Universities’ pull back and regroup? – or tip-over to knowledge by all for allX

What does University World News report that has particular relevance for Pascal in mid-July (UWN 375 July 12 2015)?

An interesting counter-trend may warm the hearts of those who want to see mass higher education widen access and reduce inequality. The dominant tendency of the advanced (read free-market capitalist-competitive) nations is to shift the cost of teaching-learning from public sector taxation (investing in the future of the nation) to individual citizen or ‘client’ fees (private investment for one’s own future career benefit); often on the ground that free higher education  is ‘regressive’ in benefiting middle class rather than poor families.  

Now, as the next US electoral cycle warms up, it is reported that a team of congressional Democrats has “introduced a bill that would make community college free for two years and help cover the costs of a four-year degree at minority-serving institutions, pushing forward the free-college proposal that President Barack Obama unveiled in January”.

And in France “university students will not have to pay more for their studies in the 2015-16 academic year in spite of an inspectors’ proposal for a substantial rise in fees. Students’ representatives applauded the decision and have given a qualified welcome to recommendations for a national plan to improve students’ living and studying conditions”.

Looking from the wealthy old North to a BRIC country, we read that “when American politicians laud free college plans overseas, they tend to identify European countries, such as Germany or Sweden, as noteworthy examples. Not as commonly discussed, Brazil also offers free college to its citizens, and its free colleges are actually more prestigious than the private institutions that charge tuition”.

As to what you get for your own or the State’s money, the picture is mixed; it reminds us that we must look beneath the surface of elementary political economy to what the curriculum is and does: student learning outcomes if you prefer.

Begin with today’s hot topic of terrorism, we read that ‘extremism among higher education students and graduates across North Africa is on the rise. Growing numbers of educated young people from countries including Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Morocco are joining the Islamic State, or Daesh as it is known in Arabic...’  Meanwhile The Moscow Times, alluding to “the Kremlin's mounting fears of ‘colour revolutions – a term favoured by Moscow to describe political protests that toppled Russian-backed administrations in several former Soviet states in recent years” - reports that “the defence ministry has proposed educating all Russian students on how to combat any such revolts in their own country”.

Defence concerns mingle with economic worries to intrude on the curriculum and outcomes. These should equally worry those valuing lifelong learning as a basis for healthy societies. Morocco’s Minister of Higher Education “said earlier this month in Rabat that holders of a BA in arts and humanities will be a burden on their families and on the community”. Here is a nice dialectic with Malaysia where universities are accused of producing ‘worker bees’ [22]: “academics have ripped into Malaysia’s higher education blueprint, saying it made a mockery of higher education, with its focus on turning out employable university graduates”. And in Chile a discussion piece, Educating good citizens, but bad academics? [23], notes that “Chile’s students have been protesting for years about the marketisation of higher education and for a fairer society”, and asks “has this come at the expense of their academic formation?”

Here in Pascal, maybe we should find time to pay more attention to these swirling undercurrents shaping, some you might say threatening, what we look to universities to do for lifelong learning generally and learning cities specifically.

In a relevant last word from our engagement perspective Munyaradzi Makoni writes of Linking universities and marginalised communities [24]: “Through innovation and inclusive development, universities could be instrumental in fighting poverty and expanding opportunities for marginalised African communities, ongoing research has shown. An array of factors contribute to the success of initiatives, such as communication, enabling access to knowledge, steady funding and aligning activities with national priorities.”

At the same time, ‘Academic freedom is under threat across the world [25]…from government, commercial and religious pressure, and intellectuals around the world are rising to its defence’. Vital as this is, my question is whether Makoni’s marginalised communities get a look in if universities are preoccupied with self-defence.

Regional consortia sound like a good way for universities in a region to collaborate, in cooperation with the different regional stakeholders including administrations and regional development agencies, in the kind of scholarly-operational partnership that PASCAL was in part created to study and support.

This concept and practice found favour about the time that OECD and later PASCAL began to focus on the role of universities in supporting regional development, through sponsored studies in the decades either side of 2000. Consortia in North-East England and the Australian State of Victoria were examples of inclusive university partnerships with regional authorities – one an RDA region, the other a State. News in the current Times Higher Education (7 January 2016) that six of the UK’s seven university research consortia have been created since 2007 and include 18 of the 21 prestige Russell Group universities but none of the lower status national university lobby clubs (gangs as Sir David Watson called them) is a sorry illustration of how the interest of people and their regions’ development gets marginalised by the selfish pursuit of institutional benefit and prestige rather than regional need. Why has this happened?

Mainly because, meanwhile, global rankings have become increasingly salient. Driven in turn by national ratings married to the advantage of long history and prestige, they have multiplied in number, lengthened in size and reach deeply into the HE sector, and greatly amplified their influence on institutional and often national HE policy and practice. They are becoming a significant factor in choice by the most privileged (able to choose and travel) students.

The study reported in THE by Chris Havergal tells a sad story. It issues a clear message that engagement as a university mission is pushed aside by academic interest driven not by public service but by research competitiveness,. An old adage that cooperation is easy at a distance but impossible between near neighbours acquires a new no less pretty twist: ganging up locally is fine so long as only the big boys are included, those least likely to focus on local-region student, social and economic needs.

As the first THE reader’s comment puts it, this amounts to the pursuit of stratification, not the support of merit and ability. In the words of the chief executive of Million+ (one of two university groups entirely excluded from the new consortia), the study demonstrated how many regional alliances were “little more than consortia designed to ensure that research funding remains highly concentrated…aided and abetted in this objective by the criteria applied by the research councils”. Notwithstanding protests cited of good intent by Russell Group members, the study cites university rankings as evidence for consortia’s role in growing inequality. It calculates that member institutions have improved their standing in The Complete University Guide table by an average of three and a half places since 2007, while non-member institutions have dropped by an average of four places. Two cheers for globalism and competitive ambition. Another setback for region, people and place.