Governance and Higher

Education
Presented by:
Prof. Gunmala Suri
Introduction

 A university (or any Higher Education

Institution) is complex in terms of people,
processes, structures and systems.

 Universities are no longer regarded as “ivory

towers”- they are now increasingly
challenged to show why they exist.

 Universities are now regarded as enterprises

that produce and distribute a public good
which is knowledge.
Increasingly…

 Universities now operate in a globalised environment and this has

expectations on the way managers and leaders run these enterprises

 Serious problems (internally and externally generated) confront managers and

leaders of Universities

 Solutions that worked yesterday may now not work today and tomorrow due
to the complexity of changes
Today’s Scenario…

 Universities are now walking on a tight rope:-

•Increasing demands from both internal and external

stakeholders
•Limited funding but they are expected to do more with less
•Serious diversity challenges are seriously undermining the true essence of a
university
•Students increasingly want their participation in university management –a
fact that challenges the role of university leaders and managers
Today’s Scenario…

 Academic leaders and managers are on the ‘spot’ and challenged to be more
inspirational and provide direction in advancing the ‘corporate strategy’ of
Universities.
 Issues of relevance and employability of university graduates continue to be
thorny issues.
 Unresponsiveness of university systems and processes to the changing
realities.
 Role of students in governance of universities
 Staff associations and their increased ‘activism’ are key fundamental
governance issues.
 Non-payment and financing issues have become perennial issues for discussion
whenever higher education experts meet
Research shows…

 S. Asiimwe and G.M. Steyn (2013) found the following obstacles faced by
universities

Bureaucracy in
Internal politics Lack of commitment management

Globalisation and Centralisation of authority Conflicting values in the

increased competition and decision-making institution

Insufficient financing to Insufficient remuneration

Financing higher education
implement decisions and low morale
Implications…

 All these issues point to a poor corporate governance culture and some ‘crisis’
 Over time, application of private sector styles to promoting efficiency and
effectiveness in university governance have been recommended
Changes in the developing world…

 Many economic and political reforms were instituted and the higher education
sector was a beneficiary of such reforms.
 The distinction between public and private sector now became clear.
 Public sector was the problem and private sector was the solution.
 The introduction of private-sector styles of management in running of
government activities became the key strategy.
 The word management became widely used and administration almost
disappeared.
 There was preference for business administration graduates instead of public
administration graduates
Changes in the developing world…

 Traditional administrative practices were replaced with business-like styles of

management practices
 Emergence of new modes of service delivery like:-
•Decentralization of service delivery.
•Public-private partnerships
•Outsourcing
•Contracting out
•User charges and cost sharing arrangements
•Performance- based Contracts
New Management philosophies have
emerged…
o Reinventing
o Re-engineering
o Retooling
o Reform
o Total quality management
o Result oriented management
o Performance based systems
o Contract-based employment
Education as an efficient service…

 A number of stakeholders were involved in improving the efficiency of

service delivery in the field of higher education :-

The Government

The Private sector

The citizens

The media
Also, new concepts emerged…

 Good and Bad governance

 Local governance
 Global governance
 Procurement governance
 Judicial governance
 University governance
 Environmental governance
 Health governance
 Corporate governance
Corporate Governance…

 Corporate Governance, means the

system of rules, practices and processes
by which a university/company is
directed and controlled.
 It involves balancing the interests of the
many internal stakeholders in a
university/company – like its
shareholders, management, staffs,
students and a variety of external
stakeholders like customers, regulators,
suppliers, financiers, government and
the community.
Alfred (1998) suggests that…

 Corporate Governance in education is “the process for distributing authority,

power and influence for academic decisions among campus constituencies
•The board of trustees
•Faculty
•Students
•Staff
•Administrators
•The academic or education council/senate, and unions
•Committees and sub-committees that include these representatives may
also play a role.
Universities today are expected to…

 Expected to apply the corporate governance principles and practices

 Expected to exercise the highest degree of efficiency and effectiveness given

the prescription that had been given just like elsewhere:
Liberalize Private Stabilize

 Educationists were supposed to be allowed to manage but under stringent

performance frameworks
Examples of Vision for Higher
Education …
 Pakistan: “Transformation of our institutions of higher education into world
class seats of learning, equipped to foster high quality education, scholarship
and research, to produce enlightened citizens with strong moral and ethical
values that build a tolerant and pluralistic society rooted in the culture of
Pakistan.” (Pakistan Ministry of Education 2002)
 United Kingdom: “Higher education is fundamental to the social, economic
and cultural health of the nation. It will contribute not only through the
intellectual development of students and by equipping them for work, but
also by adding to the world’s store of knowledge and understanding, fostering
culture for its own sake, and promoting the values that characterize higher
education: respect for evidence; respect for individuals and their views; and
the search for truth.
Best Practices in universities…

#1 Position Responsibility Statements

Every faculty member, irrespective of appointment type or rank, has a position
responsibility statement (PRS) that helps ensure precious faculty time is used
with maximum effectiveness. This system decisively challenges the expectation
that a great university professor must always be primarily devoted to research,
with teaching as a distant competitor for time and attention.
Best Practices in universities…

 #2 Optimizing Classroom Use

The costs of large capital projects are exorbitant, but construction costs are
typically less than one-third of the total cost of the building over its lifetime.15
Even a building largely funded by private donations is ultimately a gift that keeps
on taking, using operating funds of the institution long after it is built.
Best Practices in universities…

 #3 Program Prioritization
The desire to be everything to everyone can also lead colleges and universities to
fail to set reasonable academic priorities. When faced with a budget crunch, the
temptation may be to cut academic programs across the board. But, as former
president of the University of Northern Colorado and founding vice-president of
the Lumina Foundation Robert Dickeson notes, such cuts “will inevitably diminish
academic quality.” What boards must do is take the courageous step of setting
academic priorities
Best Practices in universities…

 #4 Academic Reorganization
A well-executed academic reorganization initiative could allow your school to
save millions of dollars without eliminating academic offerings or any tenured or
tenure-track positions. Arizona State University (ASU) has pioneered an
alternative method of academic structuring that again shows how budget savings
can be achieved without compromising academic quality or offerings.
Best Practices in universities…

 #5 Course Sharing through Technology

Many observers of higher education tout technological innovations as a threat to
traditional brick-and-mortar institutions. But technology can be a powerful tool
for improving opportunities and cutting costs at traditional colleges and
universities. The Associated Colleges of the South’s (ACS) New Paradigm
Initiative, launched in 2012, seeks to “broaden and enhance academic offerings
for students such as upper level language courses and other specialized offerings
not currently available at a number of institutions.”56 It applies a “blended
learning” approach that utilizes new technologies while striving to maintain the
personalized approach to education.
Best Practices in universities…

 #6 Raising Faculty Productivity

At many colleges and universities, faculty teaching assignments are
shockingly low. Limited teaching duties mean fewer available sections for
students, making it harder for students to graduate on time and
preventing institutions from serving as many students as they otherwise
could. It is vital that you, as a trustee, have precise information on the
actual teaching responsibilities of the different ranks of faculty in
different departments.
Best Practices in universities…

 #7 Graduation Rate Initiatives

Graduation rates at many American colleges and universities are abysmal. The
U.S. Department of Education reports that the four-year graduation rate for first-
time, full-time freshman students at all four year institutions is just 38.6%. Even
the six-year graduation rate is under 60%. California State University’s (CSU)
Graduation Initiative, launched in 2010, involves all 23 of CSU’s campuses and
aims to raise six-year graduation rates by 8%. This target was set with the goal of
putting CSU’s graduation rate in the top quartile of the nation.
Best Practices in universities…

 #8 Measuring Student Learning

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa rocked the academic world when they
published Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
(study conducted in USA). Their research shows that for too many
students, a college education provides little in the way of actual
education. On key metrics of learning like critical thinking, complex
reasoning, and written communication, many students show little or no
improvement during their time in college. To be precise, their study finds
45% of students show no significant learning gains during the first two
years of college, and 36% show no improvement after a full four years.
Best Practices in universities…

 #9 Honest Transcripts
Grade inflation is a international crisis. Professors Stuart Rojstaczer and
Christopher Healy have documented that the most common grade given
at colleges and universities today (43%) is an “A.”83 This problem
extends to America’s elite universities. Recently, the Harvard Crimson
reported that the median grade at Harvard College is an “A-” and the
most common grade awarded is an “A.”84 The effects of grade inflation
can be seen in growing employer frustration about the usefulness of
college transcripts and shockingly low levels of student engagement.
Best Practices in universities…

 #10 Increasing Transparency and Sharing Data

The University of Texas System is a pioneer in this area. Its System
Productivity Dashboard is “a business intelligence system that includes
web-based applications for extracting and analyzing institutional data.”
Its function is “to provide current data, trends over time, and
comparative benchmarking across a variety of metrics in support of
better decision- and policy-making.” The dashboard is publicly available
and allows “viewing, exploring, and sharing data related to the
performance across all areas.
Key Questions on management of Higher
Education Systems…
 Who manages the system overall?
 What powers are retained at the centre, if some are devolved to institutions?
 What central agencies are needed?
 How much autonomy should institutions have?
 How are institutions held accountable; what regulation and reporting is
required?
 How is research in the tertiary sector managed?
Who manages the system overall?

 Who manages the system overall? In recent higher education reforms three
types of change have been occurring: the delegation of powers by central
government to another lower tier of government, delegation to a specialised
buffer body, or delegation direct to institutions themselves.
 In some European and transition countries the ministry of education (MOE) has
recently devolved control over universities to regional or provincial
governments, but retains a coordinating policy function.
What powers are retained at the centre, if
some are devolved to institutions?

 If the education ministries has decided to devolve powers, it must decide

what functions it is essential to retain. The usual strategic areas which are
never devolved are:
• Setting overall policy and agreeing the “size and shape” of the sector (eg;
balance between public and private, types of tertiary institution)
• Strategic planning for the sector (but not necessarily for individual institutions)
• Negotiating overall funding with the ministry of finance
• Co-ordination with other ministries (eg: health, agriculture) on higher
education issues.
What central agencies are needed?

 The decision on what powers are devolved will influence the number and function of central
agencies. There may be more than just the one principal buffer body, and the number will
depend on the extent to which the MOE wishes to undertake all the sector management
functions itself. It is usual for these bodies to be linked to the MOE, but to be legal entities
with a board and independent members drawn from both higher education and industry or
commerce. Their funding is either by a grant from the MOE, from university subscriptions, or
income generated from services provided
 Examples of buffer agencies include:
• A national quality assurance body (Australia)
• An agency for collecting and publishing statistics (U.K.)
• A technical agency to provide and manage the national higher education computing network
and negotiate bandwidth access for the sector (Tertiary Education Network - TENET, South Africa)
• A board to control and manage student loans, levels of government subsidy and collection of
repayments (Kenya)
• An advisory body providing support and assistance to institutions for the improvement of
teaching (Australia)
How much autonomy should institutions
have?
 The extent of autonomy that institutions are allowed by the state is often a
mixture of inherited rights, tradition, legislative intent, and societal culture.
It is usually built up over time through a variety of legislative processes,
ministerial decisions, and ad hoc regulations. It is rarely a finely crafted
structure to a rational design. It is also culture specific and rights or controls
that are taken for granted in one country can be unthinkable in another. For
example, a survey of government controls in 1996 found that academic staff
in one African country were expected to ask the ministry before they
travelled overseas.
How are institutions held accountable?

 One of the biggest questions facing governments is how to balance the

autonomy needed by public universities with the accountability required by
the state. How can results, outputs, and outcomes be monitored and
accountability encouraged?
 This issue is at the heart of most recent reforms, and there is a widespread
trend to granting greater freedoms to institutions. However, while direct
controls are being relaxed, governments in return are developing more
complex supervisory and reporting regimes.
How are institutions held accountable?

 The core areas where either the MOE or a buffer body would always retain
direct control over institutions are as follows:
• Review and approval of draft statutes/articles of incorporation before a
university is given autonomous status.
• Grant of degree awarding powers to a new public or private institution.
• Setting a cap on the total student numbers overall funded by the state and the
totals in selected high cost areas (e.g., medical and veterinary students). If the
state is funding the bulk of the costs of higher education, it is reasonable for it to
want to control this cost by placing a cap on the total student numbers that it
pays for. How students would be allocated within this cap is a matter for the
buffer body to decide through a bidding or allocation process. None of this would
affect the right of institutions to enrol full fee paying private students, if the
state agrees to this principle.
How is quality assured?

 Ensuring not only the provision, but also the quality, of higher education is
one of the key roles of the state and increasing attention is being given to
creating, expanding, reforming, and building the capacity of the agencies and
mechanisms by which quality is assured. In this section we discuss the
frameworks that need to be established if effective quality assurance is to be
achieved. It is important to note that in some countries the independent,
voluntary, and highly participative nature of the quality assurance systems
serve as a substitute for stronger government regulation.
Models of Governance in Educational
Institutions…
A short video on Governance in Higher
Education
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6JT_IbTtls
THANK YOU 

Any questions?