ED

This guest post is by Dean Carroll.

It might be fair to think that academic leaders and editorial writers supporting (broadly) positions for which I have advocated for over twenty years would give me some joy. However, such is the nature of public policy on matters tertiary in this country that would be a false thought.

I have argued that higher education (and other areas of expenditure) in this country needs to be more carefully rationed: and that scholastic merit rather than ability to pay is a more academically efficient and effective criterion.

This is not a matter simply of being more “selective” in entry-level (stage one) admissions as the New Zealand Herald appears to be advocating, however: getting rid of a whole of lot of “undesirables” or “undeserving” wantonly misallocating and misusing education.

That is the lazy approach in which the students themselves do all the ‘heavy-lifting’ to improve the higher education system. To use the apparently sole universally understood analogy applicable in this country: it is like expecting to improve a rugby team’s performance solely on player selection with no focus on the coaches or management. Or the organisational structure or funding system of the rugby unions.

As an aside I often find that often those advocating greater selectivity have hidden assumptions about where their own children would stand in any academic admissions process.

Universities in New Zealand have done a remarkable job of increasing participation with the resources available. It is all the more remarkable that they have done this using almost the same teaching methods as they did when only 5% of the very “best” students attended. But this has come at a cost to student experiences, teacher workloads, academic standards and effectiveness of government expenditure (and actually even the increases in resources into the same tired old model argued by Vice-Chancellors won’t fix the problem).

Calls for ‘selectivity’ inevitability bring into question access.

• Who goes and who is excluded?
• How are students selected?
• How best are educational pathways supported?

It is certainly true that New Zealand has traditionally answered this by expanding access to tertiary education universally with few (even financial) barriers to entry (for over 20 year-olds it has been easier to get into tertiary education than upper secondary school). As authors referred to in this blog note, this no longer works and no longer can be supported financially. But this is a much wider and more complex set of questions and it is depressingly inevitable (but damaging) that it is wrapped up in cultural cringe about positions within certain international rankings of universities.

You want greater selectivity and specialisation? Great, but we are an economically poor, geographically dispersed population who have traditionally selected local institutions on the basis of physical proximity rather than academic ranking. If we are going down the route of say the United States or the United Kingdom with their greater levels of student mobility (presuming that traditional instruction models remain) what does this mean for scholarships and student support?

Say your secondary school wasn’t much good (or had limited subjects) and you can’t get into these new “selective” universities, or you can’t afford to move away from home but prove yourself at a local institution. What pathways are there for you to move easily and seamlessly within the tertiary system?

What does this all mean for equity of access: particularly for students traditionally underrepresented in tertiary education or for whom socio-economic or educational disadvantage can be barriers? The Fisher vs University of Texas case currently before the United States Supreme Court signals the end of affirmative action in terms of university admissions in that country. Issues that are located in this country within small professional schools, currently, will become increasingly contentious if required across all admission to meet wider socio-economic goals of diversity and participation.

All of these problems are not new, and have been solved to some extent elsewhere (the State of California, but for an instance, with their integrated elite, state and community system – and even they specialise within their elite model!).

But if we go down this route (with which I agree) let us not kid ourselves that this is some small matter. It requires considerable changes to our tertiary system (including improving information to students) and possibly to our national psyche. It says much about our character as a people (and the social and political objectives sought) that the New Zealand Herald attempts to address issues around “elitism” as possible objections to be overcome with arguments of “inevitability”.

And it is not, and should not, be about getting the University of Auckland into the Top 50 varsities (although that would be a very good thing) or whatever is the knee-jerk policy objective du jour.

Dean has been promising me a guest post for about 27 months (ie since the blog started) and I’m chuffed that he’s graduated from the comments section with this piece, Dave.