The struggle to
save & remake
public higher education
Public higher education is at serious risk. Universities premised on knowledge creation and dissemination for the public good are on shakier terrain than before. The higher education sector globally was already in a fragile condition – some would say a crisis – before the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated campus shutdowns began.
Higher education across and within countries as well as within institutions has been characterised by profound inequalities which have been shaped and exacerbated by the austerity and marketisation that has deeply troubled the sector. These are now a threat that has the potential to undermine the entire endeavour. At the same time there have been strikes and protests by those employed or enrolled in higher education in many countries to protest numerous failings in the system, including exclusion (practical, cultural, epistemological), increasingly onerous conditions of service and the rapid casualisation of academic labour. These strikes have been overshadowed by the pandemic – indeed, notwithstanding some exceptions in the United States and the ...numerous failings United Kingdom, they in the system, including themselves have been locked down. exclusion (practical,
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Since the lockdowns, cultural, epistemological), I have been observing increasingly onerous the trends in higher conditions of service and education: unsurprisingly the most prevalent the rapid casualisation is the ‘pivot online’ to of academic remote learning with all its manifestations and associated labour. concerns especially regarding access and vulnerability. This is closely followed by increasingly dominant narratives of austerity and marketisation – it is these on which I will focus here.
Laura Czerniewicz University of Cape Town, South Africa
I am using the term ‘austerity’ as an umbrella word for underfunding and financial cuts which drive up the risks of sectoral fragmentation and breakdown. Also an umbrella term, ‘marketisation’ speaks to the increasingly unfettered infiltration of big corporate forces substantially reshaping higher education.
Along with others (which include the increase in metrics and datafication of the sector), these factors increasingly drive the practices of individual institutions which have themselves become more corporate in character. My observations are drawn from various sources: panels in which I have recently participated including at the World Bank and Africa-based; the Twitterverse where the power of loose ties in my professional networks shows the emergent trends and on-the-ground anxieties. This has been augmented by ongoing virtual conversations with colleagues, funders and others and, of course, reports and talks, as well as rapid research publications.
Austerity There is an avalanche of activity and concern being expressed both formally and informally about the financial implications of the COVID-19 shutdown and the projected impacts of the associated economic downturn for institutions, for educators and for students. Internationally these are to be seen in the following ways: • There have been cuts to university budgets, some with immediate effect. • Students are indicating that they are not planning to start the next university year. • Universities are losing money from current budgets – for example, some are returning fees to current students. And students are demanding fee rebates for studies taken online instead of face to face. • Universities are offering students free tuition for the forthcoming term. • Contract and casual staff are losing jobs in several locations so far. • Job conditions are changing for all staff, often in the form of unpaid furloughs. continued overpage...
Connect ® Volume 13, no. 2 ® Semester 2, 2020
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