{"id":60461,"date":"2021-11-30T01:41:54","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T06:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=60461"},"modified":"2021-11-30T18:39:52","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T23:39:52","slug":"2-out-of-3-members-of-university-governing-bodies-have-no-professional-expertise-in-the-sector-theres-the-making-of-a-crisis-november-30-2021-6-11am-aedt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/2-out-of-3-members-of-university-governing-bodies-have-no-professional-expertise-in-the-sector-theres-the-making-of-a-crisis-november-30-2021-6-11am-aedt\/","title":{"rendered":"2 out of 3 members of university governing bodies have no professional expertise in the sector. There\u2019s the making of a crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nTo say Australian universities are in crisis is to state the obvious. A\u00a0common narrative<\/a>\u00a0suggests the most immediate cause of the current crisis is \u201creduced international student revenue and income from investments, such as dividends\u201d during the pandemic. Some correlation is undeniable. However, many\u00a0commentators have noted<\/a>\u00a0that the problems besetting our universities transcend financial issues alone and predate the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The root causes, we suggest, lie in radical changes in how Australian universities are governed. The shift toward a quasi-corporate model of governance included a significant change in the composition of universities\u2019 governing bodies.<\/p>\n

In the past, a majority of their members had a background in the tertiary education sector. Today barely a third do, our research for\u00a0Academics for Public Universities<\/a>\u00a0has found.<\/p>\n

Some commentators<\/a>\u00a0see a more corporate form of university governance as both inevitable and necessary. We believe it is neither. The increasing detachment of university governance from the university community itself has serious consequences.<\/p>\n

COVID brought crises to a head<\/strong><\/h4>\n

A\u00a0recent report<\/a>\u00a0by The Australia Institute calculated more than 40,000 university jobs were lost in the year to May 2021. That equates to 20% of the total pre-pandemic university workforce, a rate\u00a0two to three times greater<\/a>\u00a0than overall pandemic job losses in Australia. The number also exceeds the\u00a0jobs that would be lost<\/a>\u00a0in total if all thermal coal mining in Australia were to end.<\/p>\n

The casualisation of the academic workforce has also reached\u00a0staggering proportions<\/a>. The related issues of\u00a0wage theft<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0staff bullying<\/a>\u00a0have regularly made the news.
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With more than a quarter of Australia\u2019s universities now implicated, wage theft is part of the business model of corporatised higher education in Australia. https:\/\/t.co\/k3vQ9b2mVp<\/a><\/p>\n

— Pearls and Irritations (@johnmenadue) November 2, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n