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It appears from the political statements accompanying the establishment of the current inquiry into higher education that the Commonwealth Government aspires to change the culture of higher education in Australia, making universities a focus of innovative activity.

If universities are to embrace the risks inherent in innovation, they must, themselves, be able to act independently and live in a more exciting and creative environment. They must be freed from the intrusive controls currently inflicted through political and bureaucratic controls.

This paper concentrates only on the organisation of coursework degrees at undergraduate and Masters levels. Current reviews of research and research degrees seem to deal realistically with these responsibilities and their role in Australia’s future. It will be appropriate to evaluate these areas of activity after a period in which the effectiveness of recent changes can be judged.

Australia inherited the culture of the British university system. Each Australian state in its own way moved to establish universities as ‘independent’ statutory bodies, governed by a senate or council. The states funded these universities and the governing bodies were required to report through an annual report to state parliaments.

Increasingly, governments became more demanding as their advisers questioned the activities of their universities. This questioning multiplied as the Commonwealth increased its role in the provision of funds after the states gave away many of their taxing rights. Eventually, the Commonwealth moved to disempower the states, but promises of decreased bureaucratic interference never emerged.

It has always been my view that university education is far too focused on analysis. Academics can analyse what is wrong with any existing system and even any potential new system if anyone is game enough to postulate one. However, processes of synthesis, the creation of new solutions and of innovative new activity, the application of research and the planning of taking new ideas to a market are recognised even in the universities themselves as areas of relative failure in the British-derived public systems. At all levels, from that of the sponsoring governments through their bureaucracies and within the culture of the universities themselves, there is a deeply embedded fear of even carefully evaluated risks balanced against prospected returns.

There are three critical questions that the current inquiry must address:

• Is it possible for our public universities, trapped in the control systems of untrusting governments and their bureaucracies and by their own traditional intellectual conservatism, to evolve without fundamental changes to their governance resulting in greater independence and the acceptance that some might fail?
• Is it possible, without these or similar changes in the structure of the Dawkins’ Unified National System, to create a new culture in our universities to prepare graduates able to take Australia into an era of international competition based on initiative and innovation?
• Will improvements of some universities not demand planned evolution into smaller institutions with more limited missions seeking to meet with quality more limited and tightly defined objectives?

I am confident that our public universities would not only succeed in such an environment, but would prosper, as would their graduates. My evidence for this lies in the observations I have made about the successes of the nation’s two private universities. Each has battled through near liquidation, each has acted in its own uniquely appropriate way and, in my observations, both are producing graduates who appreciate their learning experiences, which they see as providing a background matched to their future needs.

The discussion that follows relates to the prerequisite changes necessary in policy that will secure a family of independent, complementary universities able to meet the nation’s needs through both undergraduate professional education and through research and innovation.

A few critical policy changes will initiate an evolution over perhaps 10 years, which will establish a vibrant environment for higher education in Australia.

There is no reason why both the states and the Commonwealth should not play complementary roles in the future. The important outcome is that in a new system the responsibilities of each level of government are prescribed so that continuous conflict is unlikely and so that failure by one level of government or the other can be clearly understood by concerned Australians.

One set of defining changes is set out below.

Governance

The universities should continue to operate under State Acts of Parliament. The senates should have responsibilities more like company boards and members should operate within the expectations of company directors. Those current members, particularly those elected by bodies from within, whose roles in the past have resulted in the exercise of unacceptable conflicts of interest, should have their relationship with the governing body changed and their roles restricted to sub-structures of the senate (council) constructed to inform fully the governing body on internal interests. Whatever the final structure, the statutes of the university must guarantee that conflicts of interest are declared and minuted and finally declared in annual reports.

Recurrent funding for coursework degrees

The Commonwealth Government should cease the funding of universities for coursework teaching. Each student deemed to be qualified for entry into a program should be granted an entitlement that he/she would have the freedom to redeem at the university of his/her choice, subject to selection. The entitlement would be that prescribed for the chosen course. The entitlement would be set by government on independent advice at a level that provides for the recurrent costs of teaching and of teaching equipment. Where new activities are planned based upon market demand, a grants system should be provided.

The value of the entitlement in the hands of each student would be means-tested. Those from less privileged positions would receive a voucher that met a high percentage of the charged tuition fee; others, whose entitlement was less, would have to fund their fee costs from family resources or through government loans. It would be desirable to scale-up the value of entitlements for remote institutions so that the costs of attracting high-quality staff to remote institutions such as Batchelor College and the Western Australian School of Mines could be met. The remote institution allowance would best become a state responsibility, so these governments were made publicly accountable for their political decisions on decentralisation.

There must be strong public debate on the setting of the value of the base entitlements. My own preference would be to set a base value reckoned to meet the full cost of a course, with this value used for, say, the five per cent most needy students.

Institutions should make their own decisions on the actual fees they set and the extent to which they would expect students to access loans to meet some of the charge. Many institutions will follow precedents and supplement such deserving people with scholarships, as might state governments.

There would be a continuing need for means-tested living allowances. Loans, special-purpose and special-need scholarships must be provided by government and should be sought by institutions from other sources, such as various benefactors, industry cooperatives and state governments. It would be hoped that the states, based on previous successes, would provide special scholarships to make teacher education training a sought after option.

Capital funding for coursework degrees

The capital needs in term of buildings should be met by the relevant state on whose land the university operates. An appropriate coordinating committee should consider major new developments, so that the recurrent responsibilities of the Commonwealth and the capital provisions of the states are in step.

Institutional size

One strategy for effectively enhancing central control has been to decrease the number of universities by amalgamations and to encourage growth in those remaining. These changes were imbedded in the Unified National System. The successes of our two private universities show quite clearly that there is a place for small universities. The current problems of unfilled places in our growth-addicted public universities demands decisions about downsizing. It is an unacceptable practice for universities to maintain their current level of funding by entering under-prepared students whose needs will inevitably lower the quality of graduates, including the very best.

The decisions about downsizing and its planning must be the province of independent universities who must plan their own future in their locally understood market and culture. State governments have a role to play. It will be necessary for the two levels of government to agree on the provision of funds to create respectable staffing and redundancy policies that will be inevitable in the short term for some. It is important that any new system does not repeat the failures of previous attempts to downsize public institutions where the highest quality staff get redundancy payouts and are immediately employed elsewhere while those less capable remain in institutions of diminished quality.

Finally, there are compelling reasons for governments to adopt a more independent model of a commission similar to the Commonwealth Universities’ Commission. The wisdom is that, in the period of change, the power of the existing bureaucratic structures must be limited or, at least, their roles exposed.

Professor Don Watts AM FTSE held a Personal Chair in Chemistry at the University of Western Australia and was the Director of the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT), for which he secured university status as Curtin University of Technology and became its first Vice-Chancellor. In 1987, he became inaugural President and Vice-Chancellor of Bond University before becoming the inaugural Executive Chairman of the Northern Territory Employment and Training Authority and Chief Executive of Darwin’s Trade Development Zone. He has served on many state and Commonwealth government boards responsible for education and research policy, maintaining an active interest in schooling.