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AT THIS TIME, a government-funded British university cannot admit more students than what the government’s cap permits. The idea behind the cap is to increase efficiencies through reducing the cost to taxpayers. Recently, 19 universities in Britain faced penalties for violating this cap.
Simon Baker who reported on fines for the 19 institutions in the Times Higher Education indicated that London South Bank University has to pay a fine of Ј2.2 million from its annual grant because it exceeded its student limit by 600 students; in fact, the total fines for this academic year amounts to Ј8.1 million which would be withheld from the ‘fingered’ universities’ grants in the last four months of this academic year ending July 31; a university forfeits funds at Ј3,750 per excess student admitted. And the 40% cutbacks over the next four years will see dramatic enforcement of the excess admission rule, and a greater concern over these universities’ management of sustainable efficiencies.
And for sometime now, many universities, both in Britain and elsewhere, have been experiencing scarce governmental funding, excessive enrolment, increased educational costs, an asymmetrical management structure, offering non-prioritized courses with little or no sync with the economy, the growing and troubling issues of quality instruction and quality outcomes, demand for teaching innovations, the evolution of distance education, globalizing effects on the university, enhanced need for a strong University/Government partnership, a vigorous push for promoting broad-based participation in policy-formulation and decision-making, and powerful yearning to restore public confidence, inter alia. The underlying problem is the cost factor which requires achieving efficiencies and increasing such efficiencies over time.
Yet today, these universities constantly fail to institute a viable management plan to achieve major efficiencies. Part of the problem is the university authorities’ constant upholding of traditional definitions of higher education which translates to a reluctance to effect change.
Former Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities Dr. John Rowett observed that universities have to meet several challenges: fiscally sustainable enrolment growth, equity in admission, quality outcomes, and good governance. These challenges require a desire and a capacity to effect change.
The Higher Education Digest posed this question to negotiate change, thus: Should we uphold traditional definitions of higher education leadership, or should we provide a definition to include increased campus fundamentals in distributing social responsibility and accountability? Perhaps, we need both. Nonetheless, any redefinition of leader behaviour would necessitate identifying transformational leaders to discover and effect much needed change.
Nevertheless, after all the talking, how does a university extricate itself from this mйnagerie? For starters, we must develop a sense of the epistemological thinking available in higher education, and a useful place to start would be with the local scene.
In this context, I previously wrote the following: “Historically, UG never publicly showed a dearth on ideas on how to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. For instance, examine a few that I sourced from UG’s own ORMP data: Vice-Chancellor Dr. George Walcott in 1986 asked Faculty Heads for a 5-year Development Plan; nothingness largely followed; an IDB loan initiated a programme between 1986 and 1991 for Human Resource Training and Development inclusive of UG and some technical institutions; some benefits accrued; 1991: UG gave birth to an Academic Plan 1990 – 1995; nothingness largely followed; 1995: the Distance Education Department of the Institute of Adult and Continuing Education also gave birth to a 5-year Development Plan; 1996: President of Guyana Dr. Cheddi Jagan instituted The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the University of Guyana from which 40 recommendations emanated; Cabinet approved most of the recommendations, with some graduating to the functioning mode; 1996: the Jamaican Trevor Hamilton and Associates Ltd. produced the Conceptual Programme for Improving the University of Guyana’s (UG’s) Cost-effectiveness and Enhancement of its Relevance.
I say ‘nothingness largely followed’ on a few occasions, not to induce any negativity; but to point out, drawing from Pabos-Mendez et al, that sometimes there is a gap between what knowledge is available and what we achieve in practise with this knowledge – the ‘know-do’ gap. Bridging the gap at UG requires leveraging knowledge effectively to reach high standards in tertiary education. UG needs to attend to knowledge translation.”
There are, indeed, other higher education reports internationally that we could peruse, even if the exercise is merely for understanding what the higher education literature says about facing challenges and initiating changes to meet such ordeals. I mention a few here, but there are many others – Anderson Report of 1960, the Lionel Robbins’ Report of 1963, the Ron Dearing’s Report of 1997, the Lord Browne’s Report of 2010, and several reports from the Association of Commonwealth Universities, among others.
Taking a university out of its existing mйnagerie may call for governments themselves to place university education centrally within their national strategies; and that simultaneously, universities, too, will have to achieve changes in organization and curricula, and establish partnerships with all stakeholders; this is a point that Dr. Rowett emphasized in addressing higher education challenges.
In the end, we have to know what we want to achieve in higher education with the most cost-effective efficiencies, and it would not be unhelpful to have in place a doable strategic plan and a doable business plan.
