Featured Controversy

The New Zealand "Green Paper on a Future Tertiary Education" and Its Critics: A New "Account" of Knowledge

Overview
Selected Documents
Update: Government "White Paper" Released (Nov. 1998)

Overview

--Alan Liu, March 30, 1998

A major controversy in New Zealand over the restructuring of higher education has come to international attention with the publication of a short article in Nature ("New Zealand's Universities Face 'Privatization' Bid," Mar. 26, 1998 [press "Continue" after the free registration process]). Dissemination of the issues over the Internet has also brought the matter to wider attention.

The controversy follows the publication on Sept. 11, 1997, of the New Zealand government's Green Paper on "A Future Tertiary Education Policy for New Zealand. Green Papers are preliminary, trial-balloon versions of policy-setting "white papers" intended to help shape legislation.[1]

Following up on the previous transformation of New Zealand's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research into ten Crown Research Institutes organized as private corporations (accompanied by significant reductions and shiftings in staff[2]), the Green Paper proposes a sweeping reimagination of higher education in New Zealand.

It binds education to the national goals of:

• lifelong "knowledge" and "learning,"[3]
• "globalization,"[4]
• and broad and diversified educational access (most signally for the underrepresented Maori and Pacific Islander populations).[5]

It argues that these goals can best be met through (among other proposals):

• reorganizing universities into corporate entities governed by Crown-appointed boards,[6]
• tasking those boards with exposing education to the full force of competitive ("contestatory") market forces,[7]
• and decoupling funded "teaching" from funded "research" (i.e., some scholars will be teachers, others researchers).[8]

Both its stated goals and proposals are undergirded by a business discourse that may be audited in such key vocabulary as follows:

• "Ownership"[9]: The fundamental inquiry of the Green Paper is into the "ownership" (more broadly, public trust) of higher education and of the knowledge that educational institutions oversee. Beginning by justifying a more aggressive assertion of government ownership ("Crown ownership"), the Green Paper articulates a vision of the entirety of higher education as a set of "ownership" units exposed to the full risk of their total "capital" obligations. "Resourcing," for example (often a verb construction, as in "various ways in which tertiary education can be resourced"), is to be based on competition or "contestability."[10]
• "Accountability": The most frequent key term in the Green Paper, "accountability" subsumes the notions of academic responsibility and governance to capitalize the whole scope of the "value" of education.[11]
• "Quality": In consumerist terms, the final arbiter of accountable educational value will be the student (education is to become a more "student-focused" system).[12] In the normal mode of postindustrial economy, however, the authority of consumption is refigured in production terms that can be measured internally within the system. Student-focus in the Green Paper thus translates into increasing both the quantity (access) and "quality" of research and teaching. "Rigorous" measures are to be created for quality-control.[13]

Of acute, if problematic, interest to academics is the care the Green Paper takes to accommodate (or, depending on one's view, co-opt) both the traditional academic ideal of "academic freedom" (explicitly protected in the document[14]) and the more recent academic agenda of multicultural diversity (the status of the Maori and Pacific Islanders figures largely and repeatedly in the Green Paper).[5]

Also of special, if unpredictable import, is the emphasis on the need of New Zealand and its educational system to embrace globalism. What gives this topic a special twist is the fact that 60 percent of New Zealand university staff come from abroad.[15] On the one hand, the intertwining of the educational labor force with the global economy might be seen to strengthen the government's view that higher education is increasingly accountable to the global forces that press ever more closely on an island nation.

But on the other hand, the very fact that a majority of tertiary-education staff come from overseas may make the government position abnormally vulnerable to criticism from the international academic community.

Criticism of the Green Paper from academics within New Zealand has been extensive, starting with responses by groups, institutions, and individuals to the government's call for "public submissions". The New Zealand Association of University Staff (AUS), for example, submitted a detailed critique whose summary leads off,

There is a fundamental philosophical conflict between the market-driven model embodied in the Paper and the maintenance of a democratic, affordable and participatory system of public education that has international standing.

The AUS also issued a press release titled "Don't Corporatise the Tertiary Education Sector!" and created in the Tertiary Education section of its Web site an archive of documents, articles, and links related to the Green Paper. Particularly useful in gauging the depth of the controversy in New Zealand is an AUS bibliography on the topic, which includes both citations of official documents and a large listing of commentary and criticism. The date of such entries in the bibliography as Michael Peters, ed. The Corporatisation of New Zealand Universities, Access 12, nos. 1-2 (1994) indicates that the underlying elements of the present controversy have been building since the late 80s and early 90s.

But it is criticism from the international academic community that appears to be one of the main strategic ploys of New Zealand critics.

The government's thrust in the international direction is clear, as in the paragraphs in the "Overview" to the Green Paper that peg higher education to the global economy and the information economy:

Tertiary education will take on a greater international dimension. Quality standards and qualifications in New Zealand education will need to reflect global standards. New Zealand tertiary providers will develop more relationships with overseas providers. Growing world-wide competition for students will have an impact on the number of overseas students attracted to New Zealand and the number of New Zealand students heading overseas to study.

A . . . related, trend is developments in information technology. Advances in information technology have begun to break down international and national barriers to tertiary education and the way it is delivered. It will become easier for New Zealand students to access tertiary providers in another part of the country, or even foreign tertiary providers, without leaving home.

Equally incisive, therefore, is the riposte of critics also concerned to stay on the cutting edge of globalism. Following on its statement that "There is a fundamental philosophical conflict between the market-driven model embodied in the Paper and the maintenance of a democratic, affordable and participatory system of public education that has international standing," for example, the AUS Submission in response to the Green Paper aggressively submits the matter to the court of international opinion:

We believe that the Paper's proposals are inappropriate to universities, or to a public tertiary education system, and in many respects are more suitable to the objectives and values of private sector industry. The Review itself has been, in essence, not concerned with 'education' at all, but rather with the finance and administration of institutions.

If all, or most, of the Paper's proposals are implemented then the changes would be unprecedented internationally. They would, in fact, result in a completely different system of university, and tertiary, education that would lack international credibility.

And the "information economy" aspect of the globalism issue is exploited both in the AUS's critical Submission on Communications and Information Technology and the use of the Internet to broadcast the controversy internationally.

The internationalizing strategy of the critics appears to be paying some dividends. The Nature article notes that the AUS "has obtained the backing of 16 international affliated organizations in a resolution to 'condemn' the government for its 'efforts to convert universities into business entities.' " And it adds that the International Conference of University Teacher Organizations will soon put New Zealand on its "grey list" warning academics dealing with New Zealand about "the deterioration of working conditions, collegial governance and academic freedom."

Notes

• 1. From the Overview to the Green Paper: "This overview and the green paper do not represent a final Government position. Rather, they are intended to inform the public of the Government's thinking so far and to foster discussion. A final position will not be reached until submissions and consultation have been fully considered." The Nature article reports that while a subsequent White Paper is planned prior to legislative action, it is now possible that the White Paper stage will be bypassed.
• 2. An earlier Nature article ("New Zealand Puts Its Science to Profit," Jan. 29, 1998 [if you are not already registered for the journal, press "Continue" after the free registration process]) reports: "The changes involved large-scale job transfers and job losses among 4,000 staff, and cost NZ$42 million (US$24 million). There has also been a marked shift in employment in [Crown Research Instititutes] from research staff to non-scientists. In the five years to 1995­96, the number of researchers fell by almost 300 to just over 1,300 full-time equivalent staff, while support staff tripled to more than 900."
• 3. The Foreword to the Green Paper states, for example, "To ensure our prosperity New Zealand needs to be a 'learning society' recognising the importance for all of our people to continue to develop new skills and knowledge throughout a person's lifetime."
• 4. From the Foreword to the Green Paper: "the tertiary sector will take on an international focus. New Zealand qualifications must match international standards. Many of our institutions will develop closer relationships with overseas institutions. Other countries will be trying to attract overseas students to study there. Distance learning opportunities will increasingly transcend national boundaries."
• 5. Representative of the attention paid to diversity throughout the Green Paper is this paragraph from the Foreword: "A key goal for the Government is to ensure that Maori and Pacific Islands people participate much more fully in tertiary education and attain high [sic] levels of achievement than has been the case in the past."
• 6. See especially the section of the Green Paper on "Governance and Accountability".
• 7. The "Governance and Accountability" section of the Green paper, for example, declares, "Ownership policies that require TEIs [tertiary education institutions] to meet the cost of capital, and reflect that cost in their resource allocation and pricing decisions, would promote competition in the tertiary education and research sectors."
• 8. See the section of the Green Paper on "Resourcing of Research."
• 9. See for example the section of the Green Paper on "Governance and Accountability".
• 10. For the language of "resourcing" and "contestability," see for example the section of the Green Paper on "Resourcing of Research".
• 11. The section of the Green Paper on "Governance and Accountability", for instance, declares that the "key accountability documents between the TEI [tertiary education institution] governing bodies and the [governmental] Responsible Minister should be annual Statements of Intent (SoI) and annual reports, supported by business and operational plans and routine monitoring reports." Statements of Intent are then defined as including the overall "strategic direction of each TEI."
• 12. For the discourse of "student-focused" approaches, see for example the section of the Green Paper on "Future Direction".
• 13. For the discourse of "quality" control, see especially the sections of the Green Paper on "Resourcing of Research" and "Regulatory Support".
• 14. The section of the Green Paper on "Governance and Accountability" states: "Academic freedom is an important and recognised tradition of TEIs [tertiary educational institutions], particularly universities. The governance and accountability policies discussed below include specific protection of academic freedom - that is, the role of academic staff to act as critic and conscience of society under which they question and test received wisdom, put forward new ideas and challenge orthodox, or state unpopular, opinions."
• 15. According to Jane Kelsey, Academic Vice-President of the New Zealand Association of University Staff and law professor at U. Auckland. Kelsey is cited in the Nature article.

Selected Documents

• Primary Documents
  1. Green Paper on "A Future Tertiary Education Policy for New Zealand (1997) (the government document; site also includes press releases from the Minister of Education and an "Overview")
  2. Public Submissions (responses to the Green Paper by groups, institutions, and individuals answering the New Zealand government's call for submissions)
• Commentary
  1. New Zealand Association of University Staff (AUS) Web Site (includes archive of documents and criticisms related to the controversy)
     • Selected Resources:
     • AUS Submission in Response to the "Green Paper"
     • "Don't Corporatise the Tertiary Education Sector!" (AUS press release)
     • Submission on Communications and Information Technology
     • AUS Bibliography on the Issues
  2. Jane Kelsey (Auckland U.), "The Review of Tertiary Education: The Official's Agenda" (AUS Web site)
• Media Reports
  1. Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science, "New Zealand's Universities Face 'Privatization' Bid," March 26, 1998 (press "Continue" after free registration process) (this is the article that brought the controversy to international attention; "Radical proposals from the New Zealand government for turning universities into private bodies fully exposed to market forces, and with all academics designated as either teachers or researchers, have generated fierce criticism from the academic community.")

Update: Government "White Paper" Released (Nov. 1998)

• Primary Documents
  1. White Paper on "Tertiary Education in New Zealand: Policy Directions for the 21st Century" (Nov. 1998)
• Commentary
  1. New Zealand Association of University Staff (AUS) Web Site (includes archive of documents and criticisms related to the controversy)
     • "White Paper Policy Muddle" (Nov. 1998)