the marketing of 'educational property' suggests, is firstly a connection to the cultural forms within which selling of education off-shore. Nonetheless, despite these centrifugal since the late 1980s by both the Labour and National governments and within different educational sectors and institutions and how does the students are immersed and secondly, a recovery of its socially critical forces, the market metaphor heads up a new policy and administration critically discuss the market model of education in relation to these development of a marketing infrastructure impact on the educational spirit in relation to these forms. In developing this critique Wark lexicon in education which includes such terms as educational reforms. They also provide a comparison of the New Zealand market infrastructure'? And, indeed, what are the ethical issues which pertain cunningly markets Cultural Studies. property. educational entefprise, entrepreneurial approaches to edu~ 'experiment' in tertiary education with developments in Australia to the marketisation of education? Questions of concern to educators Competitive self interest is also what characterises relationships cation, educational sen'ices, products, packages, sponsors, com­ suggesting that the Australian model is preferable. While we agree :t',e!ate to the implications of the market mode for curriculum, peda­ between individual or groups of tertiary institutions. Rivalry and point modities and consumers, value~added education, user pays, choice, that it may well be so this should not be read as a vote of confidence. gogy, assessment and student welfare. How do markets shape the scoring is the name of the game as ratings wars and advertising blitzes competition and so on. These and other terms both reflect and are That aside, al1 the signs are that we are going through global overall curriculum? What subjects do they privilege and what hap­ of the sort identified at the outset of this essay intensify. The main helping to bring into effect, a relatively new and different era in public educational adjustments of increasing force and magnitUde. pens to those deemed oflittle market value? What view of knowledge purpose of many current advertisements for universities is differential education in Australia, one in which educational purposes, languages and learning do they favour? What fonus of assessment best fit and advantage, but it is also about the elevation of image over substance. and practices are being subsumed by marketing purposes, languages Some pressing issues is it possible for assessment to maintain its educational purposes? These advertisements seek to appeal and cajole rather than to inform, and practices. From this discussion it is evident that more traditional education Does assessment become a market indicator? Do students become to offer images of security and success which will convince potential Another development in this story is that there is a new player in the markets, that is, the credential market for the labour market and the marketable and non-marketable properties? 'customers' to invest both financial1y and emotionally. if the type of field of education which has the potential to recast education in very economy, are being caught up and overtaken by a range of hybrid and Another order of question which the marketisation imperative scenario evident in The Independent Monthly is any sign of the future, different ways, as yet almost unimaginable. Various media, informa­ new market modes. In many cases these mesh with information generates is more interpretative and includes the following: vvnat are then it suggests that in their bids to attract students and corporate tion and communications technologies, in particular broadcasting, technologies in various ways which are becoming increasingly com­ the differences and similarities between specific education markets of clients, to establish reputations and to retain or to gain the competitive publishing and modern computing and telecommunications are con­ plicated and to some extent difficult to predict. Also, as we noted various types and the other markets of the wider culture? VYhat edge, some universities will increasingly be prepared to adopt the verging to increasingly become integral to the operations of many earlier, despite its centrality, the concept 'market' has many meanings changes and forces in the national and international economy and values and behaviours of commerce without questioning the implica­ education (and other) markets. Educational institutions are using their and applications. Further, there are a number of implied assumptions culture have led both to this shift in education and to the field's tions of such behaviour for students or for the distinctly different relationships to infoIDmtion technologies in their own marketing in its varied usage. One assumption is that educators, educational relative willinb'11eSS to accept and promote it? What are the likely enterprises. A key example in this respect is distance education, a field enterprise of education and research. Of course educational market­ policy makers and administrators understand how markets in educa~ future patterns? Vlhat have been the politics involved and, ultimately, ing has other dimensions at the institutional level so let us now briefly which is, to some extent, at the cutting edge of the nexus of formal tion (as opposed to other markets) operate. Given the quite recent rise does the marketisation of education work in general educational and mention some of these. education, the new information technologies and educational and of markets and quasi markets in education and the relative dearth of social interests or does it tend to serve sectional interests? Clearly all Through their painfully thin funding policies, govemments are other markets. sustained and serious research in the area this is likely to be the case. the above questions open up a research agenda of some magnitude, encouraging universities and private companies to make joint ar­ Evident here is a strikingly new and unfamiliar nexus between Another common set of assumptions is that certain lines of thought one which educational researchers in Australia and elsewhere, have rangements and as a result hybrid educational forms are developing, education, markets and marketing discourses and information tech­ from economics, business and liberal political philosophy can be only quite recently begun to develop. The contributions to this issue guided, again, more by private than public interests and ethics. nology (Hinkson, 1991), a triad of cultural elements capable of unquestioningly transposed onto education and that they will have of the Australian Universities' Review address some of the issues Indeed, the notion of the public or common good seems to have all but producing radically new forms of market phenomenon. predictable consequences. There is no convincing evidence to dem­ raised, but clearly there is much more work to be done. disappeared from the scene. Further, in pursuit of export earnings and Much current intellectual energy is now being spent exploring more onstrate that this is so. A further assumption is that education, markets profits to subsidise their other activities, public universities and and more sophisticated ways in which education, markets and infor­ and information technology can and will come together in almost TAFE are expected to sell education off-, as well as 00-, shore. In the mation technology can come together efficiently and profitably and automatically mutually beneficial ways, Again, there is no convinc­ Australians are used to high degrees of centralisation and regulation tertiary sector, particularly, many individual institutions and faculties many new education forms are developing as a result:4. The Depart­ ing evidence to support this assumption. However, despite the lack of in their education systems and hence the movement towards market are currently either in search of a 'niche' in the off-shore market, or ment of Employment, Education and Training's (DEET) National conceptual clarity and supportive research evidence, the marketisation models represents a policy shift of some magnitude. This shift is are trying to identify or open up new markets, not only overseas, but Open Learning Policy Unit is a case in point here. So too, are the new, of Australian tertiary and other education, without, with and through worth documenting and exploring with care. In the view of many, it also in Australia. And in the process a host of new educational, fee-charging 'open learning' degree courses sold on public television. infonnation technology, proceeds apace. signals the end of an era in which the state was expected to work cultural and political issues arises. In their paper in this collection, In the US, we see another example ofthis new triad. Chris Whittle, an How are we to understand what is going on? What conceptual towards equal and universal provision, and the beginning of a period Don Alexander and Fazal Rizvi chart the recent directions and educational and publishing entrepreneur, has developed Channel frameworks are available to help us do so? How is the recent of considerable dislocation, uncertainty and injustice placing many dimensions of marketing Australian education overseas and examine One. which offers students 12 minutes of daily news and 2 minutes of emergence of market fonns in education to be explained and what are worthy educational and equity values at risk and raising the question these, drawing insights from some key post colonial theorists. They com'mercia!s. In exchange for the student's viewing time, the school its implications? These are questions which a small number of policy 'beyond economic rationalism and the market, what are the most consider the durability of the ethnocentric conception of the curricu­ gets a satellite dish and two VCR recorders and TV sets. As Durie analysts, of various persuasions, have been grappling with in recent appropriate forms of education for these new times?' lum in Australia's tertiary institutions and argue strongly that this is (1992, p 13) says, 'so far 11861 schools with six million children times. However, in our view, they have barely scratched the surface no longer tenable in the light of 'the new demographies on the watch the program together with advertisements supplied by such of this phenomenon. The reasons for this are many, not the least being References consumer giants as Pepsi-Cola, Mars, Frito Lay, Procter and Gamble campuses'. Alexander and Rizvi also put two other submerged issues that the pace of change constantly outstrips our capacity to describe Australian Education Council, 1993,A National Code ofPractice for Sponsor on the agenda, observing that marketing education to Asia cannot be at $1)5 200,000 per 30 second spot.' There is no doubt that the it, let alone to explain it theoretically. The process won't stop sti1110ng ship and Promotion in School Education, Victoria. technologised market momentum in education will continue to build separated from both the cultural politics of Australia! Asia relations enough for us to pin it do"W11. It is not simply that old market forms are Durie, J. 1992, 'Planning the School of Profit' ,Higher Education Supplement, in the future, Already there is a range of indications about the and ethnic relations in Australia. In the almighty quest for the dollar, now accompanied by new, it is also that there is now a proliferation The Australian. Oct 21, p.18. the concerns raised by Alexander and Rizvl attract scant attention and directions which future combinations of education, markets and the of types assembling the familiar and the unfamiliar in ways which Good Universities Guide, 1993, Independent Monthly, pp23-43. this in itself is something of an irony given the attention that markets new information technologies might take. In our paper in this issue we would have been difficult to predict a decade ago. The pace of change are supposed to pay to 'customer satisfaction', This suggests that focus on the example of TV Open Learning. This paper discusses the Healy, G. 1993, Unions,unis frame enterprise deal, Campus Review: Higher in this area is 'white hot' as the sociologist Giddens would say, and Education News. 3 (30), pI.

Page 4 Page 5 Hinkson, ]. 1991, Post-modernity, State and EducatioN, Vict.oria, Deakin Whitty, G. 1991, Recent Education Rf.j'orm: Is it a postmodern phenomenon?, University Press. Paper presented to !:l conference on Reproduction, Social lnequality and Resistance, New Directions in the Theory ofEducatioD, University ofBielefeed, Intellectual Property, 1993, The Au.stralian Univer,,,itio;' RevieH': Special Germany.' Issue, 36 (1). Higher Kenway, with Bigum, Fitzciarence and Croker (1993) To Market to Make It: The Sorry Tale of Australian Education in the 1990s, Reid, A, and Johnson, Notes B(eds) Critical Issues In Australian Education, Educational Leadership Re­ 1. We draw the distinction between sales information and pitches from search Centre, University Of South Australia, pp 1~23. Varney, 1993. The tapestry Kenway, with Bigum, Fitzc1arence and Collier (1993 )New Education in New 2. The Australian Universities' Review: Special Issue, 36 (1) discusses various Times, Paper presented at the Australian Curriculum Studies Association issues associated with the matter of intellectual property. Conference, Brisbane, July. 3, For more extensive discussion of this issue see Kenway with IntenHl.timalill Si:hool, HOllimnn, Solom.on hl2B1dls Kenway, J.(ed) 1993, Marketing Education: Some Critical Issues. Deakin Bigum, Fitzclarence and Croker, 1993. University Press, pilot issue, Geelong. 4. For a discussion of these new forms and an analysis both of the Sharp, 0.1985, Constitutive Abstraction and Social Practice, Arena, 70, PI' ways in which they are having an impact on other aspects of education It seems appropriate to receive in Honiara, via satellite from economist who was asked by losef Stalin to analyse long-tenn 48-82. and oflikely future trajectories see Kenway with Bigum, Fitzclarence Geelong, a lengthy facsimile transmission about Marketing Educa~ production data series and predict the date when world capitalism Varney, W.1993, Toys R big business Current Affairs Bulletin, July, PI' 11" and Collier, 1993. hon in the Information Age on the same day one reads that the Vice­ would collapse. Instead, he found that capitalism 'collapses' every 50 16. Chance110r of the University of Cambridge is now also its Chief to 60 years but then, phoenix"like, rises from the ashes rebom and full Executive Officer. Sir David Williams, the 342nd incumbent since of vigour! Kondratieff was sent to Siberia for this crime against the 1412, will be the first Vice~Chancellor to hold the appointment people and was never heard from again. beyond three years. You can't transform an eleemosynary institution These 'long-waves' or Kondratieff cycles have rising phases of 30- into a corporation with a short~teml CEO! plus years and dovvllswings lasting around 20 years. They arc gener­ Sir David's most recent Address to the Regent House contains some ated by the world's (ever~growing) core of highly developed coun­ fascinating material- and I'm not referring only to the Lords, Knights, tries, but the economic impulses propagate out to the periphery of Orator, Marshal, Esquire BedeJ!s, Proctors and other quaint person­ Fourth World nations. Long waves are associated with the creation of ages who rate mentions in his speech: ,>global infrastructure networks like canals, railways, seaports, high~ 'The year 1991-92 has seen movement /hrward on many of the ways and airports - where 'global' means the core countries only. matters (in the Government White Papet), in some cases movement Thus, the First Kondratieff saw thousands of miles of canals dug by at a frightening speed' navvies in England, France and Gennany, while the current (Fourth) Kondratieff has seen mi11ions of kilometres of highways laid do\V!1 in 'This year the 30 polytechnics became full universities' the far longer list of today's core countries. During the upswing, the 'real economy' indicators of investment, 'A new Higher Education Funding Council ha.)' been established' consumption, production and employment trace out the smooth 'A joint . .. inquiry has been set up to investigate the possibility 0/ sigmoid shape of the classic sine wave, as during the 'long boom' that changes in the academical year tofacilitate the production o/more began around 1936. This ever~increasing prosperity is punctuated by graduates at less expense and more l4ilicienily, whilst not unaccept­ wars and is abmptly terminated by a cessation of hostilities. The Third ab£v reducing academic standards' Kondratieff upswing featured the Sino-Japanese WaI, the Spanish­ American War, the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War and peaked in There is much ground/or anxiety in many (~r these developments' 1919 with the end of World War 1. The long boom of the Fourth ~ and yet - Kondratieff included World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, 'Our work in public relations has continued to grow' the Six-Day War and ended in 1973 soon after the Vietnam War did. Once it peaks, the curve loses its sigmoid character: after a short .. we are well aMe to hold our own in a new >,v'odd that believes sharp recession lasting a year or two, the real economic indicators so strongly in competition and choice'(Wil1iams 1993) bump along a plateau for g to 12 years, then fall into a deep, All this will sound familiar to anyone committed to higber educa­ precipitous depression fonowing a massive financial crises in the tion in Australia. . or, indeed, almost anywhere in the First World 'paper economy' (the 1929 New York and 1987 Tokyo stock ex­ of developed countries. change collapscs). The downswing decelerates as it bottoms out, Whilst unrolling and reading the Geelong fax (so, after 3,000 years, probably by 1936 last time and possibly around 1996 this time, it's back to scrolls?) I reflected that the radical changes in higher marking the start of the Fifth Kondratieff. Wars aside, what the world education in Australia in the 1990s are merely part of a much broader should get out of this one is a superb network of aerospace infrastruc­ and far longer tapestry. ture, supported by satellites, telecommunications grids and 6th Gen­ Broader because academia is only onc of the myriad of Australian eration computers. industries now being fundamentally restructured. Broader also, be~ During the long upswing, the real economy performs fairly well, cause the higher education systems of most developed countries are but the paper economy progressively gets out of synch. I should still being shaken up. Longer because the present round of structural explain that every parcel of land, unit of labour and pieGe of capital refoTIns began in the mid-1970s and accelerated in the late-1980s. equipment devoted to real, physical production of goods and services .Longer also, because there have been earlier episodes of equally (including higher education) has its 'mirror image' monetary value disturbing instability, at roughly 50~year intervals: from the 1870s, recorded in the paper economy. Labour contraGts aside, these title educationists hotly debated the 'free, secular and compUlsory' ques­ deeds, m0l1gages, debentures, bills, bonds, shares and other 'certifi­ tion; from the 1920s it was the Dewey~inspired 'pragmatists' and cates of physical asset ownership' can be traded on various markets 'functionalists' versus the champions of a 'broad liberal arts educa~ and so there is an ever-present danger that monetary values will take tion'; the present buming question of 'marketi::>ation' dates from the on a life of their own: the paper economy tail may begin to wag the I 97{)s. real economy dog. What kind of long-term, world-wide economic and political frame~ The upswing always begins with a realistic set of monetary values work is available for understanding what is going on here? Why is the attaching to paper assets, i.e. they are closely related to the productiv­ long broad tapestry blocked out in 50-year panels, ready lor the ity of the real assets they represent, the costs of their inputs and the application of finer detail? prices that their outputs will fetch. But such phenomena as creeping As an economist, r find the most plausible framework to be that intlation will slowly drive a wedge between real and paper asset developed by Nikolai Kondratieff. He was an eminent Russian values.

Page 7 Page 6 During the lengthy boom phase, genuine prosperity (rising real into equality with the underlying real asset values, lighten the heavy economic indicators) and apparent prosperity (paper asset values load of debt accumulated during both the upswing and the feverish faster) combine to lull management into the belief that they caIl speculative phase following the post-war slump, slim down the to relax their vigilance over costs of production and labour middle management spread and design productivity-enhancing la­ pn,dllctiviiy rates. Business thickens at the waist as extra levels of bour contracts, win paliicipate in (indeed, help generate) the coming Centralised decentralisation: middle management are added and trade unions arrange to have boom phase of the Fifth Kondratieff m the biggest and best of them all. in"eniocls labour padding devices written into awards, thus increasing Those core countries which have not restructured their economies employment levels at the cost of lower productivity. Academia is not wi11 suffer the same fate as Argentina, which refused the challenge marketing quality and education immune: money flows into university coffers (remember Gough after 1929 and was cast out of the First World and into the Third. Whitlam?) and out again as higher salaries paid to more teaching and Argentina took no part in (and gained little benefit fTom) the long boom which began around 1936. Peter Watkins administrative staff in better offices. Deskin University Fol1O\vlng the post-war slump from a cyclical peak, those who own If educationists on both sides of the marketisation question studied and manage the real economy's productive assets now feel it is too the Kondratieff model, it might help focus the debate. In particular, risky to keep on investing in new facilities at the high rates that rhetoric and evidence drawn from higher education during the 1936- Introduction move of 'outsider-in', which is marked by the infiltration of the university outside business firms interested the commercial prevailed during the upswing, despite the initial ]abour~shedding 73 upsvring is quite irrelevant to our present circumstances: the final Currently, higher educational institutions are going through a in adjustment. Demand has level1ed off and confusing signals about the year(s) of the cyclical slump, managerial restructuring whereby a large range of administrative value of particular research. Buchbinder and Newson argue values of their businesses keep coming from the markets for paper I say: Go back and see how your forebears handled the great post- functions are being decentralised to the lower mngs of the organisa­ that this gradual movement into university life provides companies assets. What happens during this 8 to 12 year plateau phase is that 1919 and post-1929 debates about the future of higher education. Who tional hierarchy. Funding of staff, services, cars, communications and with 'a window on ongoing research, a means of influencing the paper values become totally divorced from real values as an orgy of won? How? Why? Cambridge has already made its decision. What support are now being relocated at the points of academic production, direction of such research, and access to marketable products based speculation develops in the financial markets: the Tokyo speculators will Australia's be? the departments or schools. But this seeming decentralised autonomy on the research' (1990, p.357). Similarly, Marginson (1993) also sees of the 1980s were infected by the same madness as the New York has been set within strictly centralised policy objectives and guide­ a shift in the balance between market and and non-market elements of speculators of the 1920s. Eventually the bubble bursts and a painful References lines prescribed by the upper echelons of university management. university research, especially in the areas of biomedical technolo­ period of asset value deflation ensues, with businesses failing, gov­ Elliott, David 1986, Kondratieff Cycles, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), This centralised management team has expanded greatly in recent gies, engineering and computing. ernments falling, mil1ionaires bankrupted and homeowners default~ Open University Press. years with the creation of pro-vice chancellors, deputy-vice chancel­ But this shift from the production of knowledge coming from ing on their mortgage contracts. Goldstein, Joshua 1988, Long Cycles: prosperity and war in the modern age, lors and a plethora of other senior management, all in times when the intellectual inquiry to knowledge which is produced in response to the In the real economy, entrepreneurs now face uncertainty, not New Haven, Yale University Press. drive for fiscal restraint is foremost. But it is this very ideology of ')current commercia! whim of the market carries with it problems of merely risk. If they kept expanding at even the low recessionary Kondratieff, Nikolai, The Long Wave Cycle, translated by Guy Daniels, New fiscal restraint, coupled to notions like 'efficiency', 'productivity' secrecy. lfthe knowledge generated in certain faculties of a university plateau rate, they would be giving hostages to fickle fortune and might York, Richardson and Snyder 1984. and 'marketability', which is bearing down on academic workers, is to maintain its commercial viability in the market then access has to be limited to ensure its market value is realised. Langford, in sink their businesses. The recession rapidly deepens into a depression Pope, David 1988, Long Waves and the crash of '87, Canberra, ANU. Moreover, the links between education and industry are not merely at discussing this problem, notes that: as the ovvners and managers of real productive facilities go catatonic Reijnders, Jan 1990, Long Waves in Economic Development, Aldershot, the rhetorical level but are part of actual institutional practice. Indeed, in the face of uncertainty. The basis for making robust forecasts of Hants, England; Brookfield, Vt, USA, E Elgar. Deakin University, for instance, has a Business Education Partner­ The rea! importance of the changing approach to intellectual ships program which includes joint teaching and research projects, property ownership is that it is part of a wider process of change profitability to justify business expansion (i.e. a set of stable values Richardson, Colin 1991 'Some Desirable Extensions of Economic Theory', for inputs, outputs and facilities) has been completely sheared away! Economic Papers, 10(4), December 1991, pp 59-69 (and esp. pp 66-68). publications and work placements for students and graduates (Deakin which threatens to transform the university from an open, inquiring Only when paper asset values have been deflated into equality with News 1993, p.3). and refative~v free institution committed to the widespread dissemi­ Shuman, James and Rosenau, David 1972, The Kondratieff Wave, New York, their underlying real asset values (based on productivity and prices of Further, at the national level, the Commonwealth Government has nation of knowledge to a closed, secretive institution preoccupied World Pub inputs and outputs) does a rational economic calculus again become been concerned to foster tighter university and industry connections with the commercial and security concerns of its private and public Solomou, Solomos 1988,Phases afEconomic Growth, 1850-1973: Kondratie.ff possible. Once profitability forecasts begin to firm, expansionary so that Australia might be more competitive in the global market sector partners. (1991, p.156) waves and Kuznets swings, Cambridge (Cambridgeshire), Cambridge Univer­ investments get underway and a new upswing commences. place. Thus university teaching and research is subsumed within a sity Press Langford concludes that the increasing involvement by universities Such, then, is how the long broad tapestry of world economic market ethos. The market-place, and more implicitly the demands of Wi1!iams, Sir David 1993, 'Address to the Regent House by the Vice­ in the seemingly lucrative gold-mine of private industry and commer­ history can be b!ocked out since the early stirrings of the Industrial industry, are increasingly taking precedence in the direction of Chancellor', Cambridge, (31), Winter 1992-93. cial markets is, in the end, damaging to their health. He asserts that the Revolution, from when Kondratieff dated his first long wave. The research. The research which is funded and the teaching which gains aim should be to regulate and structure any linkages to commercial details change but the basic pattern has remained the same. greatest credence has become increasingly tied to the production of a markets so that the traditional relationships of universities based on Those core countries which successfuHy deflate paper asset values knowledge which is marketable rather than a knowledge which is collegiality are maintained. For as Marginson (1993) points out directed to improving society. This trend toward the marketplace and 'market-defined objectives are mingled with other concerns, or are the organisational strategies employed by business to create and completely absent, and motives other than market rationality come satisfy markets is the focus of this paper. Accordingly, it starts by into play, such HS the acadernic commitment to scholarship and to briefly looking at the current moves to tie higher education more pastoral care, or tht.; need to provide equality of opportunity' (1993, closely to the ethos of the business world. Next, it suggests that the p.44). organisational model being adopted in higher education owes much However, the structures which are evolving in universities tend to to the model first set in place at General Motors by Alfred Sloan. The be following a corporate structure which scholars like Langford paper shows how this organisational strategy was closely integrated (1991) and Buchbinder and Newson (1990) argue is to their detriment. with a marketing policy which introduced techniques like market Policy making and planning have become more highly centralised research and market analysis. After placing the current developments with the senior academic/managers taking on the language of 'effi·· in some historical context, a brief critique is offered of these policies. cieney', 'productivity', 'quality assurance and management', 'prof­ Finally, these issues are brought together in the most recent emphasis itability' and 'accountability' espoused by their counterparts in the in higher education, the marketing of organisational quality. business world. In both the academic and the business world, this centralisation has been combined with a decentralisation where Tying higher education to the organisation and financial responsibility, industrial relations, staffing and marketing mark.ets of business the academic product has been pushed down the line to the operating Buchbinder and Newson (1990) suggest that the linkage between units of the departments or schools. Buchbinder and Newson (1991) the university and industry is essentially two sided, having at its base argue that 'This institutional transformation has been premised on the the assumption that certain academic work is of marketable value in expectation that the new income generated from more ef.ficiently the commercial world. On one side is the 'inside-out' movement targeting resources to needs, would assist the university in dealing which signifies the attempts by the university to market its academic with its deteriorating quality and inability to respond to demands. wares in the market. By moving out, the university itself becomes a However, this transfom1ation has only exacerbated problems of player in the market place. Academic researchers and scholars quality and a deteriorating academic climate' (1991, p.25). become entrepreneurial in endeavouring to sell their research skills, Nevertheless, there are constant demands that educational institu­ their findings and their scholarly publications. On the other side is the tions, at all levels, should follow the path of restructuring that

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corporations have taken (NBEET 1992, Webb 1992), Laton (1991), Sloan went on to outline his approach to management in the classic consumers in terms of population characteristics, income, styling step by step to a crippling social dependency for the many' (Drache the President of the Business Council of Australia, hqs outlined a management volume My Years with General Motors (1964). In this preferences, colours, etc. The data collected on the community was and Gertler 1991, p. xv). similar advocacy_ He has asserted that the management lessons of text he argues that through his managerial strategy the apparently then broken do\V1l on a neighbourhood basis again to determine the An important consideration in viewing education in market terms business need to be applied to education systems so that their contradictory notions of decentralisation and centralisation have been potential consumer base of the constituent parts (see Sloan 1964, is an examination ofthe actual product being offered for consumption. nn,-fonn'DCC orientation can be improved. He further argues that in reconciled by means of decentralisation with co-ordinated control. Chpt. 16). Thus, as Perrow (1986) clearly indicates, Sloan's innova­ In neo-classical economic terms a market operates at its optimum as business world there has been a rejection of the large, monolithic Through this process Sloan claims that apparently conflicting ele­ tions were not created as a result of a particular environment but, the number of transactions are frequently repeated so that experience corporation where there has been a loss of control as less efficient ments in an organisation can be brought together. Decentralisation conversely, they were intended to create an environment of con~ and information corning to the consumer is at its greatest. For components are able to hide or obscure their performance within the can give the organisation greater flexibility, more responsibility for structed consumer wants. instance, the texture of the loaf of bread which is bought at the shop complexity of the large body. Accordingly, Lotan (1991) argues that the tough decisions at the local level and greater scope for entrepre­ The scientific calculations toward greater efficiencies and effec­ may not be to the consumer's liking, so next time another brand is in Australia the large corporations have responded to increasing neurial initiative on the part of local management. However, without tiveness which Taylor had applied to the production process were now tried. But unfortunately the taste is too sweet, so another brand is competitive pressure from national and international markets by co-ordination the smaller units might 'get out of hand' , being without applied to the selling of the goods. It was in following this rational samp1ed and so on and so on. However prospective students, as pushing decisions away from the centre. This enhances responsive­ adequate control and failing to follow the policies and strategies approach to business that Sloan instigated the scientific and system­ consumers of education, cannot frequently sample the 'products' on ness to the constantly changing demands of the market~place and deemed appropriate by top management. Consequently, Sloan stresses atic gathering, processing and analysis of information which would offer in the market of various facuities without having a detrimental speeds up reaction time to those changes. Inherent within the principle that the managers of these decentralised operational units must make optimise consumption. Market research and market analysis became effect on the their education. Even if a particular university or faculty of co~ordinated decentralisation is that responsibility for meeting sure that their methods and results are consistent with the corpora­ important aspects of seiling, where the preferences, habits, beliefs and is chosen to the students' and faculty's satisfaction, will the students agreed performance targets is pushed down the line and vested in tion's general policies. They also must be subject to close scrutiny and incomes of families suddenly came under close scrutiny. The result­ sample, in tum, the various units and lecturing styles so that an divisions and individual operating centres. These centres must then be evaluation by top management with regard to their performance and ant efforts to orchestrate people into consumers saw Sloan introduce infonned choice might be made? given the requisite authority to meet the targets and policy goals set products. Further, any moves to deviate from the central policy and advertising campaigns, new models, new images, styling changes and Such an ideology of the market was at the core of the tertiary by the central organisation. But, in language which makes it still clear evaluative guidelines must, indeed, be given the 'all clear' by the brand identification in an attempt to package the goods in a way that education policy that a future LiberallNational Party Coalition Gov­ that real power is still at the centre, the Business Council has central body. would prompt people to consume. In this way Sloan sought to shift the ernment would have imposed on Australia (Kemp 1993). In its vision proclaimed that 'In no way does this result in operating centres having Basically, Sloan's management strategy employed a model of ideals of scientific management from the scientific training of the of education as an intensified commodity fonn, the environment of licence to do as they please. Thorough reporting procedures ensure organisational relationships which emphasised centralised control of worker to the scientific training of the consumer. A rational scientific the educational sector would be subject to 'exposure to market this does not occur' (Loton 1991, p.IS). decentralised operations. In doing this Sloan separated the Planning approach to marketing was seen as a necessary complement to the signals'. This exposure would result in, especially in the tertiary It is argued in this paper that the structural changes indicated above Department completely from the point of production, whereas Taylor scientific, rational organisation of work. 'Science' was employed not sector, institutions competing with each other for students. These are manifestations of the management philosophy of Alfred Sloan had only removed it from the shop floor. Dale, in an examination of only to intensify the consumption of products but also to construct prospective tertiary students would be allotted national education (1964). Sloan restructured an ailing General Motors around a notion the administrative techniques of Sloan, suggests that his philosophy consumer wants and lifestyles, shaping them to corporate needs. "awards (or vouchers) which would pay a proportion of the standard of co-ordinated decentralisation whereby a limited degree of au­ was founded on two premises: Williams notes that 'while a large part of our economic activity is course fees. Moreover these awards would be tenurable at any of the tonomy was given to decentralised production units. The managers 1. The responsibility attached to the chief executive of each devoted to supplying known needs, a considerable part of it goes to accredited higher institutions in Australia. Thus students, faculties and workers of these units then had to create, scientifically manage operation shall in no way be limited. Each such organisation ensuring that we consume what industry finds it convenient to and institutions would be locked in an individual competition which and respond to the opportunities and success bestowed by the 'mar­ headed by its chief executive shall be complete in every necessary produce .. .it becomes increasingly obvious that society is not control­ stresses the private nature of education ket'. Nowadays such a centralised decentralised structure is to be fimction and enabled to exercise its foil initiative and logical ling its economic life, but it is in part controlled by it' (in Robins and However, in answer to such strategies, Levin (1991) argues that we driven by Total Quality Management, a management strategy largely development. (Decentralisation of operations) Webster 1986, p.31S). The expansion of the market and consumer should distinguish between education as both a public and a private derived from the Japanese. In this strategy the university is made up capitalism marked a profound extension of rationalism into the good. Whi1e parents and students have a right to decide the values and of a multiple of markets inhabited by producers and consumers. For 2. Certain central organisation functions are absolutely essential everyday practices of people. influences to which they should be exposed, a democratic society also instance, if academic A produces a paper for academic B's mono­ to the logical development and proper coordination of the Corpo­ Braverman (1974) suggests that Sloan's attempts to rationally has a right to ensure that it is satisfactorily reproduced and functions graph, A is the producer and B the consumer. If the consumer is ration's activities. (Centralised staff services to advise the line on eliminate any uncertainties which the 'market' might hold in the in a democratic manner through the provision of common sets of unhappy with the product then another producer can be found. men ::,pecialised phases of the work, and central measurement afresults selling of products meant that marketing, in fact, became dominant. values and forms of knowledge. Consequently, any society has to be the papers are collected and passed on to the editor academic B is the to check the exercise ofdelegated responsibility). (Dale 19S6, p.4l) The structure and direction of the production units in a company deeply concerned with the enhancement of the social benefits of producer and the editor the consumer and so on and so on. Thus all This management strategy, while seemingly giving more au- became subordinate to the styling, packaging and promotion cam­ higher education. However, it would seem that if tertiary education workers are involved in market relationships hopefully producing tonomy to the decentralised units, actually avoids the marked loss of paigns emanating from the 'scientific' research into the way the was provided solely on the aggregate of market choices exercised by qua1ity products for their colleagues in what is termed a quality chain. control, loss of authoritative communication, and loss of managerial purchasing preferences of the consumer were being channelled. In students and particular university faculties, the result as a collective However, analysts such as Stephen Waring (1991) suggest that such scrutiny which are to be found in large monolithic administrative this vein, Braverman notes that 'the planning of product obsoles­ benefit would be extremely problematic. Kellner (1990) in arguing superficial attempts to foster greater worker involvement in manage­ struchlres. Moreover, the illusion of individualised units producing cence, both through styling and the impermanence of construction, is from the position of 'the prisoner's dilemma', suggests that in these ment does little to al1eviate the sense of powerlessness endemic to numerous diversified products actually masks the strong central a marketing demand exercised through the engineering division' circumstances the situation exists in which the pursuit of individual modem organisations but rather may accentuate it. control which is being exercised. In Drucker's (1946) terms the (Braverman 1974, p.266). The construction of the consumer through self-interest may in fact lead eventually to a worse result for everyone. totality of the co-ordinated decentralisation concept invoked a 'new the application of scientific management to the 'market' meant that The unfettered self-interest and choices of the individual may im­ Centralised decentralisation ordering principle' whereby top management makes the overall the internal planning process of the enterprise became subsumed to pinge on the opporhmities of others to acquire a satisfactory higher While it may be argued (Codd 1993) that there is a fundamental policy decisions while also carefully evaluating and measuring the marketing experts' efforts at social coordination and social planning. education, so that the aggregate of individual choices in education conflict between the trend in sectors of education towards greater performance of the operating units. In turn, each operating unit is The strategies and influences initiated by Taylor and Sloan may does not lead to a position which is favourable to society as a whole. local entrepreneurial decision-making and the trend towards stronger given a particular clientele and market within which it operates and have, in former times, seemed remote from the provision of educa­ The privileging of the individual accompanied with the denial of the mechanisms of accountability and centralised control, this paper competes, not only with other companies but also with other units in tion. However, the situation has dramatically changed with the social; the negating of cormnon experiences and the derision directed suggests that this may not be the case. Indeed, if there are any the same company. Such activities are constituted as providing a 'market', 'market forces' and the 'entrepreneurial academic' being toward community aspirations has a most pernicious influence over contradictions in centralised decentralisation, these were long ago perfectly rational way of organising the economic activities of the part of the higher educational discourse. Firmly on the future agenda society. Consequently, it may be argued that as universities generally addressed and seemingly dispelled in the management philosophy company. is the prospect that each faculty and schoo! will go out seeking and certain faculties in particular, go into the marketing business and that Alfred P. Sloan brought to the restructuring of the General Motors students, promoting its wares, in the hope of creating a body of even attempt to go 'up market', the competitive market orientation is Corporation in the 1920s. Consequently, any critique of the move Constructing the market consumers wanting to come in through its doors. likely to exacerbate social inequality by the very market process to towards the setting up of decentralised university faculties and But Sloan was not only concerned with the reorganisation of car foster ethnic and social class differences, and favour higher income departments marketing themselves within a centralised university manufacturing, he was also concerned to create a consumer market Responding to tile market families who are likely to find easier access into the higher status framework, would be well advised to examine the formation of the that would buy the products coming from his decentralised opera­ In this section of the paper the limitations of treating higher uni versities. management philosophy on which the administration of General tional units. To this end he applied the precepts of scientific manage­ education as a consumer good within a socially constructed market In addition, to press the latter point, the more prestigious universi­ Motors is based. ment to the constructing of a popular market for cars. In doing this, he will be proffered. In doing so it must be stressed that markets originate ties and sought after faculties would be highly motivated to carefully took the advise of Casson (1911), a follower of Taylor's principles of by way of active social construction through competing interests choose amongst the students who sought to enrol with them. These Co-ordlnated decentralisation scientific management, who realised that 'what has worked so well in located in the state, the private sector and individual citizens. But institutions owe their status and competitive position in the market to Alfred P. Sloan became president of the General Motors Corporation in the acquisition of knowledge and in the production of commodities while the market and market relationships may have gained some the 'brand image' they project. The most popular universities and 1920. The du Pont family, who had the controlling interest in General Motors, may work just as wen in the distribution of these commodities' (1911, ascendency at the present time, their problematic nature should be faculties would have to closely scrutinise prospective students' had became convinced that Sloan's plans to reorganize the company would p. 71). Sloan took up this challenge to apply a disciplined rational recognised. For it can be argued that 'The deeper reality of market­ achievement tests, residential backgrounds, old boy/girl backgrounds, rescue it from the financially disastrous situation in which the autocratic approach to the selling of cars. Accordingly, GMC started to make driven change is that the continuing drive to maximising accumula­ the family'S socio~economic status as wel1 as its social and educa­ approach of his predecessor had put it. economic studies of the community, examining its potentia1 as tion, whether for the few or in the name of national development, leads tional attainments, to restrict its numbers. For if they did not do this,

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opening their doors to an and sundry, including large numbers of the Nevertheless, Webb is adamant that universities must compete in Total control ing the use ofTQM in British universities Oliver concludes that such children of the poor and unemployed, their brand image of conferring the intemational market. In securing a degree of competitive advan­ Critics of the Total Quality Management approach claim that it means of control might present benefits to management in promoting 'quality', 'excellence', 'power', 'exclusiveness' and 'prestige' would tage universities must be seen as responding to both national and embodies an attempt to foster the internalisation of the principles of the self-adjustment of academics to objectives which are dearly quickly evaporate. As a consequence, in the long-tenn, there would international market demands. He suggests that 'In view of this, Scientific Management rather than have them imposed externally defined. However, he argues that this management strategy might be be a decline in the net worth of a place in that faculty. So that such a universities must relate to concepts such as Total Quality Manage­ (Sayer 1988). Sayer concludes that the increased flexibility that TQM found wanting in areas where the development of new ideas and situation might be avoided universities and faculties will even more ment and Intemational Best Practice which currently permeate and other strategies provide clearly indicates to management those perspectives are of crucial importance. Moreover, he claims that sharply arrange themselves according to wealth, class and consumer industry restructuring debates' (1992, p.ll). However at this point, it jobs that do not require constant attention and so reduces the amount where there are. substantive differences of opinion on the objectives sophistication in a quest to enhance their brand image and competi~ would be best to pause and examine the notion of Total Quality of idle or waste time in the production process. Moreover the and purposes of an organisation 'output controls may open a real can tiveness in the market. Management in a little more detail. decentralising of the work process to the point of work 'teams' or of worms' (J993, p.52). The rhetoric of the entrepreneurial university, marketing its brands In a standard text on Total Quality Management, Oakland (1989) 'quality chains' not only increases the flexibility of labour, but also Seemingly unaware of such concerns, Lenmark-Ellis (1988) has for the benefit of consumer choice, confuses popular, well projected argues that TQM is a means of integrating the whole activities of an integrates the workforce into carrying out its 0\VIl. supervision while recently suggested that not only will the tone of the administration of images of higher education with good education. But the history of organisation. Such strategies to promote quality are important, as it is decreasing the need for more highly paid middle management. tertiary institutions be improved with quality circles but also they can marketing suggests that there are problems associated with such a quality which consumers are seeking in the marketplace. In this Panitch sums up that such strategies involve: be used to advantage in the classroom. In arguing her case, she points position. One has only to recollect Ralph Nader's crusade against process of organisational integration, flexibility is important to to their use in Oregon State University classes and their commence­ socializing workers into the ethos ofprofitability through flexibil~ Sloan's own company for producing cars which were popular and ensure that all parts of the organisation work smoothly together. ment in nursery schools in Japan. She enthusiastically argues that 'the ity, in the hope that they will internalize it, police themselves superbly marketed but which were unsafe at any speed (Nader 1972). Through this flexible integration waste can be eliminated. As Oakland application of the quality circle (OC) to the classroom may well wipe accordingly, and acquire the motivation and the ability to pass on Similarly, with the videos Beta and VHS. The latter, although explains, 'TQM is a method for ridding people's lives of wasted effort out the traditional1y competitive group situation ~ and initiate the most to management the data and the workers 'judgements pertaining to technically inferior, overwhelmed its opposition through popularity by involving everyone in the processes of improvement; improving productive and enjoyable group dynamic that schools have ever had' labor process efficiency, in such a way as to facilitate management achieved through a highly skilful advertising campaign. Lastly, in the effectiveness of work so that results are achieved in less time' (Lenmark,Ellis 1988, p.32). However, Simmons and Kahn (1990) control in each branch ofproduction (1987, p.137-8). these examples of confusing well marketed, popular products with (1989, p.lS). But this wasted effort can only satisfactorily be elimi­ have reported a decline in the use of quality circles at Iowa State good products, we can take the example of the gas and electric nated with the help of the organisation's employees through structures Similarly, research by Delbridge, Turnbull and Wilkinson (1992) University. The decline, they suggest, is due to some managers not refrigerator. The gas refrigerators, compared to the electric, were like work teams or quality circles. Thus the emphasis of TQM is to has illustrated that while TQM does encourage the decentralisation of allowing the necessary freedom for the quality circles to operate and virtually silent; they had fewer moving parts; they were easy to change the culture of organisations so that the employees continually responsibilities which were traditionally held centrally, this does not particularly the lack of support sho\V1l by top management. Neverthe­ maintain and the operating costs of gas were much lower than are offering advice to management on how to eliminate waste; on how necessarily lead to greater autonomy. Rather the result is that employ­ less they still believe that 'the principles and techniques underlying electricity. But regardless of the obvious advantages of gas, the to work more efficiently and how to improve the quality and hence ees are asked to perfonn an increasing number of tasks which are, in employee participation groups (such as quality circles), can impart electric refrigerator triumphed. This occurred because General Elec­ marketability of the organisation's products. In this change of culture, tum, closely monitored and strictly controlled. The characteristic of ~iaJuable skills to those who participate in these groups' (Simmons tric poured huge sums of money into promoting its product. Outland­ 'TQM is concemed with moving the focus of control from outside the TQM regimes is the extension of management control with work and Kahn 1990, p.33). ish advertising and marketing campaigns combined with more subtle individual to within; the objective being to make everyone account­ intensified through heightened surveillance, accountability, peer Not only in universities but in other organisations a number of public relations techniques associating the brand image with Holly­ able for their own performance, and to get them committed to pressure and waste elimination (1992, p.98). Moreover, Delbridge, problems have arisen with the attempts to introduce Japanese man­ wood stars were employed to create consumer demand (Cowan 1985). attaining quality in a highly motivated fashion' (Oakland 1989, p.26). Turnbull and Wilkinson reveal that the TQM system: agement practices into the workplace. For instance, Dale and Moreover, we are still paying for the externalities generated by the This change of culture has both an internal and an external dimen­ further obscures the troe relationship between the employee and his Hayward (1984), in a study of the failures of quality circles in victory of the electrical compression of refrigerants. These externali­ sion. All organisations, even universities, it is claimed (Oakland or her labour power and the surplus value it produces by its appeal companies in the United Kingdom, suggest a number of factors which ties, such as the hole in the ozone layer, confound the rationalist, neo­ 1989), may be viewed as having internal quality chains. This involves to a 'customer ethos '. The motivation to successfully folfil produc­ lead to their demise in the UK. These factors include the coldness of classical ideology that economic transactions between two parties breaking down the relationships in the university to the point of a tion targets is to meet the needs of the down-stream 'customer' on top management and unions to the innovation. Second was the lack of have no impact on anyone else (Kellner 1990). Similarly, a well supplier/producer and consumer relationship. Marketing is important the shopfloor.. Any failure to supply the customer 'just-in-time' time available to the leaders to prepare and organise the meetings. marketed, popular higher educational package may stimulate great here for the producer/supplier has to not only understand the needs of with perfect quality goods is noticed immediately and the Lastly, there were problems with the lack of co-operation from middle consumer demand but it may, in the long run be detrimental to both the consumer but also to assess his/her 0\VIl. ability to meet the implication is that one is letting down one's fellow workers. (1992, and first-line managers. Consequently, while an earlier section ofthis the consumer and the community. consumer's demands. For instance, in adequately researching their p.102) paper has highlighted the favourable attributes of TQM and quality market 'do the secretaries establish what their bosses need - error-free Conti and Warner (1993) are also highly critical of Total Quality circles as part of a new workplace culture embodied in any restructur­ Marketing quality - total quality management typing, clear messages, a tidy office? (1989, p. 5). The quality chain Management, arguing that it is an extension of Scientific Manage­ ing of the education 'industry', it is evident that some labour process The problems discerned in universities of not properly meeting the of TQM in this way requires that employees intemalise the need to ment where all employees become scientific managers searching for scholars are more sceptical. Indeed, comparison has been made needs of the industrial sector and the economy generally, have been provide an assurance of quality at every producer and consumer 'continuous improvement'. While employees in the decentralised between quality circles and Japanese management strategies, such as thought to be solved through a commitment to excellence and quality. interface within the organisation. However Oakland (1989) points out environment exercise some control and autonomy they are responsi­ TQM in general, and earlier fads such as the "job enrichment" This trend can be seen in Australia through the publication of the that this process is best put in place through a teamwork approach. He ble only for operating within the definitions of the central manage­ programs of the 1970s. In this way frequently, a new approach is taken document Higher Education: Achieving Quality (1992). This points argues that when they are properly managed, teams of employees will ment. As well, while TQM has a focus on producers and consumers up without much thought, only to be dropped or allowed to quietly out that while in the corporate world notions like quality assurance, have the ability to solve problems quickly and economical1y. He in the stream of work through the organisation, the supply of high­ disappear when it fails to realize its expectations. stresses that 'Teamwork throughout any organisation is an essential Dunford and McGraw's (1987) research into quality circles at quality audits and quality management have become commonplace, quality products arriving 'just-in~time' revealed in the research component of the implementation of TQM for it builds up trust, Reckitt and Colman's Pharmaceutical Division in Australia seems to they tend to be missing from the management of universities. But the indicates 'conditions consistent with the low variability, non-discre~ improves conununications and develops interdependence' (1989, scene is changing. Some points of view in the document argue that the tionary Taylorist job tasks' (1993, p.39). But to maintain control over substantially support such fears. Initially the company formed eight quest for quality in universities will lead to increased competition, p.236). In this regard structures like 'quality circles can produce shop these decentralised work units Sewell and Wilkinson (1992) argue quality circles. However, after about four years they had collapsed. more sophisticated versions of the 'Good Universities Guide' to floor motivation to achieve quality performance at that level' (1989, that 'management must erect a superstructure of surveillance and Dunford and McGraw suggest that this occurred for a number of facilitate consumer choice, enhanced student mobility and merit pay p. 253). control which enhances visibility and facilitates direct and immediate reasons, First, there was a decline in ideas for new initiatives. Second, This theory of management has been applied to Australian univer­ for outstanding academics (NBEET 1992, p.77). Quality is thus a scrutiny of both individual and collective action' (1992, p.282). Their the pressure of work, especially for engineers, became too great. sities in Warren Piper's Quality Management in Universities (1993). marketing strategy which, through careful marketing research, will research indicates that this superstructure involves the compilation of Third, it was difficult for supervisors and workers to tit in the quality Here Wanen Piper argues that the characteristics outlined above fit construct an image of quality to attract students of the highest progress charts so that individual members of the teams can identify circle meetings. Fourth, the supervisors resigned from the circles in well with the ethos of a university where control is largely standing. Thus it will be the universities with the most sophisticated ways that productivity might be enhanced. Any improvement then because they were uncomfortable in their role. Fifth, there was not internalised by the academics. He points out that' The main incentive Total Quality Management and greatest marketing resources and becomes not only the new standard for production procedure in the enough resources available to meet the demands of the circles. for improvement is an individual's own self~respect. A commitment skills which will attract and only enrol the best students. In this way individual's organisation but is relayed back to the central office to Dunford and McGraw conclude by stressing that a major difficulty to high standards is maintained through the social pressure of working the hierarchy of universities which exists in Australia can only be become the standard for all units under central control. They conclude was that management and employees saw the circles from different with colleagues who are jointly committed to a high quality product reinforced. Webb is also concerned that: that in order that the asymmetry of power between management and perspectives. The demise of the circles was of little concern to or service' (1993, pp.97-98). Throughout this discussion of TQM, management, who had viewed them as a means to generate behav­ Such an approach lacks elements a/social accountability and may employees might be retained, increasingly it is the 'o\V1lership' or quality is set against the marketplace with education being a product, ioural change in the workers. The employees were bitterly disap­ simply reward institutions which, perhaps because of favourable control of the means of surveillance, that enables management to students being external customers and other academics and col­ pointed as they saw the circles as a means whereby genuine change histories offunding and other advantages, can demonstrate that pursue policies which seemingly decentralise responsibilities through leagues being internal customers of an academic's product. As a could be made in their work environment through their involvement they now have high quality policies and procedures in place. No TQM while increasing the power of the delegator (1992, p.282). document or paper is passed along to other colleagues these are seen in the decision making process. element of "affirmative" action, no element of encouragement, is Oliver (1993), working from the theoretical arguments of Child, as customers in the internal university marketplace. Berggren (1989), in a study of these new management approaches involved for institutions which are disadvantaged by their funding, points out that Total Quality Management is highly results orientated. and quality control circles in the Swedish automotive industry, has newness, or other factors but are otherwise efficient and potentially It is a management strategy which links the success or otherwise of an succinctly summed up what many researchers have found. He high quality. (1992, p.12) organisation to the attainment of measurable outputs. After exarnin-

Page 12 Page 13 conciudes from his research, that 'the intentions are not to change the stays and who goes. systems in Japanese manufacturing', New Technology, Work and Em 10 _ hierarchy of authority (but rather to it, especially the first The last point in the preceding paragraph gains even greater National Bo~rd of Employment, Education and Training 1992,Higher Educa­ men!, 8(1), pp 31-42. P Y line supervisors) or encroach on traditional preroga~ strength with the realisation that an aspect of the restmcturing of these tIOn: AchlevUlg QualIty, Canberra, AG?S. tives' (1989, p,190). Finally, it should be clear that implementa- so-called Post-Fordist internal labour markets is their polarisation Co'."'an, R. 1985, 'How the refrigerator got its hum', in D. Mackenzie and J. Oakland, J. 1989 , Total Quality Management, Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann. (see Watkins 1989). For instance, in a recent study of the effects of W~lcma.n (eds) The Social Shaping of Technology, Milton Keynes, Open tion of managerial 'best , be they Total Quality Manage- Umverslty Press. Oli~er, .N. 1993, 'Quality, Costs and Changing Strategies of Control in ment, quality circles or employee involvement groups, is not technology and privatisation on British Telecom, Clark (1991) found ~2~lverslties in the UK' ,Journal ofEducational Administration, 31(1), pp 41- unprob1ematic. a decided polarisation of the workforce. His research concluded that Dale, E. 1956, 'Contributions to Administration by Alfred P. Sloan Jr and GM,' Administrative Science Quarterly, June, pp 30-62 . there had been a pronounced polarisation in maintenance work tasks, Panitch, L 1987, 'Capital Restructuring and Labour Strategies' Studie<; jll Conclusion jobs, careers, and in the distribution of skills, between the junior and Dale, B. ~nd Haywood, S. t 984, "Quality Circle Failures in UK Manufacturing Political Economy, (24), pp 131-49. ' . senior technicians (1991 p.142). A similar scenario seems to be Comparues- A Study", Omega,12(5), pp 475-484. This paper has explored the links between the market, strategies Par~er, M. and Slaughter, J. 1988, 'Management by Stress', Technology such as co-ordinated decentralisation, Total Quality Management and falling into place in the teaching labour market of the university Deakin News, 1993, 'Lecturers Work Their Way Through Industry', Deakin ReVIew, (91), pp 36-44. faculties. Here a core of fairly highly paid senior academics seems to News, (3), May, p 3. the changes to the administration of higher education. In reflecting on Perrow, C. 1986, Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay New York those links, it is wise to recall Cole's (1989) argument that 'Japanese coexist with a periphery of more poorly paid contract and sessional Delb~dge, R, Turnbull, P. and Wilkinson, B. 1992, 'Pushing Back the Random House. ' , managers have achieved a more thorough-going implementation of staff who give the university administration greater numerical flex­ Frontlers: management control and work intensification under JITffQM factory regimes', New Technology, Work and Employment, 7(2), pp 97-106. PoU~rt, A. 1991, "The Orthodoxy of Flexibility", inPol1ert, A.{ ed)Fareweli to scientific management to an extent that its founder, Frederick Taylor, ibility. FleXIbility?, Blackwell, Oxford. could not even have imagined' (1989 p.23). Pollert (1991) has The movement toward universities being captured by a market Dra.che, D. and Gertler, M. 1991, The New Era ofGlobal Competition: State philosophy and even their internal organisation being driven by the Policy and Market Power, Montreal, McGill-Queens University Press. R~nehart, J. 1984, "Appropriating Workers' Knowledge: Quality Control recently endorsed such sentiments, arguing that work teams, similar Circles at a General Motors Plant",Studies in Political Economy 14 Summer to those of the Japanese, operate on the basis of the satisfactory producer and consumer basis of market relationships through work Drucker, P. 1954, Practice ofManagement, London, Pan. pp 75-97. " , internalisation of Taylor's principles. Accordingly, the teams incor­ teams is not without concern. Waring (1989) claims that the new Drucker, P. 1946, Concept of the Corporation, New York, The John Day Sayer, A 1988, 'New Developments in Manufacturing: the just in time management 'best practices' outlined in this paper have never devi­ Company. porate aspects of competitive individualism which are reinforced by system', Capital and Class, (30), pp 43-72. close supervision and strict appraisal (l991 p.2I). In examining the ated significantly from the philosophy of Taylorism. Attempts to Dunford, R & McGraw, P. 1988, 'Quality Circles in the Manufacturing Sewell,? Wilkinson, B. 1992, '''Someone to Watch Over Me"; debate over current 'best practices' and Japanese approaches to decentralise responsibilities, to introduce TQM and quality circles, ~~ Surveil~ Industry'? in Willis, E.(ed)TechnologyandtheLabour Process, Sydney Allen lance, Dlsclpline and the Just-In-Time Labour Process' SOciology 26(2) pp management, this paper has but merely scratched the surface of a have been attempts to engineer harmony in the workplace. Through and Unwtn. ' 271-289. ' " range of perspectives associated with TQM, quality circles and other these strategies central management have sought 'participative man­ KeUner, P. 1990, 'The Limits to Markets', Policy Studies, 11(4), pp14~21. agement rather than participative democracy' (Waring 1989, p.2Dl). Simmons, J .. and Kahn, S. 1990, "Quality Circles in Higher Education: A management strategies. It would appear from the research that any Kemp, D. 1993, , World Class Schools, Universities and Training ',F(ghtbackl Survey of MISmanagement", CUPA Journal, Fan, pp 29-34. changes in higher educational administration which follow the cur­ The implementation of market relationships, coupled to an ideol­ Supplementary Paper No.4, Liberal Party of Australia. . rent decentralised model may be of more immediate benefit to ogy of 'continuous improvement' in TQM is part of the contemporary Sloan, A. 1964, My Years with General Motors, New York, Doubleday. Langford, J. 199t, 'Secrecy, Partnership and the Ownership of Knowledge in construction of employees who contribute to their own intensification ~aring, S. 1991, Ta;:!orism Tr~nsfo:med: Scientific Management Theory management in the individualisation of the workforce and the appro­ the University', Intellectual Property Journal, June, pp 155-169. priation of its knowledge. of work and increased surveillance. Parker and Slaughter (1988) have Smce 1945, Chapel Hill, The Umverslty of North Carolina Press. Lenmark-Ellis, B. 1988, "Japanese Quality Circles in the Classroom" Mo- labelled these management strategies as 'management by stress'. In Warren Piper, D. 1993, Quality Management in Universities, Vol One Can- While there may be a pretext toward decentralisation into smaller mentum,19(2), pp 32-34. ' organisational units, there still exists a strong power relationship of the quest to eliminate 'waste', employees in organisations using these berra, AGPS. ' Levin, H. 1991, 'The Economics of Educational Choice' Economics of strategies, are always under pressure to. incorporate continuous im­ Watk.ins, P. 1989 ,Knowledge and Control in the Flexible Workplace Geelong dependency between the central and small units within the university. EdUcation Review, 11(2), pp 137~158. ' This dependency can be aptly illustrated by the financial and power provement into their work. They suggest that no matter how profi­ Deakin University Press. ' , Loton,. B. 199 t, 'Education and Australia's Economic Future'. Business relationships which exist within the existing university structure. The ciently an employee carries out their work 'there is no such thing as Webb, L. 1992, 'Rewards for Quality in Higher Education: Some Alternative Council Bulletin, June, pp 12-15. funding of teaching and research activities, the funding of support a comfortable pace. There is always room for kaizen or continuous VIewpoints', Journal of Higher Education, l6(1), pp 11-12. infrastructure, the recruitment of staff and the intake of students are improvement' (Parker and Slaughter 1988, pAD). Thus both the Margi~so~, S. 1993, ' Fro~ Cloister to Market: the New Era in Higher Webster, F. and Robins, K. 1986, Information Technology, Norwood, New all dependent on the decisions of senior management within the system and the person are placed under stress so that weak links in the Education, Journal ofTertJary Education Administration, 15(1), pp 43* 64. Jersey, Ab!ex. university. Moreover, as has been argued above, control is output organisation might become visible more easily and the problem more Nader, R. 1972, Unsafe at Any Speed; the designed in dangers ofthe American based within a market framework where management has to be seen quickly rectified. Through this process a high productivity may be Automobile, New York, Grossman. as entrepreneurial (Marginson 1993). generated which would allow the decentralised academic units to In general Post-Fordist terms, there can be said to exist a relation~ respond rapidly to the ongoing fluctuations of the market But in this ship of vertical dependence between the two layers of administration. situation, it would appear that academics in universities would find In this vertical dependence the smaller unit of the faculty or school that notions such as patiicipation, collegiality and autonomy would be acts as a shock absorber in deflecting major local social, fiscal and stripped of their meaningful characteristics. industrial crises away from the centre. Accordingly, for instance, in periods of fiscal cut-backs, blame and staff hostility is focused on the References stringent conditions imposed by the down-line operational adminis­ Berggren, C. 1989, "'New Production concepts' in final assembly - The trators in responding to the crisis. "Ole major body remains insulated Swedish experience", in S. Wood (ed) The Transformation ofWork? ,London, from any anger cut-backs might engender. Thus, for its part, the Unwin Hyman. central unit of the university otlers financial, administrative and Braverman, H. 1974, Labor and Monopoly Capital, New York, Monthly legislative resources and enticements in return for the smaller admin­ Review Press. istrative units absorbing much of the stress emanating from crises Buchbinder, H. and Newson, 1. 1990, 'Corporate-university linkages in such as faculty debt. Canada: transforming a public institution', Higher Education, 20( 4), pp 355~ Dependency also occurs at the micro level with employees left very 379. much dependent on the paternal/maternal goodwill of senior admin­ Buchbinder, H. and Newson, J. 1991, 'Socia! Knowledge and Market Knowl­ istrators. In terms of the decentralisation of management in universi­ edge: Universities in the Information Age', Gannett Center Journal, 5(2/3), ties, academics will be greatly dependent on the way the dean or head ppt7-29. of school decides to distribute the bulk funding coming down from the Casson, H. 1911, Ads and Sales: A Study ofAdvertising and Selling from the central body. The dean or head of school may feel a need to promote Standpoint (~rthe New Principles ofScientific Management, Chicago, McClug certain programs, for instance, cOllUllercial law, by recruiting more &Co. staff in that area or providing greater promotion opportunities than Clark, J. 1991, 'Skill Changes in Maintenance Work in British Telecom: an academics in other areas. Again, the dean may have a special project alternative view', New Technology. Work and Employment, 6, ppI38-143. that has to be funded out of the bulk grant. One solution, often Codd, J. ]993, 'Managerialism and the Move to Self-Managing Schools in promoted to cater for such needs, is the appointment of more junior New Zealand', in J. Smyth (ed),A Socially Critical View afthe Self-Managing contract staff, who are cheaper than the older, more senior academics School, London, Falmer. who are then ignored when any vacancies arise. Similarly, with any Cole, R. 1989, Strategies for Learning, Berkeley, University of California reduction in the bulk funding, the teaching staff in the decentralised Press. faculty or school become dependent on the head to decide on who Conti, R. and Warner, M. 1993, 'Taylorism, new technology andjust-in-time

Page !4 Page 15 -~-

human creativity and difference. Its commitment to growth and the of universalism, impartiality and neutrality masked its colonialist expansion of a capitalist world market is unequivoca1. Its definition complicity. of 'progress' is absolute, predicated on a linear universalist concep­ Some of the contradictions inherent in this 'aid perspective' had tion of history. In a manner similar to Beck, Featherstone (1990 p.6) already become apparent in the 19705. For one thing, it was argued Education, markets and the contradictions has argued that modernisation refers to a stage of social development that the needs of Asian students were not fully met by a Eurocentric which is based on 'industrialisation, the growth of science and curriculum. There were claims that Australian education contributed technology, the modern nation state, the capitalist world market, to a 'brain drain' of the skills most required in the developing urbanisation and other infrastructural elements'. countries. The aid programs also led to the creation of an elite: they Asia-Australia relations Both Beck and Featherstone suggest that, within the so~called contributed more to individual advancement rather than to any 'developed' nations, modernisation has been achieved through the collective good. At the same time, a number of Asian economies were Don """'''Hun Rizvi use of various ideological techniques of management to ensure producing remarkable levels of economic groMh, almost inversely The UniversityofQueensiand greater control over social relations. In Third World countries, this proportional to the fiscal decline Australia was experiencing. The control has involved forms of colonisation, moving from what Jan arguments concerning those countries still being classified as 'devel­ Mohammad (1985, p.61) has referred to as its 'dominant' phase to its oping' in some respects were wearing thin. Introduction neutraL It is centrally implicated in issues concerning not only the 'hegemonic' phase which utilises a form of humanism to ensure It was in the context of these debates that the Commonwealth Over the past six years, the Commonwealth Government has manner in which higher education is funded and organised but more ideological SUbjugation of the colonised people. The rhetoric of Government introduced, in 1979, an Overseas Students Charge set at actively encouraged Australian universities to 'market' educational widely with the way ethnic relations within Australia, and regional 'development' is a good example of this humanism. one-third of course costs. This move did not however eliminate the services overseas. In a deregulatory political climate, most universi­ relations outside it, are structured. Yet most analyses of the policy Just as the processes of modernisation are contradictory, so too are demand for a more comprehensive examination of the issues, which ties have seized the opportunities provided by this policy change, have focussed on the economic aspects, especially on the patterns of the practices of colonisation. These contradictory practices implicit in was eventually provided by two major reports published in 1984. In costs and benefits and marketing strategies (see for example, Harris viewing the export of educational services as one way of overcoming Beck's idea of reflexive modernity point to the emergence of new a political climate increasingly dominated by rationalist ideas and by & Jarratt 1990). What has often been overlooked is the fact that, in an some of the fiscal problems they confront. Their entrepreneurial social expressions with their own disparate organising principles. No a concern about the deteriorating balance of payment figures, the area as complex as this, economic issues cannot be so easily separated efforts have been extensive, focussed largely on attracting full fee­ longer is colonialism so explicit. It now involves both an aspiration Goldring and Jackson Reports adopted very different stances toward paying overseas students, but also in selling information technologies from political and cultural concerns. to postcoloniality as well as a tacit support for the hegemonic issues relating to overseas students in Australian universities. Resist­ and consultancy services. Together, these initiatives have become The analyses that have actually focussed on non-economic issues practices of control and exploitation of the colonised. ing emerging ideas about 'user pays', the Goldring Report rejected the widely knovvn as the 'export of educational services' policy, governed have mostly been about the various adjustment problems overseas Many of the claims applicable to modernism apply also to coloni­ Niew that education was a commodity and could be commercially by a series of Federal Acts, a recent example of which is the students experience in Australian universities (see, for example, alism. Ifmodernism was about a linear 'structuring' of social life then developed. It recommended that the overseas students' policy con­ Ballard 1987). But these analyses, too, often overlook issues concern­ Educational Services for Overseas Students (Registration and Provid­ we are now witnessing a 'restructuring' of every aspect of social life tinue to be informed by considerations of aid. The Jackson Report, on ing cultural formation and pedagogic relations. More seriously, they ers and Financial Regulation) Act 1991. in directions that remain unclear and uncertain. Many of the practices the other hand, adopted a much more pragmatic approach. It saw As a result of the policy, the total number of overseas students in often assume an assimilationist perspective which seeks to suppress of modernism have become distorted. Lash and Urry (1987) refer to education as continuing to play a central role in the economic Australian universities has increased from 17,248 in 1987 to 39,490 cultural differences. The changes required are presumed to be those this phenomenon as a shift from organised capitalism to disorganised development of developing countries, but argued that educational aid that the students must make rather than those required of the institu­ in 1992, with full-fee paying overseas student numbers increasing in capitalism. We now live in a political culture in which there is an needed to be much more strategically focussed in terms of both equity the same period from 1,019 to 30,296 (National Report on Australian tional practices and structures. This reinforces the ideological prac­ unprecedented amount of uncertainty in civic life. Colonial practices and need. It insisted that an effective policy required aid to be targeted Higher Education Sector 1993, p. 60). Of the full-fee paying shldents, tices of colonialism that define the manner in which most Australians are similarly uncertain and ambivalent, linked to earlier practices in by country, sector and instrument of delivery, and that such aid was continue to view' Asia' and' Asians' . 7,024 are from Hong Kong, 7833 from Malaysia and 4,392 from a variety of complex ways. New forms of distortions and contradic­ inappropriate for many Asian countries. It therefore saw no conflict Singapore. Students from Asian countries thus represent almost 70 This paper seeks to raise a number of broader issues concerning the tions are continuously emerging, and it is in terms of these that the with an expanded and more explicit program in tertiary educational cultural politics of the export of educational services policy. In per cent of the full-fee paying student population in Australian export of educational services policy must be understood. ~id, alongside a market-based export program of educational serv­ particular, it examines the tension that now exists between the universities. Ices. This increase in full-fee paying students from Asian countries has persistent 'development' view (Fagerlind & Saha 1989) of the provi­ Marketing education to Asia Indeed, the Jackson Report was effusive about education's poten­ sion of education to overseas students and an emerging market occurred within a wider context of changes to the political rhetoric Students from Asia have attended Australian universities since at tial as a major source of income, not only for the cash-strapped about the need for Australia "to become a part of Asia", to forge a new ideology which sees education as a commodity. It explores the least 1950 when the Columbo Plan was established. Even during the universities, but also for the nation as a whole. It viewed education 'as regional identity, and to become less Eurocentric and more sensitive manner in which this tension is reflected in the debates concerning the days of the White Australia Policy, officially abolished only in 1973, a significant new industry for Australia'. In an emerging political to Asian cultures. The Gamaut Report (1990) suggests, for example, formations of knowledge and curriculum in a cultural context widely Australia welcomed students from Asia, but viewed their education culture dominated by market ideologies, economic rationalism and that Australia's economic links within the region require new cultural referred to as 'postcolonial' (Turner 1993). Such a context is charac­ mostly in terms of a policy of aid. Education was seen to contribute the corporate discourse of efficiency and effectiveness, it was hardly relationships with its Asian neighbours. Exactly how this emphasis terised by a number of unforeseen consequences of modernity and the to the development of a technological and administrative elite in surprising that the Government preferred the Jackson analysis of the on cultural exchange is !inked to the marketing practices of Australian historical contradictions of Asia-Australia relations. selected Asian countries. The Columbo Plan was also designed to issues relating to overseas students over the Goldring recommenda­ higher education is a complex issue, involving a range of social, promote greater cooperation among Commonwealth countries. It tions. With the publication of the Green Paper on Higher Education economic, political and industrial concerns. Reflexive modernity remained therefore an arm of Australia's diplomatic policy. As in 1987, the idea that education could be viewed as a major export For Australian universities, the policy of the export of educational The idea of unforeseen consequences arising from modernisation is Cieverly and Jones (1976, p.23) point out, Australia's educational aid industry became institutionalised. The abolition of the binary system services has brought a number of new challenges. Universities now a notion central to Beck's (1992) concept of 'reflexive modernity'. was considered 'in the framework of our total foreign aid program also created a new competitive environment which encouraged Aus­ have to work in a competitive environment which has undermined Beck argues that many of the social projects begun under the banner which remains locked in the context of foreign affairs policy, its ends tralian universities to become much more commercially-minded in some of their traditional educational values, They are now confronted of 'modernisation' had consequences which could not have been being evaluated primarily in political and diplomatic terms'. search of the export dollar. Almost every Australian university has with some serious questions about the changes they need to make in predicted at the time of their beginnings. He describes modernisation Not surprisingly, therefore, educational aid had an instrumental now directed its glance towards the fast growing economies of many response to not only the new market-orientated policy environment as surges of 'technological rationalisation and changes in work and self- interested purpose: it was an ethnocentric strategy for Australia Asian countries. but also the new demographics on the campuses. In administrative organisation'. As visible indicators, Beck cites the examples of the to ensure political stability in the region It was framed within a Marketing has become the dominant metaphor for discussing tenus, the export of educational services policy has created pressures steam locomotive and the microchip, and the way they have served to colonialist ideology based on a range of universalist western assump­ issues concerning overseas students in Australian universities, re­ towards a more comprehensive deregulation of higher education, with structure socia! life. Modernisation is a process 'which comprises and tions concerning the educational needs and interests of the 'develop­ placing a philanthropic language that once defined the earlier educa­ universities now required to engage in a range of market practices. In shapes the entire social structure' (Beck 1992, p.SO). Many instances ing' countries in the Asia-Pacific region. These assumptions were tional aid programs. Today, most overseas students pay full fees, curriculum terms, the policy has major implications for the manner in of modernisation, introduced with benevolent intent, can now be predicated upon a modernist concept of 'progress', which contained ranging from the cheapest yearly fee 0[$7,000 (Arts Degree, Univer­ which universities deal with issues concerning the changing character shown to have had negative consequences. Technological develop­ many of the contradictions endemic in Asian-Australian relations. sity of Southern Queensland) to around $30,000 (Veterinary Sciences of Australian perceptions of 'Asia', and of Australia's regional ment, for example, has brought a wealth of material goods to the Australian motivations for providing educational aid to students from Degree, Murdoch University). The business of se11ing tertiary educa­ identity. industrialised nations, yet it has also induced a reduction in employ­ Asian countries were based on an anxiety. On the one hand, they tion to Asia has become enormous. Over two years ago, its estimated It would be true to claim, however, that the response of Australian ment, an increased unpredictability of employment, a demise in job espoused sentiments that were altruistic, recognising the need to contribution to Australia's Gross national Product was $1.4 billion universities to these issues has been a limited one. Vv'hile every major satisfaction and widespread social alienation. ameliorate regional inequalities. But, on the other hand, they ex­ (Centre for International Economics, 1991, p.59). The current university has found it necessary to establish an International Educa­ Beck points out that modernisation has not only provided innova­ pressed a range of racist and xenophobic views most Australians held contribution is much greater, and starry-eyed marketeers see more tion Office, this administrative initiative has been concerned largely tion and affluence, it has also been instrumental in bringing about about Asia, exemplified most clearly in the popular expressions about growth in the future. with wmmercial rewards. Issues of curriculum and pedagogy have greater social security. Social institutions inspired by modernisation the 'yellow peril'. Given the modernist certainties of the 'aid perspec­ At the same time, however, educational aid programs have not not been seriously addressed. have predictable structures in most enterprises from art to education. tive', education offered to Asian students made no concessions to disappeared. The number of students who are either subsidised or Yet, the export of educational services policy is not culturally At the same time, however, modernisation tends to be dismissive of cultural difference. It remained largely Eurocentric. Its assumptions sponsored has not declined dramatically and continues to represent

Page 16 Page 17 between the First and Third World. Many Asian countries in the concerns. We have already Doted how the treatrnent of education as around 25% of the total overseas student population (National Report Postcolonialism alld Asia-Australia relations region can no longer be called 'Third World', even though they share a globalised commodity has encroached upon of discrete on Australia's Higher Education Sector 1993, p,60). Exactly how this Australia's relationship with its Asian neighbours has always a colonial history. Likewise, the term 'First World' applies only cultures which were once differentiated by traditions and aid program relates to the now dominant emphasis on trade is an. issue involved a major contradiction. Australia is a nation whose founda­ ambivalently to Australia. The relations between various Asian activities. Markets are no longer linked exclusively to loca! cultural that remains problematic. On this issue, the Jackson Report IS not tion involved an unjust act by an imperial power; and as a number of countries and Australia are changing rapidly, but not in any uniform concems but respond to global requirements. And, in so far as the helpful. It seems to assume that the same educational content is historians have pointed out, Australians have always been conscious way. Tbus, the totalising talk that constitutes popular representations export of educational services policy treats education as a global applicable to all students, no matter what their specific requirements. of their status as a European colony, subjected to similar forms of of 'Asia' is indeed misleading. commodity, it risks compromising local knowledge and community Indeed, this is an assumption which lies at the heart ofthe ideological controls and cultural oppression as other colonies in Asia and Africa. What needs to be recognised is that there is in Said's work an values that had -once been regarded as central to the processes of discourse of marketing in education. Education is assumed to be a And yet in defining itself as an outpost of Britain, Australia has al~o untenable dualism between 'West' and 'East'. Homi Bhabha (1983) education. commodity which is neutral with respect to particular cultural or been complicit with a colonialist enterprise with respect to ~ts has argued that the problem of ambivalence between universalism and As McCracken (1990) has argued, international marketing of political interests. . . relations with Asian countries. Australia itself has been a colomal particularism lies at the heart ofpostcoloniality. He has suggested that cultural products has a range of invidious consequences. When The implications of this ideological dIscourse for developments III power in the region, implicated in subverting the national aspirations postcolonialism is not a single homogenising discourse, but is consti­ practices acquire international characteristics, they inevitably under­ Australian higher education have been widely noted. It has been of a number of Asian countries. However, it now finds itself tuted by a polarity of positions, which involve both the exercise of mine local traditions and practices. Many of the distinctions which acknowledged, for example, that 'the effect of encouraging educati~n attempting to forge a new relationship with Asia, one in which hegemonic power as well as of fantasy and fear of the Other. typify nations and cultures still prevail, but they acquire a major rival to be a trade oriented sector ... places pressures on the domestic Australia is keen to denounce imperialism and racism, and also the According to Homi Bhabha, postcolonialism cannot be regarded as a in the form of globalisation, which has a tendency to standardise many education sector to become customer- oriented, competitive and political residues of its former White Australia Policy. . static, monolithic and hegemonic project, but a discourse that is attitudes and behaviours throughout the world (Robertson 1992). For efficient' (Centre for International Economics 1991, p.59). The The contradictions generated by these historical processes have III constituted ambivalently. It does not have a single originating inten­ example, materialism as an attitude towards measuring success is alleged market successes in Asia have led the Vice-Chancellors t.o recent years been identified as 'postcolonialism'. Ashcroft, Griffi~h tion; rather, it is marked by a profound ambivalence towards 'Otherness, now found globally, and teenage behaviours in the shopping malls suggest that Australian students should also have similar opportun~­ and Tiffin (1989) provide a working definition for understanding thIS which is at once an object of desire and derision' (Homi Bhabha 1983a throughout the world are becoming remarkably similar. ties to enrol as full-fee paying students. We say 'alleged' because It complex phenomenon. They use the term 'postcolonial' to 'cover all p.19). And as Young (1990 p. 142) argues, this equivocation suggests This globalisation means that Australian universities feel perfectly is still not clear whether all universities are able to secure the kind of the culture affected by the imperial processes from the moment of that both the colonial and postcolonial discourses are founded on an justified in providing the same range of subjects to a!1 students. They financial gains the export of educational services policy often prom­ colonisation to the present day. This is because there is a continuity anxiety, and are continuous with each other. Power is always subject also regard teaching styles to be neutral with respect to particular ises. For the fees charged by universities vary greatly, with smaller of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by to the effects of new cultural economies developed within the existing cultural backgrounds. This assumption of neutrality, however, con­ less financially secure institutions barely able to cover the institu­ European imperial aggression'. Postcolonialism thus represents an frameworks. Postcolonialist discourse is thus constantly changing as flicts with what we now know of the processes of pedagogy and tional costs of teaching, marketing and student support. A 'weeding ideological project which seeks to reconcile historical contradictions people encounter a new dialectic between power and powerlessness, curriculum. Feminist scholars have, for example, sho\¥Tl curriculum out' may occur among providers, brought about by the ideologies they brought about by the rejection of colonialism with a reassertion of new patterns of resistances and social formations, and new economic to be gendered in ways that are not arbitrary. Similarly, the literature all appear to endorse. hegemonic dominance over Third World countries through means orders. on multiculturalism has suggested that curnculum needs to incorpo­ The competition among Australian universities for overseas stu­ which are much more covert and express newer forms of representa­ In our view, the notions of ambivalence and contradiction are very rate a concern for cultural diversity. However, despite these pressures dents has become intense. In the case of some smaller regional tion. The means now utilised include a range of globalised informa- helpful in exploring contemporary Australian representations of Asia, the Australian higher education curriculum has remained highly universities, the expansion of the export of education is seen as vital tion technologies to construct images of a univ~rsal culture. . as expressed both in popular discourse and in the language of durable. And while it has accommodated a greater emphasis on the to growth and financial security. Not surprisingly, therefore, some An earlier period of colonialism has been descnbed by Edward S~ld marketing education to Asia. While such representations show a teaching of Asian languages, it has continued to be largely ethnocen­ very cavalier marketing practices have developed that display no (1985) as 'orientalist'. For Said, orientalism is a hegemonic devIce degree of continuity with the earlier explicitly colonialist images of tric. awareness, or are dismissive, of the cultural sensitivities relevant to by which the West understands the East, though the manner in which Asia, they are also discontinuous, and searching for new settlements. Universities have not been eager to examine their curriculum for particular traditions. As The Australian has observed: 'it is time we the East is discursively described, explained, managed and controlled What we have witnessed over the past decade in Australia are the cultural biases it might contain. Those universities which have accepted that the Australian higher education industry is widely varies considerably. Said (1978) maintains that in order to understand expressions of a postcolonial discourse, which trade on their indeter­ looked at these issues have treated cultural difference as a fact to be perceived as mercenary in attitude, poorly organised and of dubious how the West has constructed knowledge about other cultures, we minacy. These expressions recognise Asia as inextricably linked to taken into account but not as constitutive of curricular and pedagogic quality' (12 May 1993, p.14). And while the coordinating work ofthe must begin with the question of representation, of how the orient has our economic and political objectives, but they are unable to secure relations. They have often assumed a position of neutrality in the International Development Program (IDP) has clearly been important been constituted through a set of discursive practices. Using Foucault's sufficient distance from the past racial stereotyping that involved formation of Asia-Australia relations, as somehow external to the in curtailing excesses, its dominant marketing ideology implies that (1972) insights about the complicity of forms of knowledge with viewing Asians as a homogenised mass who posed a constant threat more general processes of cultural articulation. What is dear then, is its control over particular practices cannot be absolute. institutions of power, Said argues that any body of knowledge and to Australia's national identity, and to its economic well-being. that new market-based approaches to overseas students, have so far What is evident is that the language in which marketing practices beliefs made manifest in scholarly texts as well as in the web of The representations of Asia have become ever more complex, not had any significant impact on the way universities consider issues are couched is predominantly economic, and largely divorced from popula~ culture, constitutes a discourse that can be analysed in tenns ambiguous and contradictory, as more Australians travel to Asian of curriculum and pedagogy. cultural and educational concerns. Consider, for example, what the of style, figures of speech, recurrent themes, and narra~ive. de~ices. countries, trade with them and learn Asian languages. The economic In view of these observations, the question arises as to why students chair of the IDP, Professor Mal Logan, said recently: ' .. .1 am very The orientalist discourse, as it has been developed and mstttuhonal­ context has also changed, with Japan emerging as an economic giant, from Asia are still willing to continue to "purchase" Australian keen to keep it (IDP) private, a private company where we are judged ised unmistakably betrays a will to cultural hegemony and repres­ and with the Australian economy becoming increasingly tied to the education in such large numbers. The answer to this question is on performance. We're fully owned by the AVCC (Australian Vice sion~ The grammar of orientalism corresponds to a system of ideas region. During (1992) hasshovm how the expressionsofpostcoloniality complex and suggests a variety of factors. Some of these factors Chancellors' Committee), we report regularly to the shareholders that structures epistemic authority in such a fashion as to dominate are inextricably tied to the phenomenon of the globalisation of include: the lack of opportunities in home countries; the desire to (universities), and that's the way a company should operate' (The Age, and appropriate the orient as 'the Other'. economic markets. The point is particulaily relevant to the export of study overseas; the promixity to Asian countries; the fact that 27 April 1993, p.20). Aside from the obvious point that competition To what extent then does the Orientalism argument apply to educational services policy which assumes education to be a globalised Australian universities are still not as expensive as North American among universities occurs through the use of public money, what this Australian representations of Asia? Social theorists writing. on commodity, a package of knowledge and skills recognisable in the and European universities; and perhaps even the persistence of statement reveals is the assumption, now widely held, that there is no Australia-Asia relations remain divided on the applicability of SaId's market as a product for sale. How this package is assembled and hegemonic colonial thinking among some Asian parents. Many qualitative difference between educational administration and the general thesis to Australian representations of Asia. When his b~ok marketed by Australian universities, and why it is bought, is an issue students who study in Australian universities recognise curriculum management of other business activities. Education is a product to be was published more than a decade ago, Asia~ Studi~s. Review camed that ties at the centre of our inquiry. here to be incongruent with their own cultural traditions, but choose marketed in much the same way as other products are marketed. a number of articles which debated Said, takmg pOSItions that ranged to overlook the biases in favour of the attraction of receiving an What this belief obscures is the fact that education is a cultural from total agreement to total rejection, marked by a defensive logic Education liS a globalised commodity education that masks itself as global. activity which, in the context of international education, does not only intended to protect traditional disciplinary boundaries within the That education in most countries is now dominated by a market­ At the heart of the export of educational services policy is a major express Australia's historical relations with its Asian neighbours, but academy. The debate is far from settled, and, in many ways, contem­ driven discourse is an idea that is widely recognised. In Asian contradiction. Education is increasingly viewed by both the students also defines the possibilities of Australia's desired integration into porary explorations of 'postcolonialism' can be said to have been countries, there are now a number of players seeking to attract the from Asia and Austra!ian universities as global, yet we know the Asia. The way Australian universities market education, the way they inspired by Said's work. ..' same group of students. What they are offering howe;ver is remark­ Australian curriculum to be ethnocentric. Individual students view cater for cultural differences, and the way they organise their curricu­ There is much about Australian representatlons of ASIa, and III ably similar, with each making references to the imperatives of a their needs in global tenns, yet we are witnessing in many Asian lum and pedagogy are matters that help to define the cultural markers particular those which were current before the Second World War, global market. In this way, the notion of the 'market' has become countries a resurgence of new forms of nationalism, and a confidence of the complex politics of Asia-Australia relations. Too often the that can aptly be called orientalist. Before the War, most of these reified, providing a common medium for those wanting to exchange that is an outcome of both their economic progress and their postcolonial marketing of education to Asia is assumed to be merely about representations were grounded in a colonia.l discourse inherit~d from goods and services. Such reification has a number of serious implica­ aspirations. In such a context, Australia may not be able to enjoy its marketing strategies and support services, such as counselling, lan­ Britain at the height of its power. AustralIa was aptly descnbed by tions for education. current advantage unless its highe; education takes drastic steps. Not guage assistance and accommodation. But export of education policy Humphrey McQueen (1986) as a 'New Britannia'. Alison Broinowski Most significantly, the reification of markets creates pressures for only does it need to examine its marketing practices, but it also needs is much more than this, and needs to be understood within the wider (1992) has argued that the contemporary discourse about Asia is .at the creation of unifonn products for consumption. When education is to express a concern for cultural sensitivities within its curriculum and historical context of the changing character of the contradictions of best 'neo-orientalist', since it continues to express its colonialist viewed in much the same way as a McDonalds' hamburger, it runs the teaching methods. Asia-Australia relations. origins. At the same time, the orientalist thesis has been shown to.be risk of becoming standardised, divorced from particular cultural based on a too hegemonic and detenninistic a view of the relatIOn

Page 19 Page 18 -

Cleverly, J. and Jones, P. 1976, Australia alld lntenwtional.f:·ducation: Some Critical Issues, Melbourne, ACE£{. In this paper, we have argued that the export of educational services is a site where many of the cultural contradictions of DEBT, National Report on Australia's Higher Education ,)'ectOT, Canbcn-a, of culture and globa1isation, of education and the AGPS. marke'l ideology, of educational aid and trade, and residual and During, s. 1992, "Postcolonialism and Globalisation",Meanjin, 51 (2) pp.339- edutainment: Restructuring emergent representations of Asia are played out. It is.a site central to 353. tbe reconstruction of Australia's relationship with ASIa and to the re­ Fagerlind, 1.& Saha, LJ. 1989,Educatioll and National Development, Oxford, formation of an Austra!ian identity in and through education. Pergamon Press. the Open Learning Initiative Reflexive modernity and postcoionialism, together, provide a Featherstone, M. 1990 (ed.), Global Culture, Nationalism and Modernity, theoretical explanation for Australia's current position on selling London, Sage. Chris Bigllm, "mUM) Fit,d"rer Kenway in association with education to overseas students. Basically, conditions have changed, Foucault, M. 1972, The Archeology of Knowledge, London, Tavlstock. but Australia still seeks a position of dominance in the Asian region. Gamaut Report 1989, Australia and the Northeast Asiun Ascendancy, Can­ The lingering colonialist quest for suzerainty over neighbouring berra, AGPS. countries, especially where racial distinctions prevail, remains influ­ Goldring Report 1984, Mutual Advantage, Canberra, AGPS. form itse{fJor adoption to new contexts (Evans and Nation 1989, ential in Australian policies toward Asian relations, but the rising Introductioll Harris, G. & Jarrett F.G. 1990,Educating Overseas Students in Asia, Sydney, In 1992, the appearance of the TV Open Learning Project (TVOLP) p.7). prominence of economic concerns is distorting the direction of these Allen and Unwin. rdations.. As Australia's once robust and relatively independent on the higher education landscape signalled that changed economic, The use of a biological metaphor should act as a warning to the Homi Bhabha 1983, "Difference, Discrimination and the Discourse of Colo­ economy declines, and the economies of many Asian countries grow, technological and political circumstances in Australia were to have reader. Such metaphors are often used when a more developed or nialism", Baker, F. et a!., The Politics of Theory, Colchester, University of the realities of globalised economy will require more collaboration effect in something as sheltered as tertiary education. What began as elaborated cultural analysis is not available. What inevitab1y occurs a Essex. and cooperation among trading partners. This, in tum, will generate a sma!! project to trial the use of broadcast television was transformed with analyses which are derived from nature-based assumptions is an Homi Bhabha 1983a, "The Other Question", Screen, 24(6) pp. 18-35. Dew perceptions of Asia, not as a totalised entity, but as a geographical in six months I to a much expanded Open Learning Initiative (OLI). effective screening from view of the complex forms of social interac­ region vrith cultural, political and economic differences, Jackson Report 1984,Report o/the Committee to Review Australia's Overseas These initiatives typify Canberra's recent approaches to tertiary tions associated with change (see Fitzclarence 1993). The ethnocentric conception of the curriculum in Australia's Aid Program, Canberra, AGPS. education reform: high speed policy making and implementation, and The following analysis will, as noted above, foreground cultural tertiary institutions is remarkable for its durability. It has gone largely Jan Mohammad, A. 1985, "The Economy of Manichean Allegory: The an unswerving belief in the need for technology-based, microeco~ change as the basis for an adequate interpretation of the OLI develop­ unchallenged by both those who provide and those who partake. Function of Racial Difference in Colonial Literature", Critical Inquiry, 12(1) nomic reform. The interpretations of these developments have been ·ments, In doing so a particular form of cultural analysis wil1 be pp.61-7. Rising economic strengths and the cultural confidence ~isible in limited, local and predictabie, reflecting the interests and agendas of employed, one that offers a critique ofthe 'ideology of instrumentalism' Asian countries are putting new demands on the productlOn, con­ Lash, S. and Urry, J.1987, The End of Organised Capitalism, Cambridge, the scholars concerned. In most cases the OLI is seen as a more or less (Mathews 1990, p. 19) by taking a different path to the sorts of Polity Press. sumption and use-value of Australian knowledge. The imposition ~f 'logical' development that can be understood in terms of a tertiary conservative analyses noted above. In this paper we aim to better its language, history and values by the modem colonialist state as If Lim, D. 1989, 'Jackson and the Overseas Students', Australian Journal of education sector in a new policy context constructed in tenus of the understand the complexity of new cultural arrangements made possi­ these were universals (Tiryakian 1991, p.167) is no longer tenable. Education, 33(1) pp.3-18. logic of 'the market'. ble by the linking of the local and global via the new information and Neglect of pluralities, and of the issues concerning the relations McCraken, G. 1990, Culture and Consumption, Indianapolis, Indiana Univer­ In this paper we will offer a brief account of the development of the communication technologies. The analysis draws on an approach between knowledge and power, currently found in Australia's mod­ sity Press. TVOLP and the OLI. We then describe some of the restricted which recognises a need to travel on a path between 'objectivism and ernist tertiary curriculum, simply cannot persist in a postcolonial McQueen, H. 1986,A New Britannia, 2nd ed., Melbourne, Penguin. 'readings' of these developments as a preliminary to our analysis relativism' (Bernstein 1983). As such it draws on an assumption that which draws upon new kinds of logic that derive from the 'logic of not all 'readings' ofa situation can be considered equally significant. context. Robertson, R. 1992, Globalization, London, Sage. globalisation' that is being experienced in many aspects of Australian Said, E. 1985, Orienlalism, London, Penguin. References society. In particular we are concerned to locate the OLI initiatives in Distance education and the Open Leaming Tiryakiao, E.A.1991, "Modernisation: Exhumetur in Pace", international a framework constituted by the intersection of the market, education Ashcroft, W., Griffith, G., and Tiffin, H. 1989, The Empire Writes Back, Initiative Sociology, 6(2) pp.165-180. and the new infonnation media. This work is part of an ARC funded London, Routledge. The sweeping changes to higher education in 1987 initiated by John Turner, G. 1993, "Postcolonial formations: Australicu.l Perspe~tive~", pa~er research project, Marketing Education in the Information Age, in Ballard, B. 1987, "Academic adjustment: The other side ofthe export dollar", Dawkins, the Minister of Employment Education and Training, have presented at Post-colonial Formations Conference, Gnffith Umverslty, BriS­ which we are investigating new emergent kinds of educational Higher Education Research and Development, 6(2) pp.l 09-119. been experienced and described as something of a revolution in bane. practice (Bigum, et al. 1993; Fitzclarence, et a1. 1993). Beck, U. 1992, Risk Society, London, Sage. administration and policy. Indeed the initial response from higher Viviani, N. 1990, Australia's Future in Asia; People, Politics culd Culture, Developments in 'distance' education have always been described education was one of stunned silence to the mooted changes, giving Broinowski, A. 1992, The Yellow Lady: Australian Impressions of Asia, Australian Cultural History, No.lO. and analysed as a radical shift in the nature of the university2. credence to the claim that these were indeed revolutionary times. Put Melbourne, Oxford University Press. Young, M. 1990, White Mythologies: Writing His[my and the West, London, Predictably, conservative analyses are largely nostalgic, even mythi­ bluntly, the recognition that higher education was involved in a Centre for International Economics 1991, The Export of Education Services, Routledge. cal and hark back to the days when university life simply involved the process of more general industrial refonn came as a shock to many Canberra, DEET. ret1ective practice of intellectuals inside ivy-covered walls. In other inside the tertiary education system. A more sober analysis, however, words, 'real' university learning concerned itself with the book, the indicates that the industrialisation of higher education has been face to face lecture, small tutorials and the quiet hum of a library at underway for a period that long precedes the Dawkins' plans. Indeed 'peak hour'. Mathews points to a deeper logic that is invoked in the the Martin Report (Committee on the Future of Tertiary Education in conservation of universities: Australia 1964-5) specifically made claim to the notion of 'human Indeed there are deep ide%gicailinM' between the present defence capital' as a necessary feature of the emerging tertiary education 3 ofthe universities and the defence of the natural environment. The sector of the time • The Report foreshadowed developments that more environmental movement seeks to preserve the natural world - our directly involved universities within the ambit of economic and natural heritage - at least fhr it,,> own sake, as an end in itself The political life. In descIibing this process Sharp (1988, p. 121) notes defender (~r tfle universities seek" to preserve our intellectual that: 'It has been left to Mr Dawkins to publicly render unmistakeable heritage /hr fhe sume kind (?f" reuson. In this sense both these the process which has been at work for forty years; the rise of the 'movement<; , are conservative - both are striving to protect a higher education system within the husk of the modern university'. In fundamental source or lOCi/i·; (d· value no! analysable in instrumen­ the period of expansion in higher education in the 1960s, the Profes­ tal terms . .. (Mathews 1.990, p. 19) sorial Board Chainnan at the University of New England claimed: On the other hand, the more radical response acknowledges and Within Australia and beyond its shores, the ten years 11)55-64 have even celebrates the diversity of styles and new forms of interaction in seen under constanl attack those who cling to the unique formula institutes of higher education. Such a response is captured in com­ o.f traditional university patterns of education. Colleges of ad­ ments like that offered by Evans and Nation (Evans and Nation 1989), vanced technology, University of the air, and new university who note: academic organisations are but a .few of the methods devised to Distance educafion has proved to be a mutating virus within the expand the opportunities jiH the tens of thousands previous~y bodies (?l education ,I)'stems. It has been able to ri.,,·e to new denied all chance of a tertiary education. Few now decry such challenges. to reshape itself" to meet social changes and to trans- innovations .fbr it is almost platitudinous to say that a nation that

Page 20 Page 21 no""o,;01 intellectual material will find itself outpaced not Voices from Canberra and linked it to a view that the 'project has great potential to widen Agency ofAustralia's implementation ofthe Open Learning Initia­ ee, i''''''') {?/inriustry, commerce and the professions but in in a statement in 1988, John Dawkins described the basic elements access to higher education' (Baldwin 1991a, p. 41). tive wifl retain many ofthe elements ofopen learning described by (!{creative and cultural enterprise (Sheath 1965, p. 3). of the Government's agenda for refonn in higher education. In The report of the HEe review in November 1992 reinforced the Johnson. (1990, page 4) such as open entry, year-round teaching Government's view that there was duplication of expensive resources andflexlhle study patterns, characteristics which are still unique in With minor shifts in (i.e. delete cultural and creative particular, in describing the plan to establish the DECs, he signalled for t~e production of materials and their lack of use in on-campus Australian higher education (Moodie 1993, p. 175). interests and boost commerce and industry) this assertion could welJ a long standing interest in achieving rationalisation of external studies in higher education. The area identified as being where most gains teachmg. The consultant's preferred option for change in distance 'Technology' is an equally important term in the lexicon of those have been made about the OLI and about other periods of expansion education provision was to drop the discrimination between DECs of higher education in Australia, could be made through a concentration of resources was 'in the who ~tudy dist~nce ed~cation. Like 'open learning' it assumes many development and production of external programs' (Dawkins 1988, p. an~ to employ methods of quality assurance: 'Quality will be more meamngs, pam.culady m the debates surrounding the TVOLP and the Distance education has been a small component of the growth in eaSIly perceived in distance courses than in face-to-face teaching ... ' higher education since Federation. Campion and Renner (1992, p. 14) 50), and that with the proposed rationalisations in place, there would OLI. There is clearly a view that is consistent with Canberra's position be a lower total cost per effective fu11-time student unit (EFTSU) for ~Joh~son, et al. 1992, p. 29). Three pressures in higher education were that the new information and communication technologies will some­ note that in 19D6 the population of Australia was 4.1 million and there Identified: student numbers, new buildings and academic staff num­ external students than for on~campus students. In addition, there was h~w p~ovi.de the means to change higher education generally and that were 2575 students attending university. Ry 1993 with a population bers. The report suggested distance-education-based solutions for of 17.5 minion the number of students had grown to 575,255 of which also an indication that reform in distance education was seen as a thiS WIll likely occur through the agency of distance education. means of reforming the teaching in universities in general: each. There was also a strong statement about the role the new about 11 % are off-campus students. Student numbers in distance information and communication technologies might play in meeting Ultimately, however, it is changes on-campus which fuel the DEC education grew from about 8000 in the mid 1970s to almost 64,000 in There is a growing trend towards the use of high quality instructional future. As our clientele becomes more computer literate and seeks packages developedfor external studies to improve the quality afteachingfor a number of government concerns but it was noted that none of these 1993'1. The change in distance education numbers from 1983 to 1993 the application ofthe benefits ofIT in the programs they take, it will internal students. The Government has no wish to discourage such develop­ possibilities were in evidence on any large scale. accounts for 10% of the growth in tertiary education numbers. The be the DEC culture which helps universities to move to a new ments (Dawkins 1988, p. 52). In ~ecember of 1992, ~EET provided advice to Minister Beazley increase in distance education students from the mid 1970s was learning environment. The expertise and experience of individual­ In 1990, a commissioned report to the National Board of Employ­ drawmg on the HEC reVIew and describing the DEC phase as 'an accompanied by an increase in providers from six to forty by the late ised programs and resource-based learning which is the raison ment, Education and Training (NBEET) by Johnson (1990) added the inevitable first stage in the development of high quality distance 1980, (Evans and Nation 1989, p, 6), d'~tre o( the DEC system will become a major internal tool for term 'Open Learning' to the Government's lexicon. The report draws education available nationwide', (NBEET 1992, p. 1) and that the By the late 1980s the Federal Government, facing a number of UnIVerSltIes as they gear up for the next Century (King 1993, pp. on overseas and local examples from industry and Technical and second phase ought to be 'characterised by the disappearance of the crises in funding the provision of a range of services to the community current funding and other structural differences between DEC and 141-2). juxtaposed against a severe economic downturn, started to consider Further Education (TAFE) to define and illustrate the term and, importantly, to weave in the Government's aspirations for a more non-DEC institutions' (NBEET 1992, p. 2), Two 'powerfu1 natural Evans and Nation are less convinced by the technological determin­ ways to rationalise the distance education system. The Dawkins' rational delivery ofex.temal studies. Johnson quotes from notes of the brakes on any significantly wider use of distance education materials ism that characterises these debates and describe the uncritical reforms of the late 1980s included the establishment of eight Distance methods and technology' were identified: universities are funded i~ adoption of educational technology as instructional industrialism Education Centres (DECs) which were to fulfil the Government's then Chair of NBEET, Dr Robert Smith, of a meeting with the President of British Columbia's Open Learning Authority: ways. that are insensitive to the high start-up costs of distance "(Evans and Nation 1987). They argue for 'the type of analysis which desire to achieve greater efficiencies in the higher education sector, teachmg, and employ a reward system for academics that does little assists in understanding educational technologies against the back­ Open Learning is system-based, not institution-based. .. An Open in this instance by concentrating the resources for the production of to encourage the use of alternative modes of delivery in teaching. ground of the social circumstances which influence their develop­ Learning system is characterised by at least four features: materials for extemal studies in a small number of sites. Subsequent The Government reading and rendering reflects the wider ment' (Evans and Nation 1993, p. 31). An analysis that rigorously Govemment impatience with the slowness of the imagined DEC­ (aj it is facilitative, in that its main objective is to use courses and contextualising of Government policy in ambitions for the wholesale pursued this advice was carried out by Douglas Noble (1991). He based reforms in the delivery of tertiary edu,cation materialised in the programs available in existing institutions; reform of the Australian economy, and education's place in it. Like investigated a wide range of modern educational technologies both form of the TVOLp5. other. economically based policy, ideas of economies of scale, flexible material and pedagogical and traced all of their development to the The TVOLP was established as a $2 million pilot by the Minister (bj it offers a service to potential learners that gives them access practIces and new technologies loom large. Equally, a new language U.S. military. Noble's work underlines the importance of understand­ for Higher Education and Employment Services Mr Baldwin in 1991. to information on a wide variety of courses and programs avail­ has crep.t into education which is now packaged, controlled for quality ing educational technologies like the OLI in more than a narrow Monash University was selected to manage a consortium consisting able; and delivered or exported! Students are rendered passive in this techni~al or utilitarian .sense; as more than providing university of New England, South Australia, Deakin and Griffith Universities. (cj it operates in an environment where transferability or credit ~ccount,. taking d~l.ivery of instructional packages and accessing educatIon to any Australian WIth a letterbox and a television set, and Seven units were offered at first year university level and students had for courses between institutions is an accepted practice; and mfonnabon. No cntIcal or reflective engagement is mentioned in this prompts the question 'can technology developed for one set of a choice of simply watching the television programs on the ABC 'Dial a Pizza' view of learning. purposes (training for war) be unproblematically transferred to set­ network, purchasing study materials to accompany the television (d) it has access to or sponsors a credit bank(Johnson 1990, p. 9). tings with very different purposes (education)?' broadcasts, or undertaking formal assessment in order to obtain credit Johnson'R report is strongly supportive of Open Learning and Speaking from a distance towards further university study. The grant of $2 million was allo­ identifies it as 'an educational approach, an attitude' in which the twin Another perspective that needs to be acknowledged is the account University speak cated to the television programming and to the costs of project virtues of equity and cost-effectiveness can be brought together. that derives from those with particular interests in distance education. Opin~on concemi?g the TVOLP and the OLI has been varied among management and coordination. The cost of materials, library support In October of 1991 Minister Baldwin released his Higher Educa­ Clearly there is no space for a comprehensive rendering so we will Australian academiCS and has been aired a number of times in and assessment was derived from student fees, about $300 per unit. No tion: Quality and Diversity in the 1990s policy statement. Under a concentrate only on those features which are useful for interpreting academic broadsheets. Clearly, the two projects signal a significant Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) charge was levied. heading of' A More Flexible System', the role of the DECs is affirmed the OLI development. change in the delivery of tertiary education. In a climate of shrinking Halfway through this pilot year the Government decided to expand and the notion of using distance materials for non-distance students Many accounts of TVOLP and the OLI begin with a brief almost resources and fierce competition between Universities for research the Project and a $47 million, ten year' venture emerged, the OLI, is reiterated and extended: O?lig~tory 'history' of distance education in Australia, ofte~ begin­ and teaching funds, a new player on the block is bound to attract a which is operated by a company, the Open Learning Agency of III degree of hostility. To some, the OLI is a material investigation by Flexible packaging ofcourses could also facilitate further develop­ nmg 1911, the year the University of Queensland introduced a Australia (OLAA), established by Monash University. The OLAA correspondence course, and then tracing events to the introduction of Canberra of the question: 'which is cheaper, bricks and mortar or acts as a broh:r for educational programR offered by the consortium ment of approaches, such as co-operative education, in which students are ahle to make use of equ.ipment available at their place the open learning projects which are the subject of this paper7. There cables and satellites?' In this view there will be an inevitable members. Nineteen units were offered at the beginning of 1993 and competition for the increasingly scarce infrastructure dollar. of work to carry out course-related activities. This is also an area is a sense that sequencing events represents a kind of progressive, there are plans to have 70 units on offer by the end of this year. By 1995 developmental logic which is limited only by available technology. Most disconcertingly for many is the prospect the OLI offers the it is intended to have in the order of 150 units available. Monash of potential competitive advantage for Australia in the export of More recent studies e. g. King (1992a; 1993) which deal with the OLI ~ractice. of tertiary teaching. In Franklin's (1990) terms, technology intends offering two degrees through this initiative: Bachelor of educational services (Baldwin 1991b, p. 7). ~eave micropolitical considerations into the story, thereby generat­ IS pr~ctIce and the development of the OLI represents a shift in General Studies and Bachelor of Business. This report, picking up on a theme from an earlier Higher Education mg acc?unts that are more complex and revealing something of the teachmg from a holistic technology in which a teacher or group of Commission (HEC) report (1990, p. 35), also identified the new uncertamty and instability of current developments. t~achers take responsibility for all aspects of teaching, to a prescrip­ MllitilJle voices. multiple positions infoffi1ation and communication technologies as integral to improv­ Another important focus is the term 'open learning' which has tive technology in which teaching is broken down into a number of If the proposed rapid growth of the offerings of the OLAA are met ing the efficiency and quality of provision of higher education and come into prominence as a result of the TVOLP and the OLI. As parts, so that each part can be carried out by a different person. Thus with a corresponding level of demand, then Australian tertiary again noted the work of the DECs as important in exploiting 'alterna­ Johnson (1990) demonstrates, the term is usually associated with m the context of the OLI as it is currently understood, there is concern tive delivery modes' in the delivery of higher education generally. education will be permanently altered, or in the language of microeco­ P?licies that per:nit more Ii.beral access to education often accompa­ that the design and development of the teaching materials will be nomic reionn, restmctured. The OLI and its future plans for develop­ Also signalled in the report was the funding of a review of modes of med by a capaCity for credIt transfer among other things. According carried out by one group of (specialist) academics, the tutoring will ment have, understandably, evoked a number of responses from stake delivery in higher education. A component of this review was to be an to Johnson, the 'most "open" educational sector in Australia is non­ be carried out by another group of academics, and the assessment will holders in tertiary education. Each· response, each political voice examination of distance education by the HEC, 'with a view to award adult education",', (Johnson 1990. p, 5), Both King (1992b) and be carried out be yet another group. The kind of fragmentation contributes to public understandings of the OLI, and in this way is assessing the potential for "mixed mode" provision, flexible packag­ MoodIe (1993) point to the (mis)use of the term to indicate for (McInnis 1992) described is a necessary step in the marketisation of ing of courses and extended access to distance education course important in the construction of the OLI as a new educational example, technologies that supposedly support new and more f1e~ible the OU, contributing to keeping the unit cost to the consumer down. materials to achieve more effective provision across the higher phenomenon. The multiple political voices which have emerged from forms of delivery. Moodie expresses concerns about 'enclosures' that As Franklin (1990, p. 23) observes, prescriptive technologies are education sector' (Baldwin 1991b, p. 46). groupslindividllals occupying different cultural spaces provide vary­ have taken place in the transition from the TVLOP to the OLI but adds: 'designs for compliance'. ing points of view, and offer explantions and rationales which carry In December of 1991, Minister Baldwin's statement on funding for Notwithstanding those concerns, it seems that the Open Learning Another important focus of attention has been the use of broadcast particular value positions. Let us identify some of these. the '92-'94 Triennium described the $2 million grant for the TVOLP television and while it has been seen as unnecessary pedagogically,

Page 22 Page 23 ------• perhaps serving a publicity purpose at best ('providing a taste of resistance (Brand 1987, pp. 230-1). It is in the context of expansion of the system that we now want to place that the OLI supports. The trade-off between cost of develop­ higher education' (Keepes 1993, p. 179)), it certainly has provided the This account of a global economy suggests a radical restructuring, consider the development of the OLI. In particular, we draw upon the ment and quality will be a decision that the producer site has to make. Government with useful publicity in tenus of being seen to be doing a reconstitution of the basis and logic of the commercial and cultural significance of communication and information technologies in the The cost of units that fail to attract students will, of course, be born something about unmet demand (King 1993). What is often missed, practices of the world. Australia began to connect more fully to the global economy as a means of exploring the significance of the OLI by the producer. though, is that the association of broadcast television with teaching emerging global economy in 1983 when the Labor Government in the restructuring of higher education. Eventually, particularly with an increasing improvement in global produces a kind of hybrid educationa1 fonn. Walker, writing about the floated the dollar. \\That followed was a period of restructuring that As many commentators have observed, the restructuring of capital communications, overseas sites might be included among producer TYOLP, argues that touched all parts of the economy and society in one way or other. As on a global scale wou1d have been impossible without the new sites, despite the kinds of problems that were experienced with using the educational values and assumptions that drive the project Fagan says, 'All four kinds of restructuring-productive, financial, infonnation and communication technologies. Importantly, Castel1s overseas material in the TYOLP (Keepes 1992). Producer sites in derive more strongly from the broadcasting industry than from labour and regulatory-affected the Australian economy throughout argues that these technologies foster the centralisation of knowledge: Australia would then compete with overseas sites and, further, those in the academic disciplines. In this sense the project is more the 19805, and each one can be understood only as part of the new The injormational world is made up of a very hierarchical func­ producers may not need to be universities, but could be specialised, radical than most ofus have recognised. What we have may not be global economy' (Fagan and Bryan 1991, p. 11). tional structure in which increasingly secluded centres take to its private 'learning corporations' of the kind that cunently service education but infotainment (Walker 1992, p. 9). Apart from the immediate disruptions and social consequences that extreme the historical division between intellectual and manual training needs in large corporations. By then such corporations may have become more common if Australian universities are successful The bluning of distinctions between broadcast media and educa­ followed the floating of the dollar and the subsequent deregulation of labour. Given the strategic role of knowledge and information in further eroding the working conditions of their staff tion is an important symptom of the broad cultural changes to which banking, the significance of a global economy and more particularly, control in productivity and profitability, these core centres of Further along, the OLI or whatever it has become may be unable to we now wish to draw attention. The accounts outlined above represent global money is underlined by the fact that the equivalent of our total corporate organizations are the only troly indispensible compo­ compete with larger, more powerful 'knowledge centres' that are' different, limited readings of these changes and have the potential to national debt is bought and sold once a week on the Sydney Foreign nents of the system, with most other work, and thus most other controlled from global cities overseas. In particular, knowledge produce different educational and political effects. We see each Exchange market (Yong 1989), and that globally, of the hundreds of workers, beingpotentiai candidates for automation/rom the strictly centres which are articulated with corporations responsible for global reading and each set of intersecting political effects as a partial trillions of dollars traded annually, less then 10% of this money is functional point a/view (Castells 1991, p. 30). electronic entertainment may well come to further exploit the bound­ representation of the story of an increasingly marketised higher associated with trade in material goods (Schwartz cited in Brand In this scenario, 'knowledge centres' are key sites. They are the ary blurring between education and entertainment that we have seen education system. It is appropriate to consider the specific perspec­ 1987). In many respects the global trade in currencies comes close to sites from which global industries are controlled and co-ordinated. the beginnings of in Australia in the broadcast television offerings of tives of the OLI development as ' ... an attempt to cope with complex what free market advocates describe as an 'ideal market' but which, Sassen (1991) points out that the high degree of specialised services the ou. At this stage, the new information media barons become the pressures associated with securing a place in the rapidly changing from a slightly different perspective, appears as global gambling on required to support the control functions of global industry forces new Vice-Chancellors of competing global institutes of higher global economy and culture. Indeed they are best recognized as a an enormous scale. It is from the these kinds of global developments 'agglomerations' of services and industries into what she calls 'global 'edutainment' . response to, and part of, the emergence of a new international that the logic of restructuring (itself an overworked and multi-purpose cities'. The accumulation of control in these cities is also a conse­ The scenario we have described might be easily dismissed as economic and cultural order' (Fitzc1arence and Kenway, 1993, p. tenn as Probert (1993a) argues) has sprung. In the context of quence of ownership not being as decentralised as the means of -fanciful were it not for the emergence of trends in the global economy 100). globalisation, restructuring is a way of talking about connecting production. of the kind described by Castells, Sassen, Probert and others. That is This cultural order is one in which abstract commodity relations products or services to a global exchange system. Universities here and overseas have been traditionally regarded as why it is important to put the development of the OLI into such a come increasingly to the fore. It is an order where direct, face-to-face In an eloquent analysis of the implications of restructuring and 'knowledge centres', sites at which knowledge is produced and global context. relations are increasingly replaced by 'mediated' forms of interaction globalisation for Australia, Belinda Probert offers an account which distributed. Within this perspective, the development of the OLI is made possible by the new modes ofinfonnation technology. As such usefully fills in the broader, global context for our analysis of the nothing more than a shop front, a broker of units and courses, the traditional boundaries of nation states become permeable and TVOLP and the OLI. Drawing upon the work of Manuel Castells and providing an efficient marketing of commodified knowledge pro­ Concluding questions even redundant, in association with the high status maximum value Saskia Sassen in particular, she argues for a more complex explana­ duced in universities. Indeed, the rhetoric that has accompanied the Having described two scenarios for the OLI in which globalisation modes of production which are constituted by workers who are tion of the shift to a world economy than is typically offered by development of the OLAA is precisely of this kind. In these terms the is a key consideration, we are provoked to ask what role education, 'intellectually trained' (Sharp and White 1968, p. 15). It is to an accounts of a growth in labour-displacing technology and the reloca­ fragmentation of teaching (noted earlier) into products that can be and specifically different forms of tertiary education, play in the account of these new conditions that we now tum. tion of labour to low-wage countries (Abe and Wheelwright 1989). 'manufactured' and sold separately to 'consumers' is likely to lead global exchange system. While a clear perspective on this is difficult She argues for a description which captures 'the scale and the into the generation of specialisations of material production, tutoring to reach, the emphasis placed on education as a vital micro element Changed times, changed conditions and an historical specificity of this transformation in ways which reveal the and assessment at least. As the tertiary system is increasingly in economic restructuring highlights the significance of certain kinds profound links between the economic, social and political changes' of education and training in the new forms of economic and produc­ alternative interpretation of OLI marketised to cope with reduced public funding, the OLI with its (Probert 1993b, p. 19). likely low per unit charges and, if they are achieved, the economies tive activities. To describe these changes solely in terms ofmicroeco­ The new information and communication technologies and the Applying the language of restructuring and globalisation to the of scale so long sought by the Government, will have a significant nomic reform limits the analysis by ignoring the globalising influ­ electronic information media which rely upon them are the stuff of the recent changes in higher education in Australia and drawing upon effect on other institutions' capacity to compete in some student ences of the market and the new infonnation and communication reconstitution of social life (Hinkson 1991). We have become accus­ Probert's account, we can identify useful mappings that serve to markets. technologies. In order to interpret the policy, administration and tomed to thinking about the local 'effects' of these technologies in connect these changes to a broader context than current debates do, Clearly the implications of the OLI for existing on- and off-campus curriculum developments associated with new forms of higher educa­ terms of job loss in manufacturing industry or new, 'flexible' modes and also identify future problems for universities if the twin economic teaching are significant. It is too early to know what influence OLI tion like the OLI, we believe it is necessary to think in terms of three of delivery in tertiary education. We are less used to accounts which logics of restructuring and globalisation remain unchallenged. will have on meeting the demand for tertiary education in various related elements: education, markets and information technologies. implicate these technologies in what many now refer to as At one level,. and in common with the provision of other govern­ sections of the community. It is clear though that with low unit The last two characterise the global phenomena described above. 'globa!isation', the interconnectedness of many of the social, cultural ment funded services, the 'local' restructuring of higher education has charges, the OLI will need the support of its university consortium as Taken together this technocultural triad signifies the shift of educa­ and economic resources of the nation states of the world. The material come about from pressures that derive from a decline in corporate well as large numbers of students in order to be successful. And in this tion from a local, minimally marketised practice to one which is means of interconnectedness are the new infonnation and communi­ profits which manifest themselves as a wind back in public sector respect, the response of university academics will be crucial. If the global and subject totally to the logic of the market (see further cation technologies. They support what Paul Virilio calls 'vectors', spending. The 'problem' in achieving greater efficiencies in higher OLI is identified as an attempt to fragment and stmdardise university Kenway, et a1. 1993a; Kenway, et aL 1993b). trajectories 'along which bodies, information or warheads can poten­ education is, like other caring professions, frustratingly difficult. The teaching then the resistance to such restructuring that has occurred for This is a profound shift. Bemoaning the loss or potential loss of tially pass' (Wark 1991, p. 5). Global vectors have been with us for task of replacing teachers with machines has proven to be a good deal other public sector workers (Murray 1991) may also become a feature current fonns of tertiary education, while understandable in the face some time. Witnessing events on the other side of the world as they more knotty than first imagined, despite the claims to the contrary of of university work. The number of industrial scenarios that are of'the ncw', is not a sound response to the scenarios we have outlined. happen has become commonplace. What is less obvious is that the those who work in artificial intelligence laboratories. Alongside such possible are many. But if market forces are to become the basis of Nor is the purdy pragmatic and uncritical response associated with number of global vectors to carry image and information has in­ technological fantasies the attack on labour in the tertiary workplace tertiary education in this country then a low cost alternative may do selling education as just another commodity in the marketplace, creased dramatically in the past decade. Seeing global communica­ continues and can be expected to intensify as a part of a general pattern more than simply open up access to more students. Despite the responding to 'dangerous opportunities'. What we believe is required tions systems in terms of the rapid transfer of infonnation and image of weakening labour globally. educational undesirability of these developments, they represent a is a sober consideration of the possibilities that now exist alongside masks the fact that most of the information that travels along global Another feature of globalisation that Castells (cited in Probert) benign scenario compared to those that more closely reflect the global considt-'fation of neceSS(lod II/e and the iust society (Rundle 1992, p. 3). industrialism emerged, the two great systems that will dominate the ethical questions associated with such 'selling' is, in the context of Open Learning. The more dispensible parts of the system, the From our point of view the pos.·.;ibi!ities "vin emerge in the fonn of the new new in/ormation-rich system are finance and electronic entertain­ global economics, of no interest or concern. As is the case for local 'producer sites', the participating universities as in the current commonplaces of higher education, i.e. the new notions of teachers, of ment on a worldwide scale. How finance and electronic entertain­ restructuring, the dominant concerns are of quality control, efficiency arrangement, can be located virtually anywhere. With such a system, pedagok,'y, of curriculum and of policy. it is vital that we pcuticipate in their ment evolve will effect everything else. Technology is like water and and achieving international best practice. A paper in this collection the efficiencies that the government could not achieve with distance invention if we are to secure socially"just fnmls of tertiary education in this follows the path 0/ least resistance; they're the path of least (Alexander and Rizvi 1993) develops this matter more fully. education can, at least in principle, be seen to emerge from the market new era. The OLI, as part of tl1e remaking of the university system, should

Page 24 Page 25 ...

become part of such participation. Clearly there is a significant research Patterns of Teaching and Learning: The Use and Potential of Distance 3. For an extent comment on this history, see Sharp (1988). agenda here as part of a self-conscious consideration of the way that Education Materials and Methods in Australian Higher Education, , Can­ Notes: universities are drawn more directly mto complex new forms of market berra, National Board of Employment, Educationand Training, Commissioned 1. King points out that 'The TV Open Learning Project was judged a success 4. This figure does not include Open Leaming students. less than halfway through its initial trial period and the Commonwealth relations. Here we are reminded of an observation made by Richard Bernstein Report No. 19,AGPS,November. 5. A useful account of the history of the DECs, the role ofGovermnent and the Government began to explore a mechanism for its expansion. (King 1993, p. when he noted: Keepes, Bruce 1992, 'The TV Open Learning Project: A Preliminary Report deVelopment of the OLI can be found in King (993). of an Evaluation of an Innovation in Higher Education' paper presented at the 136) Bavming aware ofour own 'blind prejudices " learning that there is more 6. Government funding will be provided during the establishment phase dthe 2nd National Conference on Access through Open Learning, University of 2. Moodie (1991) indicates the nature of this shift in an account of the first three years. to the 'wrld' and to different forms oflife than i.s captured by our own New England, Northern Rivers. resistance to the development of distance teaching at Monash University. entrenched jorm') oflife and genres, is only the beginning-not the end-of 7. One account traces a lineage of teaching-learning technologies from the Keepes, Bruce 1993, 'The TV Open Learning Project: The First Year and middle of the J. 9tb Century (Moodie 1992). wisdom (Bernstein 1983, p.106) Beyond' in Ted Nunan (ed.) Distance Education Futures: Selected papers There is much to be understood about theOLI and the new forms of tertiary from the 11th Biennial Forum of the Australian and South Pacific External education that it brings forth. In particular there are many questions relating Studies Association, 21-23 July, Adelaide, University of South Australia, pp to how different elements of this culture are linked together and on a more 177-189. global scale how these cultural forms intersect with those in other places. Kenway, Jane with Bigum, Chris, Fitzclarence, Lindsay and Collier, Janine Finding ways to better understand these new forms of cultural relationship 1993a, 'New Education in New Times' paper presented atAustralian Curricu­ will be required in order to consider issues of what constitutes a just fonn of lum Studies Association Conference, Brisbane. education in and for a just society. Kenway, Jane with Fitzc1arence, Lindsay and Bigum, Chris 1993b, 'Market­ ing Education in the Postmodern Age', Journal ofEducation Policy, 8(2), pp References 105-123. Abe, David and Wheelwright, Ted 1989, The Third Wave: Australia and Asian King, Bruce 1992a, 'The Open Learning Initiative: New Directions for Higher Capitalism, Sydney, Left Book Club. Education' paper presented to the Conference of the Australian Society for Alexander, Don and Rizvi, Faza11993, 'Education, Markets and the Contra­ Education Technology, University of South Australia, October. dictions of Asia-Australia Relations', The Australian Universities' Review, King, Bruce 1992b, 'Open learning: now and the future' inA VisionforOTEN. this issue. Open Training and Education Network, Redfern, NSW T AFE Commission. Baldwin, Peter 1991a, Higher Education Fundingfor the 1992·94 Triennium, King, Bruce 1993, 'Whose Future- The Government's, the DEC's or the Canberra, AGPS, December. OLAA?' in Ted Nunan (ed.) Distance Education Futures: Selected papers Baldwin, Peter 1991b,Higher Education: Quality and Diversity in the 1990's, from the 1 lth Biennial Forum of the Australian and South Pacific External Canberra, AGPS, October. Studies Association, 21-23 July, Adelaide, University of South Australia, pp 127-143. Bigum, Chris with Green, Bill, Fitzclarence, Lindsay and Kenway, Jane 1993, 'Multimedia and monstrosities: Reinventing Computing in Schools Again?', McInnis, Craig 1992, 'Changes in the nature of academic work', The Austral­ Australian Educational Computing, 8(July), pp 43-49. ian Universities' Review, 35(2), pp 9-12. Brand, Stewart 1987, The Media Lab. Inventing the future at M.LT., , New Moodie, Gavin 1991, 'Academics' resistance of external course pressures: York, Penguin Books. Attempts to establish external studies at Monash University 1958-70', Dis­ tance Education, 12(2), pp 191·208. Campion, Michael and Renner, William 1992, 'The supposed demise of Fordism: Implications for distance education and higher education', Distance Moodie, Gavin 1992, 'New Modes of Higher Education - A Radical Transfor­ Education, 13(1), pp 7·28. mation'?' paper presented to AITEA National Conference. Castells, Manuel 1991, The Information City, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. Moodie, Gavin 1993, 'Speculations on the Implications of 'Open Learning' for Australian 'Distance Education' Futures' in Ted Nunan (eds.) Distance Council, Higher Education 1990, Higher Education: the challenges ahead, Education Futures: Selected papers from the 11th Biennial Forum of the Canberra, National Board of Employment, Education and Training, AGPS. Australian and South Pacific External Studies Association, 21-23 July, Ad­ Dawkins, John 1988, Higher Education, Canberra, AGPS, July. elaide, University of South Australia, pp 169-176. Evans, Terry and Nation, Daryl 1987, 'Which future for distance education?', Murray, Robin 1991, 'The state after Henry' ,Marxism today, May, pp 22-27. International Couniclfor Distance Education Bulletin, 14, pp 48-53. NBEET 1992, Distance Education in Australia: Advice ofthe National Board Evans, Terry and Nation, Dary! 1989, 'Introduction' in Terry Evans & Daryl ofEmpioyment, Education and Training and its Higher Education Council, , Nation (eds.)Critical Reflectiorzs orz DistanceEducation, London, The Falmer Canberra, AGPS, December. Press. Noble, Douglas D. 1991, The Classroom Arsenal: Military Research, Infor­ Evans, Terry and Nation, Daryl 1993, 'Distance Education, Educational mation Technology and Public Education, , London, The Falmer Press. Technology and Open Learning: Converging Futures and Closer Integration Probert, Belinda 1993a, Reconceptualising Restructuring: The Australian with Conventional Education' in Ted Nunan (ed.) Distance Education Fu­ Workplace in a Changing Global Economy, (19931l), Melbourne, Centre for tures: Selected papers from the 11 th Biennial Forum of the Australian and International Research on Communication and Infonnation Technologies. South Pacific External Studies Association, 21-23 July, Adelaide, University of South Australia, pp 15-35. Probert, Belinda 1993b, 'Restructuring and Globalization: What do they mean?', Arena Magazine, (April-May), pp 18-22. Fagan, Bob and Bryan, Dick 1991, 'Australia and the Changing Global Economy: Background to social inequality in the 1990s' in Jan O'Leary & Rundle, Guy 1992, 'New Ways of being Human', Arena Magazine, (Oct­ Rachel Sharp (eds.)lnequality inAUSlralia: Slicing the Cake, Port Melbourne, Nov), pp 2-3. Heinemann, pp 7-31. Sassen, Saskia 1991, The Global City" Princeton, Princeton University Press. Fitzclarence, Lindsay 1993, I shop therefore I am, Working Paper, Geelong, Sharp, Geoff 1988, 'The University and After', Arena, 82, pp 117-133. Centre for Studies of Education and Change, Deakin University. Sharp, Geoff and White, Doug 1968, 'Features of the intellectually trained', Fitzclarence, Lindsay with Bigum, Chris, Green, Bill and Kenway, Jane 1993, Arena, 15, 1968, pp 30-33. 'The Rock Eisteddfod: Media Culture as a de facto 'National Curriculum'?, Sheath, H. C. 1965,External Studies: The First Ten Years, Armidale, Univer­ paper presented at Australian Curriculum Studies Association Conference, sity of New England. Brisbane. Walker, Rob 1992, 'Hidden curriculum of open learning' ,Australian Campus Franklin, Ursula 1990, The Real World of Technology, , Montreal, CBC Review Weekly, pp 8-9, August 6-12. Enterprises. Wark, McKenzie 1991, 'News Bites: WarTY in the Gulf , Meanjin, 50(1), pp Hinkson, John 1991, Postmodernity: State and Education, , Geelong, Deakin 5-18. University. Yong, Leonard P. 1989,Foreign Exchange: Systems & Audit Controls" North Johnson, Richard 1990, Open Learnirzg: Policy and Practice, , Canberra, Ryde, Commercial Clearing House. National Board of Employment, Education and Training, Commissioned Report No.4, AGPS, June. Johnson, Richard, Lundin, Roy and Chippendale, Peter 1992, Changing Page 26 Page 27 •

The teacher was to become the agent of moral supervision; criticism published learned papers, of quality enough to secure some research the practical technique to be deployed and taught. Industrialisation monies. They gave entertaining public lectures on the romance of also brought with it the rise of the positive sciences and the permanent steam. They wrote for the newspapers on the elegance of the iron revolution in cu1tural assumptions. The romantic aesthetic and the boiler. French engineers authored radical new steam theories, keeping joy forever (and its price): human sciences were the twin responses to this, and both were the field alive and agog at their elegance. Some Canadian heretics institutionalised in the humanities and deployed as techniques for amused the profession with the preposterous idea that the age of steam creating self disciplined modern citizens, employees and consumers had passed. No-one paid much attention, and the study of steam (Hunter 1988, p. 262). choofed 011. English and the market Hunter's work performs a useful function in demythologising the But what, for al1 this, is the long term value of such a steam culture origins of English and the functions of the humanities, but it doesn't on the market? There is a demand for such knowledge, and whether McKenzie Wark help us calculate a new series of functions for the present cultural and there is a demand for it or not it has a right to preservation, to a Macql.larie University social conjuncture. If cultural studies suggests that marketing the scholarly tending of the fires. But what if every engineering depart­ humanities to potential students requires of us that we think about ment in the 1and stopped short at steam, bar a few minor programs and their cultural needs first, then Hunter and the 'cultural policy studies' junior appointments, categorised for the purposes of research funding The very idea of marketing English runs up against some problems. known as cultural studies which, to declare an interest, I should say approach he initiated requires of us that we think about the perceptions as 'other techn01ogies'? One can imagine the situation: erudite \Vhatever English Literature is 'abo~lt') it is fundamentally opposed I practice and support (Wark 1992). of government in respect of education, and the kinds of positive role schools of steam within the academy; all manner of combustion to what Queenie Leavis called 'commercialism' and what Theodor On the other hand, poststructuralism also licenses a return to the the humanities might promote for itself in this connection. engine innovators, electric motor entrepreneurs, alchemical charla­ Adorno called the 'culture industry'. On this view, English is about canon and to traditional forms of literary and textual criticism, albeit If we can set aside for a moment the panic rhetoric about the loss tans and amateur diesel hobbyists, not to mention a gaggle of resistance to the market, and attempts to bottle the essence of it will with a new theoretical toolbox. This is quite a different development of the traditional canon within English, we can see below the surface 'technology consultants' with degrees in marketing and a gift of the inevitably mean debasing its purity. Both the left and the right within to cultural studies. The project of cultural studies begins from the of such misgivings a more serious problem: the loss of the traditional gab, all earning a living and plugging a gap in the marketplace. A the culture of the humanities subscribe, more or less, to this same contemporary forms of 'cultural literacy' pervading the student body role of English in its organic connection with the living experience of marketplace which would be very much a matter of buyer beware. view. and culture as a whole. Cultural studies develops tools for thinking culture for the educated classes. Esoteric poststructuralism, just as While this may seem far fetched, it is not unlike Philosophy. As Against this, one can make two counterpoints, one rooted in the critically about the culture we live and breathe today. This does not much as traditionalist nostalgia, appear as a kind of institutional drift. Tony Coady has noted, all kinds of consultants teach and preach all past, the other tuned to the future. English thinks of itself as a guardian preclude the study of 'major works' but neither does it fetishise it. Locked in an intense debate with each other, the poststructuralists and manner of confused stews of rhetoric and logic on training courses for of tradition. Andrew Reimer certainly presents himself as such when Indeed, it provides the necessary context for its renewal by opening the traditionalists fail to see what is going on in the nexus between the public servants and business managers (Coady 1990). These consult­ he voices his distress at the overhaul of university English under the up contemporary culture as a field of critical thinking, which in tum culture of everyday life, the culture industries and the market for ants may be good, bad or indifferent, but the point is that they are ambiguously mixed pressures of administrative, scholarly and 'con­ enables an informed reading of the cultures of the past. This is a tertiary humanities courses. No wonder students flock to Communi­ rarely trained philosophers although they are doing philosopher's sumer' demand. Reimer worries about the coming of 'those ideologi­ project which, while treated with much derision by traditional Litera­ cations courses these days rather than to English. They want to jobs. They fill a gap in the market which one would hope a more cal assumptions that have led to the near dismantling of the traditional ture scholars, meets with much success with students. Students who understand their own culture and their own identities. The combina­ credible branch of 'applied philosophy' might fill. They are what in humanities in America.' The 'retreat from the canon', he fears, 'will know very well that the culture of everyday hfe, with all its elusive tion of cultural studies, media studies and practical courses in video, Gramsci's terms we might call 'organic intellectuals', connected to probably result in the wholesale abandonment of that "gold standard" promise and all its subtle betrayals is still not reductible to the 'culture radio and writing fills the cultural needs of a generation who grew up emergent forms of social relation. They contrast with Gramsci's - the demand for clarity and accuracy in a student's work as much as industry' or 'commercialism.' on TV and rock'n'rol!. 'traditional intellectuals', who are a residual force, part of the the requirement that by the end of three or four years of study a student The pressure producing literary poststructuralism is quite different. These students view the notion that their 'cultural literacy' has sediment of the social formation, produced and reproduced in institu­ should be familiar with some of the major works' - of English This pressure is that of the market for first class graduates. Competi­ suffered from this as patronising and ignorant cant. They desire a tions thro\VIl. up by the social necessities of the past (Gramsci 1971, literature, naturally. Levels of cultural literacy, it seems, are under tion in this field is fierce, not least because there are very many good training in cultural understanding and often aspire to and achieve pp 3-14). Gramsci had the church in mind, but it may well be that parts threat on all sides. The high school curriculum suffers from these candidates slugging it out for the few teaching jobs available. English excellence. Excellence not defined by some immutable gold standard of the academy now fall into this category as well. same 'progressive' attitudes as the universities. This results in 'low isn't really a growth industry at the undergraduate end of the market, (if only it were so easy!) but refined and redefined constantly in the Unless disciplines like English actively seek organic connections levels of cultural literacy' among students, where 'cultural literacy' but it is at the postgraduate end. More and more graduate students perennially shifting space of contemporary culture. 'All that is solid with emergent cultural forms and develop appropriate critical and is defined as knowledge of 'the major works.' (Reimer, 1993). compete against each other for the privilege of teaching a relatively melts into air,' including traditional cultural forms. Selling students interpretive processes, they may become as residual as Theology Such a terrible scenario! It is informed more by nostalgia than static number of undergraduates. This pressures graduate students to on the value of cultural understanding as a vocation has to encompass departments are now. No self-respecting university would be without history. English departments are quite a recent historical develop­ adopt innovative and difficult techniques in their theses. Those who the desires of those students on their own terms. Successful marketing an English department, but many don't have Theology departments. ment, and English writing got along fine before they came into learn well these esoteric practices earn the right to wait in line for one of a quality product requires not only a belief in the value of the Indeed, English has sometimes been seen since as a secular and existence, and will do so still when their centrality in the educational of the few openings in the teaching market. This process of training product, but in the value of the consumer. Cultural studies creates a nonsectarian replacement for theological institutions and norms, but credentialing and cultural training functions declines. For decline and selection detaches itself more and more from the culture of positive image of that consumer,just as cultural policy studies creates they in turn may someday be superseded by institutions and norms they must, if condemned to the endless promotion of a canon of 'major everyday life of the average undergraduate and from familiar, everyM a positive understanding of 'governmentality'. What neither quite which can keep up with the dynamic dialectic· between the culture works' created in the quite unique historical circumstances of the late day cultural resources. does for us is project a future for the humanities in an era of rapidly industries and everyday life. In the panic rhetoric of the 'decline' of 19th and early 20th century. As I speculate in this essay, English arose While it would be philistine indeed to object to the use of poststruc­ changing cultural technologies. English, one can see the echo of the panic rhetoric of the decline of to fill a particular need in the market at a particular time, and did so turalist theories to produce elaborate and elegant rereadings of the The traditionalist response at this juncture is to view all this new traditional religion, and once again it is not a decline but a supercession very successfully. The continued success of the teaching of culture as literary tradition, one has to question whether it is in the interests of fangled cultural studies and policy studies teaching as a gross betrayal of cultural forms. 'the best that has been thought and known' (Arnold 1987, p226) will the university as a whole for too many resources to be devoted to what of the traditional values an education in English has always stood for, One has to think hard and clear about what exactly Literature require a new exercise in marketing as brilliant as the first, and in can be a highly esoteric branch of learning. This is not just a question but this is a little harder to argue when one realises that English itself departments have to offer the paying customer, and indeed what in the some respects a new product. of whether there is a place in the market for poststructuralist readings was a quite recent and innovative bit of educational marketing in its best of all possible worlds they ought to offer. One way of approaching Reimer presents English studies relenting to pressure from a force of Shakespeare. It is a fundamental question of the functions of an own right The idea of the civilising value of a literary education was this might be to view the history of the relationship between presumed he derisively and indiscriminately labels 'progressive'. We win get humanities education. In the Dawkins era, we heard very many 'sold' to the public and the state for quite historically specific reasons. needs and their presumed remedy in the teaching of English Litera­ nowhere without disagregating this pressure into at least two quite defenses of the functions of the humanities - as humanities professors While many in the humanities nevertheless persist in viewing the ture. In doing so, I hope to over come a certain style of appeal to distinct forces, even if both turn out to have their roots in the same see them. Most fell on deaf ears. The attempt to repackage traditional guarding of tradition as a duty and a trust, doing so without thought tradition which is not only (and ironically) very ahistorical, it may be systematic transformation of the relation between the knowledge romantic and humanist rationales and conduct business as usual did for whether that defense is effective enough in the present to ensure positively harmful to the values the discipline of English imagines it apparatus, the culture industries and the culture of everyday life. As not work. Selling the humanities to government requires a more the survival of some essential tradition into the future risks betraying upholds. I have argued elsewhere, what Reimer calls the 'contemporary thorough analysis of its historic functions, such as Ian Hunter (1988; that trust in the very act of most stoutly upholding it. Mathew Arnold, poet, critic and inspector of schools, is often orthodoxies' presently all the rage in English departments arc devel­ 1992) has attempted. But it requires something else as well: the Of course this is a hard line to sell to those with a lot invested presented in retrospect as a founding figure for the contemporary opments which point in two directions (Wark 1993). On the one hand analysis of the dynamic relation of education, government and the personally and professionally in English, so at this juncture, a little tradition ofliterary criticism. Given that a paperback collection of his they facilitated a turn towards what Henri Lefebvre (199l) cal1s 'the culture industries as an on-going historical process with special parable. Once upon a time there was a discipline called Engineering. Selected Prose is still in print today, he is far from a forgotten writer. culture of everyday life.' This version of poststructuralism ends up attention to emergent cultural forms and opportunities. The humani­ The professors of Engineering, more out of fidelity to their training He was, in Eliot's famous phrase, more 'a propagandist for criticism licensing a turn towards the lived experience of the students who come ties must be not only custodians of the past but also custodians of the than to the needs of government and industry, decided they would not than a critic.' (Eliot 1975, p. 50) Arnold was a public intellectual to us. It studies and teaches the art of producing the emergent, future. examine Engineering theories, methods or techniques created since figure, even a populariser. Eliot's criticism of him is not without a dominant and residual forms of cultural product. It concerns itself Hunter views the historical emergence of the discipline of English the steam engine. And so it came to pass that there were many fine note of condescension. For Arnold was, above all, selling something. with the processes of resistance and negotiation with the prevailing in tem1S of the development of a government sponsored pedagogy departments of Steam Engineering. There were professional associa­ He was selling the value, not so much of literature as of the criticism forms of cultural meaning. This is the strand within the humanities aimed at the cultural management of the industrialised population. tions, publications, annual conferences for professors of steam. They of it. Amold argued that in a progressive society in which the working

Page 28 Page 29 •

class were rising to consciousness, a civilising force needed to guide aristocracy), the Philistines (the Liberal middle classes) and the and Eliot; Leavis and Orwell in precisely this context (Williams nanower ways. As Raymond Williams remarks, ' ... first a restriction and check its impulses. The aristocracy were in his view no longer Populace (particularly organised Labour). He intuited the dynamic 1990). to printed texts, then a narrowing to what are called 'imaginative' to the task. The middle classes were too narrow in their views. state of culture in society, and created a justification in advance for an As Wordsworth observed, the 'almost savage torpor' of the mind in works, and then final1y a circumscription to a critically established three contending classes viewed the world through the prism of their emergent 'new class' of white collar cultural functionaries (Gouldner his time resulted from 'the increasing accumulation of men in cities, minority of 'canonical' texts.' (Wi1liams 1991, p. 194) Tofts' suppo­ distinct and partial character. A force for ; right reason' had to be found 1979). where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for sition that Joyce's Ulysses stands as some privileged step on the way from outside their matrix. That force was culture. A culture inculcated The aristocracy, with their 'passion for field sports' were in decline extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelli~ to the emergent realm of interactive media can only be thought of as and disseminated by the state. (Arnold 1987, p. 252). The 'Philistine' middle class, having dissented gence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the an example of literary special pleading. The designers of Nintendo Amold's views are well known, and sometimes still constitute part against the rule of the old state, were in no position to see the role literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed games mostly haven't read Joyce. I would wager that Vanevar Bush, of the defense of the humanities. This is not surprising, since he sold required of the modern state in furnishing the cultural, regulatory and themselves.' (Wordsworth 1988, p. 284) Of course some of the Douglas Engelbart and the other 'canonic' forefathers of interactive those views well. He sold them t.o a wide reading public, not least by disciplinary apparatuses needed to maintain that great engine of their products of that almost savage torpor subsequently become part of the media didn't read much Joyce eitherl. Nor can we assume that English a keen rhetorical sense for flattering the vanities of the Victorian invention, the industrial economy. The destruction of rural popular canon. Our time does not have a monopoly, it seems, on the motif of analytic techniques have any special bearing on emergent media. It reader. He sold them eventually to his intellectual successors. As culture Cobbett so eloquently chronicled had not yet been replaced by immanent cultural decline. may be considerably less useful than, say, screen studies (Hutamo Chris Baldick argues, T. S. Eliot, 1. A. Richards and F. R Leavis all a working class culture integrated into the social formation. As E. P. Williams' rereading of these works arose not out of the teaching of 1992). take something from him and adapt it to the changing circumstances Thompson once said, Cobbett 'nourished the culture of a class, whose English within the university, but teaching Adult Education. His More troubling still, the whole cycle of transformation of the means of criticism in the wodel. (Baldick 1983). He sold it also to people who wrongs he felt, but whose remedies he could not understand.' rethinking of the organic connection between literature and second of communication from the telegraph to television and on to telecom­ could have some influence on the ir.stitution of criticism as a practice (Thompson 1987, p. 837) Arnold saw quite clearly that the state could nature took place in the context of a return to the practice of seeking munications seems to obliterate the special moment in which litera~ within higher education and the schools. People who, it must be said, nourish the working class quite otherwise, and wean it off its a connection with the culture of everyday life for educational practice ture appeared at the nexus between the culture of everyday life and the had somewhat baser motives than Arnold's already questionable indigenous cultural radicalism. - the kind of organic connection English was founded upon but had process of transformation of that way oflife by the social construction program of a social order maintained by force 'until right is ready.' 'Undoubtedly,' he said, 'we are drawing on towards great changes; lost in the process of creating a formal relation to culture mediated by of the new terrain of second nature. Indeed, these media now form a The concept of an academic practice of literary criticism upon and for every nation the thing most needful is to discern clearly its ovm the institutional protocols of the academy. As Williams says, ' ... some network of abstracted social relations as dense and socially powerful selected texts of English writing was a novel one a mere century ago. condition, in order to know in what particular way it may best meet of the most remarkable early definitions of what a modern English as the physical remaking of the landscape in the image of an industrial The establishment of a professorship of English at Oxford in 1884 was them. Openness and flexibility of mind are at such a time the first course might be arose from Oxford extension lecturers who'd gone capital which, for example, the novel from Dickens to Lawrence so a controversial move. Defenders of the virtues of a classical education virtues.' (Arnold 1987, p. 125) Such a time was the transformation of out and fonned their ideas in relation to this quite new demand .... But eloquently evoked. thought it a serious devaluing of the 'gold standard' of critical acumen English society into an industrial one. Such a time is the transforma­ then look what happened: having got into the university, English Growing out of the contradictions of second nature, a new terrain when weighted against the virtues of Greek and Latin training. One tion of Australian society into a post-industrial one. Then as now, the studies had within twenty years converted itself into a fairly nonnal develops which is neither natural nor architectural. A third nature ardent Hellenist argued that 'An English school will grow up, best one can do, in promoting culture as in anything else, is to attempt academic course .... Given the absence of that pressure and demand c', appears as a network of information which covers and surmounts both nourishing our language not from the humanity of the Greeks and to discover the historical tendencies, the emergent forms, and connect from groups that were outside the established education system, this the ancient interaction of a rural craft with nature and the industrial Romans, but from the savagery of the Goths and Ang!o~Saxons. We the interests of one's class to those tendencies. new discipline turned very much in on itself.' (Williams 1988, p. 153). framing of nature as a resource for the construction of a terrain wholly are about to reverse the Renaissance.' (Raldick 1982, p. 74). Arnold wrote at a time when the technical forces unleashed by the Cultural studies arose in this context as a return to an organic subordinated to a certain construction of human need. A 'map which To make matters worse, English had since the 1850s been part of the industrial revolution were breaking up the old ties of class, culture and connection with the kinds of pressures and demands which had once totally covers the territory. '2 The passage from modernity to postmo­ competitive civil service examinations for administrative posts in the nature which had developed slowly for centuries. As Georg Lukacs forced English in the direction of providing in some measure a dernity seems to me to involve the passage from one form of colonies. Hence, part of the pressure for the institutionalisation of notes, historically, 'Capitalism destroyed both the spatio-temporal training in the understanding of the process of cultural change itself. abstraction to another: from the second nature of abstract social English, arose out of the organic connection between cultural compe­ boundaries between different lands and territories and also the legal His view of the institutional aspect of the discipline is a little more spaces created by industrialised social labour to the abstract informa~ tence and administrative practice forged by the civil examinations. As partitions between the estates.' But capitalism does not just abolish contested than Ian Hunter's. Williams sees English, and subsequently tion landscapes created by the telegraph, telephone, television and Hunter stresses, institutions often have quite distinct purposes com­ the particular arrangements created by feudal culture for extracting cultural studies, as caught between conflicting pressures: towards an telecommunications: the technologies of telesthesia, perception at a bined together, seemingly as one practice, rationalised with some sustenance from nature. It replaces it with another: 'In its universe organic connection with the culture of everyday life; towards aca­ distance. Since the telegraph, information moves at a different speed apparently unitary and often rather sanctimonious aim. English was there is a formal equality for all men; the economic relations which demic normalisation; towards administrative goals which Hunter sees and along different lines to people or goods, creating a distinct terrain no different. It resulted from pressures from above and below, from directly determined the metabolic exchange between men and nature so clearly but which for Williams remain rather vague. of movement, which progressively re-orders nature and second a desire for cultural self awareness from working class autodidacts progressively disappear.' (Lukacs 1971, p. 19) It is no longer the lay Where Williams does have a stronger grasp than Hunter on the nature. It defines not only a new and more abstract space for the and a need for a competitive classification of officers for the colonial of the land, the current ofthe river, the clemency of the weather upon dynamic process of cultural change is in separating out a number of market (Carey 1989) but for culture as well. system. which extracting a living from nature depends. That landscape is distinct temporalities within culture itself. Williams speaks of re­ The passage from a modem to a postmodern culture thus has Of courser neither pressure from above or below endeared English paved over by another. But ' ... the class which carried out this sidual, dominant cultural forms and emergent cultural forms (Williams nothing to do with any 'new aesthetic' but with a much more to traditionalists within the academy. The idea needed selling and it revolution did so without consciousness of its own function; the social 1980, pp 31-49). When English was institutionalised, in the early fundamental shift in the relation between the experience of culture was Arnold's basic idea of it that constituted the product. But who was forces it unleashed, the very forces that earned it to supremacy decades of the 20th century, the Elizabethan play and the 19th century within everyday life and the forces and relations shaping that experi­ the intended market? Literature was to be studied for the benefit of seemed to be opposed to it like a second nature, but a more soulless, novel, both formerly despised forms of low art, had both passed ence. The 'major works' for our time may not be the canonical novels civilising the colonies, the workingmen and middle class women. The impenetrable nature than feudalism ever was.' through the first part of the cycle: from emergent to dominant to and poems. That canon was formed in quite another context. The history of its institutionalisation is inseparable from its ability to tap Arnold's Philistines broke down the old ties ofa rural people to the residual in the case of the Elizabethan play and from emergent to 'major works' need not be novels or poems at all. As T. S. Eliot once into markets for techniques of cultural dexterity which more tradi"" land, tearing asunder both the popular culture and the ruling culture dominant in the case of the Victorian novel. The problem is that said, 'The majority of critics can be expected only to parrot the tiona! academic disciplines wouldn't touch. At a time when the which held the life of the country together. Aristocratic culture was English was entrenched in the academy at the point where the novel opinions of the last master of criticism; among more independent classics were still something of an aristocratic preserve and many swept aside with it. But neither had any real grasp of the new terrain was in turn being eclipsed by new forms of mechanical reproduction minds a period of destruction, of preposterous over-estimation, and of courses at Oxford and Cambridge did not admit women, English met brought into being, which Lukacs casts in Hegelian terms as 'second such as the cinema and the gramophone. The book was no longer the successive fashions takes place, until a new authority comes along to significant needs. It connected to the culture industries of the time nature'. Raymond Williams chart the ways in which the experience of only mass produced artefact which stood at the intersection of introduce some order.' (Eliot 1964, p. 109). There are certainly plenty particularly the publishing industry, which since the introduction of this transformation of the rustic experience of life as a state of nature everyday life and the mass production of marketable cultural arte­ of attempts to impose order again, and no shortage of fashion and steam printing was bringing ever cheaper editions to the reading was transformed into an urban-dominated experience of a more facts. From the hostility to the Leavises to the ambivalence of Hoggart preposterousness. Perhaps what is lacking is a little destruction. It is public (Williams 1992). The national frame of reference of English thoroughly socially constructed second nature (Williams 1993). (1990), English from the 30s to the 60s is marked by its relation to the not hard to sense the dialectical necessity of a destructive moment in also made it suitable for projects of national cultural formation, both The marketing of English took place at a time when the market itself expanding field of cultural production within which literary forms critical thinking for the long term survival of critical thought and the in the colonies and at home. It is no accident that English became a had been redefined as a very central and very abstract mechanism for increasingly playa residual role. interests of those of us who live by it and for it. really credible academic discipline in the context of the first world social and cultural regulation and transformation. This was more than ft is tempting within English to try to have it both ways: to accept Ensuring the survival of the critical spirit of the humanities may war. the contingent and accidental event that Ian Hunter pictures. It was the historical rather than nostalgic view of cultural form and value but require a quite significant recasting of its sense orits 0\VIl. history - one Arnold had wider ambitions for the academic teaching of literary part of a longstanding dialectic of social transformation which in the to insist on the centrality of the existing understanding of the tradition less rooted in the specific transfonnation the industrial era produced culture than catering to these few 'niche markets,' It is interesting that present context I can but barely sketch. It is not just that English was for emergent cultural relations nonetheless. This is the problem with in second nature. One more open to the subsequent transformation of while his name is sometimes invoked in the context of the role of successfully marketed, it is that the market itself had fully emerged the otherwise very open-minded appraisal of the imminent future social and cultural spaces. Raymond Williams had the breadth of English in maintaining cultural traditions, his writings were more from the periphery of social life to its centre. Not surprisingly, a lot offered by Darren Tofts (1993). As Tofts arbrues, writing plays a key vision to historicise the book, to envisage successive forms of often concerned with the present and with the future. (Although with of reasonably 'major works' in English turn out to be about this role in the emergent interactive media to come. The problem for connection between the culture of everyday life, the technologies of Arnold, one is never quite sure whether present necessities are transformation of nature into second nature; rural into urban centred English is that practices of writing which the new hypermedia studied perception and the wider landscape. This is a vision which can inform invoked to promote 'traditional' values, or vice versa). As is well life; agricultural to industrial production. Williams reads Burke and by Landow (1992) draw on may have little to do with the conception not only English but also cultural studies and even cultural policy knovm, Amold saw a role for state education as a necessary counter Cobbett; Blake and Bentham; Keats and Carlyle; Newman and Mill; of 'writing' English now holds. studies, should they venture out of the safe havens of the residual and to the contending class interests and views of the Barbarians (the Dickens and Ruskin; Eliot and Arnold; Shaw and Gissing; Lawrence English defined the kinds of writing to be critically studied in ever dominant forms of culture and try to establish some critical authority

Page 30 Page 31 over the emergent and some practical connection to it. market, borne along by the expanding and ever emerging techniques Notes: In sum, there are three directions in which one might want to see a of telesthesia. Institutions like English, if they are to maintain an 1. forajournalistic survey of the 'great white forefathers' of interactive medi a, reorientation to the market. In the first place, an attempt to engage organic and not merely formal connection to culture, must mediate see Rheingold (1991). Like all emergent cultures, interactive media cultures with the culture of everyday life, the project of cultura1 studies. There this relation rather than refuse it. Viewed in this light, interests must retrospectively create their own canon. is nothing to be gained in perpetuating the Leavisite goal of a minority be calculated in tenns of the relation between these forces, not in a 2. An expression usually attributed to Jean Baudrillard (1983, pp 1-4) but culture, trained within the academy to resist 'commercialism'. We reactionary retreat to the gold standard of old; not in an eager embrace which no doubt grows out ofBaudriliard's reading of Guy Debord's (1983, p need to develop a core curriculum which takes as its starting point the in bad faith with consumer driven novelty; not in the angelic and 31) reading of Lefebvre (1991) and Lukacs (1971). fOTITIS of 'cultural literacy' potential students already possess, even if ineffectual resentments of parlour theory. To appropriate Ruskin's it is a literacy that owes more to Chuck Jones than to Charles Dickens. phrase, keeping alive a joy forever means keeping an eye on its price. In the second place, we need to promote the project of cultural self­ understanding to government. From representations of women in References: magazines to the issue of violence in video games, our culture is alive Arnold, Mathew 1987, 'Culture and Anarchy' in Selected Prose, with regulatory problems, with problems of valuation and interpreta­ Hannondsworth, Penguin. tion which only state-sponsored training at all levels can solve. Both Baldick, Chris 1983,The Social Mission ofEnglish Criticism, Oxford, Claren­ the state and the culture industries have an interest in creating a market don Press. for new media forms which has an understanding and not a fear of Baudrillard, Jean 1983, Simulations, Semiotext(e), New York. those forms. As critical intellectuals, we can attach quite another Carey, James 1989, Culture as Communication, Boston, Unwin Hyman. agenda to the pursuit of that one: a critical awareness of the shifting vectors of cultural technology and an empowerment of the self, not as Coady, Tony 1990, 'The Justification of Philosophy', in A. M. Gibbs, The Relevance of the Humanities, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Occa­ media consumers but as media citizens. sional Paper No.8, Canberra. In the third place, we need to forge an organic connection between the creation of cultural forms, new and old, and the critical academy. Debord, Guy 1983, The Society of the Spectacle, Detroit, Black & Red. Art schools and communication schools are already developing Eliot, T.S. 1964, 'Mathew Arnold', The Use ofPoetry and the Use ofCriticism, experimental research and teaching programs in emergent media London, Faber & Faber. forms. As we move towards a postbroadcast age, where the terrain of Eliot, T. S. 1975, 'The Perfect Critic', inSelected Prose ofT. S. Eliot, edited by third nature is criss-crossed by ever finer, more flexible and more Frank Kennode, London, Faber & Faber. abstract vectors of communication, there is everything to gain by Gouldner, Alvin 1979, The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New connecting critical interpretive practices to cultural production prac­ Class, New York, Oxford. tices. Particularly since these may very well be more diverse and Gramsci, Antonio 1971, 'The Intellectuals' in Selections from the Prison smaller in scale than the mass-defined broadcast audience and indus­ Notebooks, New York, International Publishers try structure. We no longer have origins, we have terminals. Hoggart, Richard 1990, The Uses of Literacy, Hannondsworth, Penguin. As a card carrying member of the Academics Union (No. 1178), I HWlter, Ian 1988, Culture and Government, London, Macmillan. have to state bluntly that one must think of the strategic problem of Hunter, Ian 1992, 'The Humanities Without Humanism', Meanjin, 51(3), the place of English in the academic market and in the wider cultural pp479-490. market in strategic terms. The strategy sketched here involves pursu­ ing a number of alliances. On the one hand, looking for a connection Hutamo, Erkki 1992, 'Commentaries on Metacommentaries on Interacivity', in A. Cavallaro, R. Harley, L. Wallace and M. Wark, Cultural Diversity in the with the popular desire to understand the troubling features of Global Village: the Third International Symposium on ElectronicArt, Austral­ emergent culture, and with the desire to create new forms of identity ian Network for Art & Technology, Adelaide. or recreate traditional forms of community on the new cultural terrain. Landow, George 1992, Hypertext, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University This is a postrnodern condition which the humanities cannot escape Press. any more than anyone else. Yet we can tune the antenna to the aspirations many people share for a culture which negotiates between Lefebvre, Henri 1991, The Critique of Everyday Life, London, Verso. a democracy of access and an aspiration to quality. We no longer have Lukacs, George 1971, History and Class Consciousness, London, Merlin roots, we have aerials. Press. On the other hand, those of us who belong to what Alvin Gouldner Reimer, Andrew 1993, 'Canonically Speaking', Eureka Street, 3(5), June­ called the 'critical, emancipatory and hermeneutic' wing of the 'new July. class', the class who manipulate the 'symbols' which flows along the Rheingold, Howard 1991, Virtual Reality, London, Seeker and Warburg. vectors of third nature, need to form some organic links with the Thompson, E. P. 1987, The Making of the English Working Class, technical intelligentsia and their administrative counterparts (Gouldner Harmondsworth, Penguin Books. 1979, pp 48-53). This is already happening in the cultural policy Tofts, Darren 1993, 'Beyond Literate Culture?: A Reply to McKenzie Wark', studies initiatives and the new media arts developments in recent Meanjin, 52(2), pp 378-390. years. A little more co-ordination of these two areas both with cultural Wark, McKenzie 1992, 'After Literature: Culture, Policy, Theory and Be­ studies in its project of outreach into popular culture would help. yond', Meanjin, 51(4), pp 677·690. Whether the richness of the established and canonised literary Wark, McKenzie 1993, 'Tune the Aerial to Tenninal Culture', The Australian, tradition will be much diminished if it ceases to be the central (and 2nd June. largely unmarketable) preoccupation of English is debatable. The Williams, Raymond 1980, 'Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural richness of the as yet unstudied and understudied cultural traditions Theory' in Problems of Materialism and Culture, London, Verso. which now and in the future so strongly intersect which the culture of everyday life will most certainly be enhanced by drawing them into Williams, Raymond 1988, 'The Future of Cultural Studies', in The Politics of Modernity, London, Verso. the critical orbit. Finally, the necessary task of 'marketing' the tradition of critical Williams, Raymond 1990, Culture and Society, London, Hogarth Press. understanding today is dialectically related to a critical understanding WiHiams, Raymond 1991, 'Crisis in English Studies', in Writing in Society, of the historical emergence of the market within culture. The former London, Verso. cannot simply oppose itself to the latter. They are mutually implied Williams, Raymond 1992, 'The Growth of the Reading Public', in The Long in each other and have been all along. If the deployment of the Revolution, London, Hogarth Press. 'market' in this essay appears quietly ironic, this is why. There is a Williams, Raymond 1993, The Country and the City, London, Hogarth Press. dynamic yet antagonistic relationship between the anchoring of value Wordsworth, William 1988 'Preface to Lyrical Ballads', in Selected Prose, in critical tradition and the permanent revolution of values in the Hannondsworth, Penguin.

Page 32 Page 33 services purchased from the corporations and the SOEs, in the newly made changes in industrial relations and in the appointment and established competitively neutral environment, are also required to employment of senior managers, the Public Finance Act 1989 clari­ pay dividends and taxes. Ministers are now 'shareholders', and chief fIed the meaning of 'perfoD11ance' in the Public Service by establish~ The marketisation of tertiary education in executive officers who have been purposely given the freedom to iug criteria for monitoring. The reforms of financial management manage without political interference, must provide a 'statement of under the Finance Act have followed changes adopted in Britain and corporate intent' and annual repmi,s. Australia with two important differences: the first is the distinction A privatisation programme followed corporatisation, against an between purchase and ownership; and the second is the distinction New Zealand explicit election promise. Advocates of state sector reform had seen between outputs and outcomes. The tension between the govem M corporatisation as a preliminary and partial solution (Treasury 1984, ment's aims as owner of its agencies and its aims as consumer of their Michael Peters, James Marshall and Bruce Parr 1987; Dean 1989). In general, the arguments for privatisation centered outputs can be resolved. through the market, i.e. contestabi1ity. Chief University of Auckland on alleged operational weaknesses in the SOE model which arose executive officers are directly responsible for the outputs (the goods from differences with the private sector, ego no threat oftake~overs or and services) produced. by their departments and the ministers are bankruptcy, non-shareholding directors, state guarantees and moni­ responsible for choosing which outputs should be produced and IntroductiOIl devaluation, inflation and stabilisation attempts, and the ad hoc toring roles. Treasury (1987), alongside the Business Roundtable therefore also the outcomes (the effects of those outputs on the Since 1988 the New Zealand education system, at all levels has development of a set of 'restrictive' regulatory government interven­ (1988) were the strongest voices in favour of privatisation arguing community). The first task of policy advice, according to this mode! undergone unprecedented change. The proposals for change were first tions since the 1970s (Duncan and Bollard1992). that a transfer of assets to the private sector would address efficiency of management, is to identify the connection between the outputs and introduced as reforms in educational administration, but they were Labour, historically, a party of the welfare state and the regulated shortfalls of the SOEs, help reduce the public debt, continue the the outcomes, the trade-offs between different outcomes and the best soon being referred to as reforms in education. In effect education has economy with links to the union movement, on becoming govern­ process of 'load-shedding', and aid capital accumulation in the source for the supply of outputs. The justification for public expendi­ become a marketable commodity with the system edging towards ment 'discarded this tradition without warning and became a party of private sector. Opposition to privatisation came from a variety of ture is related to the directness and quality of the connection. These privatisation. Even the rhetoric of liberal education has been replaced the New Right' (Jesson 1992, p.37). Constitutionally, operating on the sources. Maori contested the Government's right to sell off public two major differences have also influenced methods of appropriation in Government agency thinking by an explicit emphasis on basis of a 'thin' political system (a two party system with a single assets under the Treaty of Waitangi. Unions not only feared huge (which are now directly linked to performance), the nature of report­ vocationalism. In this paper we provide a critical interpretation of parliamentary chamber and few checks and balances to the exercise redundancies but also critiqued the 'emerging privatised market ing, and the nature of policy advice (Scott et a1 1990, p.1S6). these changes. of executive power), the Labour Government pushed through its society' focusing on the way a political debate over the role of the First we describe the restructuring of the public sector in New refonns at an astonishingly rapid rate. This was a strategy based on a state and democracy had been reduced to or subsumed by economic crisis of the welfare state Zealand as part of a 'radical' refonn of the economic structures, deliberate 'politics ofreform' and is clearly evidenced in a statement arguments (PSA1989). Neo~1iberals and advocates of New Right policies in New Zealand including the privatisation of the public sector and the move towards made by Roger Douglas, then Minister of Finance, to the Mont Pelerin Labour's state asset sales programme which took place from 1988 have increasingly focused their attention on the rising and apparently making the remaining welfare agencies more accountable, efficient Society in 1989. Douglas listed ten principles which underlay La­ to (June) 1990 included fifteen major businesses totalling a massive irreversible tide of welfare expectations, arguing that the welfare state and competitive. Second, we identify the neo-liberal ideology bour's strategy for politically successful refonn, including: $10 billion. (The sale of Telecom at $4.25 billion in 1990 was the has evaded both investment and work incentives, and has directly underlying these changes. After identifying the activities which Implement refonn by quantum Leaps. Moving step by step lets fourth largest global sale that year). The timing of the sales was contributed'to the economic recession. The combined effects of social would need to be pursued to privatise education we identify how far vested interests mobilise. Big packages neutralise them. appalling. The first sales followed rapidly on the huge stock market policies - including guaranteed minimum wages, superannuation, and down this path the government has moved to date. Finally we explore Speed is essentiaL It is impossible to move too fast. Delay will crash of 1987 in which a fall in value of over 50 per cent was the exponential growth of health and education sectors allegedly has the implications and possibilities of the New Zealand experiment in drag you down before you can achieve your success. experienced, and the economy was in a deep recession. Also the strengthened organised labour vis a vis capital, augmented wages as valuation and marketisation processes were open to question. Sale by against capital goods, and increased state borrowings from itself, education for Australia. Once you start the momentum rolling, never let it stop. Set your treaty and tender followed by negotiation, was criticised as a process leading to a decline of profitability. own goals and deadlines. Within that framework consult in the The policy context: public sector restructurillg open to political interference. No full market floatations occurred. Neo-liberals such as the previous Minister of Health, Simon community to improve implementation. Many of the agreed asset prices, has been justly asserted, were much 22 Just as education 'refonns' must be understood within the wider it Upton and the present Minister of Social Welfare, Jenny Shipley, In the six years to 1990 when Labour was in power it almost too low: the assets sold off had been greatly under-valued. It is not context of public sector restructuring, and as a subset of the refonns argue that the so-called perverse effects lead to greater state interven­ completely deregulated the New Zealand economy: it deregulated the even clear to what extent the level of public debt was reduced through of the state sector based on the same principles, so the restructuring tionism in both social and economic tenus, but the more the state financial sector; it terminated subsidies for agricultural products and the privatisation programme. lNhether the sales programme was in of the public sector must be understood as a part of the 'radical' helps, they argue, the more it will have to help and at diminishing exports; it abolished import licencing, heavily reduced tariffs, the best long-term interests of New Zealand is another matter. structural economic reform embarked upon by the fourth Labour levels of effectiveness. It is alleged that increasing levels of interven­ removed controls on international capital, liberalised foreign invest­ The reform of the remaining core public sector (i.e. the residual Government (1984-1990). On the whole, this 'experiment' has been tion, while leading to the current crisis of an imbalance between state ment, and floated the exchange rate (Duncan and Bollardl992, p. 6). non-SOE public sector) including defense, policing and justice, social both accepted and consolidated by the National administration that receipts and expenditure, tend in the long ternl to rob economic A review of the role of the state and the 'restructuring' of the public services such as health and education, and research and development succeeded Labour in 1990. To be sure the commitment by Thatcher liberalism of its vitality. The bottom line is that the perverse effects sector was seen as a part of the wider structural economic reform. In (among others), was based on two major pieces of legislation: the and Reagan administrations to monetarism and supply-side econom­ of economic and social intervention represent to these critics a particular, the new micro-economic theories argued that state owned State Sector Act 1988 and the Public Finance Act 1989. Refonns ics, and the general move towards economic liberalisation by Western fundamental threat to individual political and democratic freedom. and controlled trading organisations perfonned poorly because they based on these Acts have been described as 'the most far~reaching and governments provided a global context for structural refonn in New Vv'hile the restructuring of the state under Labour was not restricted were constrained by the institutional environment and lacked the ambitious of any of their kind in the world' (State Services Commis­ Zealand. This international development was reinforced by the rapid to the core public sector - education, health and loca1 government same incentives as the private sector. From the mid-1980s the sion 1991). Christopher Hood (1990, p.2lO), commenting on the dissemination of a particular set of theoretical developments in underwent major reorganisation - it was with the newly elected Government pursued a programme of corporatisation and, later, Treasury's (1987) treatise, Government Management the basis and microeconomic theory (to the control departments of the New Zea­ National Government, which came to power in 1990, that the 're~ privatisation, as twin strategies for improving the efficiency and inspiration for the refonns - described it as 'remarkable', implying land bureaucracy the Treasury and State Services Commission), sidual' public sector was fe-defined in terms of a more limited OT accountability of departmental trading departments. In 1985 the that it was vastly more coherent and intellectually sophisticated than emphasising notions of public choice, contestability and property minimal state. The National Government embarked on the most Minister of Finance made public five general principles for the its equivalents elsewhere: 'Neithl;':r Canberra nor VVhitehal! has pro­ rights. Public choice theory, originating with Gordon Tullock and significant changes to the welfare state since its establishment in the restructuring of trading departments. First, non-commercial func­ duced anything remotely comparable in quality or quantity to the New James Buchanan (1962) at Virginia, represents a renewal of the main 1930s, The major initiatives have included substantial cuts in benefits tions would be separated from major state trading organisations. Zealand Treasury's "NPM manifesto'''. He cites the cardinal princi­ article of faith underlying classical economic liberalism. It asserts and other forms of income support, together with much stricter Second, managers would be required to run departments as successful ples of what he tenus 'New Public Management', set in place by that all behaviour is dominated by self-interest and its major innova­ eligibility criteria, greater targeting of social assistance and changes businesses. Third, managers would be responsible for pricing and Treasury; goal clarity, transparency, contestability, avoidance of tion is to extend this principle to the status of a paradigm for to the method of targeting, and 'a radical redesign of the means by marketing within perfonnance objectives set by Ministers. Fourth, bureaucratic or provider capture, congruent incentive stnlctures, understanding politics. On this view individuals are rational utility which the state provides assistance', particularly in the areas of the new state enterprises would be required to operate in a competi­ enhancement of accountability, and cost-effective use of infonnation. maximizers and while it is accepted that the pursuit of self-interest in housing, health care and tertiary education (Boston 1992, p.}). While tively neutral environment. Last, state enterprises would be set up on The impetus for the reforms was economic efficiency and accord­ the market place will yield socially desirable outcomes, similar the changes have been justified in terms. of the need for fiscal an individual basis depending on their commercial purposes and ingly the refonns 'focused upon generating improvement by clarify­ behaviour in politics needs to be structured and controlled in various stringency, given the countlY's high external debt and the failure of would be modelled on the private sector each with its own board of ing objectives and allowing managers to manage within a framework ways (see Easton 1988; Boston 1991). the previous policy regime, it is clear as Boston (ibid.) notes, the directors. These principles were enshrined in the State-Owned Enter­ of accountability and perfonnance' (State Services Commission changes 'also originate from a marked shift in political philosophy' Criticism of the 'Think Big' projects (which emphasised the prises (SOEs) Act 1986. Nine SOEs were created from fonner 1991, p.5). The State Sector Act had two main aims: to redefine the failure of a huge public investment programme in the 1970s) was which focuses on the question of the nature and scope of the state. government trading departments on 1 April 1987. Subsequently other relationship between ministers and pennanent heads from one based ultimately directed at the nature of direct government intervention in The National Government, in addition, has committed its.elf to a SOEs have been created. I Under the Act trading departments became on the Westminster system (eg. pennanent tenure, independently set the economy. This criticism was to be ritually reiterated later with privatisation programme and to the corporatisation of the remaining state corporations regulated by company law. They are required to be remuneration) to one based on a perfOTmance contract; and to apply the breakup of the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe. It public sector organisations, including Electricity Companies, CroVill run to make a profit and to be as efficient as their private sector similar labour-market regulations to both state and private-sector was perceived that New Zealand had perfonned poorly in tenns of Research Institutes and Crown Health Enterprises. Perhaps, most counterparts. User charges have been introduced for government employment (Scott et at 1990, p.IS3). Where the State Sector Act importantly the National Govemment has introduced the Emp!oy- productivity and growth since the mid-1970s; there was a record of Page 34 Page 35 mont Contracts Act 1991 which complements social welfare changes (2) the establishment of the Education Review Office (ERO) in the sense that it is 'decidedly anti-collectivist in philosophy and and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) as recomInends that student loans from private sources ought to replace funding on an annual basis. There is no rolling triennium or informa­ intent', shifting as it does 'the focus oflabour law from the collective separate theoretically independent of the Ministry of government grants as the means of financing university tion about public funding like the Higher Education Funding/or the to the individual' (Walsh 1992, p.59 & p.64). In general, then, it can Education; study and that financial to students, to the extent that it is 1993-9j' Triennium (Baldwin 1992) published by the Commonwealth justified, ought to be mainly targeted to the disadvantaged. Department of Employment, Education and Training in Australia. be argued, that the National Govemment has accepted, continued (3) the decentralisation of administration to Boards of Trustees The Treasury arguments have won the day. A standard tertiary fee This absence of longer term advice about government intentions is, with and attempted to complete the transfonnation initiated under and Councils through Charters so that individual institutions was introduced for the first time in 1990, requiring students to pay perhaps, seen to be consistent with the development of a market where tleo-liberal ideology of the Labour Government (Easton 1993). become the basic unit, with Charters as the lynch-pin between $1250 up front (increased to $1300 in 1991). The National Govern­ adjustments are held to occur automatically. It Gan, however, engen­ the Ministry and institutions. This promoted some decentralisa­ ment's Study Right proposal had not only pledged to abolish the der considerable uncertainty among institutional managers who until educatiollal challges tion to schools but greater centralised control for the universities; Plivatisation involves three main kinds of activity which parallel standard tertiary fee but also had promised a guarantee of free tertiary very recently believed that their institutions would receive at least the (4) centralised control in the Ministry through the Charters, the the three main types of state intervention: a reduction in state subsidy; education and training for all school~leavers for up to four years. The same levels offunds as the previous year (adjusted for pIice changes). abolition of buffers (such as local education boards and the a reduction in state provision; and a reduGtion in state regu1ation (Le Treasury's Brief to the Incoming Government 1990 reiterated its The current Minister of Education in New Zealand, Dr. Lockward University Grants Committee), through ERO (the old inspector­ Grand and Robinson 1984). The case for the privatisation of tertiary earlier claims concerning student contributions maintaining that Smith, for example, announced in May 1993 that the government ate in new clothing), and a drive for forms of public accountability education in New Zealand was made by the Treasury as early as 1984 higher education is primarily a private good and that 'Students can funding per Equivalent Full Time Student (EFTS) in 1994 would be disguised as effeGtive administration, and: in its Economic Management. Following the work of Le Grand (1982), make better choices that are in the wider public interest if they face reduced and he explained that institutions would have to 'own' the the Treasury developed a set of arguments around the use of the (5) the replacement of academic professsionalism with the the real costs and benefits of their decisions' (p.137). The Treasury problem ofless funding, implying that managers should either lower theoretical term 'capture' in the so-called egalitarian critique of the canons of business management. argued against the flat-fee regime on the grounds that it has a costs or raise tuition fees, welfare state. The term 'capture' is used to argue the case concerning At first sight the more centralised control of education by the distortionary impact on student choices and recommended that insti­ In terms of private funding, the goal of tertiary education policy in inefficiencies of existing welfare policies in terms of the achievement Ministry might seem at variance with the notion of reducing state tutions be allowed to set whatever fees they like so as to encourage New Zealand is that students should pay tuition fees which, in the of egalitarian objectives and to advocate the move to targeting. The regulation. But this has been necessary in the 'first phase' to overcome price competition and improve resource allocation. The Report ofthe absence of actual market prices, reflect the real costs of courses. In claim is simply that the welfare state is not redistributive across class the alleged 'capture' of education by the providers, to create a so­ Tertiary Review Group (1991), following Treasury arguments, also contrast the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) in lines; most redistribution is intra-class and across an individual's life called level playing field to bring about greater choice, competition took issue with the original Study Right proposal, stating that it was Australia was never intended to be a pricing mechanism for achieving time. According to the Treasury (1984, p.259); 'Among the most and quality control, and to reduce discretionary decision making a 'poorly targeted programme'. The Review Group argued for stu~ greater efficiencies in the supply of higher education. Neither was the extreme examples of capture is tertiary education ... ' In line with this which might be contrary to the ideological thrust of the reforms. dents contributing towards the costs of their tertiary education and for scheme devised as a means for matching the supply of particular critique the Treasury is attempting to arrive at political conclusions Attacks upon the universities as elitist and inefficient were accom­ a loans scheme. The recommended changes, almost a direct copy of courses with demand for those courses nor was it seen as a vehicle for for a limited (or minimal) state on the basis of empirical studies of panied by the National Framework ofNZQA in which the universities Treasury recommendations, were adopted by the National Govern­ .,relating the benefits of higher education to the labour market or distributional data. would be caught in a seamless web, offering similar qualifications and ment in the 1991 Budget, when the new Study Right policy was finally anticipated income. By 1987 in its publication Government Management, the Treasury courses to other institutions, but no 10nger from a superior position in installed. New Zealand has moved from a system of tertiary education The question of who owns tertiary institutions is central to the had shifted ground. Following the work of the public choice school, the market. (For a full discussion of the differences between NZQA which prior to 1990-1991, was characterised by low fees and rela­ concerns of current policy makers in New Zealand higher education. and in particular that of James Buchanan (1986), the Treasury and New Zealand Universities see Tarling 1993). In order to do this tively generous student allowances (rather than loans), based on The existence of a pricing meGhanism presupposes that all costs will employed an a priori argument to draw a political conclusion for a the distinctions between education and training, and general and principles of universal elegibility and unlimited entitlement, to a be taken into account in detennining a price schedule and that limited state from the assumption of homo economicus - that people vocational education were attacked. Similar attacks were made upon policy regime characterised by higher but subsidised fees, means­ institutions will be free to raise funds on their assets as they respond should be treated as self-interested, rational utility-maximisers in all the notion of research, reducing it to problem-solving. Thus reduced, tested student allowances, and a government-funded, income-contin­ to market forces. of their behaviour. The problem of supply-side or provider capture (a if not trivialised, anyone might do research. The outcome has been gent loans scheme, based on the principles of user-pays and targeted A Task Force set up by the Minister to investigate the feasibility of notion which is closely modelled on Buchanan's notion of rent­ that universities now have to compete for much of their research social assistance (see Peters 1992; Peters et a11992). capital charging in tertiary education in New Zealand made its Interim seeking) is to be tackled by restricting the extent of government action monies. The seamless web is still NZQA's aim (see Barker 1993). A comparison with Australia reveals two quite distinct policy Report in late 1992 (Van Zijl et al 1992). The notion of capital (the minimal state), and by changing the rules of the game: that is, by Already a private university has been established, much to the regimes in tertiary education. Where New Zealand's tertiary educa­ charging is the first step towards defining private ownership of devising a tightly defined set of constitutional constraints to reduce chagrin of the Vice Chancellors' Committee which is threatening tion system has been modelled on principles that governed the public institutions. It involves detemlining a market valuation of an institu­ discretionary decision-making. In terms of public choice theory, the legal action because the institution is not a university in the full sense sector restructuring more broadly, reflecting a commitment to the tion's capital assets, so that a return can be paid to the State when Treasury argues for: of the term, and the term 'degree' was meant to have been fully market in terms of funding and management structures, in Australia ov;;nership is transferred to an institution and the State becomes a protected in legislation. In addition a large number of private provid­ tertiary education has been protected from the full effects of shareholdec Capital charging models are claimed to provide an minimal government, confined mainly to the determination of marketisation, with a greater emphasis on State direction, provision incentive for institutions to use their capital assets efficiently. The individual rights, and for maximum exposure of all providers to ers in the tertiary sector have been approved by NZQA, as well as degree Gourses in other institutions which are not (as yet) universities. and planning. While there are some differences in policy orientation, New Zea1and Vice Chancel1ors' Committee argues that the introduc­ competition or contestability as a means of minimising monopoly there is a grave danger that the increasingly 'dry' policy moves in tion of a capital charge regime would not be fiscally neutral and would power and maximising consumer influence on the quality and type Thus there is an identifiable move away from the state as being the Australian tertiary education over the 1ast decade has created an introduce distortions that are both incalculable and patently inequita~ of services provided (Bertram 1988, p.ISO). sole provider of tertiary education, and the existing universities as the sole providers of degrees. opening for the right. ble (NZVCC1993). Certainly 'capital rich' institutions which have What of the implications for educational policy? From 1988 the NZQA, through its national framework and its views on quality become so partly as a result of their history and location will pay a New Zealand education system underwent unprecedented changes. control - quality as consumer satisfaction and the standards set by A comparison with AUlst!-aliia larger retum and funds will be redistributed from 'capital rich' to How did these changes support the three activities of privatisation industry (Barker 1993, p.8) - will effectively take the state out of the The new regulatory environment for tertiary education in New 'Gapital poor' institutions - from universities to polytechnics. identified above? The major documents leading into the reorganisa­ regulation of tertiary education. Whilst it is a state agency NZQA will, Zealand designed to facilitate the development ofa market, paradoxi­ Ownership has not been an issue in Australia. The Commonwealth tion of secondary schools were Administering For Excellence (1988) however, be dependent upon industry for its quality control standards, cally, has been established through State intervention. While in New has funding rather than constitutional responsibility for the higher - the Picot Report, named after its Ghairperson Brian Picot - and the which would apply across the framework (including, it hopes and Zealand State education agencies have been split into a number of education system. It currently monitors the use of capital assets and Government's response on the implementation of these administra­ intends, the universities). In this framework institutions will therefore different organisations with discrete regulatory functions, in Aus­ is concerned with rewarding efficient use of capital. In New Zealand tive changes, Tomorrow's Schools (1988). The corresponding docu­ be regulated by the market, that is by consumer choice and consumer tralia they have become parts of larger organisations which have each part of the system must make its own assessment of the market ments for the Universities were The Report on Post-CompulsOfY satisfaction. The universities, contesting this view of quality are continued to undertake long-term planning and coordination. Such conditions it confronts and manage its capital resources accordingly. Education and Training (1988) - known as the Hawke Report - and moving to establish an Academic Audit Unit to oversee matters of 'planning' in New Zealand public policy, taken to denote State While the policy to reduce the size of councils, focusing on the Learning for Life Two (1989). Amongst other important documents quality assuranGe (see Marshal! 1993). interventionism, is deemed antithetical to the development of market control of universities, has been similar in Australia and New Zea­ which were to appear later, was Designing the Framework (1989). In On the parameter of reduction in state subsidy, Treasury (1987) forces. land, the motivation and objectives have been different. In Australia this document from the newly fonned New Zealand Qualifications argues that tertiary education is primarily a private consumption and Funding policy rhetoric and implementation serve to contrast the the motivation has been pragmatic, based on the notion of achieving Authority, are proposals for a national framework of levels which will investment good from which individuals derive substantial benefit in market oriented approach in New Zealand with the more centrally greater efficiency and effectiveness. In New Zealand the motivation mesh secondary and higher education. In the words of the present terms of higher hfe time earnings, Private provision is considered coordinated approach in Australia. Public funding in New Zealand is has been ideological, based on the notion that council members must Minister of Education, Dr. Lockward Smith, education at all levels generally more efficient, flexible and responsive than public provi­ intended to reduce State education expenditure, make room for co11ectively have sufficient management experience to enable the will become' a seamless web'. sion. Some funding role for the state may be justified to ensure the private funding and encourage institutions to behave as if there were institution to perform its functions properly. These functions are to The major structural changes in the new Education acts which production of public goods, to compensate for any externalities, or to a market for tertiary education. Institutions are empowered to set their appoint a chief executive, prepare a charter, approve statements of concerned the universities were: realise society's equity objectives. The state, otherwise, should own course fees. The government's intention is for institutions to objectives, ensure appropriate management and determine policies. (1) the establishment of a new Ministry of Education in which simply restrict itself to regulating the tertiary market to ensure that compete for students on the basis of a price schedule that will allow The collegial style of university management with its more demo­ a section for Higher Education now covers the Universities certain quality standards are met and that services are contestable. On for the development of consumer choice, course diversity and the cratic mechanisms and practices remains 1arge1y intact in Australian (previously the Universities had operated under individual the basis of this kind of analysis, the Treasury (1987 p.193-4) training requirements of the labour market. institutions, whereas in New Zealand institutions it is being replaced Acts, independently of the Department of Education); The New Zealand government advises institutions of their bulk by a more management style where the chief executive is individually Page 36 Page 37 responsible to council for the implementation of policy and for the exemption scholarships to almost all undertaking an honours year or Business Roundtable 1988, State-owned enterprises policy: issues in owner~ policy, Canberra, DEEr. employmcent of all staff. courses leading to masters or doctorate degrees by research. In New ship and regulation, Wellington. has been no policy to achieve amalgamations in New Zealand neither the government nor the institutions yet offer general Steering Group, SSC 1991, Review of stare sector refbrms, State Services Chapman, B. 1992, AUSTUDY: towards a morejiexible approach, DEET, Zealand. Amalgamations wiU occur, if they occur at all, as a result of tuition fee exemptions to research students. Commission, Wellington, November. AGPS. market forces. In Australia, on the other hand, amalgamations were Research funding in New Zealand has undergone a radical change 'farling, Nicholas 1993, 'Basic concern by staff over NZ Aut.~ority', Campus planned and directed by the Commonwealth, which adopted a 'carrot with the reform of science policy and the setting up of the Public Good Dawkins, J. S. 1987, Higher education: a policy discussion paper, Canberra, Review, 3(2), 4-10 March, p 8. AGPS. and stick' approach to persuade state governments and institutions to Science Fund (PGSF). This fund is based on the idea of contestability The report ofthe select committee on post compulsory education and training accept amalgamation proposals. Although the Green and White whereby researchers from the tertiary education institutions compete Dawkins,1. S. 1988, Higher education: a policy statement, Canberra, AGPS. 1988, Wellington, Government Printer. papers suggested that there were economies of scale to be gained for funds against each other and against researchers from Crown Dawkins, J. S. 1989,Researchfor Australia: higher education 's contribution, Van Zijl et a11992, Interim report of the tertiary capital charge feasibility through amalgamations (Dawkins 1987, 1988) a strong underlying Research Institutes. With the move toward a fully privatised market Canberra, AGPS. study taskforce, Wellington, Ministry of Education. reason was the achievement of administrative simplicity for manag­ society the PGSF is seen as a concession to State intervention and even Dean, Rod 1989,Corporatisation andprivatisation: a discussion ofthe issues, Walsh, Pat 1992, 'The Employment Contracts Act', in J. Boston and P. Daziel ing the Unified National System from Canberra. as an inconsistency by market 'purists' (see Peters 1993a). In Aus­ Wellington, Electricorp. (cds.) The decent society? Essays in response to National's economic and The Employment Contracts Act (1991) in New Zealand has em­ tra!ia researchers from the teaching universities can seek funding DEET & NUS 1993,AUSTUDY '93 a guide to studentfinance, vol. I, DEET social policies. Auckland, Oxford University Press, pp 59~ 76. powered institutional managers to negotiate directly with individual from the National Health and Medical Research Councils or the &NUS. staff members or their representatives in order to determine salaries Australian Research Council (ARC). Researchers from the non­ DEET 1993, ABSTUDY i993 money to study: financial help for Aboriginal Notes and condjtions of employment. This Act has replaced central wage teaching Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National and Torres Strait islander people, Canberra, AGPS. 1. The nine SOEs were: Electricity and Coal Corporations (from the Ministry fixing and negotiation with enterprise bargaining, which in theory is University and from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Department of Education 1988, Administering for excellence: effective ad­ of Energy); NZ Post, Post Office Bank and Telecom (from the former Post subject only to the constraint of the market. In the words of one Research Organisation are specifically excluded from ARC funding. ministration in education, Wellington, Government Printer. Office); Land and Forestry Corporations (from NZ Forest Service and the commentator, the Act has replaced a system of industrial relations Furthermore, in Australia the State has taken a lead in providing Lands and Survey Department; Airways Corporation; and Government Prop~ Department of Education 1989, Learning for life two, Wellington, Govem~ erty Services. Subsequently, the Works Corporation was set up from the old which was 'oIiented towards industrial stability, social equity, and 'seeding' grants to stimulate research programs among universities ment Printer. economic efficiency' with one which is 'decidedly anti-collectivist in and establish linkages between teaching and research, and industry Ministry of Works and Development (1988); the Government Supply Broker­ Department of Education 1988, Tomorrow's schools: the reform of educa~ philosophy and intent' (Walsh 1992, p.59). It seems likely that the Act and research. There are no centres in New Zealand comparable to the age Company was formed from the old Government Stores Board; public tional administration, Wellington, Government Printer. sector superarmuation funds were separated from Treasury; the Government win lead to a greater segmentation and hierarchy within the university Special Research Centres and Key Centres of Teaching and Research Duncan, Ian & Alan Bollard 1992, Corporatization and privatization: lessons Computing services was split from the State Services Commission. Under the teaching force with an increase of untenured staff on short term in Australian universities. from New Zealand, Auckland, Oxford University Press. National Government the health system has been 'restructured', as has the contracts, especially at the point of entry into the profession. In The marketisation of tertiary education in New Zealand is a neo­ science policy regime: the larger hospitals have become Crown Health Enter- Easton, Brian 1988, 'From Reagonomics to Rogernomics' in A. Bollard (ed.) Australia the Commonwealth has encouraged universities to intro­ liberal experiment equal in significance to the social experiments in '-'prises and the old Department of Science and Industrial Research (DSIR), The injiuence ofAmerican economics on New Zealand thinking and policy, duce salary flexibility but, apart from salary increases for some senior along with other science departments, have been broken up into ten Crown Australia and New Zealand during the 1890s and 1930s which laid the Wellington, NZ Institute of Economic Research, pp 69-95. university managers, salaries are still centrally fixed (DEET 1992). foundations for the welfare state (see Peters 1993b). The neo-liberal Research Institutes. Easton, Brian 1993, 'From Rogernomics to Ruthanasia' in S. Rees, G. Rodley If the move to enterprise bargaining creates low salaries for experiment, however, assumes that the market rather than the State 2. Simon Upton was recently replaced by Bill Birch as Minister of Health by & F Stilwell (eds.) Beyond the market: alternatives to economic rationalism, teaching staff, New Zealand institutions will face the obvious diffi­ the Prime Minister, Mr Bolger, for 'failing to sell the health reforms'. This kind will deliver. It assumes that the 'invisible hand' identified by Adam Melbourne, Pluto Press, pp 149-162. culties of recruitment and retention of staff. New Zealand universities Smith will automatically regulate the tertiary education system. In of language, which was taken up and used uncritically by the media in New Hood, Christopher 1990, 'De-sir Humphreyfying the Westminster model of have traditionally competed with Australian tmiversities in recruiting Australia while 'economic rationalism' has prevailed as the dominant Zealand, tends to reduce the widespread and principled opposition to the bureaucracy', Governance, 3 (2), pp 205¥214. suitable teaching staff from overseas and the expansion of the UNS discourse in Canberra (Pusey 1991), teliiary education has so far commercialisation and privatisation of health to a matter of public relations: if only Upton had employed the right PR finn with the appropriate message or has stiffened competition for well qualified staff. Furthermore, escaped the full effects of market forces and a more benign State has Jesson, Bruce 1992, 'The disintegration of a Labour tradition: New Zealand politics in the 1980s', New Left Review, 192, March/April, pp 37-54. advertising package then he might have 'sold' the 'reforms' to en Illlaccepting because of the market approach of the New Zealand government, no continued to plan and guide activities centrally. If the divergent policy Le Grand, Julian & R. Robinson 1984, 'Privatisation and the welfare state: an public. On this model democracy itself is commodified and public participa~ long tenn central strategies have been implemented as in Australia to orientations are maintained ~ a market versus a more centraIly planned tion is reduced to sampling through opinion polls. build up a pool of eligible candidates to fil1 teaching vacancies as they approach - the differences between New Zealand's and Australia's introduction', in: 1. Le Grand & R. Robinson (eds.), Privatisation and the welfare state, London, Allen & Unwin. occur or to meet the demand from expanding universities for teaching tertiary education systems will widen with important consequences staff with research training (Smith 1989; Dawkins 1989; Baldwin for both countries in terms of the international marketisation of Le Grand, Julian 1982, The strategy ofequality, London, Allen & Unwin. 1990). education, academic standards, and both staff retention and recruit­ Marshall, James 1993, 'Quality control in New Zealand universities: account­ The New Zealand and Australian student assistance schemes are ment. Certainly, it is clear that a relatively more progressive state of ability and autonomy', paper presented at First Newcastle International now widely divergent. New Zealand provides targeted assistance to affairs in Australia is a fragile thing, which given the kinds of policy Conference on quality and its application, University of Newcastle Upon students based largely upon low family and personal income thresh­ moves made over the last decade, could easily be co-opted and Tyne, 1-3 September, 1993. olds and govemment guaranteed loans. A market rate of interest, appropriated by the right in order to restructure tertiary education New Zealand Qualifications Authority 1989, Designing the framework currently 7.2 per cent, is charged on the amount borrowed and, according to market principles, along the lines of the New Zealand Wellington, NZQA. although repayment does not begin until the student is employed and 'experiment'. New Zealand Treasury 1984, Economic management. Wellington, Govern­ paying income tax, repayment commences at the very low income ment Printer. threshold of $13, 104 (NZ). This is a regressive scheme, especially in Referellces New Zealand Treasury 1987, Government management: brief to incoming an economy with broad income tax categories and indirect tax. The Baldwin, P. J. 1992, Higher education funding for the 1993-95 triennium, government, vols. 1 & 2. Wellington, Government Printer. scheme will inhibit discretionary study and burden some students Canberra, AGPS. New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee 1993, 'Submission on the interim with debts of more than $30,000 at periods in their lives when the Baldwin, P. J. 1990, Higher education: quality and diversity in the 1990.1', report of the tertiary capital charge feasibility study task force', Wellington. demands placed on their resources are greatest. Canberra, AGPS. Peters, Michael 1993a, 'The new science policy regime in New Zealand: a The recently introduced AUSTUDY and ABSTUDY Supplements Barker, Alan 1993, 'The New Zealand Qualitlcations Authority framework: review and critique', paper presented at the Science Education seminar in Australia provide students with loans at zero real interest rate and practical issues in its implementation', paper presented at the Tertiary Educa­ programme, Education Department, University of Auckland, 5 May. repayments only occur after five years when an income tax return is tion Conference; Successfully Managing Quality, Performance and Efficiency, Peters, Michael 1993b, 'Welfare and the future of community: the New made, indicating that the borrower's income is higher than average Wellington, 13-14 April, 1993. Zealand experiment', in S. Rees, G. Radley & F. Stilwell (eds.), Beyond the earnings (currently $27,748). The Supplements have been modelled Bertram, G. 1988, 'Middle class capture: a briefsurvey', in Future directions, market: alternatives to economic rationalism., Melbourne, Pluto Press, pp on the HECS to have minimal effect upon participation. They HI (2), Report offhe Royal Commission on social policy, April, Wellington, 171-188. recognise the importance of encouraging students to study more than Government Printer, pp 109~170. Peters, Michael A., Peters, Michael C. & Freeman-Moir, John 1992, 'The 1991 they immediately need for employment purposes, so that their social Boston, Jonathon 1991, 'The theoretical underpinnings of public sector budget and tertiary education: promises, promises ... ', New Zealand Annual contribution might be greater (Chapman 1992, p.13). restructuring in New Zealand', in: J. Boston, 1. Martin, J. PaHot & P. Walsh Review ofEducation, 1, 1991, pp 133-146. In New Zealand postgraduate students are severely penalised in a (eds.) Reshaping the slale: New Zealand's bureaucratic revolution, Auck­ Public Service Association 1989, Private power or public interest? widening market system because the cost of pursuing such study has become land, Oxford University Press, pp 1-26. the debate on privatisation, Proceedings ofthe NZPSA Conference, Palmerston prohibitive, especially at the point where specialisation occurs at the Boston, Jonathon 1992, 'Redesigning New Zealand's welfare state', in J. North, Dunmore Press. expense of the development of a portfolio of marketable skills. In Boston and P. Dazie! (eds.) The decent society? Essays in response to Pusey, Michael 1991, Economic rationalism in Canberra, Melbourne, Cam­ Australia the value to the community of research training and the NationaL's economic and social policies, Auckland, Oxford University Press, bridge University Press. pp 1~18. discovery of new knowledge is recognised by the classification of Scott, Graham, Bushnell, Peter & Sallee, Nikitin 1990, 'Refonn of the core 'research students' as 'research workers' and the award of HECS Buchanan, James 1986,Liberty, market and the state: political economy in the public sector: New Zealand experience', Governance, 3 (2), pp 138~167. 19ROs, Brighton, Sussex, Whcatsheaf Books. Smith, H. T. 1989, Report of committee to review higher education research Page 38 Page 39 Secondly, we will deploy the much maligned notion of knowledge. advancement". We are aware that it has become fashionable in some quarters of Newman's notion of liberal knowledge is at the heart of his humanities and social science faculties to deny in effect that there is conception of the university. Essentially, liberal knowledge is knowl­ any such thing as knowledge. The ultimate sources of these denials are edge informed by reason. It is not simply the knowledge gained by the writings of philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques automatic processes such as sense perception: "Knowledge is called Derrida. These theorists, and some of the terminology they employ, science or philosophy when it is acted upon, informed, or ifI may use Australian higher education and the have achieved a cult status in many Literary and Cultural Studies a strong figure, impregnated by Reason" (p.99). departments in American and Commonwealth universities. It is Nor is liberal knowledge simply a collection of items of knowledge. significant, however, that although they are studied in philosophy Rather it is knowledge that has been structured; it is particular facts relevance of Newman departments around the world, their impact on professional philoso­ that have been related to one another. So the possessor of liberal phy is relatively slight. Nonetheless, under the influence of this knowledge has a whole structure of connected pieces of knowledge; Coady Selirnas Miller intellectual mood, we have senior academics in Australia, such as in this sense, Newman's epistemology is holistic.!6 If all someone Professor Ann Curthoys, claiming that there are no facts and that the knows of the European discovery of the Americas, for instance, are a University of Melbourne truth is endlessly deferred.! 1 Others such as Ian Hunter seem to believe few isolated facts such as that Columbus sailed across the Atlantic to that there is no reliable knowledge since whatever is taken to be land thereabouts in 1492, and that he had trouble persuading people Universities in Australia have entered a period of transition and of it: "We badly need a framework of theory ... to enable us to sort things knowledge is only so taken in virtue of some set of power relationships that the voyage was worthwhile, then these items of knowledge, real unresolved conflict. The conflict has at least two main practical out".6 Nor is it only Australian theorists who have identified the rather than in virtue of objective evidential proceduresY We reject enough as they are, do not constitute liberal knowledge. Moreover this dimensions. The first area of conflict concerns access to and quality problem. The British educational theorist Ronald Barnett has this to these views and have argued against them in detail elsewhere.13 But, structural requirement is tied to Newman's insistence on the role of in higher education. The university system has been restructured into say about modern university systems: "Put simply, we have no given that they are propounded by well known senior academics, there reason. For it is reason that enables the connections between particu­ the Unified National System (UNS) and simultaneously called upon modem educational theory of higher education".7 is a need for us to make clear what our own position is. We wish to lar facts to be seen, and inferences to new facts to be made. 17 to digest well in excess of 100,000 additional students without a Moreover the various practical conflicts about the Australian advance the arcane view that there is such a thing as knowledge which Liberal knowledge is relatively comprehensive. Someone who has commensurate increase in enabling resources. This is construed by university system have been in part generated by the failure to resolve is both valuable and hard to come by. In saying this we are not denying liberal knowledge is not a narrow specialist, or at least not simply a some as the problem of system overload with quality in higher the theoretical problem. There is much discussion of quality assur~ that the construction of an acceptable theory of knowledge is a narrow specialist. Here Newman is not putting forward the absurd education being the inevitable casualty. According to one of Austral­ ance, excellence and competencies, but it takes place in a theoretical difficult philosophical task. (Though it is not a task that we can view that educated scientists must have a complete grasp of the whole ia's leading educational policy makers Peter Kannel: "massive vacuum. Reassuring noises in the absence of real thought andjustified contribute to here.)!4 Nor are we denying that absolute certainty - as of science, or the educated historian a complete hold on all of history. expansion of participation in higher education, the establishment of values merely feed complacencies and encourage prejudice. Indeed opposed to probable truth - is an unrealistic goal and that much that 'But he is emphasising the dangerous blinkering that intellectual the UNS and the associated problems have created serious problems we appear to be replicating the British mistake of the Thatcherite passes for knowledge is in fact ideology. It is no part of our case that specialisation can impose. The breadth of knowledge he advocates for the quality of higher education."! years. Paul Bourke has recently expressed the problem: "One notable truth is always manifest; it is complex and hard to attain. Moreover, enables the possessor to have a vantage point from which to surveyor For others, by contrast, the restructuring is seen as the solution to feature of recent British experience is the absence of specification of its attainment is closely connected to processes of reason, argument investigate any particular question of fact or theory.!8 the problem of "old school elitism". The increase in the numbers of goals for single institutions, and for the higher education system as a and discussion that are often subtle and intricate. Nonetheless, we are Newman is committed to the view that liberal knowledge is a good students indicates unprecedented access to a social good. Thus Don whole. It is a serious problem for British education that there is now claiming that we can come to know that something that was believed in itself - indeed a very great good ~ and that it needs to be taught in Aitkin: " .. with proper motivation and preparation virtually all people pressure for quality controls and for evaluation but no agreed to be knowledge was actually falsehood, or that such and such a view order to be acquired. According to Newman liberal knowledge is are likely to benefit from university education".2 And there is yet a statement of a system-wide or institutional objectives".8 was mere ideology. difficult to acquire and necessitates years of training by teachers who third alternative, namely that the UNS has not in fact brought As a first step in the construction of an acceptable theory of the We believe the following truths need to be re-stated. Firstly, have absorbed an appropriate intellectual tradition. Accordingly, unprecedented access to higher education. A corollary of this is that modem Australian University, we suggest a reconsideration of the knowledge is to be distinguished from ideology and ignorance, and Newman holds that the transmission of liberal knowledge is unlikely we need not accept that there has been substantial dilution of re­ intellectual roots of the modern university. A comprehensive review uncertainty and falsehood, and lies and superstition, and unevidenced to take place reliably unless an institution is set up for the very purpose sources. According to Richard Sweet the increase in student numbers would have to examine such writers as Humbolt, Jaspers and Ortega speculation and playful make-believe. We would argue that a distinc~ of such transmission. For Newman the University is the institutional over this period has got very little to do with new incoming students. y Gasset, but any such reconsideration would have to take into account tion of this type is required whatever theory or definition is adopted, embodiment ofliberal knowledge. Or at least it ought to be. Newman They account only for some 4% of growth in numbers. Rather it has the views of John Henry Newman. For reasons that will become clear since the adequacy of the theory or definition would be judged, in part, is well aware that an institution calling itself a university might not to do with students already within the system undertaking new courses we want to focus here only on Newman. Those views were elaborated by its capacity to accommodate just such differentiations. Secondly, have been established with this purpose or that one that might or upgrading their qualifications to degree status. 3 in his seminal work, The Idea of a University.9 as a community we possess both theoretical and factual knowledge. degenerate and no longer realise this purpose. Nor of course is he The second area of conflict concerns university autonomy. Some Newman's conception remains the most influential integrated Just how secure, extensive and profound such knowledge is, may be denying that there ought to be other institutions set up for other value university autonomy and claim that it has been significantly vision of the University but is now widely misunderstood. We believe a matter of debate, but outside of the most remote Ivory Tower, it purposes, for example, technical training. His claim is rather that such eroded, and that there is the threat of further encroachments. One that Newman's model, defective though it is in certain respects, still would never be denied that a distinctive feature of our age is its institutions would not be universities. piece of evidence put forward is the existence of the government has a great deal to offer as a theory of the University. In particular, it dependency upon, and its responsiveness to, often bewildering in­ On liberal knowledge being an end in itselfNeWrnan has this to say: controlled mechanism for distribution of research funds, namely, the articulates and emphasises, as central to a university's mission, goals creases in knowledge. Thirdly, we can and do have knowledge of both "Knowledge is capable of being its own end. Such is the constitution ARC. In this connection Simon Marginson reports: "Academics have that tend otherwise to receive merely pious lip service. These goals the physical and non-physical worlds. We have knowledge of the of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, lost some control over their research .. The real constraint has been include the pursuit of knowledge and understanding for its own sake social and psychological worlds; we have knowledge of the economic is its own reward ... What the worth of such an acquirement [liberal through indirect intervention".4 The point here is that the (claimed) as well as for the social and economic good of the wider society, and system, we have knowledge of the past. And there is this further point. knowledge] is, compared with other objects that we seek ~ wealth or right of universities to determine what ought to be researched is the cultivation of intellectual virtues such as logical thinking, and the There can be little doubt that the current Australian situation is one power or honour or the conveniences and comforts of life, I do not here diminished when they are obliged to try to devise research projects habit of careful and balanced judgment. Newman's point here is often that demands both new knowledge and the elimination of falsehood profess to discuss; but I would maintain, and mean to show, that it is that lTl.t::et with the approval of the ARC. An example of an as yet misunderstood. He holds that knowledge and understanding are goods and confusion. It demands knowledge of the workings of the eco­ an object, in its own nature so really and undeniably good, as to be the unrealised threat to university autonomy is the possibility of compe­ in themselves, but rightly recognises that this constitutes no barrier to nomic system; it demands knowledge, and not ideological posturing, compensation of a great deal of thought in the compassing, and a great tency based testing by external bodies.5 But others are of the view that their also being instrumentally valuable. from either left or right, concerning the social and economic effects deal of trouble in the attaining" (p.91). universities have not been delivering the intellectual goods, and that In what follows a number of things need to be kept in mind. Firstly, of government and opposition policies. Can we really afford the Newman holds that the University ought to teach all the main areas universities are not necessarily competent to determine what counts a conception or idea or theory of the university is a normative notion. lUXUry of quasi-philosophical 'theory' telling us there can be no such of human knowledge. 19 His reason for this is that otherwise a as quality in higher education. It is not a question of describing what the characteristics of modem thing as knowledge? detrimental imbalance will set in. Thus; "if you drop any science [i.e. These conf1icts within and beyond the university system are not universities in Australia in fact are, nor, for that matter, what they discipline concerned with knowledge] out of the circle of knowledge, simply practical ones. For there is an unresolved theoretical or were when the universities were founded. Rather, it is a matter of Newman's conception of the university you cannot keep its place for it; that science is forgotten; the other intellectual problem concerning the very nature and role of the working out what these features ought to be. Naturally, what they Newman's conception ofa university is ofa teaching institution in sciences close up, or, in other words, they exceed their proper bounds, University as an institution. It is, we suggest, quite unclear what the ought to be must be something they realistically could be. A norma­ which the fundamental guiding concept is what he calls liberal and intrude where they have no right. For instance, I suppose, if ethics goals of the University in Australia are supposed to be. To some it is tive or ideal conception is not a fanciful conception. We need to reject knowledge. The point ofa university is for academics to transmit, and were sent into banishment, its territory would soon disappear, under self-evident that its goals must be fundamentally economic, to others the proposition that universities cannot be other than they are ~ and students to acquire, liberal knowledge. a treaty of partition, as it may be called, between law, political that it must bling about a society of equals. Others aq,'1le for a more with it the craven view that the nature and direction of the universities Thus Newman holds that universities ought to be exclusively economy, and physiology"(p.65). traditional role of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. But the in this country is something to be determined by the most powerful teaching institutions. The acquisition of new knowledge is something Newman also holds - contrary to what is often claimed about him widespread acceptance of such simple-minded views as these serves forces of the day, be they bureaucratic or market forces.1O But it is that ought to take place in non~teaching research institutions. So - that the professions are a proper part of the knowledge that only to point to the absence of a serious and well thought out equally important to avoid utopian sentimentality; it is mere self­ Newman says (on page xxvii of the Idea IS) "Its [the university's] universities ought to teach. Thus: "In saying that Law or Medicine is conception of the role of the University. As Max Charlesworth has put indulgence to pine after what cannot possibly be. object ... is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than its not the end of a university course, I do not mean to imply that the

Page 40 Page 41 At this point there is a tendency to claim that Newman's conception benefits of a university education than Nev,rman could have University does not teach Law or Medicine. Vlhat indeed does it teach ent with Newman's vision of higher education actually complements admits of no tramformative social role for universities and that imagined; equally. we do not doubt that Newman would have been if it does not teach something particular? It teaches all knowledge by it. delighted to find that that was so. Yet the question has not been teaching all branches of knowledge, and in no other way" (p.147). universities therefore support the status quo and hence many injus­ seriously faced contemporary university "reformers" of just how Given his conception of liberal knowledge informed by reason it (b) Anachronism tices. It far access can taken without so devaluing what is on offer in follows that teaching of liberal knowledge is essentially the inculca­ It is often claimed that Newman's conception of the University may be true that Newman tends to see the social role of university tion of the intellectual virtues and the possessor of these virtues is, while possibly acceptable for his own times is now quite out of date.23 education entirely in terms of the educated individual's social respon­ univ.ersities as to mab accesS unimportant and university education a nusnomer. what he calls a 'gentleman'. Newman's notion of a gentleman is But from the fact that Newman was writing in a different historical sibilities which he or she ("the gentlemen" of both sexes) exercises in neither fundamentally gender specific nor tied to the state of the period it simply does not follow that he has nothing to tell us about part as a result of education. What is lacking in Newman's thought particular intellectual disciplines of his day. What is true that when universities in our day. It would indeed be highly unlikely that he here is the idea that the university as an institution has such respon­ sibilities and that it should bear them in mind in the organisation of conclusion is Ne'Wluan's conception of the University Newman wrote, universities did not admit women 2() and Newman would have offered a theory which we could simply take over in its Our that its teaching and research, and in its self-understanding. But such himselt~ though notably sympathetic to the plight of women, certainly entirety and not have to adjust to meet our particular circumstances contains much that is of permanent value and also provides a useful social responsibilities should not be construed as necessarily giving shared some of the sexist assumptions of his age.21 But from this and needs. But quite often conceptions of another period are relevant starting point in the process of developing a satisfactory theory of the comfort to the status quo. It is no accident that universities have often nothing follows about the adequacy or inadequacy of his conception to us today. This is especially likely where there has been a consider~ modern Australian university. Newman's conception of the Univer­ been centres of social criticism, and this is a fact insufficiently of university as the inculcator of the intellectual virtues. able degree of continuity of institution as is the case with universities. sity is of an institution which has as its fundamental aim the pursuit stressed by Newman. If this is an "indirect effect" of the "direct end" Two things need to be stressed in relation to these intellectual Newman himself was aware of and stressed the need to apply ideals of knowledge through research and understanding both for its own of University education then it is intimately related to the develop­ virtues. to particular circumstances. At any rate the real issue is whether his sake as well as for reasons of utility. This we take to be undoubtedly Firstly, the intellectual virtues are to be distinguished from the conception has something important to teach us today. And whether ment of the intellectual which Newman saw as that direct end and so true, though with the obvious qualification that the discovery of moral virtues, though of course the intellectual virtues are virtuesY or not his conception has something to offer is a matter to be decided eloquently described. These social orientations, of course, have their knowledge as well as its transmission is part of the aim. Newman is dangers but they create an important intellectual vocation, and there (Virtues in this context simply means desirable character traits.) by looking closely at his conception in relation to our needs. also right to stress the importance of generalist knowledge and of the is no necessity that it should obtrude upon or hinder the central task Indeed one of Newman's most important achievements in The Idea of We have indicated one important deficiency, namely his rejection intellectual virtues as well as specialised knowledge and specific a University is to delineate a conception of the intellectual life which of research as part of a university. But we have seen that this sketched by Newman. intellectual skills. The acquisition of the intellectual virtues and of a So Newman's defence of the intrinsic value of intellectual culture, distinguishes it from both the moral and the religious (or at least the deficiency can be remedied without doing violence to Newman's relatively comprehensive framework of knowledge are necessary philosophy, or more generally the depth of understanding which he Christian) life whilst showing areas of overlap. Morality is not central insights. We also believe that his position has a number of both for the intellectual empowerment of individuals and for the believed University education to principally aim at, is not intended to entirely foreign to the ideals of the philosophical1ife since there is a strengths. Not the least of these is the focus on the intellectual virtues ongoing utility of graduates in the economic and social system. While certain character and accompanying code which the inquirer will tend since, presumably, any decent society is interested in the empower­ disparage its utility or even particularly to circumscribe the studies all this is a useful starting point, it leaves a number of important to develop; it is the code and character of the gentleman. But the ment, including the intellectual empowerment, of its citizenry. which might give rise to it. He seems to have thought that it was ,·li:heoretical questions to be answered. Some of these are as follows. gentleman is nothing like the saint or the moral hero, and is certainly largely an empirical matter whether some study could allow such What are the core areas of knowledge that ought to be taught in a a very different type to the Christian saint. (c) Utility understanding or not. Consequently, the utility objection hardly university? What are the core areas of knowledge that ought to be Secondly, possession of the intellectual virtues amounts to a kind It is often objected that Newman in stressing liberal knowledge for touches Newman's position since Newman is opposed to the utilitar­ researched in a University? What specifically are the intellectual of intellectual empowerment of the individual. These virtues are only its own sake fails to understand that universities must be useful to the ians, not because they stress utility, but because they stress nothing virtues? What is the appropriate mix of generalist and specialist else. He insists that knowledge is an end in itself but rightly sides with acquired after a great deal of disciplined work under the guidance of wider society. This objection pertains both to social and economic content and skills that ought to be taught in a university? Who ought appropriately trained teachers. However, once acquired they enable utility. Aristotle in also insisting that what is an end in itself may also be an to have a University education'? an individual to think clearly and logically, and to communicate Let us look at economic utility first. Newman is keen to sing the instrumental end. Newman is surely correct in holding that knowl­ Our final question is a reflective one about all the previous effectively and precisely. Moreover they predispose the individual to praises of what he calls the philosophical cast of mind as something edge is one of those goods which is valuable in itself as well as being questions, and is the subject of our forthcoming paper on academic 24 reflect carefully, to try to make objective judgments, and especially absolutely central to university education, but he does not see this valuable as a means to other goods. freedom : Who ought to be the ones to decide the answers to any or to back their own reason-based judgment in the face of external outlook or set of attitudes, as restricted to any particular subject all of the above questions? (d) Elitism pressure and fashion. Thus: "To open the mind, to correct it, to refine matter. As we have already seen he is perfectly clear that professional It is sometimes claimed that Newman's conception is elitist be­ it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule and use its disciplines have their place in the university, as they had from its Noles cause on his conception universities are accessible only to a few. knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, medieval beginnings: what he is concerned to stress is that in addition 1. Professor Peter Karmel "Quality in Higher Education", Sir Rohert Menzies The glowing account that Newman gives of the value of university flexibility, method, critical exactitude, sagacity, resource, address, to professional training one must aim at the intellectual virtues. Oration on Higher Education delivered at Melbourne University on 28th education should starkly pose the social problem of making sure that eloquent expression, is an object as intelligible ... as the cultivation of One central value of higher education is its power to enlarge the October 1992 (p.7 of circulated text). as many people as possible gain access to such a central human good. [moral] virtue, while at the same time, it is absolutely distinct from understanding and imagination, to produce a perspective on the 2. Don Aitkin "Uni access versus the old school" in "Higher Education The fact that the problem is often posed by those who conceive of the it" (p.108). particular facts and skills which are learned. This includes an under~ Supplement" Australian 11111/92. standing of the limits and complexities of present understanding; in good as merely instrumental (for getting a better share of wealth and 3. Richard Sweet "Assessing, shaping and influencing demand for higher Objections the professions, as elsewhere, it is important to know how little you power, or for correcting social \Vfongs) should not obscure the fact education" in (ed) John Anwyl Centre for Study of Higher Education Spring know even when you are on top of your subject. But none of this that there should be just as great, if not greater, a demand for the fair Lectures 1992 (Centre for Study of Higher Education, Melbourne University (a) Research involves any essential hostility to professional education. availability of such a good from those who do not view it in merely 1992). instrumental terms. This is one reason for insisting that Newman's As we have seen, Newman believes that research has no place Other central values of higher education stressed by Newman are 4. Simon Marginson "Has Dawkins reduced academic freedom?" in the idea of a university is not necessarily "elitist". within a university. In this matter Newman is surely wrong since those intellectual virtues that might be termed rational capacities. "Higher Education Supplement" Australian 3/9/92. Nonetheless, his characterisation of the value inherent in university many students need to be inducted into research activities and this can Indeed these intellectual virtues are precisely what employers are now 5. Karme! is one who e.l(presses this concern. "Quantity and Quality in Higher education raises the question of the possibility of this good being only be achieved in an environment where teachers are also research­ beginning to realise are necessary for the economic system. The Education" op.cit. universally or even extensively distributed. ers. However it is important to see that the idea of academics both capacity to think logically, to communicate effectively, to focus on 6. Max Charlesworth "From Dawkins to where'?" paper presented at the This difficulty is very relevant to present Australian circumstances. teaching and researching is not alien to Newman's fundamental the key points in any issue, to absorb new knowledge speedily; these AITEA 1992 conference in Ballarat on October 1st 1992. (p.16 of circulated Governments, and indeed the Australian community, seem at present conception. For his conception of a university education involves the are in fact the necessary ingredients for the bringing into existence of text.) unprepared, or perhaps unable, to provide the massive funding transmission of an intellectual culture through teaching, and the the much vaunted 'clever country'. But Newman is right to stress that 7. Ronald Barnett Jdeu (~rHigher Education (Bristol: Open University Press, necessary to give a university education to all or even a majority of the presentation of that culture's characteristic outlooks and virtues. But these virtues or rational capacities are hard won and only reliably !990) 1'.4. population of this country. Therefore universities remain institutions these depend upon students viewing their teachers as people who are acquired by large numbers of people in an institutional setting which 8. Paul Bourke Quality Measures in Universities (Canberra: Commonwealth catering for an elite. Only a minority receive the benefits of a not merely handing on lumps of established fact but who are partici­ has the appropriate intellectual traditions and which has teachers who Tertiary Education Commission, 1986) p.ll. university education. This is regrettable, but it seems to be a fact of pants in the intellectual debate, exploration and (to use a term of have spent long years absorbing these traditions. These traditions and 9. John Henry Newman Idea of a University (London: Longmans, Green and political life for the foreseeable future. Oakeshott's) conversation of our culture and our species. teachers cannot simply be wished into existence by setting up a Co, ! 947) However, there is a clear tendency to try to have it both ways; to Newman was correct in pointing out some of the problems of the committee and drawing up a report in which these rational capacities substantially increase the number of students while holding back on 10. For comments on this, see Tony Coady "Huntering and Gathering in the combination of teaching and research viz. inadequate time to re­ are pronounced desirable. New University" in Aedon, Vol I, No 1, (1993); and also his "Critical a commensurate increase in funding. Lntimately this is an unwork~ search, inability of some teachers to produce original research and of Let us look now at the question of socia! utility. Intellectual Surrender and the New Universities" in Eureka Street, Vol 3, No 5, (1993). able, indeed an incoherent, policy. Flooding under~resourced univer~ some researchers to teach effectively. It may be that graduate schools empowennent of the sort Newman advocates is not only of enonnous sities with more and more of less and less capable people will 11. Ann C:urthoys "Higher Education Supplement" Australian 14/10/92. are part of the answer to these sorts of problems. There are many benefit to the individuals who gain it, but also to the major institutions eventually eliminate the possibility of anyone acquiring the good 12. Ian Hunter "Personality as Vocation" in hisAcc:mntingfor the Humanities complications that would need to be addressed in a fuller treatment of of society. Schools, the media, the legal system, the bureaucracy, which a university exists to foster. (Brisbane: Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, 1991) pp.7-66. these issues, but what we are chiefly concerned to do here is to point government, would all benefit from an injection of graduates with We do not doubt that many more people are capable of enjoying the 13. Seumas Miller and Richard Freadman Rethinking Theory: A Critique of out that a research function for universities, far from being inconsist~ Newman's intellectual virtues. Contemporary Litermy Theory and an Alternative Account (Cambridge:

Page 43 Page 42 Cambridge University Press, 1992). Parts ofC.A.J. Coady, Testimony (Ox­ 20. It is worth noting that Oxford did not admit women to full membership until ford: Oxford University Press, 1992) are also relevant here. 1920 and Cambridge not until 1946. 14. Some contribution to the task, with an emphasis upon certain social 21. Indicative of the positive aspects of Newman's attitude is a letter to his dimensions of knowledge, has been made in a recent work by one of the niece, Jane Mozley, in February 1884. Newman Mote: "It is one of the best authors. See CA.l Coady Testimony, op cit. points of this unhappy age, that it has made so many openings for the activity 15. Hereafter aHreferences to Newman come from theldea op. cit. We shall put of women". Quoted in Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford: the page references in the text of our paper. Oxford University Press 1988, p.734). 16. Idea ppAO-l 22. Contrary to theorists such as Minogue and D.L. Thompson. shades: and the 17. Idea p.IOO 23. Charlesworth op.cit. p.4. 18. Idea p.147 24. Tony Coady and Seumas Miller "Academic Freedom". See also Semnas Miller "Academic Freedom in South Africa" Australian Universities' Review 19. Idea p.ll of teaching (December 1991). Minson, Griffith Uilive:r§ity

of sexual harassment (p.212). Here it is not sexual harassment but recent debate over consensual sexual relations between staff and Re,;on:!jde'red by Pybu§ students in tertiary educational institutions which provides the focus for the ensuing discussion of the contemporary lessons of the Orr case. (Melbourne, William Heinemallll, 1993, r intend to approach this problem by first opening up an aspect of the case itself which has received less attention than it warrants: namely, On's pedagogical and intellectual style.

A",

Page 44 Page 45 selves su widely as 10 make them often virtually invisible as tech~ airing of this debate (Lumby 1993), criticism of staff~student inti­ does not herald a generaiised taboo on raising sexual issues with are int.ended to serve as vehicles for students' subjective develop- niques. if Orr was an oddity within the world of English-speaking macy as an abuse of power is itself criticised as hypocritical (see in students. It is not prudishness but prudence that dictates that in some ment that it is to envisage a11 teaching as being inseparable philosophy, this may in part reflect his attempt to 'pastoralise' an area particular Wark 1993). In a male-dominated society all sexual circumstances discretion may be the better part of 'openness'. from the of erotic interactions with students. Only within of the tertiary curriculum which was, and still is, unaccustomed to relationships involve an element of asymmetrical power relations. So Let us also remember that quite apart from his affair with Suzanne tbat zone could one feel ethicaHy bound, ifnot to encour~ wearing its ethical heart on its sleeve. 3 why pick on this set, the argument goes. The urge to proscribe may Kemp, not the least of Orr's misconduct was his taking it upon himself age, then not to resist such erotic possibilities. Today, however, the kind of pastoral-pedagogical mission which, also be seen as a way of 'infantilising' students. Jane Gallop has urged to 'treat' both her (and other students) for 'mental problems'. Orr also I still remain agnostic about the appropriateness of a in the 1950s was more or less restricted to university literature that feminist supporters of a general ban are, in effect, merely employed as a teac:her in his department the man who was currently general, sanctioned prohibition. My point is the need for the anti~ departments, enjoys a much wider distribution, both in universities inverting the usual sexist axiom concerning women and sexual treating him for psychiatric problems. His imposition of an unwanted proscription case to move the debate beyond theoretical speculation and in teacher-training coUeges. These days, especially where phi­ compliance: when women students say yes do they really mean no? level of familiarity and. exchange of confidences on Edwin Tanner and on sex and society. Actual working criteria are required that would losophy is taught in an interdisciplinary context, it would be thought And what about the impact of such a ban on women teachers? Must extracurricular demands on the latter's time is cast from the same permit case-by-case discllminations between harmful and non-harm­ jejune (at least in some circles) to disparage attempts to delineate the they confonn to the professional stereotype of the women teacher as faulty mould. AU this extravagant behaviour is legitimated not by ful relationships. The danger with such an approach is that it could flickering movements of d~~sire in Plato's philosophica1 dialogues as a selfless, asexual nurhlrer by suppressing libidinous investments in sexism but by the combination of a guild mentality and his sense of provide a platform for moral zealotry in determining what is to count unscholarly, in the way Orr's 'emotional' reading of Plato was their teaching?4 himself as a secular saint. These breed disdain for the bureaucratic as a 'truly' consensual (or at least relatively unexploitative) relation­ disparaged, For all its unregulated, indeed deranged qualities, Orr's The implication of these arguments is that the problem of consen­ idea of university teaching as on office which sets definite limits to the ship. Witness, for example, the creepily indeterminate formulation in teaching style was fully engaged in that intensely pastoral mission. It suaJ sexual relations between staff and students can only be satisfac­ kinds of 'public' personal demeanour and face~to-face relationships the University of Iowa Policy on Sexual Harassment and Consensual is for this reason that, along with its contemporary echoes, Orr's torily addressed by first tackling the problems posed by the hierarchi­ with students which it is appropriate to cultivate. Relationships, to the effect that 'relationships that the parties view as teaching style is critical to the contemporary lessons which I believe cal nature of staff-student relationships and 'authoritarian and con­ To some extent it would be more difficult nowadays to get away consensual may appear to others to be exploitative'. can be leamed from the case. The currency of that style can be hnked servative' pedagogic practice themselves. Above all, we must all with behaving as Orr did. We need to ask why. This 'progress' may Nor can the notion that banning all staff-student relationships to two sorts of changes which have occurred within tertiary education question the would-be exclusion from the curriculum of the realm of be at least as much due to the developments (both at the level of law infantilises women students be accepted without qualification. Gal­ since Orr's day. sexual desire (attention to which, in all its connections, being here and industrial policy) relating to how university staff are managed and lop's remark precludes the possibility that students most exposed to First, the entire sector has experienced successive waves of 'bu­ seen as an ethical imperative). Talk of an outright ban on such their personal preparedness to relate themselves to their institution as the consequences of a permissive policy - notably, first-year students reaucratic rationalisation', at the behest of both industrial relations relations can therefore only signify a return to precisely the bad old a workplace and to their position as an 'office', as it is to 'ideological' at the mercy of predatory lecturers - are indeed frequently 'babes-in­ machineries and state policy. Reading Pybus' book in the light of prudish days of universities in the 1950s. From this standpoint, the progress in attitudes towards relations between the sexes. We also the~woods' when it comes to handling (offers of) that type of sexual these changes, one cannot but be astounded by the travesty of unqualified disapproval of affairs between staff and students which need to explain why, for all their progressive self-image, universities relationship. To think in this way is not to 'infantalise' the students in procedural standards in almost all the University of Tasmania's then held sway is based entirely upon a view of women as passive, still cannot claim to have a particularly good record in establishing question, but merely to query their ability to handle such a relation­ dealings with Orr. Certainly the tertiary sector's staff association asexual, incapable of consent, in need of protection, etc. Indeed, to trustworthy internal disciplinary procedures for dealing with im­ ship at this stage of their lives. 'First years' may well possess a range (FCUSA as it then was) was amply justified on these grounds in taking some extent not only the student(s) of whom Orr took sexual advan­ proper sexual conduct. Here, a mixture of guild-mentality-based and of personal skills and resources (including good friends) in virtue of up his case (Bartos, 1993). The other side of that 'pre-bureaucratic' tage but Orr himself (seen as a libertarian figure) can be seen as libertarian aversions to being a willing part of a complex, managed which they could acquire the capacity to recover from the effects of coin, however, was the almost exclusively 'guild' mentality in terms 'victims' of the same set of repressive attitudes. organisation should not be overlooked as a contributory factor. (some) emotionally bruising sexual encounters with predatory teach­ of which 1950s academics conceived of themselves as professionals. What practical measures do those opposed to a general 'bureau­ So, rather than slating the uncomplicated 1950s academic consen­ ers and to avoid them in the future. Pybus (pp.73-74) notes the extent to which academic support for Orr cratic' ban support? There seem to be two options. Wark suggests that sus concerning staff-student sexual relations and congratulating It is here I believe that the truth in Gallop's remark about students' was premised upon resistance to being institutionally located (as they intimate relations between staff and students should be viewed as an ourselves on our more nuanced and progressive contemporary views, consent resides, and, why, therefore, she may be correct in warning legally were of course) within 'master-servant', industrial-organisa­ issue of individual conscience requiring commonsense precautions it may be more appropriate to see the ambivalence and anxiety by against academic instihltions going overboard in their concern to tional relationships, with all their associated obligations and admin­ (rearranging marking, etc). Others have suggested that such episodes which the issue is now surrounded in some circles as a muddying of protect students. This is not to imply that there is no need for at least istrative checks on competence, in respect to teaching and pastoral must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, according to whether or not the waters arising out of tensions between 'guild', 'bureaucratic' and a general discouragement of such relationships, or for complaints relations to students. In so far as the FCUSA also took this line, it is 'sexist' exploitation is involved. But what do these appeals to 'libertarian-pastoratising' influences on the tertiary sector. procedures. (Why should they have to deal with such behaviour not quite the innocent party depicted by Bartos. conscience and distinctions between types of staff-student intimacy themselves?) It is simply that justifications for the regulation of staff­ The second, mainly Humanities-based change relevant to our amount to? imlWll·t"'l~P of not being (an) academic student sexual relations need not be restricted to that of protecting comparative exercise is the rise of the various libertarian cultures of The arguments against banning staff-student intimacy which rested vulnerable sections of the community from social 'harms'. political and personal 'commitment' that began to sweep through Inside and outside the deployment of sexuality upon claims about the ubiquity of power-relations in the sexual One alternative ground can be derived from taking a positive view sections of the tCl1iary sector during the nineteen sixties. Amongst the Behind this anti-proscription viewpoint, the traces of a pastoral~ domain and the dangers of infantilising students are all too sympto­ of the still often heavily resisted trend towards conceiving tertiary effects of those commitments is an urge to challenge not only the pedagogical demeanour are not difficult to detect. It is manifest, for matic of both hostility to bureaucratisation and commitment to educational positions as a professional 'office' as distinct from a traditional office of the teacher but also the 'rational' truth-seeking example, in the extent to which its exponents remain content to allow pastoral intensification of pedagogy. The first claim is both too sacred guild.' In the light of the limited pastoral responsibilities for mission around which the academic guild built its sense of common the apparatus which the late Michel Foucault famously termed the general and too specialised. It's too general in that it makes the point students' welfare inscribed in that office, proscription of sexual purpose. The product of that twin opposition to what, in this perspec­ 'deployment of sexuality' to do their thinking for them. So many of of comparison with staff-student relations the rest of 'heterosexist' relationships might be justified as necessary not only to the protection tive, is construed as academic and bureaucratic 'rationalism' is the contributors to the debate seem to assume that in dutifully society. One might have thought that the first point of comparison of students, but equally for the sake of protecting the dignity of the precisely the already-noted expansion and professionalisation of the confessing to having had or entertained such affairs themselves they ought to be with other professions which have also traditionally made office of lecturing itself. Irrespective of harmful effects upon stu~ hitherto mainly extra-curricular pastoral dimensions of the tertiary are somehow transported to the truth of such encounters. On the a problem out of sexual relations in a professional context. Why dents, there is something lowering about a lecturer who preys on teacher's job. The urge to subvert distinctions between academic contrary, it might be suggested that these revelations only correspond should the restrictions on sexual activity in the context of the medical, students, something whiGh demeans not only the predatory lecturer instruction and students' (or their teachers') deepest personal and to that credentialising ritual of the pastoral 'apparatus' of 'difficult' legal, and counselling professions, and of relations between priests him or herself, but which can also make their colleagues feel ashamed political concerns, or to 'problematise' the student-teacher hierarchy sexual confession which Foucault (1978) termed 'the speaker's and their p31ishioners, not apply in the university context? for their profession. Moreover, such reactions remind us of harmful (in all its alleged complicity with wider societal oppression) not benefit'. To those who thus invest truth in breaching decorum, sexual Whatever the contingent results of pursuing that line of enquiry, the effects on students which are linked, in the first instance, to harms to infrequently finds expression in changes to the curriculum aimed at restraint will inevitably be caught on the wrong side of the repression! very posing of such a question brings home the specialised bases of the office itself A teacher with a reputation for seducing students will making it more amenable to personal-and-'political' self-modifica­ liberation divide. But is it credible to see all inforrnalisation in the anti'"proscription view. \Vhat is more characteristic of (some) suffer a loss of hust on students' part. Those 'in the know' who have tions. attitudes towards both teaching and sexuality which have occurred post-seventies Humanities professionals than a degree of self~con­ problems requiring 'pastoral' advice will shun them. Consequently, Having now delineated these twin developments within the Hu­ under the banner of liberation since the fifties as marking a general scious anxiety about their official status - a disposition which, at its the teacher's capacity to discharge their pastoral responsibilities is manities academe and their relationship to the 'pastoralisation' of so progress? worst, amounts to a virtual refusal to assume their powers and to take diminished. This argument suggests that the office of teacher compre­ much academic pedagogy, let us now turn to the current debate on Both 'the before' and 'the after' of this trajectory can be faulted. responsibility for prudently exercising them in their behaviour with hends a certain 'structural altruism' which the teacher who uses it for consensual sexual relations between staff and students and, in particu­ The 1950s consensus on the unacceptabi!ity of staff-student affairs is students. Must all interesting teaching of sex-related topics (let alone unprofessional, self~gratifying purposes (or even for moral-develop­ lar, to current invocations of the Orr case in that connection. not entirely reducible to outdated prurient attitudes. In one of the few electrical engineering!) depend upon eroticising the teaching rela­ mental ones) necessarily abuses. beacons of (,legal-bureaucratic') sanity in the whole sorry episode tionship? It may be readily conceded that teaching in all sorts of areas Progressive qualms namely, the judgement brought down in Orr v University of Tasma~ may take on an affective complexion. Feelings of love may be Pastoral sllades On past form one might have expected opposition to proscribing nia, it is striking that Justice Green did not dwell in a prudish fashion generated, on both sides. Eroticisation of these affecting teaching This is not the place to canvass definite solutions to such a sexual relationships between staff and students to emanate from the on the sexually scandalous side of Orr's misconduct. Rather, as Pybus relationships is thus a possibility in a wide variety of situations complicated issue. 1ft am correct, however, it is one which has been more conspicuously sexist sections of the academic community. Yet, (1993a) has recently reminded us, his judgement is centred squarely (though not a11). But this only raises the question of how these made unnecessarily complicated. But if the 'shades' of the Orr case after all that has been said, the existence of a vigorous (pro-) feminist on the impropriety of Orr's using his position of professional author­ unintended effects are to be guarded against and managed. It is only have any wisdom to impart regarding the issue, it would lie, in their case against a general ban ought not to appear anomalous. According ity to seduce his student by calculatingly initiating highly 'personal' from within the more intensely self-reflexive, anti-rationalist, pointing the finger at the necessity to welcome rather than to sneer at to one argument, which has repeatedly surfaced in The Australian's discussions of sex outside marriage with her. Such a call for restraint oppositionalist parts of the Humanities, in which the 'objects' of study the introduction of a measured quantum of 'bureaucratic' rationality

Page 46 Page 47 into the rnanagement of this issue. This is not to exclude any 5. Note,l 'sacred guild'. There is every reason not to see the 'bureau­ faith, [141-1177. cratic'trends question as inevitably inimical to aU elements of what I have whatsoever for the exercise of conscience, Far from it, it is a conC!!lJ!m The first t1aw is that Eke most American studies, Chubb and Moe Lemanl1. Nicholas (J. 991), 'A i:1..1se panacea', The New Yorker, January, PP called the 'guild' mentality traditionally fostered in academic environments. for Eving ou'l the regulation. The resulting indifference to fine measure student achievement in tenus of scores in standardised 101··105. distinctIons between types of personal-sexual interaction between Nor do f suppose that, in such a case, the latter ought always to give way to the competency tests, although it has been widely acknowledged, for Marginson, Simon mat!<.et, Monograph No 1, Public Sector staff and student which follows from of former. It is partly a matter of seeing the legitimacy of setting 'bureaucratic', procedural limits to even the most admirable aspects of 'collegial' relations, example by Hanushek (1986), that achievement test results are not Research Centre, University staff~student intimacy may be worth price, if it handing in some circumstances (e.g. in regard to fairness in making appointments). necessarily representative of what is h~amed at schooL Education and public polir::y in Australia, Cam- over the task of standard-setting to ideologically exclusive The second flaw is that their tour through the evidence is circular Above all, we would do well to appreciate the judicious statements and proves nothing. The conclusion about the need for a market from the Bench by the (at the time) appallingly Justice approach is produced not by the evidence, but by the starting assump­ Bartos, Michael (1993) 'Just a little too snug?', Editions, June, pp. 7,9. Green (Pybus, pp.114-1S), especially his emphasis on and tions goveming interpretation of the evidence. Chubb and Moe begin sorts of pastoral relations which teachers should at~ Kingston, Beverley (1993) 'No winners', Australian Book Review, February/ from the position that is the main substance of their conclusion M that March,p.18-19, tempt to cultivate with their students. the key determinant of better scrwols is the difference between Conversely, the 'ghost' of Sidney Orr revived by Pybus' book can Lumby, Catharine (1993) 'Desire takes a back seat in the lecture room' The schools based on markets and schools subject to 'direct democratic serve as a reminder of the drawbacks which may be attendant upon Australian, 23 June. contro!'. In the regression of factors goveming effective schools, the eroticising those pastoral relations. Doesn't Edwin Tanner's portrait Pybus, Cassandra (1993) 'Pressing need for campus sex rules', one 'given' is that institutional structure (market or public) 'can be (to say nothing ofPybus' more prosaic exposes ofOfr's misconduct) The Australian, 23 June. reasonably viewed as exogenous because it is 'the starting point for Economic rationalism a force us to confront the question as to whether a teacher who has sex Wark, McKenzie (1993) 'Attempts to cool campus affairs defy sexual logic' , understanding school performance'. The starting assumption is that with their students can fulfil their basic pastoral obligations of The Australian, 19 May institutional structure detennines school organisation, and this in turn treating all members of the 'flock' equally? Or preserving a reason­ determines student achievement. Market institutions are private able balance between informal approachability, friendliness, warmth, schools and in the United States private schools usually serviGe political program etc. and a celiain equally necessary distance? Finally, the childish and middle class families, and on average, in every education system in ofHayek, Friedman bizarre character of Orr's behaviour may serve to remind us that if Going round in circles the world, children from these families achieve higher student test proscription of staff-student sex places a question-mark against the scores. It is easy for Chubb and Moe to 'prove' that market structure effects on the public capacities (or 'maturity') of the people cOllcemed, it's not only 'causes' higher achievement (pp 114, 166--167). Likewise, it is students but teachers themselves who may be in need of 'protection'. Chubb and Terry M Moe, Politics, inevitable that they will find that class and cultural difference are good, by Marginsoll, PSRC Proscription may help staff to escape the attentions of the occasIonal andAmerica's schools, The indeterminate; from the beginning, these variables are rendered infatuated. or predatory student. But above all it would protect staff subordinate to the question of school type. Monograph No 1, Public Sector Research from themselves - i.e. against the temptation to act out their own Brookings Institution, Washington, 1990,318 In an incisive clitique of Chubb and Moe, Nicholas Lemann argues Centre, University New South Wales, regressive fantasies (and perhaps, from a few progressive ones as that in publiG schools in middle class districts, student perfonnance well). + xviipp is good. There the stmctural problems identified by Chubb and Moe Kensington, NSW 101 pp. $15 plus $3 In connection with the Orr case, Beverley Kingston (1993) asks: Chubb and Moe argue that the ultimate factor governing educa­ as inherent in democratic control 'seem magically to melt away'. It is 'how could so many otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people tional achievement is not class, gender or culture, or the quality of true that inner urban public schools are not working well, but the postage trained in critical analysis have been so wrong?'. On the contrary, one teaching, but the fonn of production that is used - whether the private schools 'almost never draw on a poor urban constituency'. Market hberalism, or economic rationalism as we have Ghristened may wonder whether, alongside cold-war paranoia and related alibis, education system is based on government administration and demo­ Lemann says that if Chubb and Moe's formula of autonomous this social philosophy in Australia, has had a profound influence on it was not despite but because of the Gultivation of a certain kind of cratic accountability, or autonomous market based institutions, oper­ entrepreneurial schools was established in the ghetto 'a lot of diploma public policy in this country. Economic rationalism is based on a highminded 'critical attitude' that so many academics misjudged the ating like private sector corporations and no longer encumbered by mills would spring up to cash in on the new availability of belief that markets are almost always the best method of determining issue. Nor is there any reason for any greater confidence in the time consuming and inefficient democratic processes. Class, gender government tuition stipends. Released from all but the most rudimen­ what is to be produced and how it is to be produced so that the size of similarly highminded terms in which the contemporary debate about and culture are irrelevant, and the quality of teaching and manage­ tary Gertification and accreditation requirements, these schools would the government sector and the extent of government regulation should campus sexual regulation is being conducted. To push the debate on ment is controlled by the prior issue of the form of production. Chubb be free to be bad' (Lemann 1991: 104). But Lemann is very concerned be kept to a minimum. Although its more extreme version was it may be necessary to stage it on a lower, less operatic level than that and Moe's intluential book is a long, disguised polemic in favour of about Chubb and Moe's potential impact: rejected. by the voters at the last election, the Government's economic on which the problem of reconciling Pedagogy and Desire reposes. a universal market system of schooling. They conclude that the main Once a public function is eliminated, it is nearly impossihle to get policy is still greatly influenced by the tenets of eGonomic rational­ There, the name of the game is not 'pedagogic politics 1 but profes­ obstacle to better schooling is 'the very institutions that are supposed it started again, because taxpayers don 't want to pay for anything ism. Moreover, many in the bureaucracy and many economic ration­ sional ethics. to be solving the problem: the institutions of direct democratic that doesn 'I benefit them directly ... Before taking such an immense alist academic and media commentators urge policies that are based control' (pp 2, 27-28). The abandonment of democratic education on ideology as much as on economic analysis. Not surprisingly the Notes risk, we ought to make sure we've tried every possible means of policies is not a novel suggestion. Their political theory is a recycled making bad schoofs better which doesn '{ involve cutting them loose resuit is that dangerous, as well as valuable, policies are advocated 1. Shortly before this article went to press, I heard tell of an Australian film, version of Friedman (1962; see the further discussion in Marginson jrom the webhing ofpuhlic life (Lemann 1991:105). and sometimes adopted. The present reviewer has argued elsewhere Gross MLw;vnduci, which was said to be loosely inspired by Orr's 'plight'! 1992, Marginson 1993). Chubb and Moe's solutions, a voucher (Nevile 1990 and 1992) that deregulation of the labour market is The implication of Chubb and Moe's position is the deGonstruction 2. No ammmt of theoretical relativisation of the meaning of 'consent' can system, and the dismantling of government policies for rectifying economically dangerous in tbat it is likely to lead to greater inflation of public education systems throughout the English speaking world, arguably bridge the gap between the Orr/Kemp liaison and even the broadest social and educational disadvantage, are also pure Friedman. and/or unemployment. A policy which is more literally dangerous is and in those parts of the third world under the economic policy control current legal or administrative definitions of sexual harassmenL Only by The debate is important for Australian higher education, because that requiring the Civil Aviation Authority to recover from users the of American-dominated institutions like the World Bank. The estab­ making the latter category equivalent to the realm of sexism-in-general is policy making is poised between the abstract alternatives that Chubb costs of its services including safety surveillance. A task force set up Pybus' suggestion inte!1igib!e. lishment of a universal education market also implies the and Moe present, although actual practices tend to be more interwo­ by the CAA concluded that: depoliticisation of education policy, as the main fonn of education 3, So it is with the pastoral techniques at the core of the progressive approach ven and complex. Reaganite market reform might have peaked in would become privately-owned positional goods. As Lemann points trying to recover the cost o/regulating our safety ;rom the industry to English heroised in Dead Poets' Society, Viewers of that film may be areas such as financial deregulation, but is still on the rise in unaware that pedagogically speaking, the 'progressive' teacher's unconven·· out, such a step would probably be irreversible. Chubb and Moe are "denies a/ocus on the public benefit derivedfrom these activities ". education. Chubb and Moe's position is almost hegemonic in the tionality primarily consists in his attempt to transfer pastoral techniques which doing the rounds of policy circles, but going round in circles is what (5)~vdney Morning Herald, 19/6/1993). United States. Politics, markets and America's schools was also high at that time were weB established in the public school sector over to the private. they are good at. Unfortunately social policy does not have to be Those who wish to replace market liberalism or economic ration~ on David. Kemp's list of favourite books. Fightbackl, proposed In reality, the books imparting the older rhetoric-based approach to poetry, realistic or democratic to be adopted. This is a dismal period in alism, as the dominant social philosophy in Australian policy making vouchers in higher education and TAFE, and competitive, autono­ which in the mm the students are required to mutilate, would have been quietly education policy making and despite its flaws, the impad of Politics, circles need to understand the nature and dynamics of the ideology remaindered! In making this argument J am identifying the core of the hero's mous schools. The Chubb and Moe model of corporate schooling has markets and America's schools could be very destructive. they wish to supplant. Marginson' s monograph is conceived as "a pedagogy with how he teaches poetry and writing. I resist the temptation to shaped refonus in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. modest contribution to that project" (p.2 AU page numbers without highlight the resemblances between other aspects orhis teaching methods and Chubb and Moe have reworked the existing American research on bibliographic details refer to the monograph under review). those used in the Hitler Youth! the conditions governing student achievement in order to demonstrate References Marginson makes two important general points. The first is that the 4. See, again, Lumby (1993). The studious vagueness ofthe references to this that market-based schools produce better results. They draw on the Coleman, James, Thomas HotTer and Sally Kilgore (1982), High school achievement: public, Catholic and private schools compared, Basic Books, authors studied wrote, not primarily to increase knowledge, but to debate reflect my dependence upon The Australian's non-too-impressive data store employed by Coleman et al (1982) in their study of the New York. change the world, as is shown in the quotation from Buchanan and reportage on academic affairs. If parties whose views are represented only at differences between public and private schools. However, Chubb and Tulloch. second hand fee! they have been misrepresented I apologise in advance. I Moe's reasoning contains two major flaws and their book has little Friedman, Milton (1962), 'The role of goverTll11ent in education', in Capital­ gather that the symposium on 'Erotics and Pedagogy' organised by the ism and freedom, pp 85-107, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. va1ue (despite its pretensions) as an empirical insight into education The on(v purpose of science is its ultimate assistance in the Genera! Philosophy Department at the University of Sydney contained a much Hanushek, Eric (1986), 'The economics of schooling: production and effi­ development 0/ normative [or "what ought to be "; propositions wider spectnlm of views than those canvassed in The Au.stralian 's report. systems: as a prescription for better schools, you have to take it on ciency in public schools'. Journal 0/ ECl)nomic Literature, Vol 24, pp (quoted p.7)

Page 48 Page 49 The second is that the conclusions of market liberalism are based on the values, or political ideology, of its exponents as well as on process hand in hand with a tendency to underplay the impor- indicators such as non-coTnpletion rates, proportion of graduates with economic analysis. The basic value, which is the cornerstone of the dog tance so to speak, old knowledge. Notwithstanding the good degrees, numbers of graduates who enter particular sectors of edifice, is that the most important goal in organising society is the it is of the first importance that we do 110t the labour market, and so on. freedom of the individual. abandon that body of knowledge/understanding, and its associated Barnett accepts the utility of performance indicators for certain methods of acquisition, that we col1ectively possess. Any partiCUlar purposes. For he accepts them in relation to research. Here As liberals we take the freedom of the individual, or perhaps the belief or theory may be subject to revision. But the wholesale he is somewhat too accepting of the pretensions of performance family, as our ultimate goal in judging social arrangements abandonment of, or failure to transmit, we11-confirmed knowledge/ indicators. Gross numbers of publications are a notoriously bad (Friedman, quoted p.39). understanding and methods of acquisition WOUld amount to cultural indicator of quality in research. But even more sophisticated methods This does not have much meaning unless freedom is defined. suicide. Barnett says, "In so far as this picture of devoted disciples such as citation indices based on recognised journals are problematic. Marginson shows clearly the negative nature of the freedom by continuing to transmit earlier teachings across generations has valid­ For citation itself is grounded in the editors', referees' and authors' economic rationalists. It is freedom "in the sense of protection by law 240 ity, it is rather depressing" (p.3?). Here Barnett misses the point. It is individual judgememts of quality, and such individual judgememts aU arbitrary coercion" (Hayek, quoted p.1S). Ronald Barnett's book on quality in higher education is a valuable not a question of being a devoted disciple, or of unquestioning are quite often influenced by intellectual fashion, ideology, market A major strength of the monograph is that it brings out these, and cOlTective to bureaucratic and consumer led conceptions of quality. acceptance of traditional beliefs. The point is rather that knowledgel considerations or peer group pressure. other, points of social philosophy and economic methodology in a Barnett convincingly argues that the preoccupation with perfonnance understanding and the ways of acquiring it are hard to come by and He has a more balanced view of the utility of performance indica­ style that is accessible to the layman and a pleasure to read. Although indicators and competency based methods of evaluation in the service often take the collective effort of many researcher/scholars over many tors in relation to non-research areas. For example, he allows that they the three writers studied all received Nobel prizes in economics, there of labour force demands and bureaucratic goals such a low unit cost, generations. Such knowledge and methods once lost often cannot be ought to provide part of the initial data in an institution's efforts to is relatively little about their contributions to economics. distorts our understanding of the value of higher education, and retrieved by even a whole generation of students if they have to start improve the quality of its educational processes. The list of such After the introduction and a brief chapter 00 the antecedents of therefore of what quality in higher education consists in. Says Bamett anew. For students have to rely on libraries, museums, textbooks and indicators dra\Vl1 up by Barnett includes, library expenditure per economic rationalism, Margioson looks in detail at the social theories (p.2l) "our models of quality assurance should, rather, fit our con­ equipment the embodiment of the work of past generations. Students student, percentage of budget spent on staff development, and gradu­ of Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan. Much more than the over-riding cepts of higher education ... at present it is a case of the performance also have to rely on exposure to someone who has absorbed the ate destinations. value of "negative" freedom is brought out. Most striking perhaps is indicators' tai! wagging the quality dog Paradoxically, then, in knowledge/understanding in question, has internalised the ways of Barnett is optimistic about the possibility of an institution improvM the elitist, anti-egalitarian nature of the thought of all three. In their higher education, performance indicators act to rule out of court acquiring it, and who can select and make sense of the works in ing the quality of its education, but only if it "manages for quality" view, policies of redistribution and social justice are an invasion of concepts that are concerned with the essence of higher education libraries, has the practical ski11s to use the equipment and so on. (p.64), rather than simply managing quality. He provides an array of freedom, because they are "a major source of bigger and bigger itself'. The second feature of Barnett's conception is the subordination of suggestions consistent with his conception of managing for quality. government, and of government imposed restrictions on our liberty" the research role of the academic to the teaching role. Here Barnett These include, regular cycles of review, student involvement in (Friedman, quoted p.39). Barnett's book is in three sections. The first section concerns the theoretical concept of quality; the second looks at ways of improving seems to be understanding the importance of research. This might be e~aluation and reward structure for good teaching. Marginson also brings out well the congruence between the stress quality at the level of institutional policy and practice; the third the result of his excessively student centred conception of tertiary He is concerned with managerial interference in academic work. He on the value of "negative" freedom and the methodological individu~ discusses ways of improving the educational process itself. institutions. The contrast with Barnett's view is not, as he seems to believes managers should manage the framework of the educational alism of the three authors and covers many other topics including Barnett rightly points out that an adequate account of quality think, with a teacher centred conception, but rather with an activity process but not directly interfere in the actual process of teacher! views on equality of opportunity, market/state dualism, government presupposes an acceptable conception of higher education, and he based conception. The activity in question is one or other of the student interaction. Perhaps Barnett concedes too much institutional services, corporations and unions. The list could be extended but goes on to advocate a student centred conception of higher education. intellectual disciplines, be it philosophy or physics or economics. control to managers in leaving them in charge of the framework. At reading a list of topics is no substitute for reading Marginson himself. any rate his worries about interference in the educational process This view has two main features. Firstly, teaching ought to be What is taken to be of central importance is the knowledge directed The weakest chapter is that on antecedents. Marginson tends to take activity of philosophising or of engaging with mathematical or subordinated to the process of learning. Says Barnett, "the student is itself are well taken. the economic rationalist's interpretation of Adam Smith and others at the principal educator" (p.42). So the student is not simply a passive economic problems. And the reference to knowledge directedness is A central concern here is the efficacy of methods of determining the face value. For example, on page 10 he draws attention to Friedman quality of the educational process favoured by bureaucratically recipient of teacher input, rather the teacher facilitates an active important. It indicates that knowledge is not necessarily to be equated quoting with approval Adam Smith on the role of government which with the actual judgememt of the individual or the group. Often it is inclined managers (e.g. performance indicators) and the use to which process whereby the student comes to acquire "higher order intellec~ should leave people free to pursue their own interests as long as they they are put. The process of teacher/student interaction is, he convincM tual abilities. and intellectual autonomy" (p.28). possible that the individual or the group has got it wrong. Intellectual do not "violate the laws of justice", but he does not point out that for autonomy consists in part in being able to resist the judgememt of ingly argues, one that is unpredictable, spontaneous, messy, only While Barnett's emphasis 011 students actively developing powers Adam Smith justice, not freedom, was the fundamental value and that of reasoning and of thinking critically and independently is exem­ one's peers, and thus relies on a conception of knowledge according partly observable and generally not amenable to accurate assessment Smith's concept of justice included the nature of social institutions so plary, he misunderstands the nature of knowledge - as opposed to the to which knowledge is not simply equated with peer consensus - even by performance indicators. that, for example, he was happy to restrict the freedom of men to leave Another source of concern in relation to the educational process is ability to rcason - and understates the impor1ance of the teacher as Barnett's peer consensus resulting from rational communication. prop~rty to illegitimate children in order to shore up the institution of (Barnett's elaboration of this Habennas influenced view in his The competency based training. Barnett argues convincingly that the marnage. transmitter of knowledge and of the ways of acquiring knowledge. In relation to knowledge a number of points need to be made. Idea of Higher Education is open to the same sort of objections.) On competency movement's conception of education as consisting of However, the weaknesses in the monograph are outweighed by its training techniques and knowledge in the service of the labour market Firstly, there is the undoubted fact made much of by Barnett here and this conception higher educational policy should be driven by the need strengths. Buchanan's assessment of his own work is that "public is an impoverished conception, and in the end even fails to provide an in his earlicr book The Idea of Higher Education (Buckingham: to maintain the various knowledge directed intellectual disciplines, as choice [theory} has exerted, and continues to exert, major ideological well as by the needs of the student economy with the kind of educated workforce that it actually requires. Society for Research into Higher Education, 1990) ~ that our beliefs impact (quoted p.2). If opponents of market liberalism wish to have and theories are often false and need to be subject to rational scrutiny To be fair to Barnett he is perhaps not so much downpJaying the For examp1e, in relation to professionals he points out the necessity an equal impact, they need to "know the enemy". Marginson's and, if need be, revision. This is not, as Barnett seems to think, a truth importance of research, as following Cardinal Newman in holding for what he terms reflective practitioners. The reflective practitioner monograph is a good place to start. has the capacity to think through and respond creatively to varied and for which we are indebted to post-modernism or, for that matter, to the that institutions of higher education do not necessarily have to have complex problems. Whether she is in the business or in law, the neo-Enllghtenment social theorist, Jurgen Habennas, to whom Barnett a research role. Research can be undertaken in institutions devoted References reflective practitioner is not simply an efficient operator of predeter­ consistently defers. Indeed it is a commonplace of elementary philo­ solely to research. This view has never been able to accommodate the Nevile, J W (1990), "The Case of Deregulation: Economic Science or Ideol­ fact that postgraduate students, in particular, need to be inducted into mined mechanisms and techniques. Moreover the reflective practi­ sophical theorising about knowledge that we have developed all ogy?", The Economic and Labour Relations Review, December, pp. 71-80. research activity. How can this take place other than under the tioner understands that "values enter inescapably into professional manner of methodological principles to test our beliefs and theories. supervision of researchers working in a research environment? In The life" (p.190), and that therefore decision making must be based on Nevile, J W (\992), "Fightback in Perspective: What Difference Would it Secondly, this fact is not, again contra Barnett, in an way inconsistent Make?", The Economic and Labour Relations Review, June, pp. I-D. Idea of Higher Education (p.134) Barnett argues that much 'educa­ judgememts of value as wel1 as fact. Presumably the importance of with objectivist accounts of knowledge. Objectivists need hold only tion' for research is not really higher education, since it is merely a developing a capacity to make such judgememts - the capacity of the J W Nevile that there can be ascertainable objective truth, not that there is na!TOW training in acquiring methodological routines. As far as many professional to make ethically infonned judgememts - ought to be University ofN ew South Wales absolute certainty or that we are never in error. Finally, Barnett also disciplines in many institutions are concerned, this is simply false. reflected in the process of educating professionals. The logic of mistakenly saddles objectivism with a commitment to numerically Moreover to the extent that it is true, it merely demonstrates the need Barnett's position dictates that institutions of higher education should based performance indicators; it is only objectively true if you can to rethink programs of study. It does not show that researchers and provide courses in professional ethics. count it. but many judgememts of quality are objective without being research activity do not have an important role to play in institutions numerically based, for example, the judgement that Albert Einstein Sellmas Miller, of higher education. was a good scientist. And from the mere fact that a judgement is University or Melbourne Barnett is at his most convincing when he leaves the theoretical numerically based it does not fonow that it is objective; numerical issues surrounding quality, and turns to his central theme of improv~ data is often based 01] highly subjective judgememts. For example, the ing quality in higher education. numerical scores used in selecting beauty contestant winners are In addressing this issue he emphasises the importance of the based on highly subjective judgements. internal educational processes of the university and of their resistance Barnett's understatement of the role of teachers in the learning in teaching in particular, to evaluation by recourse to performance

Page 50 Page 51 The reviews are rp"",,,,,," from Ihe 1/93 Issue of beyond the immediate descriptive and analytic material. Together, of the hving conditions of ordinary people in western (and latkriy AUK The review, were We apologise they offer a very good basis for discussion by any institution wishing rnany eastern) countries in the of the world. How could this for any cOlJ]fusion. to focus more on students, and teacher~student interactions in both Moral values back have happened, given that the of (theoretical) for learning and assessment. ib Dvm sake is (allegedly) inimical to the interests of industry, and As with any brief and somewhat general text, the book will leave given that th(~ universities were until Thatcher and Dawkins arrived some readers dissatisfied. There are inevitably several tastes of ~ [vory TOV./i.;;rs out without skills that were irrel- tantalising goodies without the satisfaction of a full meal. Changes in agenda evant to "the life",? Keeping pace with change teacher-student relations with changing fOTIns of assessment perhaps In his The Lea.rning liniversity Chris Duke presents what he takes deserved further discussion even in this brief text, and will certainly Industry and Higher Eduction: to be a ne'N of higher education in the UK. The paradigm is need more attention in the future. The issue of how/whether students to Improve Students' Learning somewhat vague but at any rate it involves institutions and teachers can (re)negotiate programmes and assessments is one education transfonning themselves in such a way as to have du,cat.ion Review edited which needs a closer look, particularly as many systems move Edited by Peter W G Wright, Buckingham, as a (the?) central role the provision of continuing education. Duke by Brian Low and Graeme Withers, towards standards-based or competency-based assessment where tends to connate the claim that the UK higher education system is as everything is supposedly specified in advance. Society for Research into Higher Educllticm a matter of fact undergoing a paradigm shift, with the claim that this Hawthorn (Vic), Australian Council Perhaps more importantly, ide010gical, political and economic and Open University Press, 1990, 93 shift is a good But it is clear that he wants to make both these factors relating to and emerging from student assessment are almost claims. He offers some argument for the former, but almost none for Educational Research, 1990 vi+ 128 pp entirely absent from this text. It can be accepted that such matters were the latter. Duke also (at least implicitly) holds that this paradigm is It is perhaps noteworthy that this review of Low and Withers' book not part of the editors' focal aim, but these issues are critical. The The Learning University: Towards a New one that to be put in place throughout the modem world. was written early in 1993. This gave the reviewer both the luxury of comments on tertiary selection policies (pp 11-15, 108-12), on the Paradigm?, Chris Duke, Buckingham, Accordingly, book has direct relevance to the Australian situation. hindsight and the opportunity to assess what this book offers in the purposes of assessment (pp 24-5), and on centralisation (pp 106-8), What are the [l;;atures of this alleged new paradigm? Apparently the way of on-going issues. The speed of change in assessment, referred could all have been expanded (however slightly), to alert the "general Society for Research into Higher Educatioll oid paradigm was of a "collegiate residential finishing school for 18 to in the text, has continued to accelerate both in Australia and New audience" about the extent to which such issues underlie apparently year olds'·'. It had competitive entry requirements and was therefore Zealand. In both countries, a number of major reports and publica­ "technical" debates on forms of assessment and reporting. and Open University Press, 1992. 136 pp. input oriented. It was also elitist and inefficient. The new paradigm tions on assessment ~ particularly for the post-compulsory years - The book remains a useful one, particularly perhaps for Australian will understand education to be a life-long process for all. It will be have appeared since this book was published. This review attempts to secondary school educators, who might find this a good companion Moral Values and Higher Education. Q,J:ltput oriented. It wi!! also involve a "partnership" between higher offer both a brief appraisal of the book's contents and, simultane­ volume to the publication by Griffin and Nix (1991). The research education and industry, and it will provide highly skilled and fre­ ously, to comment on the extent to which this content still has basis of several of the chapters make it similarly useful for those more at Risk, Edited by Dennis L T Thompson, quently updated labour. Indeed it will evidently provide some form of important things to say after three years of change and development. broadly interested in assessment, while a number of the issues raised New York, Brigham Young University Press, competency based training. Its 'curricula' will consist ofmodu!arised The Review series to which this book belongs is "written for a have interesting - if undeclared ~ relevance for educators in the tertiary vocationally oriented courses and CAT (credit accumulation and general audience", according to the publishers' guidelines. It is fair to sector. The book is clear and well \VTitten, although the repetition of 1991. 179 pp. transfer). But it will not involve degrees, for degrees signal terminal say that this book would appeal to a "general" audience of teachers a long quote in two places (p.2?, p.118) is surprising. It is a work as opposed to continuing ~ education. Industry and Higher Education consists of ten short essays on and interested parents, but it also has points of value to those with which certainly still deserves some serious attention. Mon:()v~r the coming into being of this new paradigm will result in greater knowledge in the area of assessment. industry and higher education in the UK. It is divided into four parts a sort of meltdown of the existing set of distinct, indeed autonomous, The first chapter (of six), by Baumgart and Low, is an overview of References with two or three essays in each part. Essays in Part 1 are concerned collegiate universities into a higher education system run according secondary assessment in Australia as it was in 1990. As a reader from GrifJin, P & Nix, P EducatiOfwl Assessment and Reporting: A New Approach. with the historical development of the relationship between industry to managerial practices and shaped by the needs of government and outside Australia, I found this chapter gave me not only a very dear Sydney, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991. and higher education; in Part 2 with industry contributions to higher industry. Further, this new system will itself be a learning system; state-of~play summary but also a timely reminder of a number of Peddie, R A Assessing Alone: An Evaluation oIthe Sixth Form Certificate education funding in the UK and also comparatively with the US; in there will be staff development. Finally, this new paradigm while issues which present on-going chal1enges to professionals in both French Moderation Trial, 1989. Report to the New Zealand Ministry of Part 3 with the kinds of graduates needed by employers; in Part 4 with initially possibly frightening will end up offering big brotherly Australia and New Zealand. This and the final summary chapter Education. Auckland, Education Department, University of Auckland, (ix + the changing culture and organisation of higher education. The reassurance. According to Duke (p.112-13): (Withers and Low), provide a brief but clear argument that difficulties 197 pp), 1990 contributors are mainly professional educationists from academia and The learning centre paradigm offers a viahle alternative to the in assessment are both theoretical and practical. A thorny issue like industry. Roger IVOfY Tower ... The transition to the potentially managerialist tertiary entrance, for example, continues to be problematic in Aus­ The whole issue of the relationship between industry and higher Univ~lt"sity of AM£klalll(i, NZ higher education world of the 1990s is tough enough as it is .F)r tralia and, as student numbers keep rising, is becoming so in New education is without doubt of great importance. Naturally the fact that many in the greying community o/scholars. Resentment at the need Zealand. the essays are directed at higher education in the UK makes them less j(}r chunge is \vidc\]Jread, sometimes hirter... The value o/the new The second chapter, by Withers and Batten, is based on a 1988 interesting to Australian readers. Nevertheless, there are sometimes paradigm will lie in its capacity to rationalise, legitimate and give survey of school practices in assessment and reporting. It uses survey lessons to be learnt from overseas experience. I say "sometimes" ./hrm and to what may seem to be the random and wi{/ill results in offering a classification and discussion of various types of since, arguably, recent public policy in higher education in this imposition SUCC€.)"sive iII-explained innovations. assessment. Non-specialist readers at all levels of the education country has been too much driven by uncritical acceptance of overseas system would be assisted by a careful reading ofttis chapter. It helps ideas. Let me look at some shortcomings in Duke's account. Firstly. to clarify the wide range of current teIminology, and offers a very However this particular collection is in the end disappointin¥. This whether or not there is in fact a new paradigm - as opposed to an oid useful figure (p.23) showing the relationships between the various is partly because it consists of too many very short essays ranging over paradigm with some important shifts of emphasis - is questionable. assessment terms used. It also demonstrates that apparently special­ such a large area. The average length of the essays is about seven The nntion of universities catering exclusively to !ife~long 'degrees' ised or technical terms are used very differently by different schools pages. Inevitably the content of each essay is slight. But it is also or occasional updating courses would be new, but it would also be and that there are minor but real differences in the tenninology used because most of the essays never get much beyond what is eithcr silly; doctors need a solid initial training in medicine, lawyers in law. in different countries. sensible but platitudinous or what is surprising but dubious. On the physicists in physics etc. Moreover quality of output - output being a The third chapter, by Eyers and Willmott, reviews several different sensible but platitudinous side we have Ann Bailey telling us that tllllctlOtl of input plus process - is what must drive any educational approaches to moderation of (secondary) school assessments. The industry needs an adaptable workforce - one with transferable skills system. This is true whether one is speaking of three year degrees or discussion is both theoretical and practical, offering further timely - and Peter Meyer-Dohm that universities must be responsive to !earning. Presumably Duke would accept all this. So COIl~ reminders, notably on the importance of teacher development as an industry's short term needs yet sufficiently detached so as to enable tinuing education is after all simply an adjunct to three or four or five integral and necessary part of any significant moves in assessment (cf. longer term industrial development. On the surprising but dubious year initial and postgraduate degrees; and like these degree programs. Peddie, 1990). The section on validity of moderation procedures is side we have Roy Lowe announcing that historically UK universities contll1Ull1g education must be driven by a commitment to quality of succinct and well worth reading. failed the economy because they simply provided liberal arts courses output. But no\v Duke's proposals look at most to be modifications to The remaining two chapters look at more specific issues. Low, for the upper classes. His remedy is apparently technical/¥ocational the: old paradigm Adams, Ball and Cooney discuss results from a study of greater in­ training for everyone. We also have Ann Jones predicting and Secondly. Duke's commitment to moduiarisation and to part-time schoo! responsibility for assessment in New South Wales. Withers applauding the (alleged) economic and social utopia emerging from while no doubt acceptable for many students and subjects, is fOr and McCurry offer a case study of a secondary school where students the vocationally oriented education that is in the process of supplant­ rnany educationally problematic. In many disciplines it is playa very active role in their own assessment. Both chapters are ing all that outdated Ivory Tower pursuit of knowledge for its own highly desirable not only to have an initial training, but for that field/research based, and both offer a number of points of value sake. Listening to these prescriptions and predictions, it is hard to training to consist of uninterrupted. progressively more demanding, believe that the last century has witnessed the greatest transformation full-time study in a learning environment consisting of a core of

Page 52 Page 53 professional academics. good doctor and good lawyer. The good doctor is one who serves a Thirdly, Duke's vision of a non elitist higher education system is a good end to the fullest, namely the health of human beings. By this cruel hoax. Even if it were othelWise desirable, there is never going reckoning many financially successful doctors may not be good to be the funding available to let everyone study medicine or law. doctors. There wiH always be competitive entry requirements for sought after Noel Reynolds argues for the importance of not preparing career paths. And this fact will not be changed by letting everyone do students for productive activity, but also of educating about some course or other at some institution of higher education. the past. But his suggestion here is that these tasks for the university Fourthly, Duke fails to offer any reason why the explosion in largely are not simply value neutral functions, they are moral obligations. For unfunded continuing education that he apparently advocates will not a university, or at least for individual academics, to fail to perform its simply overload the system and lead to a proliferation of fashionable or their proper functions is on this view to fail morally. but educationally worthless course offerings. This is not to say that All in all Moral Values and Higher Education is to be applauded for there is not an important place for continuing education, but it is to say at least trying to put mora1 values back on the agenda. Much of the that there need to be limits on it, and that the educational value of any current discussion concerning higher education and the' clever coun­ particular course initiative needs to be detennined. try' proceeds as if social and institutional transformation could take Fifthly, Duke's commitment to a higher education system substan­ place without a commensurate transformation in attitudes to work, tially driven by a combination of market forces and bureaucratic commitment to change, willingness to co-operate and so on; in short intervention displays an unsubstantiated faith in the capacity of much of the discussion proceeds as if mora1 values were irrelevant to bureaucrats, politicians, business people and students - indeed every­ social and institutional transformation, when in fact they are at the one but academics - to make judgements concerning matters ofhighcr core of it. education. This faith is evident in his uncritical acceptance of compe­ Seamus Miller, tency-based training. The hypothesis that there is some set of Melbourne University knowledge/skills that is transferable from one vocational setting to another is the latest concoction of platitude and fantasy served up to the education sector. It is platitude in that almost any vocation requires people who can communicate in a language, count things, think logically and who are possessed of a reasonably comprehensive general knowledge. We have known this for a long time, quite literally, thousands of years. It is fantasy in so far as it posits new generic competencies such as problem solving requiring new cur­ ricula. There is no generic competency of problem solving. There is only the capacity to solve mathematical problems and the capacity to solve problems in business and the capacity to solve problems in romantic relationships, and so on. Some of these problem solving capacities can be learnt and tested by undertaking fonnal courses in universities. Mathematical problem solving is one of these. Others cannot be learnt or tested by undertaking fonnal courses in universi~ ties; solving romantic problems is one of these, and so in all probabil­ ity is much of the problem solving ability required to succeed in business. Moral Values and Higher Education is a very different book from the two above described. Whereas they herald a brave new world of competencies and partnership with industry, it seeks to retrieve something out of the past, namely, moral value. The book consists of ten essays by senior academics and university administrators. The essays vary in quality, some such as those by Robert Coles, James T Laney and Jeffrey R Holland, being substan~ tially anecdotal and expressive of moral outrage rather than analytical or infonnative. Moreover there is considerable overlap in the content of many of the essays. For example, many of the essayists point out (rightly) that moral problems require careful and objective reflection; what is right or wrong is not simply a matter of individual taste or social conditioning. The central infonning notion of the collection is that moral values must be preserved and that universities have a role in their preserva­ tion. The first point is obviously true. A society in which rights are not respected and obligations not discharged in public and private life is a society with a limited life-span. What precisely universities can contribute to the preservation, and for that matter, introduction, of moral values, is somewhat less clear. Abraham Kaplan and Terence Sanda!ow point out that universities ought not to be in the business of directly inculcating moral values but that they certainly ought to provide an environment for the intellectual examination of moral values. In effect they advocate courses in general moral philosophy as well as in specific areas of applied ethics e.g. legal ethics, medical ethics. The argument for this is simply that ethics is central to all walks of life, including the professions. As another contributor, Ivana Markova points out ~ following Ortega y Gasset - the fundamental category is not doctor or lawyer but rather

Page 54 ------...,....---

Notes for CUUlIl

The editorial policy of the Review is contained on the inside front coveL Contributions should normally be limited to 5,000 words, although longer articles will be considered. Book reviews should be between 200 and 800 wotds; review essays may be longer. Articles should be typed, double-spaced, on one side of an A4 sheer only, with a left hand margin of 4 em. Pages should be numbered consecutively. Tables and figures should appear on individual sheets following the main text, numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear (or are cited). Captions should be listed separately. Figures should be drawn precisely and boldly. Style should follow the Australian Government Publishing Service Style Manual, Fourth Edition, 1983. References in the text should be given in the author-date style, ie McCallum (1990) argues ... or as various authors argue (McCallum 1990; Kenway 1989). Page references should be thus: (McCallum 1990, p. 41). Page references should be used for direct quotations.

The bibliography should be ryped double-spaced and placed in alphabetical order at the end of the paper as follows: For a reference to a book: McCallum, David 1990, The social produ£tion of merit, London, Falmer. For a reference to a chapter in a collection: Smith, Bruce 1991 'Crime and the classics: the humanities and government in the nineteenth century Australian university', in Ian Hunter, Denise Meredyth, Bruce Smith and Geoff Stokes (cds) Accounting/or the humanities, Brisbane, Insrirure for Culrural Policy Studies, pp 67-115. For a journal reference: Zappala, Jon and Lombard, Marc 1991, 'The decline of Australian educational salaries', Austraiian Bulletin of Labour, 17(1), PI' 76-95.

Sub-headings should be typed in lower case, ranged left, with relative importance indicated by A, B, etc in pencil in the margin. Dates thus: 30 June 1990. Single quotation marks only should be used, except for quotes within quotes. All quotes of more than 50 words should be indented and placed in a separate paragraph (single spacing is not necessary). "ise" should be used rather than "ize", eg: organise not organize. Abbreviations should be explained when necessary. Male nouns and prollouns should not be used to refer to people of either sex.

Contributors ·should provide three copies of articles. The author's ,ful! contact details should be provided, including fax number if available. A hard copy of the article should be retained by the author. l\uthors whose work has been accepted, are expected to provide a copy of their manuscript on diskette. Authors v/d! be contacted with the details. Contributions are sent to at least t\\I0 referees. Unsuccessful manuscripts will not be returned, unless specifically requested. Proofs are sent from NTElJ to the author who must return them within five days. Authors should not rewrite signitlcantly at the proof stage.

The address for aU editorial correspondence is: The Austraiian Univmities' Rev,ew) C/- NTEU, PO BOX 1323, Ciry Road Posr Office, Sourh Melbourne, Vicroria, Australia, 3205. Phone: (03) 254 1910 Fax: (03) 254 1915