2006:32 R

More tasks for higher education institutions? - Development in recent years and the viewpoints of the Vice Chancellors

This report is intended to describe the problems that this extended mission entails and the possibilities it offers. It should be considered as providing a basis for the continued discussion of the tasks of higher education in which the National Agency for Higher Education constantly plays an active role.

For this purpose we have studied how a number of tasks have changed over time. This analysis shows that there has been a marked increase in the directives issued to the higher education institutions in the number of tasks that they are required to account for. However it is difficult to assess the magnitude of these changes in terms of the workload each task entails in comparison to previous years when the institutions may have undertaken the same tasks even though they were not stipulated in their directives.

We have therefore asked the higher education institutions themselves how they experience this situation in practice. The response we have received is that the higher education institutions have a strong feeling that their workloads have risen.
The following points summarise the points of view most frequently expressed by the Vice-Chancellors.

• It is admittedly positive that the community places such great confidence in what the higher education institutions can achieve. But this reliance verges on overconfidence and above all wrongly placed expectations in relation to the primary aims of higher education.
• The great attention paid to higher education and the public notice it receives is a positive development. The negative aspect, however, is that the increase in accountability and commitments resulting from this reliance is not matched by any augmentation of funding to enable the higher education institutions to cope with the tasks.
• All of the higher education institutions are formally required to discharge a large number of tasks even though the conditions in which they operate vary.
• The autonomy of the higher education institutions is felt to be increasingly restricted as they are subject to more and more regulation, mainly through the reports required in their directives.
• Many of the Vice-Chancellors feel that it is difficult to give priority to core functions and their development.

There are two other issues that can be seen to be central after the analysis we have made. The first is whether it is sustainable to continue with a system in which the same diversity is required, in principle, of all the higher education institutions. The second concerns what will become of academic liberty and the core functions when so many other tasks compete for space and resources.

Hopefully the National Agency for Higher Education can contribute by providing different forms of information on which to base discussion of how the tasks are to be dealt with and allocated in higher education. This report is an indication that discussion of this kind is necessary. What remains to be established is the form in which it may be undertaken.