Downhill for universities since Menzies?

Australian Universities: A History of Common Cause by Gwilym Croucher and James Waghorne

ISBN: 9781742236735 (pbk.), New South Publishing, Sydney, Australia, 278 pp., 2020.

Reviewed by Paul Rodan

This history, commissioned by Universities Australia (UA, formerly the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee – the AVCC) deals largely with universities’ relationships with each other and with state and (later) commonwealth governments. They are seen as the key players in the creation of today’s university system and in overseeing the key policy developments in the sector. Thus, this is an account at the institutional and leadership levels rather than one delving into the social and political aspects which would be found in a more broadly-based approach, such as Hannah Forsyth’s A History of the Modern Australian University (see Rodan, 2015).

The authors remind us that the first universities in the colonies were as much a part of the British network as of anything distinctively Australian. They trace the development of a more formalised cooperative relationship (within the obvious constraints of distance) to 1920, when a Conference of Australian Universities was held in Sydney. Federation and then World War I had played an important role in promoting a more national outlook. The AVCC would be formed in 1935, but it is worth noting that it was not until 1949 that every university employed a full-time vice-chancellor.

Wars complicated life for universities, with the need to manage categories of exemptions from conscription (which in WW II could include overseas service), course completion rates and the like. Political oversight and intrusion were everlurking, and one wonders at the extent to which course failure rates were minimised by the risk that such failure could result in earlier military call-up for the poorly-performing student.

Government funding of universities varied from state to state (some students paid fees; some were on various sorts of scholarships), but all were affected by the Great Depression as governments imposed savage cuts on expenditure. But the Commonwealth had commenced its inexorable move towards greater involvement (with research grants) in the 1920s and, as in other policy areas, this grew during WWII, with the introduction of student financial assistance being a significant development. The authors highlight the creation of the Universities Commission in 1942 as reflecting this enhanced role.

An important milestone was the 1946 referendum which gave the Commonwealth power to provide ‘benefits to students’ – allowing for the provision of scholarships and living allowances after this could no longer be covered under war powers.

Commonwealth reviews and inquiries (notably the three Ms- Mills, Murray, Martin) played a prominent part in the post-war growth period and these are covered in considerable detail. The figure of Prime Minister Robert Menzies looms large in this era. His present-day Liberal successors would probably find quaint his contention in 1950 that ‘the University’s function was to educate individuals in culture and learning and not to create technical experts’ (p. 78). Importantly, he maintained the Chifley Government’s Commonwealth scholarship scheme, which was the only means of entry into university for many students.

The importance of these scholarships cannot be overemphasised. Mythology tends to suggest that prior to Gough Whitlam’s abolition of university fees, it was mostly the fee-paying children of the rich who walked the hallowed halls. This is simply not true. By 1972, around three-quarters of students were either on commonwealth scholarships (with means-tested living allowances) or on quite generous teacher training bonded scholarships. As an undergraduate in the early 1970s, I knew no-one paying fees, although it was possibly not something one was likely to own up to, since it invited the conclusion that for some, parents’ wealth was making up for inability to secure a merit-based scholarship.

On the international level, the 1950s and 1960s saw the height of the Cold War and its impact on universities included the growth of suspicion in some conservative circles about the loyalty of staff. Australia’s first foray into the provision of education for ‘overseas’ students, through the Colombo Plan, represented some soft power diplomacy in that ‘war’.

The authors devote considerable space to outlining the creation of the Colleges of Advanced Education (CAE) sector in the late 1960s; useful reading, given ongoing misunderstandings of the binary system which existed pre- Dawkins.

The Whitlam and Fraser Governments are dealt with in the same chapter which emphasises organisational and funding arrangements as well as the impact of Labor’s fee abolition and the efforts of Fraser to reverse some of those reforms. This section is especially acronym-heavy, a reminder of the special place of that feature in Australian post-secondary education.

For the historical record, it might have been helpful if the authors had included more complete details of the CAE mergers imposed by Fraser’s ‘razor gang’ as they have (very helpfully) done with the University/CAE mergers/ amalgamations enacted under John Dawkins. And, they omit to record that Fraser’s proposal for the reintroduction of fees for second and higher degrees (p. 151) in fact failed to become law, being defeated in the Senate – to the distinct benefit of this reviewer and (I suspect) more than a few readers of this journal.

The authors do well to identify the role played by the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT) in securing university status (a state government prerogative), becoming Curtin University in 1987. This highlighted the contradictions within the binary system and left Dawkins facing similar ‘conversions’ in every state unless he took some national action. This is not to defend everything Dawkins did, but to acknowledge an important part of the context. His other ‘reforms’ are recounted in considerable detail, but consistent with the theme of the book, the focus is more on the funding and organisational aspects than on the social and political implications (including Labor differences of opinion) of the end of free tertiary education.

Sections on the Howard, Rudd/Gillard and current government policies deal mostly with the emergence and role of the internet, more inquiries, funding models, participation rates, contested notions of the university and internationalisation. It is a useful account of a period of substantial change, with commonwealth government control well-established, a far cry from the commencement of the narrative in 1920.

The book was obviously written before the devastating impact of COVID-19 in universities and the Federal Government’s contentious changes in institutional funding and course fees, and its refusal to provide financial support for university employees. This reflected an ongoing Coalition hostility to the sector (evident long before the pandemic), but this animosity is unaddressed by the authors.

The book’s subtitle – A History of Common Cause – reflects the authors’ contention that the Australian university system is essentially a success story, owing much to cooperation and collaboration between institutions and overall positive relations with government. For some, this may be too sanguine a view, overlooking the contested nature of much of what is chronicled. There seems to be minimal acknowledgement that a clash of values between political actors plays some role in how policy debates and decisions evolve from era to era, with the demand-driven system being an example which comes to mind. Similarly, there is no exploration of the potential for the existence of university sub-groups (GO8, ATN et al.) to expose UA members to government ‘divide and conquer strategies’. Granted, the book does not claim to be a political history, but there is almost a politics-averse approach which may leave some readers concerned that the picture is incomplete.

That said, the book is a valuable contribution within the focus it adopts. It is commendably free of typo and editing errors, with one exception. In the index, the NTEU is recorded as the National Territory Education Union – which would seem to suggest specialist representation for members in the NT and ACT!

A commissioned history is unlikely to offer a robust critique of the hand that feeds it, but the celebratory tone of the volume possibly jars more at the end of 2020 than might have been the case a year earlier. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed universities’ flawed risk management with their over-dependence on international students in general, and on those from China in particular. Moreover, the inability of vicechancellors to offer a serious challenge to the Government’s culture-wars-driven assault on the humanities and social sciences (through massive fee increases) serves as a reminder of their modest record in terms of advocacy and defence of their institutions. Harsher critics might ponder why most of them are paid more than the prime ministers and ministers who routinely do them over.

Paul Rodan is an NTEU life member and was a member of the AUR editorial board from 1999 to 2020. Contact: pkrodan@gmail.com

Reference

Rodan, P. (2015). Review of Hannah Forsyth’s A History of the Modern Australian University. Australian Universities’ Review, 57(1), 72-73.