Controlling the scholars

Press, 28 September 1988, Page 20

Controlling the scholars

Universities in New Zealand exist under three tiers of administration. At the top is the Government, representing the taxpayers, who ultimately pay most of the universities’ bills. At the bottom are individual university councils, responsive to a degree to local needs and concerns, and juggling the demands of students and staff. In between comes the University Grants Committee, a neutral buffer between government and scholarship, a modestly successful attempt to shield institutions of higher learning from political pressures. If the proposals in the Hawke report are accepted by the Government, radical changes lie ahead. The buffer of the Grants Committee will vanish. University councils will be smaller and more of their members will be appointed by the Government. Funds will come directly from a new Ministry of Education and Training. The level of funding, and the purposes to which it can be put, will be determined by a charter for each institution, approved by the Government through the new Ministry, and subject to review every few years. The arrangements would surely increase the temptation for political intervention in tertiary education. Set against the plan for primary and postprimary schools, which also brings Ministerial control closer to the classroom, the idea is a cause for concern. Some people may think this is no bad thing. Universities, at times, can seem remote from the immediate concerns of the community, almost the ivory towers of popular prejudice. A good case might be made for more community involvement in deciding what goes on in these seemingly expensive and sheltered institutions. It is not clear that more intervention by the State is the right way to bring town and gown closer together.

Perhaps it is time for a more thorough reappraisal of what is expected from universities. In New Zealand they have drifted a long way from being only rigorous training grounds for a rather small number of people seeking professional skills. In some disciplines they have become valuable centres for research, giving New Zealand at least a taste of being at the forefront of knowledge in a rapidly changing technological world. In other disciplines they, seem sometimes to have become elaborate refuges for people who might otherwise be unemployable, their scholarship narrow and confused, their standards erratic. The proposed changes would reduce their attractions as a refuge and enhance their value as places of professional training. Under both arrangements, the present and the proposed, the nebulous but important spheres of scholarship and research seem to be no more than incidental adornments. Perhaps that is all New Zealand can really afford, however much students are asked to contribute to their education. Wise reflection might suggest, however, that there is a place in New Zealand for at least a handful of institutions where only the highest standards of scholarship are acceptable, where advanced research has a value of its own and where the pursuit of knowledge has value as an end in itself. These are not going to be institutions open to almost everyone — the seeming dream of some members of the present Government. They will not be institutions where students pay to be taught marketable skills. They would not work under interference, or its threat, from changing political masters. But they would be worthy of the name of universities and they could be priceless assets, perhaps especially to a small, poor country at the end of the world.