Australian Idea of the University

Professor Glyn Davis, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, will speak on his new book The Australian Idea of the University, at the Australian National University, in Canberra, 6pm 31 October 2017.

"The lecture by Professor Davis will draw on his forthcoming MUP 2018 book, The Australian Idea of the University, which asks why a nation scattered across a continent, in a world with so many competing visions of the University, is content with a single type?
2017 has seen criticism of universities in Australia, the United States and United Kingdom, essentially around their perceived distance from community and national imperatives. Academic work is characterised as unconnected with the concerns of society, universities as wealthy and unresponsive.
Are we approaching a Henry VIII moment, when a future government decides to dissolve the familiar public university?"

I spent much of the last three years contemplating the Australian idea of the university, as a Masters of Education student (ironically studying on-line in Canada). Australian higher education was founded to provide both academic scholarship and vocational skills, which is something many academics choose to forget.

Treat University Students as Adult Learners

Recently I was asked about "Adult Learning Theory". There is a free wikibook "Learning Theories/Adult Learning Theories". The  "Andragogy" Wikipedia entry is useful. The word Andragogy, is clumsy: intended to distinguish theories of  adult learning from learning by children: pedagogy. But I am not convinced there is a difference between child and adult learning. In particular the current practice at many universities where undergraduate students are treated more like children than adults in not a good approach.

The approach of "Adult Education" is to assume the student is studying part time and has a job or other activities which occupy much of their time. Also adult eduction assumes the learner will take more responsibility for their education, being more self-motivated and disciplined. This is also assumed of postgraduate university students.

However, my experience of being an adult postgraduate student was that I still needed structure and guidance. Some universities are claiming their students have graduate attributes, such as  multi-disciplinary analytical skills, clear and logical communication and  teamwork. But students need to be guided to obtain these skills.

The idea that undergraduate university students are full time, on-campus is not the reality. Even "full time" students have jobs or other commitments. Rather than create an artificial distinction between full and part time, on and off, undergraduate and post graduate, I suggest assuming all students will have a range of needs and capabilities. Those students who need support should be able to get it when they need it for the part of their program they need it for. Where a student can manage on their own they should be allowed to.

This would be much the same as the approach take to access for the disabled on university campuses. Rather than assume that students don't have a disability and then make special arrangements for those who do, the opposite is done. It is recognized that most people will have some form of disability some time in their life and so the campus and courses are design to accommodate a broad range of abilities.

Buildings are design for wheelchair access (which incidentally makes them easier to access for everyone else). Course notes are designed, by default, for those with limited vision (which also improves their general readability). New buildings and notes are designed to be accessible because this is cheaper than modifying them later (and is required by law).

In the same way I suggest that university courses should be designed to suit a broad range of students. To the extent possible, the students should be assumed to be distance education students who never visit the campus. It should be assumed the student can, where possible, do the course in complete isolation from other students (such as the extreme case of where they are in a prison cell or a fox-hole on a battlefield). But students should be given the option of human tutor help and group learning. What each student needs will vary from subject to subject and time to time.

Learning from Adult Education in Australia

While looking for  books on adult education at the ADFA library I came across "A history of adult education in Australia" by Derek A Whitelock (University of Queensland Press, 1974). Whitelock starts with British adult education and then relates this to the Australian experience. One difficulty I had was with what was being referred to. The modern definition of "Adult Education" refers to any form of education of adults, in the workplace, special institutions or the same institutions as used for educating children, for vocational or other purposes. However, Whitelock appears to exclude both vocational education and adults undertaking classes at conventional institutions. He concentrates on Mechanics Institutes and university extension schools.

Advocates of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) propose these are a new innovation in open low cost education reaching beyond those currently catered for by universities. But

Whitelock points out that 1891 there were 45,000 university extension students in England., with Sydney University setting up extension program as early as 1886. They were catered to by traveling lecturers, printed syllabus, discussion groups and assessment by essay. Features of the waves of initiatives with such programs are access to reading materials, with institutions providing local libraries and educators making special compendiums of texts. There were issues with how to contain costs, subsidies from government, vocational versus cultural studies and entertainment/hobby versus "serious" education.  Apart from the Internet largely solving the problem of distribution of materials, not much seems to have changed in one hundred years.

Adult education's link with the military in Australia started with the first fleet, with a Royal Navy officer teaching reading to the convicts on board ship from England. Military adult education in the first world war with the AIF Education Scheme and Australian Army Education Scheme (AAES) in WWII is also of interest due to its scale. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) military personnel and civilian staff are now trained, in part by use of learning management systems, such as Moodle: (at the Australian Defence College, Australian Defence Force Academy, Defence International Training Centre (DITC), Defence Estate Quality Management System (DEQMS) and the  Defence Systems Innovation Centre (DSIC)).

On lesson from Whitelock's history of adult education in Australia are that it has to have a sustainable business model (and that the customer for such education, even if they are poor are still willing to pay). The local community and businesses, as well as all levels of government, are willing to help with resources, where there is a clear social benefit from education.  Adults are interested in both vocational topics which can get them a better job and more cultural non-vocational topics. Assessment is an appropriate part of such education. University academics are willing to help with adult education, even where there is no official support from their institutions.

One important lesson for MOOCs is that there are likely to be waves of new initiatives, each claiming benefits for the organization and the community, in terms of promotion of existing programs, lower cost, and wider access. Most such schemes soon fail and are quickly forgotten.

ps: In looking for current distance education programs in Australia, I came accross the very interesting "Advanced Technology Industry School Pathways Program" sponsored by the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO). This program is to encourage students in science, maths and technology, with nineteen schools participating.