The Future of Higher Education

In 2022 I made a submission to the Higher Education Review. As a relatively junor part time academic, this might seem presumptuous. However, the topic I chose to focus on for my MEd in 2013, was how to teach at a research oriented Australian university, like the Australian National University. The easy part of this was learning how to deal with a regional crisis which could keep students from campus. So I was ready, three years before COVID-19 to teach online myself and teach my colleagues. What was, and is, harder is the nature of a university and how to balance competing priorities, between education and research, community interest and finance. This a pressing issue not only for ANU and Australia's other universities, but for institutions around the world. 

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU) recently announced Mandarin MBAs, targeting international students. Unlike Australia, where international students were gradually added to the domestic cohort, this is a very clear targeting of a market. The questions arising about what effect this will have on local students and how the influx of student fees will change what the university does will be familiar to Australian academics.  

While I read many research papers on education, two books have had the most influence on my thinking: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig, 2006) and "The Open University: History and Evaluation of a Dynamic Innovation in Higher Education" (Walter Perry, 1976). Pirsig, was a technical writer and educator (I role I seem to have fallen into) and wrote of the philosophy of study. Perry was the first Vice-Chancellor of the UK's Open University, which challenged many of the ideas of what a university is and how it is run. 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig, 2006

"... the real university exists not as the physical campus, but as a body of reason within the minds of students and teachers ..." From Chapter 13, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig, 2006

Both Perry and Pirsig, wrote about the vocational end of education and would appear to have little to do with research oriented universities. However, Australian universities were founded explicitly with practical aims in mind: to train professionals and carry out research of value to the community.