New
Perspectives for Learning - Briefing Paper 6
Government Policy on Higher
Education Institutions’ Economic Role
Context of the Research
The
transformation of national higher education systems is on the political agenda
in every country in Europe. The higher education (HE) sector is being urged to
‘modernise’, ‘adapt’, ‘diversify’, ‘marketise’, and is expected
to become ‘entrepreneurial’, ‘competitive’, more ‘efficient’ and
more ‘effective’, more ‘service oriented’, and more ‘societally
relevant’. It also has to improve the ‘quality of its processes and
products’, its ‘relationship with the labour-market’, and the
‘governance and management’ of its institutions, the universities and
colleges. It is generally acknowledged that this transformation can only be
successful if the traditional steering relationship between state authorities
and higher education institutions is changed dramatically.
During the
last quarter of the 20th century the central steering role of the European
nation-states with respect to higher education, has become a serious issue of
debate. This debate is part of a general ‘reshuffling’ of relationships
between the state and the public sector. Arguably, higher education is one of
the sectors where this ‘reshuffling’ has been most extreme and most
successful.
In
particular the socio-political demands and expectations with respect to higher
education have grown - especially concerning its economic role -whilst at the
same time in most countries the level of public funding of higher education is
stagnating or decreasing. This has led to an imbalance between the demands many
stakeholders make on higher education, expecting a rapid reaction, and the
capacity of higher education institutions to respond adequately to these demands.
This
project has focused on developments in national policies with respect to the
economic role of higher education, and on changes in the balance between
government steering strategies with respect to higher education and
institutional autonomy in Europe. It has examined changes in the areas of
undergraduate programmes, lifelong learning and governance structures in
Austria, Belgium/Flanders, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
and the United Kingdom/England.
Key Conclusions
The following conclusions were reached
at national and institutional levels: -
1.
The economic crisis of the late 1970s, early 1980s led to a growing
interest on the government side in the economic role of higher education.
2.
A general move to a ‘supermarket steering’ model has been observed.
The state is becoming less dominant in steering HE and the (quasi) market is
becoming more influential. However, in none of the countries a “pure” market
approach has been introduced. The current steering approaches with respect to
higher education can be described as hybrid.
3.
Whilst HE institutions appear to have increasing autonomy, governments,
through regulation, appear to wish to ensure that this autonomy is used by
institutions to achieve specific political expectations.
4.
Recently innovations in national higher education policies have led to a
partial ‘de-instrumentalisation’ of higher education and a renewed
interest in other, e.g. social, and cultural, roles of higher education.
5.
Effective structures for monitoring the implementation of national higher
education policies or programmes are rare.
6.
Institutions are still learning what it means to be a public service
enterprise and are still in the process of developing approaches and methods to
manage their resources effectively.
7.
Factors such as inherited staff and resources, common practice and
values, subject mix, and management approaches have constrained institutions and
profoundly affected their market position.
8.
The impact of governments on academic programme development in
first-degree education is rather limited.
9.
Governmental attempts to influence university and college developments in
the area of lifelong learning can in general be described as wishful thinking.
10.
Especially in Continental Europe the traditional bilateral relationship
between higher education and the state is rapidly becoming a multilateral
relationship between higher education and various external actors, including the
Ministry of Education.
Key Recommendations
The project made the following
recommendations: -
- In
order for governments to ensure that policy processes are more effective
they should acknowledge that the role of politics is to design, adapt, and
monitor the ‘framework’ conditions within which HE operates.
- Appropriate
HE professionals should be deliberately involved in policy making.
- Higher
education institutions should be expected to operate autonomously in
implementing policies and realising HE goals within the agreed framework.
- Politics
should not interfere in the detailed operation of HE institutions.
- Governments
should develop more effective monitoring structures for evaluating and
analysing the ways in which higher education policies are handled in
practice.
- If
politics wishes to influence the policy process i.e. policy development and
policy implementation, it is important that individual politicians should
become active in professional networks.
- An
independent, de-politicised European higher education policy monitor should
be established to provide data for future research on HE.
- Further
comparative and longitudinal research on issues relating to change processes
in HE is required.
Further Information
The full title of the project and final
report is: “Governmental
Policies and Programmes for Strengthening the Relationship between Higher
Education Institutions and the Economy” (September 2000)
Full
report, Abstract,
Summary
Partner
details
Contact Person
Dr. Peter Maassen
Universiteit Twente
Center for Higher Education Policy Studies
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 53 4893263 / +31 6 53779390
Fax: +31 53 4340392
Email: p.a.m.maassen@
cheps.utwente.nl
or contact pjb Associates pjb@pjb.co.uk
Tel +44 1353 667973 for more information about other Briefing Papers on “New
Perspectives for Learning”
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Last updated
28 June 2007