Search

This paper revisits the issue of institutional diversity in Australian higher education, taking account of international trends and research on the subject. Drawing on empirical studies over the last three decades, I adopt a within-country case study approach to analysing institutional diversity in the Australian higher education policy context and consider post-COVID systemic implications. Catalysts for this analysis include revisions to the Australian provider category standards, government policy shifts influencing the undergraduate curriculum, and the systemic impact of a global pandemic. The paper concludes with three propositions, arguing that institutional diversity will be more important than ever to meet the diverse needs of students and the labour market; an ecosystemic approach to post-secondary education will be a key enabler of sector diversity; and a paradigm shift, enabled by such drivers as government policy and proactive institutional leadership, will be essential to achieve enhanced institutional diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the current broad agreement amongst Australian universities that engagement is now a core activity, the implications of that commitment are yet to be fully realised. The difficulties many universities face in articulating engagement as a strategic priority begin with the conceptual and definitional issues around the third mission and its shifting nomenclature. Government policy has provided little support and guidance around the definition and scope of engagement, while the lack of mandatory formal reporting on engagement outcomes and of dedicated base funding for engagement has hampered the development of benchmarks that could provide a sector-wide framework for engagement practices between universities and communities. This weak policy environment has contributed to the peripheralisation of engagement at the institutional level despite efforts within universities to make it a strategic priority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The focus of this paper is the coalition United Kingdom government policy on university funding in England as a political economy. It depicts higher education as a public and private good in the context of international trends in ‘cost sharing’ and it addresses the centrality of economic drivers for the profile and orientation of higher education, particularly in England. On the basis of an examination of documents available in the public domain, it also assesses how new funding arrangements might embody a distinctive attribution of value to higher education in general and disciplinary practice in particular. This domain of inquiry is termed the political economy of funding because it seeks to examine the social and political meaning of these economic decisions and their implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper populations of students returning to tertiary study in the period 1997-2005 have been compared with the population of non-returning students who had the same opportunity to return. Such comparisons were conducted for students who returned after a break of 1-7 years (seven comparison groups). Students with the highest likelihood of returning were found to be: (i) students who had an outstanding student loan prior to their return that had been borrowed for previous tertiary studies; (ii) students who did not complete the qualification studied previously; (iii) degree-level university students; and (iv) students who had studied towards qualifications in health, education, society and culture rather than in management and commerce fields. The major finding reported in this paper is that a student loan debt does not discourage students from future study. The findings also suggest that policy decisions were likely to trigger short-term increases in returning behaviour and that the populations most affected were likely to be those who left tertiary education in the year in which the policy decisions were announced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a first assessment of the effects of changes in the Norwegian student support system, implemented in 2002–2003. Data have been drawn from NSELF, the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund and from Statistics Norway (various years). Covering the period 2001–04, the data compare the number and composition of those receiving student support before and after the changes, as well as the level of government resources allocated to student support throughout the period. The findings reveal a considerable increase in the resources spent on student support and an increase in the number of student support recipients. The relative increase has been particularly strong among part‐time and mature‐age students. Both intended and unintended consequences of the changes in the student support system are discussed, in relation to current educational policy goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines a recent book about the University of Melbourne. It uses this as a case study to explore traditional conceptions of the university in the Western tradition, and aspects of the Australian debate about government policies and institutional strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In universities around the world, plagiarism management is an ongoing issue of quality assurance and risk management. Plagiarism management discourses are often framed by legal concepts of authorial rights, and plagiarism policies outline penalties for infringement. Learning and teaching discourses argue that plagiarism management is, and should remain, a learning and teaching issue and press for more student-centred approaches to plagiarism management. Institutions must navigate these competing discourses in their attempts to design workable plagiarism management policies. After outlining plagiarism management contexts from the United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden to provide a sense of international work in the area, this article proposes a learner-centred quality assurance model (adapted from the work of Harvey and Newton (2004)) for plagiarism management. The proposed model refocuses on the learner and classroom practices in quality assurance processes. It offers a framework utilising learning, teaching and internal institutional research on plagiarism management to inform overall university policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of mass media in education policy processes is increasingly complex, but research on its contribution is far from adequate. This study uses the higher education quality assurance policies issued in China at the beginning of this century to explore the roles played by mass media in the creation and implementation of education policies. Mass media's current influence on Chinese education policies mainly includes promoting policy agenda setting, enhancing policy legitimacy and monitoring the process of policy implementation. However, its role in constructing a platform for public discussion and improving policy design needs to be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has recently launched a radical reform to transform over 600 regional universities into application and technology oriented institutions. The reform is a response to diverse labour market demands, regional economic development and the suboptimal structure of the higher education system, and uses international experiences as a reference. While China is still struggling to identify proper international models to follow, this article offers a potential candidate – Finland, with respect to Finnish experiences recommendations for the Chinese reform are discussed and elicited. The analysis flows from discussions in a series of seminars and workshops held in Finland and China in 2014. This article argues that the Finnish experience is of relevance to Chinese regional university transformation, notwithstanding the huge difference in scale. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The fiscal climate of restraint in the Canadian province of Ontario has led to increased calls for a more diversified higher education system. Significant diversity in the university sector in Ontario has not been achieved that underscores the importance of understanding government policy and its related influences on institutional diversity. This study used policy and descriptive analysis and drew on mutually related theoretical perspectives from organisational theory as its conceptual framework to examine the factors that promoted or hindered processes of diversity in the sector. The study suggests that the lack of diversity objectives in provincial funding policies combined with the existing egalitarian operating funding model contributed to the continued lack of diversity in the university sector in Ontario while federal funding programmes distributed on the basis of a peer review, competitive process increased the potential for diversification. Structural policy directions to enhance diversity in the university sector are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study seeks to compare the mission statements of higher education institutions in Wales as well as to compare these with regional level policy statements and demands from the market. The underlying idea is to reveal the extent to which mission statements actually differ and are (or are not) in line with such regional policies and market demands. The importance of the study is that it highlights the extent to which expectations from either government or the market are actually taken on board by institutions and the extent to which this could threaten institutional diversity. The study shows that congruence of missions is expressed in elements relating to excellence, research and a commitment to Wales and its economy. At the same time, missions are very diverse, with no two institutions stressing the same set of mission elements. The findings do not indicate that mission diversity is threatened by policy or market forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments now expect universities to behave entrepreneurially generating revenues from the commercial exploitation of their intellectual assets (‘third stream’ income). This study questions whether this is possible for all universities in the UK and for all disciplines, or whether there are differences between institutions, between disciplines and even between disciplines in a single institution. Using research income from industry, charity and government departments for the period 1996–2000 as a proxy measure for third stream income, the performance of 16 UK institutions in four different disciplines (physics, engineering, history and education) was compared. Income from third stream sources varied significantly by institution and by discipline. There was also a significant disciplines × institution interaction, so that potential for generating third stream income cannot be predicted from either discipline or institution alone. A number of explanatory factors for this are considered, and the implications for university decision‐making, strategy development and collegiality are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]