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Heads of Commonwealth Universities Meet
15 April 2006
For most of this last week since Sunday, I have been attending
the international triennial conference of 'executive heads' of
Commonwealth Universities, held in Adelaide. Around 400
Vice-Chancellors attended from many African and Asian countries as
well as from Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
The broad theme of the conference was 'University Futures' and
not surprisingly, there are many developmental features that are
common across universities in different countries. National systems
have many similarities when it comes to the overall decline in
per-student funding, for example.
Universities everywhere can no longer survive on government
funding alone, and are variously pursuing funds from a variety of
alternative sources. Interestingly, as the quantum of government
funds decline, their quality audits and red-tape requirements
increase, diverting more core funding to administrative
purposes.
Regional economic development and the role of universities was a
major theme for the first day, and I was one of the presenters,
lifting awareness of the Sunshine Coast region and its own
university.
Other themes included research and innovation, social
disadvantage, HIV/AIDS, and Science and Technology. On day two,
funding, gender, and open access featured. On subsequent days the
topics ranged broadly across quality assurance to renewing the
African University and the impact of Free Trade agreements.
It is an interesting context to be among so many colleague
vice-chancellors, and whose tenure in office seems to be
diminishing at each conference.
There are often controversial topics that enliven our debates,
and the one that stirs Asian and African leaders the most is the
brain drain of their best students. There are, for example, more
African higher degree graduates now working in the US than there
are in the whole of an Africa that desperately needs all of its
hard-won talent to develop the continent.
Another high profile presenter also raised a controversy by
supporting strongly the opening up of universities, a
'democratisation of access', because Open Universities had clearly
exposed entry scores like OPs as largely irrelevant. Judging people
on their performance at University is a much better way, he
claimed, to gauge achievement.
This is an interesting topic in view of the preoccupation in
Australia with entry scores, believed to be such strong predictors
of success.
It's probably these controversies that make such conferences so
worthwhile.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast