On Becoming a Productive University: Strategies for Reducing Costs and Increasing Quality In Higher Education

Citation

Reus, K. (2006), "On Becoming a Productive University: Strategies for Reducing Costs and Increasing Quality In Higher Education", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 289-290. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880610678595

Some 35 or so years ago there was a spate of discussions around the issue of making secondary schools work better in a climate of limited funding. We talked then about such innovations as peer tutoring and teaching, curriculum reform, making better use of teacher time and encouraging student initiative in learning. One has, therefore, a sense of déjà vu when one reads of similar initiatives transposed into the higher education sphere in the first years of this century. Now, it appears, some universities are seeking out, or are at least becoming open to, rather similar solutions to the question of scarce resources and productivity.

The brave reforms in the schools of the seventies were dissipated as the conservatism of the teaching profession, and of parents and pupils, re‐asserted itself. The same, one might guess, may happen here and now in the higher education sector where conservatism is most certainly more entrenched than in the secondary schools. In the British/Australian academic tradition most familiar to the reviewer, the ideal remains of the scholar, best rewarded for research rather than teaching, seeking as far as humanly possible to sidestep the ever‐increasing demands to administer, and to innovate. One might be inclined to envy an institutional culture where talk of innovative pedagogy may just get a tentative foothold. Reading the papers in this collection, sourced from the USA and the UK, one senses a field of possibilities there, where institutions can lay down policy for mandatory experimentation at the very least. Nevertheless, one might be forgiven for believing that it just is not going to happen everywhere.

All the same, it is worth raising the issue of productivity in higher education. A number of the contributors address the question of productivity. At the core of the collection is an implied, though not always stated, acceptance that productivity boils down to the issue of inputs and outputs. So many dollars go in; so many things get done. The dollars are ever declining in number. The question of outputs is more problematic. Are outputs to be measured in papers accepted by refereed journals? Are outputs measured in the number of doctorates granted? Is it possible to determine knowledge outputs; perhaps in the number and levels of examinations passed and quality of assignments written? These outputs are, of course, measurable, though the measurement of satisfaction may prove more tricky But these measures need to be accepted by the stakeholders as being meaningful and worthy of hitching the reputation of scholars, students and indeed the whole institution to them. The reputation of a university is not, however solely determined by these measures. Reputation, and the ability of the university to draw in the dollars, is also built on more abstract and diffuse criteria such as age, tradition and the capacity of the university to function as a symbolic carrier of the academic ideal going back to the middle ages and as far back as the ancient Greeks. Students are attracted to such universities because of their name, and the promise that the name will open doors for them. Academic staff are attracted to such universities because of the promise of academic freedom and the knowledge that they will find there the conditions for enabling them to do what they believe they do best; thinking and pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge. Few students or academic staff seek out such universities because they offer a regimen of measured outcomes. Some may argue that the days of such universities are numbered, but that seems unlikely. They will continue as beacons for the idea of what a university really is. There will be another tier of universities, the major preoccupation of which will be to demonstrate, not simply assert, that they are worthy of continued existence.

None of that is to imply that this collection yields no lessons. One does get excited at the challenge of working out, in really practicable and measurable terms, what the teaching and research nexus is really all about. How much longer can we put up with the lecturer who decides on the content of a lecture when he/she wakes in the morning of the presentation. How long do we have to support the practice of recycling old lectures year after year? How long will we turn a blind eye to non‐productive research activity as an excuse for non‐attendance at the university, or non‐availability to students? Put in the most blunt terms, how long can we continue to pour scarce resources into people who are simply not doing their job? Many of the papers in this collection address that problem. They offer both stick and carrot solutions, but most seek solutions based on persuasion, and why not. After all, the contributors are essentially dissidents in a higher education culture, but they are part of it. They want their colleagues to see the good sense in working more productively for the good of their students. They want their colleagues to understand that being more productive will lead to greater satisfaction, and perhaps generate more time available for that all important research paper. The contributors offer a wealth of ideas, strategies and techniques.

There is a way in which this collection can be seen as radical in the best sense of that term. At stake is a clarification of the notion of good and productive teaching. The ideas are not really new, but it is good to see that they are amenable to research and codification in this context. Even if the papers do not show the way to a definitive re‐structuring of the academic ideal and lifestyle, they do demonstrate that there are tried and effective ways of changing at least some practices for the better.