On NSW Universities: Part 2

Editorial, ‘A big F for universities’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15.08.02

They once were icons of integrity, citadels of civilisation, bastions of benevolence. But universities have fallen on hard times and so, too, have their reputations. Put to their first comprehensive test of how they adapted to the “real world” of financial self-sufficiency, NSW’s 10 public universities scored poorly in report cards marked by the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption. The failings were due as much to poor attitude as to inadequate management, but both were responsible for tilling a ground fertile for corruption.

Having surveyed 262 public sector organisations on their preparedness to anticipate, detect, prevent and prosecute corruption, the ICAC found universities consistently lagged. Worse still, some universities do not acknowledge their poor preparation and thumb their noses at public accountability requirements. As a result, they are vulnerable to an array of potential corruption, from cheating and plagiarism to the falsification of results and academic credentials, financial fraud and bribery.

The consequence, of course, is diminution of public trust in these once august institutions. Where does that leave university qualifications? Corruption not only rewards cheats; once its odour has penetrated public consciousness, it devalues the efforts of those who strive for and those who achieve excellence. Such are the shortcomings of some university record-keeping that forged paperwork for a degree, with inside help, can be reinforced by matching corrupted archive records. Already, one part-time worker is accused of deleting fellow students’ fail marks, and an Asia-based Web site promises “verifiable” Australian degrees for $18,000. Just how much corruption infects tertiary education is concealed by the propensity of some university management to breach statutory duties by not reporting it.

Is this a manifestation only of modern times? Is university corruption (or, at least, a climate for it) exposed only because the spotlight is finally turned on it? Without a comparative benchmark from earlier times, it’s difficult to be sure. But university cultures have changed dramatically since 1988, when the Federal Government began encouraging commercialism, and particularly since 1996, when the Government gave this reorientation a big nudge by announcing funding would be slashed by $1 billion a year.

Universities turned to overseas students, whose numbers have tripled to about 112,000 over the past decade and who pay more than $800 million a year in full fees. The overseas contingent makes up 10 per cent of a student population which has jumped by about a half to 750,000. That may ease some of the immediate financial pain but it seems to have convinced some administrators, now forced to act as entrepreneurs, that standards sometimes needed to be compromised to maintain the student flow. This is just one way corruptibility dug in.

Some blame lies with the Government for pushing universities too quickly on alternative funding. But some university management has been naive and incompetent and must get its head out of the sand before reputations are battered forever. Co-operation in the development of a national and secure records archive would be a good starting point.

Part Two/To be continued…

https://plus.google.com/102570846335477444113/posts/dA9VnBPxgAR