Cumberland Lodge, Windsor 28 July - 3 August 2003
Introductory Paper
by Baroness Warwick
Higher education is growing and will continue to grow, in two senses. First, in student numbers: in virtually every country in the world students see it as a passage to a better life. Second, universities are enlarging the contribution they make, by delivering innovative courses, by engaging with public policy, and by contributing to economic growth and enabling their nations to secure and maintain a skilled workforce and compete globally.
This is a far cry from the 19th century writings on the idea of the university. The English cleric, John Henry Newman, urged that a university education should not be prized for its direct usefulness and that education is not to be confused with the acquisition of skills. In other parts of Europe, universities were influenced by the German Humboldtian ideal of university scholars dedicated to Wissenschaft (pure learning as opposed to utilitarian skills) and Bildung (the cultivation of the whole person). In Europe (and indeed in other parts of the world) many universities hold fast to these ideals, and argue that the pendulum has swung too far towards utilitarianism. The British government’s view of the role of universities as expressed in the recent White Paper, however, is a clear example of today’s trend. It has also questioned the value of public funding of research for which there is no direct benefit – eg research in medieval history.
The unease which has accompanied this transformation is well expressed in higher education’s reaction to the World Trade Organisation’s general agreement on trade in services (GATS). Education services, including higher education, are one of the 12 broad sectors included in the agreement. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the American Council on Education, and the European University Association preface their response to GATS with the following statement: Higher education exists to serve the public interest and is not a “commodity”:
The mission of higher education is to contribute to the sustainable development and improvement of society as a whole by: educating highly qualified graduates able to meet the needs of all sectors of human activity; advancing, creating and disseminating knowledge through research; interpreting, preserving, and promoting cultures in the context of cultural pluralism and diversity; providing opportunities for higher learning throughout life: contributing to the development and improvement of education at all levels; and protecting and enhancing civil society by training young people in the values which form the basis of democratic citizenship by providing critical and detached perspectives in the discussion of strategic choices facing society.
This is quoted in full because, in attempting to defend universities against commodification, this preface itself highlights the great range of functions that universities might be expected to deliver. Is it really appropriate that every institution of higher education should do so? Perhaps it is not, but it could certainly be argued that each of them is an appropriate occupation for a university. In any case, a university produces commodities, in the form, for example, of courses and intellectual property that could be traded on the world market. Many already do this. Indeed, this offers a further dimension to the debate about the future of higher education in that the commercial sector is now, in many countries, actively competing with publicly funded institutions to deliver higher education. Many governments are prepared to encourage such provision – in the United Kingdom there are proposals to change the definition of a university that could enable private providers to secure degree awarding powers. Such a move could lead to expansion of the HE market at no cost to government.
This large number of demands will present
universities with an increasing number of dilemmas, identified as the topics
for discussion at this seminar. This paper looks briefly at just three
of them: broad access versus the quality of teaching for a select group;
increasing differentiation in institutional provision whilst maintaining
notions of equality; and the extent to which research defines a university.
It also touches on the pressure to deliver global quality at the same time
as sustaining regional and local communities; the role of autonomy and academic
freedom in the face of growing state influence in seeking to use universities
to drive policy; the need for new approaches for learning recognising the
role of technology; and the importance of higher education as a cultural
force and in preparing students for life as well as for a job. There are,
inevitably, references to who should pay. The paper uses the UK situation
to highlight some of the tensions inherent in each of these issues. Throughout,
I have used the term ‘university’ and ‘higher education’ interchangeably.
This is itself controversial since it does not distinguish universities
from other institutions of higher education which in many countries are regarded
as having very different missions.
Broad
Access
The British Secretary of State for Education for Skills is fond of using
the example of a certain type of shop in the more exclusive parts of most
large towns. The window is piled high with beautifully presented goods,
but if you venture inside you find the staff rather frosty and distant.
Shopping in such places can be an intimidating experience. He alleges
that this is how some of the United Kingdom’s young people view the prospect
of a place at university. On the face of it, the reality is rather different.
In the last 30 years, the number of people gaining degrees in the United
Kingdom has tripled. Yet well into the 20th century this expansion
reinforced existing social structures. These graduates came disproportionately
from higher income families and from professional and managerial groups
who are four times more likely to enter higher education than those with
unskilled or semi-skilled parents.
Universities of the future will not be able to stand aside from principles of natural justice, and they have a responsibility to do more than simply replicate the social hierarchies in which they exist. Growing recognition of concepts of human rights will mean that universities must reach out to all social groups if they are truly to make a civilising contribution.
Higher education can be a potentially powerful instrument of social justice. It is a critical determinant of life chances. Brenda Gourlay, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Natal, South Africa and now Vice-Chancellor of the Open University, United Kingdom, urges universities to have a much broader vision: 27 African countries have committed themselves to making access to formal education a possibility and right for girls. “If we think globally”, she says, “can we think about access without talking about girl children in China or Africa? Can we talk about access as a democratising force, a global one, unless we have a place in it for African or Chinese girls?”
How will such participation in higher education be accomplished? We are no longer in the world of 15th century Oxford, where 13-year-old students reside in supervised quarters called ‘colleges’ coached by hired tutors to pass the examinations conducted by the university. In colleges across the world, students who are retired and in their 70’s are sitting next to adolescents looking ahead to a career. Some of the nations of the Far East have ambitious plans for expansion. France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand among many others have similar long term expectations.
So governments are increasingly requiring institutions to reach out into their local communities to encourage participation of all ages, social classes, ethnic groups and those with disabilities. Access courses, summer schools, and mentoring schemes are being deployed to break down barriers in the pursuit of social justice. Slowly, universities have become increasingly open, both as a result of public policy and changing social norms, as well as through the dramatic changes made possible in the delivery of higher education by the use of new technology.
Expansion is not without its critics.
Accusations of ‘dumbing down’ and ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ have accompanied
the rise in numbers. However, most governments have recognised the role
of higher education in the delivery of important skills; they recognise
that national competitive advantage will lie in investment in people, delivered
through the relevant, effective and high quality education and training.
The question of resources to maintain such quality is a recurrent theme
in every debate on universities. The costs associated with expansion will
lead inevitably to government pressures for increasing differentiation in
institutional provision.
Differentiation of Provision
We have seen universities evolve from a focus on the classical, highly
structured curriculum to fluid institutions where many kinds of knowledge
– liberal and professional, general and specialised, religious and secular,
theoretical and practical – vie for space. Universities may have very
different missions: local versus national, teaching versus research, open
access versus elite, vocational and professional versus liberal arts, distance
learning versus campus organised; and there are surely more. In many parts
of the world, a distinction between state and private funding is important.
There are many dimensions to diversity in a modern university. Yet increasing
diversity of funding may represent the future for most universities, “giving
us the entrepreneurial university as a distinctive and ubiquitous form for
the 21st century”. (BR Clark, 1998).
In the United Kingdom, the debate about differentiation usually becomes a debate about social hierarchy and quickly becomes enmeshed in the issue of quality. Is it possible to offer the increased numbers who aspire to higher education the same quality of provision? There are several ways in which this might happen. Collaboration and merger could produce economies of scale to fund better provision. The use of the computer and new forms of communication will provide alternative tools for learning and research, and will enable the spread of teaching beyond the physical and geographical confines of the campus. On the other hand, it may be much more difficult to recruit academic staff if they have no opportunity ro undertake research. They may be tempted to go elsewhere where rewards are higher.
Differentiation has led some commentators to argue that the traditional concept of ‘academic community’ will become a fiction. Many more, though, still see a future for the university as the primary site for cultural exploration and engagement, whilst recognising that the transmission of knowledge and skills is no longer the sole preserve of the university. The modern university has changed dramatically in purpose over the last 50 years. The much quoted observation by US university President, Clark Kerr, that “universities are among the oldest forms of social institutions”, while true, is somewhat misleading. Most universities are very new institutions. A high proportion of them were created in the second half of the 20th century. Thus, although its history may be important to an understanding of an individual institution, most universities have very short histories. Nevertheless “there exists the potential for worthwhile intellectual endeavour and this demands a physical location where people can come together and work together” (Professor Krishan Kumar).
It would be surprising if universities
did not evolve into many different forms, as they promote new courses to
different kinds of students, respond to demands of regional and local economies,
compete with private providers, and levy different fees for different courses,
whilst juggling many different funding sources.
Defined
by Research
Some of the most extreme tensions in higher education centre on the status,
role and funding or research. The definition of research will vary depending
on the mission and resources of an institution, but there is, as the report
by Lord Dearing found in 1997, “a near-universal rejection of the idea
that some institutions should be ‘teaching-only’”.
Yet it could be argued that it is only since the 1950’s that research to produce new knowledge has become institutionalised in universities and seen as a core value alongside existing ones of preserving and transmitting it. As Michael Gibbons of the Association of Commonwealth Universities has pointed out, this is bound to change universities because the knowledge available to be transmitted is changing all the time.
Nonetheless, universities will continue to argue that good teaching must be informed by active research and related scholarship. The best researchers benefit from the opportunity to engage in teaching, particularly at post-graduate level where they gain from describing their research and gaining feedback. The act of teaching can itself raise new questions in the mind of the lecturer and inform new research. Flexible institutions of the future will require it; as the Magna Charta Universitatum signed by Rectors of European universities states “teaching and research in universities must be inseparable if their tuition is not to lag behind changing needs, the demands of society, and advances in scientific knowledge”.
The debate on the future of research as a core value in all universities is not driven, usually, by ideology but by funding. In the United Kingdom, funding from public sources is a major part of university income, and is linked not only to student numbers but also to measures of quality in research. Theses have become increasingly concentrated. Thus, 70% of research funding goes to 25% of institutions, and 4 institutions receive over £200m, more than double the funding of the institution next in the order of funding. A substantial minority of institutions receives less than 10% funding for research.
This will have several consequences. Institutions will seek to collaborate with others as not all can maintain the infrastructure they need. Those who receive substantial research funding are likely to be regarded as of higher quality and status. And it is likely to raise issues of value-for-money because tuition fee increases will be used to fund research, as has been the complaint in the United States.
One further scenario is worth mentioning.
Most governments increasingly expect universities to play an important
role not only in producing scientific knowledge but in acting as intermediaries
between that knowledge and the business sector. There is no doubt that
in the future universities will increasingly be relied on to develop clusters
of innovation and business support, as well as develop the graduates, post-graduates
and those with advanced vocational skills which will help to create a learning
nation.
Additional
Comments
Questions about the role of research, the assurance of quality, the management
of change, and the role of the market are being debated in universities
all over the world. Local answers will, of course, be different, reflecting
local conditions – economical, political and social.
Advances in technology will mean that not only research, but also teaching, will become a matter of international interest. Most texts on the future of the university conclude that, whatever else a university will be required to do, it will continue to teach. It will teach an ever-growing population of students “in a widely multiplying range of areas, using technologies as old as the personal tutorial and as new as the interactive website” (Lee Shulman, President Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching). Universities will not disappear. They will adapt to the new demands and expectations of their communities.
They will do so, however, in the context of an explosion of educational service providers and they will have to find their niche, like all these others, in the marketplace. They will also have to contend with the impatience of governments. Christodoulou in 1988 summed up international perceptions as follows: “Governments in many countries perceive universities as expensive and wasteful, stubborn and slow to change, addicted to academic nicety and disdainful of business and industry, inculcating the wrong values in their students, irrelevant and prodigal in much of their research, unable to maintain discipline within their own communities, and over protective of their rights without addressing their responsibilities”. This is a heavy burden of criticism and will require radical responses.
Once, what a university did had little consequence beyond national boundaries. Now, the expansion of science has shown us that knowledge leaps across those frontiers. Competition between nations and universities to attract the best scholars will intensify, and those scholars will in turn, attract others. The university of the future will be a highly competitive place.
© 21st Century Trust