Higher education and the public space

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Learning Curve : Perspective
New Sunday Times - 26-06-2011

HIGHER education is no longer interested in engaging with the public space. This emerged at the recent Worldviews International Conference on Media and Higher Education in the 21st Century in Toronto, Canada.

The conference, jointly organised by the University of Toronto, Inside Higher Ed based in Washington, DC, America, University World News (London, The United Kingdom) and Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Association/Academic Matters, has been successful in highlighting issues that need urgent and immediate attention in seeking out new direction for higher education in the 21st century.

Perhaps one of the matters that emerge quite strongly is the question of "sustainability" of higher education, given that it has been in crisis since the 1990s even in the Western hemisphere. Higher education, it is said, is no longer interested in public-oriented discourse. Especially with the general collapse of support for the Social Sciences and Humanities, higher education has been "silenced" or otherwise involved in self-censorship, leaving the public sphere devoid of its meaningful input.

At the same time, the Sciences have been broken up into smaller compartments, without much public engagement in the process, let alone alignment with larger views, or an attempt to shape them.

This disturbing trend is clearly demonstrated in a longitudinal studies carried out in Sweden over time.

All these have to do with the changing nature of power relationship in the university. At one level, it is the erosion of the democratic process, ironically amid the claim that higher education is undergoing democratisation!

This translates into a more tightly "regulated" higher education process under the pretext of public accountability closely related to the issue of public funding. The reality, however, is that public funding is fast decreasing whereas regulatory dimensions are being enhanced.

And this is dragging higher education even further away from the arena of public debate when universities are expected to merely accomplish short-term goals dictated by the marketplace.

As such, the world view is very much skewed towards the economic agenda set by the marketplace, and not necessarily in the interest of the community at large.

This leads to the argument that currently higher education is more of a private good despite it being largely funded by the public sector.

Noticeably, the coverage of higher education by the media tends to focus on economic related related issues such as job placement, industrial collaboration, commercialisation of research and ranking. Generally, consumer-driven concerns take precedence.

Public-related issues of the marginalised poor, muted intellectuals and myopic public policies, just to name a few, have not been taken up in earnest. In other words, public spheres are not fully engaged in matters that can impact them greatly.

This is especially so when it concerns the younger generation that seem to have different priorities but are barely consulted due to the narrowing of the public space.

Consequently, there is a growing sense of mistrust and scepticism directed at universities and higher education.

The notion that tertiary institutions are disinterested parties in ensuring that the public interest is not only protected but also advanced to cope with changing demands of the future is waning.

This is where it is hoped that the media will "partner" closely with universities. The media are deemed by some as allies with the same mandate -- to ask the question that needs to be asked, especially in the context of developing countries where academe and media are still seen as lagging behind in their role in enriching public debate.

One speaker at the conference talked about deconstructing the metaphor of the two solitudes -- academe and media. Both share the responsibility to enrich the public space so that "new forms of media and research literacy facilitate accessibility to knowledge and dignity".

That said, universities need to be more assertive in leading a higher level of public conversation so that they can regain public confidence that is fast slipping away before they become totally irrelevant to the aspiration of the larger community.

* The writer is the Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia. He can be contacted at vc@usm.my