Summary and Conclusions

Key points: Factors inhibiting and enhancing diversity

• Diversity and differentiation in the higher education system are essential because of the changing nature of social relations in the world and the changing global knowledge economy.
• The nature of diversity in higher education can be illuminated by exploring five key dilemmas:
  1. diversity and conformity,
  2. diversity and competition,
  3. diversity and equity,
  4. diversity and accountability, and
  5. diversity and autonomy.

  Exploring each of these areas reveals tensions between factors inhibiting and factors enhancing diversity.

• Treating all universities as representatives of the same abstract class hides actual diversity. In Australia, with a young higher education system, characterized in part by a culture of conformity, treating universities in the same ways encourages conformity to one mould for universities.
• Federal government reform efforts to introduce market mechanisms and competition have produced convergence and isomorphism. Because education is a positional good (class, status, occupation-based power), a pure market is not possible. Moreover, the cultural functions of higher education are obscured if it is understood solely or chiefly in terms of market principles.
• In a context of under-resourcing, the result of current arrangements for administering Australian higher education has been over regulation by the government of a formulaic kind that does not engage with the substantive work or aspirations of diverse universities.
• The reality of the contemporary scene in Australian higher education is both a great deal of diversity and much conformity. The diversity is real as different universities attempt to engage with their changing environments and internal and local needs. The conformity is a reality as all universities try to respond to a common conceptual template, a common regulatory framework, and common accountability requirements. Conformity is also the result of isomorphism and conservative academic norms and values.
• In the conceptualization of difference and diversity, distributional theories of justice are not as helpful as the theory of justice as difference. The latter offers useful insights into the issue of diversity in higher education - especially the principle that just treatment consists in supporting the self-development and self-determination of each university (consistent with self-development and self-determination for all). On this principle, it is just to treat universities differently, in line with their own views of how they might best develop. Adopting this principle is likely to lead to greater systemic and programmatic diversity in Australian higher education.
• The Boyer conceptualization of university work as being constituted by four scholarships (teaching, application, integration, and discovery) may provide a framework for better understanding diversity both systemically and programmatically. The Boyer view offers a way of understanding diversity more substantively - in terms of the scholarly work that universities actually do. On this view, strengthening scholarship means intensifying the relationships between the university and the kinds of client groups associated with each face of scholarship. It means stronger and more vital connections, more open two-way communication, and closer ties of partnership and collaboration with each. Arguably, this more active engagement with its partners leads a university in the direction of becoming more "entrepreneurial". This responsiveness to client groups has led, and is leading, to increased diversity in Australian higher education.

Necessary changes in higher education policy and administration

• We need a government approach which views the system as a national network of higher education services to be developed and provided for diverse clients, through a variety of different universities. This is to be contrasted with the current approach, which is inclined to treat universities as a relatively uniform collection of (competitor) institutions to be regulated in the achievement of narrowly defined central needs. The current approach treats universities as relatively uniform through the application of common procedures for funding (both through the relative funding model and through competitive funding mechanisms) and accountability, which encourage convergence on a singular model of the university. The result is a hierarchy of similar institutions rather than a variety of different institutions.
• Governments need to consider the extent to which, over time, the current common regulatory and funding frameworks will foster the formation of a single hierarchy of institutions, with universities clustering in 'vertical' segments on this hierarchy. To counterbalance this tendency, governments may wish to consider what regulatory and funding mechanisms might be implemented to foster greater 'horizontal' and systemic diversity (diversity of institutional types), as well as greater programmatic diversity (already fostered to some extent by the increased responsiveness of universities to the various clients of their scholarly services).
• In our view, these aspirations would be fostered by the development of an independent commission for higher education, composed of representatives of government, the universities and the different kinds of client groups served by higher education programs and services. Such a body would have two principal functions: first, advising governments and universities on regulation, funding and the development of higher education nationally, through the work of each university; and second, advising government and universities on quality assurance and management, both in relation to existing operations and proposed developments.
• We need a new national higher education policy direction that fosters diversity in the context of balanced development of the system as a whole. This suggests that we need a new, independent higher education body, with a role in actively assisting institutional development in the context of balanced national development. On the one hand, this means assisting institutions to become more responsive and proactive in meeting the needs of current and future clients of their scholarly work, and to do so in terms of the directions each university identified for its own future development. On the other side, it means assisting government to improve the quality and availability of these services through the whole network of autonomous universities, as a contribution to national economic, social and cultural development. Such a commission should play a role in overseeing quality in universities and in the Australian higher education system as a whole.
• We need mixed modes of funding coming into universities, with elements of operational stability and predictability; and with 'venture capital' funding for strategic development, innovation and diversity. Where competitive funding mechanisms are appropriate (as in some areas of national funding for discovery research), there should be a greater emphasis on segmented (targeted) competition and a reduced emphasis on unsegmented (open) competition (since the latter maximizes the inefficiencies of competitive behaviour).
• To meet the new and emerging needs of a changing social relationships and a changing global knowledge economy, and to respond more effectively and innovatively to the needs of the different clients of higher education services, the capacity of Australian higher education system must be expanded and diversified. This expansion requires additional government funding.
• Additional resources from other sources are also required - though non-government sources are unlikely to be sufficient to meet the need for balanced development of the system as a whole, through each individual university. Universities have already increased the proportion of their total budgets coming from these sources, and will need to secure still more. Government policy and investment are needed to assist universities to secure more of these resources (for example, through matched funding arrangements and tax rebates), and to increase the proportion of private funding in the mix of private and public funding available to universities.

Implications for Universities

• Universities also need to look internally at their own structures, processes, norms and values and assess the extent to which their own conservatism hinders diversity and innovation.
• Universities need to continue to become more client-focused in relation to the whole of their scholarly work. They need to strengthen their connections, communication and collaboration with
  • students (as clients of the scholarship of teaching);
  • business, industry and the professions (as clients of the scholarship of application);
  • the wider community and with co-inquirers across disciplinary boundaries (as clients of the scholarship of integration); and
  • peers and colleagues in the disciplines (as clients of the scholarship of discovery).

  It is a task for universities, as well as governments, to create conditions under which these clients can contribute to the costs of the services universities provide, though recognizing the complex balance of public interest and private benefit, and limits on the capacity of some clients and client groups to pay.

• Universities need to chart their own directions, be more vigorous in defining and their own missions, and operate in a climate that encourages and rewards diverse efforts within the general context of the balanced development of higher education in Australia.

This paper aims to make a contribution to understanding and debate about diversity in higher education in Australia. The next task is to consider what regulatory and funding mechanisms could be developed to realize these ideas in practice.