Reflecting on What a university is and can do

One of the ways I teach students is via reflection. The student is usually asked what they have achieved, what they aim to achieve in the future and what they will need to do to get to their goals. The university where I teach is now asking itself similar questions. What have been the achievements in the past, what do we aspire to in the near future and what makes us different from others. I have been teaching at the institution for more than a quarter of its life, so am in a reasonable position to suggest some answers.

Past Achievements

Australian universities were, from the start, created to train professionals and conduct useful research. In the act establishing the university, the functions included:

"(a) To encourage, and provide facilities for, post-graduate research and study, both generally and in relation to subjects of national importance to Australia;

(b) To provide facilities for university education for persons who elect to avail themselves of those facilities and, are eligible so to do; and

(c) Subject to the Statutes, to award and confer degrees and diplomas."

The University was originally envisaged having research schools for Medicine,  Physical Sciences, Social Sciences; and Pacific Studies. Another priority was specialist training for the Public Service. 

My university later added undergraduate students and more areas of research and training, but the emphasis remains on research and training for national priorities. Some of this is done formally, such as through the ASD-ANU Co-Lab, where staff from the Australian Signals Directorate work with academics and students to better protect the nation's digital infrastructure. Some is less formal, as when people from the Department of Defence, where I used to work, drop in for some advice. One achievement is that this mostly happens out of public view.

An achievement was that, along with other Australian universities, was the ability to switch over to online learning in a few weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I was able to help with this having been trained for such a situation and then being able to train others. Perhaps an equally important achievement is that universities did not throw away this investment in e-learning skills and infrastructure. Universities have made efforts to incorporate the useful aspects of online learning with the campus experience. 

One earlier achievement was the role universities had in establishing the Internet in Australia, educating politicians and key public servants on its use, through what has been called the Internet Cabal.

The Near Future

The immediate challenge for the universities is to redesign leaning and assessment in response to AI. This is not just about stopping student cheating. It is about teaching staff learning how to teach using AI and teach students to use AI. 

A less intimidate challenge is to design programs to suit the needs of today's students. This requires short programs which can be assembled into the equivalent of traditional degrees. It also requires work integrated learning and recognition of prior learning. I learned how to teach and design programs for this in the vocational sector. 

Being Distinctive

The longer term challenge for Australian universities is to get away from comparing themselves with each other. Students seeking an education can increasingly choose more widely, ranging from local vocational institutions, which can now award degrees, to global online universities.

When I decided to affiliate with a university, early in the previous century, I wrote to every one in Canberra. The first to response came within five minutes, with a very simple offer: "Turn up Monday, we have an office for you". The other universities wanted to have meetings, and discuss pay and conditions. It is that flexibility which I suggest is a winning feature for a university. Students should have flexibility in how and what they study. Also, there should be an emphasis on the human element, even with most students studying mostly online. 

When I wanted to learn to teach online (for international students and in case  students could not get to campus), I started locally, then interstate, and finally worldwide. I wanted an education, the quality of which is unrelated to the research conducted at an institution. I started locally, the an Australian regional teaching university, then a similar one in Canada. 

Australian Over-investment in International Higher Education

Hurley and Van Dyke (2020) have produced a very timely report on Australia's investment in higher education. This comes as universities are looking at strategies to recover from the loss of international student revenue due to COVID-19. The authors estimate a loss of at least $10B in international student revenue between 2020 and 2023. They also warn COVID-19 could reduce domestic student demand, and suggest a change of "policy settings to increase capacity across the tertiary sector". However, given a reduction in demand, I suggest the prudent course of action would be to make better use of the existing capital investment, not increase it. Universities, and the governments which fund them, need to consider how to provide new forms of education, for both domestic and international students. As an example, through the use of blended learning, the capacity of existing Australian university campuses could be increased five-fold.

Hurley and Van Dyke draw parallels between universities and Australia's automotive manufacturing sector. They point out Australian universities are a much larger industry than car making was at its peak. However, the authors do not go on to draw the other obvious parallel: Australian governments kept subsidizing the Australian automotive industry in a way which made them less internationally competitive. I suggest the same mistake should not be made with universities.

To remain competitive, our universities need to change the educational products offered and the way they are delivered. The two to four year full-time, on-campus degree, offered by Australian universities, is equivalent to the Holden Commodore: large, expensive, and inflexible. Our universities need to offer blended online/on-campus, offshore/onshore learning, with nested qualifications, and workplace learning. This would be the equivalent of the flexible platform vehicles now produced by international auto makers, which allow combustion, hybrid or electric options, in sedan, SUV, and other styles, built in response to consumer demand.

Such predictions may sound alarmist and suggestions for change far fetched. However, in 2017, I warned Australian universities that international students could be suddenly unable to get to Australian campuses, due to an international crisis. I suggested university should be ready with an online teaching contingency, should this happen, and be ready by 2020. The COVID-19 crisis hit in 2020, but unfortunately few universities were ready with an online contingency.

Reference

Hurley, P., Van Dyke, N., (2020). Australian investment in education: higher education. Mitchell Institute, Melbourne. URL http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Australian-Investment-in-Education-Higher-Education.pdf

Fund Research Not PhDs

A media report suggests that the leading Group of Eight Universities in Australia has proposed that funding of PHD students be limited to the world ranked universities: "Fund PhDs at the best unis and forget the rest, say elite universities" (Tim Dodd, AFR, 5 September 2015). I suggest instead that universities charge student fees for PHDs, as for other postgraduate degrees. Universities can then compete for research grants to cover the extra cost of any research facilities the PHDs need.

The Go8's proposal would cut funding in some disciplines from Macquarie, Flinders, La Trobe, Newcastle, Western Sydney, Curtin, James Cook, Bond, Murdoch,  Griffith, Tasmania, Murdoch and RMIT universities. Instead I propose abolishing the Research Training Scheme, Australian Postgraduate Awards and the International Postgraduate Research Scholarships. The funds from these schemes should instead be awarded to universities on a competitive basis for research.

The current system conflates funding of research training and research. I suggest these be separated.  University and departmental rankings are not a good way to select the best research to fund. A better alternative would be to have the tuition costs of research students covered by fees and the research paid for by competitive research grants. Those universities with a good research track record, and good research proposals, would be able to attract more research funding and so be able to have more PHD students. Those universities unable to attract research funding could still offer PHDs in fields which do not require expensive equipment and offer "professional" doctorates, paid for by fees.

Also I suggest "flipping" the approach to research training. The Go8 submission assumes there should be a few PHDs and everyone else has to have an inferior "professional" degree. I suggest reversing this and assume a professional degree is normal and a PHD is a specialized subset of this. All doctoral candidates would be required to start with a professional style program, where they have to take courses in communication and innovation, as well as research techniques. These courses would be paid for by the student through fees (with the usual government loans and subsidies available for domestic students). A small proportion (perhaps 10%) of those students who show the greatest aptitude for research would go on to a research degree (partly funded by research grants), most would complete a professional doctorate (paid for by the student fees).

The current PHD funding scheme is flawed in that it pays universities to produce far more research graduates than there are jobs for (about ten times as many) and does not fund the best research. If funds were moved from these unnecessary PHDs, there would be more for quality research and more graduates with useful skills.