Are Australia’s universities in deficit? A tale of generic managers, audit culture and casualisation

Abstract

Managerial changes to Australian universities have had considerable impact on employees. In this article, we consider some of these changes and apply a theory known as the democratic deficit to them. This theory was developed from the democratic critique of managerialism, as it has been applied in the public sector in countries with Westminster-type political systems. This deficit covers the: weakening of accountability through responsibility being replaced with responsiveness, denial of public values through the use of private-sector performance practices and hollowing out of the state through the contracting out and privatisation of public goods and services and the redefinition of citizens as customers and clients. We suggest that the increased power of managers, expansion of the audit culture and the extensive use of contract employment seem to be weakening the democratic culture and role of universities in part by replacing accountability as responsibility with accountability as responsiveness.

“Systemic Managerial Constraints”

“…Programmes, academics, and universities, at all levels, must account for the use of their time and resources, while demonstrating how their activities contributions to the economy. With the rise of the audit culture within universities (e.g., Kimber and Ehrich, 2015;Sidhu, 2008), "attending to administrative affairs -form filling, preparing reports, completing review documents, applications and so on -largely [becoming] the order of the day" (Hil, 2012, p. 32). While this managerialism is posited as a logical way to ensure quality of work and wise use of public funding, it can be a source of power and control.…”

“…Additionally, many academics move to new cities or countries to take up positions, requiring adaptation to unfamiliar higher education sectors and university systems, as well as the personal challenges of setting up a life in a new location. The challenges of 'being new' are added to the current challenges in higher education, which, in recent years has seen a massification of education (i.e., the sharp increase in the number of students in higher education), increased teaching loads, increased audit and reporting requirements, decreased job stability, and increased workloads (e.g., Côté and Allahar, 2011;Gill, 2009;Ginsberg, 2011;Giroux, 2007;Hil, 2012;Kimber and Ehrich, 2015).…”

“…The challenges in higher education have frequently been attributed to the influence of neoliberalism within public universities and the treatment of institutions of higher education as corporations (e.g., Chomsky, 2015;Côté and Allahar, 2011;Ginsberg, 2011;Giroux, 2007Giroux, , 2014Hil, 2012;Kimber and Ehrich, 2015;Lorenz, 2012). While neoliberalism is a contested term (e.g., Boas and Gans-Morse, 2009;Flew, 2014;Harman, 2007;Mitrović, 2005;Thorsen, 2010), it has been described as a "series of ideas about socio-economic order" (Flew, 2014, p. 64) and "a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can be best advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade" (Harvey, 20015, p. 2).…”

A Systematic Literature Review of Funding for Higher Education Institutions in Developed Countries

“…By 2012, about 60 % academic staff in Australian universities were employed on casual contracts. There has been a massive increase in the number of full-fee-paying students from overseas, from 24,998 to 95,607 during the period 1990-2000 (Kimber & Ehrich, 2015).…”

Education on the rails: a textual ethnography of university advertising in mobile contexts

“…In an attempt to staunch the flow of poor quality students into their undergraduate programmes, they have proposed an ATAR floor(Mather 2013). That is not to say an inflated ATAR predicts academic success: many students with low ATARs prove the contrary, and vice versa.4 Between 1996 and 2011, casuals increased 81% compared to just 37% for permanents over the same period(Kimber and Ehrich 2015). At the same time, professional development and continuity has suffered as sessional teachers juggle their loads with off-campus employment, worry about job insecurity, all of which serves to reduce commitment to student learning that, ironically, many universities upsell in their advertising(Klopper and Power, 2014).…”