News & Views item - February 2010

 

 

Executive Director, Go8 Expresses Views on Performance Funding Indicators and Related Reforms in Australian Higher Education. (February 5, 2010)

On 28 January 2010, the LH Martin Institute and the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne hosted a seminar on the Government’s proposed Performance Funding Indicator Framework.
The Group of Eight’s Executive Director, Michael Gallagher, presented his views on the topic. Noting that: "The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily represent the views of Go8 university Vice-Chancellors" Mr Gallagher was forthright early on when he said: "I note a certain level of frustration emerging among senior university ranks", and went on to clarify:

 

A key concern I have is that with both compacts and performance funding the Government appears to departing further and further from its policy as set out in its 2006 Higher Education White Paper – which remains official party policy. What started out as rather desirable policy objectives around institutional autonomy, the pursuit of excellence and diversity are now being diluted more and more into a narrow and highly prescriptive straightjacket for institutions.

 

In Mr Gallagher's view:

 

An approach to performance-related funding can be developed which encourages the sector to meet the increasingly diverse needs of the student body accessing higher education, and allows individual universities to contribute variously to their fullest extent to achieve the Government’s objectives.


However, the Government’s consultation papers on performance funding and low SES measures reflect greater sameness than difference of approach to universities, and a much greater than expected level of central influence over institutional operations, notwithstanding the rhetoric of respect for university autonomy and the intention for government, as expressed in the 2009 Budget papers, to get out of the way.


For the performance funding framework to contribute to the Government’s ambitions for increased participation and improved quality, the indicator framework and measures need to reflect the complexity and diversity needed to meet these ambitions.

 

Through the use of compacts with publishable institution-specific measures of performance, the Government could shape the outcomes achieved by universities in line with its national goals, without reducing institutional flexibility.

 

Such a path of development is necessary in an expanded "post-mass" system that addresses the needs of a greater diversity of students effectively and efficiently.

 

 

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