ÌÇÐÄVlog

New Zealand¡¯s landmark university review has achieved its objectives by sparking ¡°strategic thinking¡± in the sector, according to the chair of its panel, despite the government?disagreeing with nearly a third of its recommendations.?

Peter Gluckman said that while the outcomes of his University Advisory Group¡¯s work were ¡°not perfect¡±, he was ¡°very relaxed¡± about the reception its final report had received.

¡°We shifted the dial,¡±?Gluckman?said. ¡°That¡¯s what we were paid to do. We were told to be as provocative as we could be. It was a very unusual cabinet instruction. The terms of reference said to not hold back. We didn¡¯t hold back.

¡°Let¡¯s not be na?ve. Right from the start, any advisory group to a government¡­can only look at it through the lens of what might be ideal. That¡¯s always going to be modified by the realities of transactional politics.¡±

Universities minister Shane Reti¡¯s response to the review was delivered in a hasty presentation to the THE Campus Live ANZ event, hosted by the University of Canterbury. A reveals that the government disagreed or largely disagreed with 17 of the report¡¯s 63 recommendations, including proposals for a powerful new universities council ¨C which would have assumed functions of the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) ¨C and changes to funding.

The government agreed fully or in part to 36 recommendations, with another 10 to be given further consideration.

Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Gluckman argued against a simplistic interpretation of these outcomes. ¡°It¡¯s not¡­the recommendations they¡¯ve agreed to; it¡¯s much more than that. Won is not the right word, but I think we have achieved on all the points that we wanted to make in the review to some level.

¡°There¡¯s more work to do, but¡­the government¡¯s acknowledged that in every case. We¡¯ve moved the dial to get at least the start of a strategic process. We triggered a lot of work that¡¯s still got to be completed.¡±

The group¡¯s achievements included progress on governance, collaboration and course offerings for ¡°the new world¡±. A parallel Science System Advisory Group, which?Gluckman also chairs, had succeeded in bringing together oversight of universities, science and research under one minister.

The government had also accepted the panel¡¯s proposals for the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF), although more ¡°technical work¡± was needed. While the changes confirmed the end of the huge evaluation exercise that used to guide how the funding was allocated,?Gluckman said the name change ¨C to the Tertiary Research Excellence Fund ¨C was perhaps more significant.

He said the old name had misled governments into thinking they were supporting the conduct of research rather than the capacity to conduct research. ¡°It¡¯s not a research fund. It¡¯s¡­a research intensity fund. It¡¯s part of their core funding to be a research-intensive university.¡±

And while the proposed universities council had proven ¡°a bit hard for the government to swallow¡± ¨C and harder, perhaps, for agencies such as the TEC ¨C the ¡°university strategy group¡± adopted in its place represented progress. ¡°It can achieve many of the same purposes,¡± Gluckman said. ¡°It won¡¯t be as effective in the short term, but it¡¯s a step in the right direction.¡±

Crucially, the new group would push the eight universities to collaborate, particularly in low-enrolment subjects such as foreign languages. ¡°You¡¯re not going to have eight departments of French or any other language. You¡­want one or two that have got critical mass to be research-intensive. I think that we¡¯re seeing the start of that collaboration but not all the universities have participated in it.

¡°We were trying to give a signal that¡­you can¡¯t be arrogant and stay outside the need to collaborate, where it¡¯s appropriate for access.¡±

He said that rather than competing for undergraduates in every field, New Zealand universities should compete in the disciplines where they wanted ¡°graduate research degree excellence¡±. Students should be able to access bachelor¡¯s courses at universities close to home while relocating for higher research degrees if necessary. And universities should consider more joint programmes, particularly at postgraduate level.

¡°We were really concerned [that] all the incentives were just to attract bums on seats, and therefore there was a lot of¡­competition in the universities to effectively steal students from each other. In a country of five million people, we can¡¯t afford that.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com