Education under siege?

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Learning Curve: Perspective
New Sunday Times - 07-07-2013

THE book Public Education Under Siege edited by Michael B. Katz and Mike Rose challenges the assumptions and goals of the so-called education reform movement.

Despite their many efforts based on test-driven and market-oriented core of the reform agenda, public schools are "in such difficult straits" and "reform is ineffective". The book is critical of overreliance on "high stakes" testing, which edges out a "more civic-centred vision of education" and narrows education in an economistic model making it a less egalitarian system of schooling.

The future of public education depends on what we decide to do collectively to affirm the academic values of universities.

Prior to the release of the book in May, the Third Annual Conference On Critical Education held in Ankara, Turkey, discussed the same issue in light of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism.

Conference participants argued that neoliberal and neoconservative educational politics have significantly damaged education all over the world.

Schools and students now are said to be in a more competitive relationship, while public education is losing its status as a social right due to ties with the market that maintains the siege in the clutch of free market fundamentalism. The state is rapidly losing its social character in the face of these developments.

Running almost parallel was the 6th International Barcelona Conference On Higher Education subtitled Let's Build Transformative Knowledge To Drive Social Change.

This event emphasised "a crisis of scale, a crisis that affects all systems and that requires a new understanding of reality and human progress, and a new conscience that supports a new way of being in the world".

This implies fresh paradigms of thought and action that must be sustainable and must overcome the undesired effects of the old models. In short, we face the challenge of finding innovative ways to organise ourselves in all areas of activity.

These are some of the emerging problems that require even more space for academic freedom of thought and expression to seek out the reality for the future within a framework of autonomy and accountability.

The European University Association's Lisbon Declaration (2007) set out four basic dimensions of autonomy, namely academic autonomy (deciding on degree supply, curriculum and methods of teaching; and determining areas, scope, aims and methods of research); financial autonomy (acquiring and allocating funding; deciding on tuition fees; accumulating surplus); organisational autonomy (setting university structures and statutes; making contracts; electing decision-making bodies and persons); and staffing autonomy (responsibility for recruitment, salaries and promotions). These are the basic criteria of a modern university.

It will be interesting to note the number of universities which qualify as one if we apply these standards rigorously.

The University Autonomy In Europe II 2011 report revealed that a number of systems still grant their tertiary institutions too little autonomy and thereby limiting their performance although the institutional freedom of European universities has generally increased.

The European University Association also noted that national reforms aimed at improved autonomy have often been introduced without providing institutions with the human resources and management support needed to make use of their new independence.

Indeed, university autonomy across 26 European countries has shown "worrying signs" that the economic crisis and austerity measures have led to instances of tighter controls of university budgets, "unnecessary" administrative burden and reduced financial independence. Public funding is not only diminishing but its nature and form are also changing.

If tertiary institutions and the leadership continue to ignore such fundamental matters and their widespread implications, the future of higher education will continue to be shaped by the waves of "market fundamentalism" guided by the "invisible hand" of the market forces, especially in the context of internationalisation.

After all, the International Association Of Universities Call for Action challenges tertiary institutions to commit to the principles of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and social responsibility as well as to respect international students as part of the values and principles inherent in internationalisation.

The future of public education depends on what we decide to do collectively to affirm the academic values of universities and break away from the siege mentality, at least intellectually.

- The writer is the vice-chancellor of the Albukhary International University