Divesting in Higher Education is Investing in Ignorance

In these economically conflicting times when many governments, including mine, are not so generously inclined to fund higher education as a public good or priority, I join those who are waving cautionary flags in their national contexts to wave one in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Recently, in an opinion piece in the New York Times , Paul Krugman, cited that former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, and President Obama have declared that if Americans want more good news on the jobs front then they will have to invest more  in education, that is, invest in higher education.  This high level acknowledgement underscores that a nation’s economic growth and success cannot be had without the enabling of higher education to play its pivotal role in producing the higher level skills worker required to drive the economy.

Another American, a former Harvard University President Derek Bok, once uttered the now famous quote:  “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” 

If the foregoing statements were to be contextualized for the PNG context, they would read something like this:  Papua New Guineans cannot talk social and economic development without investing in the institutions that produce the higher level skills workers to drive the economy, and the educated citizens for democratic participation.  And if Papua New Guineans think higher education is too costly for the public purse and money is better diverted and used to support mass basic education, then PNG needs to prepare itself for the economic and social consequences of under-investment in higher education.

But, fortunately at last, some welcome corrective action is happening that might rescue universities from irreparable ruin.  The recent interest in the tertiary sector indicates that higher education is being positioned on the mainstream development agenda.  One of the first definitive signs of interest came from the Garnaut- Namaliu review of the university system in late 2009.  Another signal of this interest was on Australian soil. The Australian Council for Education Research 's (ACER) Higher Education UPDATE Edition 6 of September 2010 reported that ACER and Massero consulting had conducted the research which entailed a needs analysis and an analysis of course and curricula through the AusAID Education Resource Facility of which ACER was a consortium partner.  The latest study of the sector is being undertaken by another well respected Australian academic, Emeritus Professor Ingrid Moses, who is also contracted by AusAID to carry out a scoping study on teacher quality in PNG Universities.  She is tasked to identify feasible mechanisms to attract and retain good quality academics for PNG universities. On February 18, Prof Moses met with the deans of faculties and other senior academics of Divine Word University (DWU). Discussions with DWU staff therefore canvassed views on the issues of staff attraction and retention including staff development, remuneration, housing provision, engagement in consultancies and security. The need for her study had ostensibly emerged from findings highlighted in the Garnaut-Namaliu review.  The findings to emerge from these studies are said to inform PNG’s higher education policy and planning such as the 2010-2030 National Higher Education Plan.

The report of the findings from the Garnaut- Namaliu review is before the PNG government. Unfortunately, the report has not been made public. Nevertheless, the findings were presented in Australia at a conference at Australian National University.  In their interview with ABC  Radio Australia  Garnaut and Namaliu portrayed a university system in a sorry state after “decades of decline”.  Hence, they needed serious intervention to rehabilitate them in order to stem the declining quality of their awards. However, they also expressed that throwing untied money at them was not the answer and recommended that funding be linked to performance.

The Garnaut-Namaliu findings, and findings to emerge from the Moses’ study on issues around staffing mostly likely, will only confirm what those in the sector have known and decried over the years.  From 2003, there have been many reports in the national newspapers that would point to a university system in trouble and unable to meet the demands placed on it. The head of the Office of Higher Education, Dr Tagis, in Sept 2003 said of neglect that: “The higher education sector was “down on its knees”. Former Vice Chancellor of the University of Goroka, Dr David Rawlence, lamenting yet another less than expected budget allocation expressed that underfunding meant that: “…the government has ignored the strategic importance of providing the university with a capital line….” In the Editorial of one of the daily newspapers, The Post Courier, on 6 April 2005, it was stated that: “The starving of the institutions through the budget process is having dire consequences.”  Outspoken Vice Chancellor of the University of Technology, Dr Baloiloi, also in 2005 warned that institutions were “surviving on life support …as they struggled to survive the cardiac arrest caused by funding deficiencies….” Dr Baloiloi went on to say that such a neglect of the higher education sector, particularly the universities, “was tantamount to neglecting brain development in a growing human being.” Simon Kenehe of the Commission for Higher Education described the government’s emphasis on secondary and primary education as “misplaced”.  He was reported to have said that he was “not convinced for one bit that the primary and secondary education sectors will help speed up our country’s economic growth both in the short and long term.”  Speaking to the Garnaut-Namaliu review in November 2009, Dr Baloiloi used the analogy of the golden goose to criticize the PNG government which he described as too focused on demanding the goose to lay the golden egg but had neglected to take care of the goose itself.   The Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, himself expressed concerns about the quality of higher education provided by universities. Commenting on the key link between staff quality and quality education, the Prime Minister was reported in The Post Courier as saying that: “Quality education and training is simply not possible without a cadre of well prepared and competent teachers and academics.” He further said that universities need to attract and retain their “most highly qualified national academics.”  In a letter to the Editor then a ‘concerned academic’ cited that not less than eight highly qualified academics, half of whom being Papua New Guineans, had left the University of Papua New Guinea in 2002.

So, just how do we explain the sudden renewed interest in higher education?  In my view, the stark reality that is making the PNG politician sit up and take notice is that meeting national development targets, articulated in the various strategic and policy documents such as the Medium Term Development Strategies (MTDS), Vision 2050, Education Reform of the 90s, and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are less attainable without higher education being enabled at the same time to help and/ or champion the drive forward towards these goals.

Kamalesh Sharma, the current Commonwealth Secretary General, in a speech prepared for the Vice Chancellors’ Conference in Cape Town, South Africa for end of April 2010, made the following remarks, which again emphasize the importance of investing in higher education. “Higher education is where the real skills and real motors for development are born.  The health of higher education is the surest sign of a society on the move.  As key institutions of civil society, universities are uniquely positioned between the communities they serve, and the governments they advise. They are at the core of society, and often in the rebuilding of broken societies.” 

Winning the Lottery of PNG Higher Education

A Papua New Guinean to get a place at any of the nation’s six universities and a range of lower tier tertiary institutions is akin to winning a lottery. It is a privilege that only the luckiest one  percent of the nation’s 6 million people enjoy now. 



2011 Enrollment time at DWU



Those like me consider ourselves amongst the most select of this one percent of the Papua New Guineans. Not only have we graduated from university but we have also completed higher education at its highest level, PhD, at international universities.  The women in this elite group are even more select in a country where the success of girls and women in education at any level is less than that for the boys and men.

So the lottery that is played out at the start of every year is witnessed at the start of 2011. There is the predictable intense jostling for the limited places available. Annually, thousands of students finish year 12.  In 2010 about 13 000 students matriculated. 

Such a high demand for higher education should be a blessing for the nation. Indeed, PNG would like the privilege of higher education to be enjoyed by many more of its citizens much sooner rather than later. In fact, the nation would like an additional 300 000 tertiary educated citizens by 2020 to support an anticipated economic boom, and improve its poor record on every human development indicator.  However, the current output from tertiary institutions is not more than five thousand per year. The target of 300 000 in less than ten years is a big ask.

And therein is the huge challenge facing the nation and those who demand higher education. The equation is simple: Demand far exceeds the capacity of institutions. Of those completing year 12, about half will find a place at tertiary institutions. Of these, it is reported that 3 650 would get funding assistance from the state in 2011.  In Divine Word University’s case, it has a capacity to physically accommodate 1500 students full time in total this year.  This could mean housing three to four students in one room intended for not more than two.

This is the nature of the challenge that must first be engaged with meaningfully by the state, the higher education sector and the tertiary institutions before the higher education sector can effectively respond to the national development strategy articulated in the 2050 Vision.

Is there a best practice model of governance for PNG universities?

In this post I raise and theorise on a question that is perhaps best deliberated on at the national higher education sector level in my country Papua New Guinea (PNG). The question is: Is there a best practice model of governance for PNG universities?

If there is an existing ideal model or one that is being envisioned, then it may have been alluded to last November by Sir Rabbie Namaliu, a former prime minister of Papua New Guinea. At the 28^th graduation of Pacific Adventist University (PAU) Sir Namaliu was reported to have praised both PAU and Divine Word University (DWU) as the best universities in the country.

Sir Namaliu singled out two specific points for praise, one, high ethical standards and two, prudent management of limited funds. Public appraisal such as this seems to advance a model of governance that is primarily external in referencing. This model, it can be concluded, is one that is accountable and best deals with environmental uncertainty particularly funding uncertainty.

Sir Namaliu’s commendation was also noteworthy as it was made on the back of a recent review of the tertiary sector by a joint PNG and Australian governments’ committee chaired by Prof Ross Garnaut, which included Sir Namaliu himself.

As an insider of one of the two universities commended, DWU, I would like to share my view of its governance model. In the process of preparing for the resumption of the 2011 academic year later this month, I recently reflected on DWU’s theme for 2011: Matching Higher Education to the Labour Market. Adopting an annual theme around which to plan activities and measure outcomes for the year is one of DWU’s practices that perhaps epitomises its model of governance.  DWU’s president expounds on the thinking behind the practice of adopting an annual theme:

Any institution which has a clear vision and Strategic Plan needs to have a driving force which focuses on specific tasks during each academic year that is pointed out by a theme.  DWU has a very clear direction, thus each year, the University theme is assisting us to achieve our set of objectives and measure them accordingly.

Dwelling on the topic of university governance reminds me of the illustration (see below) I had developed for my PhD thesis. [My thesis titled: Exploration of a University Culture: A Papua New Guinea Case Study can be sourced from http://eprints.vu.edu.au/2027/1/salonda.pdf].  It may be a bit simplistic, but the illustration assisted me to encapsulate and plot the continuum of university governance models as I had been informed by the current literature on higher education I had reviewed, particularly the works by distinguished Australian academics, Professors Simon Marginson and Mark Considine.

It can be concluded from the illustration that multiple models of university governance exist at the same time. However, to ensure survival, different models have to negotiate and accommodate two competing realities, the uncertain fast changing external environment on the one hand, and the more stable deeply embedded internal operative principle of academic freedom on the other.  The type of governance at the either end of the continuum is likely to exclude one reality to the detriment of the organization. The pure collegial model being predominantly influenced by the internal operative principle of academic freedom and closed off to the external environment can not survive in the current context. Either irrelevancy or sustained resource deprivation will kill it off. The entrepreneurial or market model at the other end of the continuum, by being too market-driven, may be stigmatized for non-conformity to some accepted ideal of a university.

Returning to my opening question of whether there is a common best-practice model of university governance in PNG, the answer is that there probably is none at this stage. As to the governance model adopted by DWU, with a structure that places a Governing Council and executive managers at the apex of decision making and with practices epitomised in management practices such as by strategic planning, quality assurance and  market-driven rhetoric, DWU is located at the newer end of governance-models’ continuum. Decision-making centralized at executive management continues to ensure that DWU deals with the uncertainty in the external environment. However, tensions between managers and academics suggest that negotiating how to best accommodate academic freedom is an ongoing challenge.

One Developing World University’s Faith in Technology to Deliver

Adopting solar technology

In early November 2010, the President of Divine Word University (DWU), Papua New Guinea (PNG), Fr Jan Czuba, outlined the key challenges the university was likely to face in 2011 and asked how as a team the staff could face these going forward:

·         We need to explore ways in which we can contribute to the achievement of National Vision 2050.

·         How can we increase the enrolment at our university?

·         Do we have the necessary policy to ensure quality of research, teaching, learning and community service?

·         What is our progress to become a paperless and green university?

·         Are we incorporating ICT into our teaching, learning?

Contained in the challenges are competing realities that DWU must confront and manage. If it wants to be a reliable and leading national and regional higher education player, DWU has to increase access. It must do so whilst keeping costs down, assuring quality and being socially responsible. These are big calls for a university that is not financially well-endowed and one operating in a financially stringent environment. 

However, DWU management is leveraging technology including ICT, prudent financial management, and the policy mechanism to respond to the demands and manage risks. The technology and policy strategies adopted include:

• promoting e-learning as evidenced in the provision of laptops with Internet access to students; as well as the promotion amongst  staff to incorporate e-learning technologies in teaching and learning.
• the promotion and use of solar-technology and energy-saving devices.  The project to light up its campuses with solar lighting is being rolled out. (picture above)
• adopting energy efficient and paper minimisation policies

More information on DWU can be sought from: http://www.dwu.ac.pg

What Value do PNG Higher Education Providers see in their Students?

Recently, on my university’s intranet discussion forum, I posted the question: What value do we see in our students? I was prompted to ask the question of my organization having just read the Times Higher Education edition of 26 November, 2010 article by Simon Baker, Hefce head denounces likely loss of arts teaching funding, in which the chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Sir Alan Langlands, is quoted to have had this caution for the Higher Education (HE) sector in his country:

If we value our students simply for what we get out of them or what they might earn in the future, be assured that they will in turn estimate our value by what they can get out of us and I think that would be a betrayal of our higher education system in the UK.

Such sentiments in the global HE arena are linked to a fundamental question being asked, heatedly debated on and even literally fought over. The question is:

 Is Higher Education a public good and therefore be funded as a public service, or is it a private good and as such the cost be borne by those who benefit most from it, the clients?

Many nations the world over, including England, Canada and Australia, for instance, have redefined HE as a private good rather than a public good. The changed perception of the purpose of HE has staunch supporters and detractors. In the news recently you would have read or seen the protests in England following announcements of more funding cuts to universities.  The protests, some elements of which have been responsible for the destruction of property, are but some of the immediate socially detrimental consequences of the changed perception of HE being played out. 

In Papua New Guinea, there are those within  its higher education sector who would like to see HE cast in a more vocational mold. This is yet another outcome of the changed view of the purpose of HE.

Many commentators on higher education see that the impact of the redefinition of the purpose of HE is being felt and will continue to be felt both in the short and long term at the personal, institutional and at the societal levels.   From the perspective of the paying student or client, the simple economic logic increasingly defines choice of program of study: If I am paying a high cost for HE, than it is an investment for which I expect high returns, the sooner the better. At the institutional level, HE providers facing financial shortfalls will focus provision on programs that are in high demand as these translate immediately to revenue generation.  The kinds of programs that are more likely to meet the provider and client expectations are programs mainly in the business and vocational fields. The providers view students as clients and value them for the money that can be made out of them. In my own institution, a whole organizational unit is set up to capitalise on the growing demand for vocational education or client-tailored HE.  For us, if we assure the quality of the  products/programs, this leads to a win-win situation for both, where the clients’ needs are met and the institution generates much needed income to support organizational functions.

However, there are dangers to society of having its higher education institutions pursue a primarily private or instrumental goal. In another Times Higher Education article, Roger Lister, a professor at Salford Business School, University of Salford, decries that such a narrow focus does a disservice not just to some of a nation’s best young minds but also to the greater good of society:

Today's disadvantaged are the graduates of degree courses that, with government encouragement, have imparted "marketable" education in the narrowest sense. Such faculties are operating as de-disciplined skills factories rather than universities.

As to what purpose PNGHE should serve, one of my colleagues who contributed to the discussion in response to the question I posted expressed this view:

Putting it simply,… our institutions of Higher Learning or Higher Education for that matter, must take on board both enterprises, the vocational and the academic disciplines; i.e. the enterprise of feeding the labour market with skilled labourers whilst at the same time engaging in the more intellectual pursuits in view of instilling well-roundedness in our students for general life.
My own view is that this is an important issue for the PNGHE sector, particularly universities, to be engaged in by critiquing public policy. In so doing they will help shape national HE policy for the short and long-term good of the nation, the users of HE service and the providers of Higher Education.  This is an opportune time to be actively engaged as the sector deliberates on and develops  its Higher Education Development Plan III.

A Case for public funding support for ‘private’ higher education in PNG

The incumbent National Alliance Party led government in Papua New Guinea (PNG) handed down its 2011 budget recently. All up, the projected spending is to the tune of just over 9 billion PNG Kina, approximately 4 billion Australian dollars.

This is the budget that we hope begins to underwrite the implementation of the Vision 2050 national development plan.  In my blog entry of 18 October, 2010, I wrote that the higher education sector is being called upon to increase by tens of thousands its output of trained workforce required in both the public and private sectors to carry PNG forward. 

PNG will need all of its six universities, four public and two private, to expand to increase access and output. However, when additional funding is necessary across the sector, the public universities receive budgetary allocations, and the two ‘private’ universities on the face of it seem to miss out altogether.

In the case of Divine Word University (DWU), this seems to be against the spirit of the current partnership relationship that the institution has with the state.  Since 21st August 1996 (National Executive Council Decision No: 134/96) DWU is recognized as a partner university in the development of higher education in PNG. As of 15th of October 2003 (National Executive Council Decision No: 187/03), it is recognized as an agency of higher education in PNG. Its programs are accredited by the Commission for Higher Education.  Its students are drawn from all levels of PNG society many from disadvantaged regions.  Many of its students have parents in formal employment who contribute to the state in paying taxes. DWU’s increasing numbers of alumni are and will contribute to the nation in numerous capacities both in the public and private sectors.

With such benefits flowing to the nation from private universities, the question is why there is again no budgetary support?  Perhaps this is due to how the word ‘private’ is defined and applied to the two non-state universities. What the term ‘private’ translates to as applied to universities, varies in terms of the goals and contexts. In mainly wealthy nations, a private university is a corporate entity engaged in the delivery of the higher education product as a commercial venture. The primary motive for engagement in higher education is therefore the bottom line for the provider and the promise of high returns in employment and salaries for the student customer. Any benefits to the common good that may flow are happy coincidences.

In the developing world contexts such as PNG, universities which are purely commercial in interests are not likely to be going concerns any time soon. The two universities currently labeled as ‘private’ are established and run by either a religious organization, as the case with DWU, or a Church denomination in the case of Pacific Adventist University (PAU).

DWU’s involvement in higher education is driven by a sense of altruism or a commitment to serving the common good in a context of need.  This is the basis of the partnership relationship that it has with the state of PNG, an understanding that the state alone is not able meet the needs of its people.  

At a time when the nation needs all its tertiary institutions to massively increase the training of the its human resource, and there is more money to spend, it is time perhaps to consider extending  a helping hand to the ‘private’ universities in order to enable them to further support national development needs.  In doing so, the state also tangibly supports the PNG students both pre and in service who are enrolled in these institutions who otherwise may be denied access to higher education for lack of capacity at public universities. DWU’s graduate output is increasing by the year. DWU’s current enrollment figure stands at 3050 with a projected enrollment at 5000 by 2016. It can do more and some level of state support will help it go a long way.

A Higher Education Teaching and Learning Philosophy

Helping students swallow seeds from which beautiful tomorrows will grow

In the revised application form for promotions, staff in my university now are required to outline their teaching and learning philosophies. As I completed  mine, I reflected, for the first time really, on what my teaching and learning philosophy is. As it just happened, I had been processing the final portfolio assignments of one of my literature classes. Through this activity that I came upon an appropriate analogy, the analogy of swallowing water melon seeds. The analogy captures well what teaching is about for me. The student wrote [with some modification from me] in concluding the portfolio:

Studying literature is like eating water-melon. Your first action will be to carefully remove the seeds before every bite. But seeds are the most significant things from which beautiful tomorrows will grow.

Reflecting on the philosophical insight of this analogy makes me see how meaningful this is for me as a lecturer. The act of teaching and learning to me becomes an art often times of making knowledge (the seeds) palatable to help students comprehend (swallow) it, and then observe the students’ growing appreciation for it (the sprouting and rooting of seeds).

Considered in the context of current questions about the purpose of universities, to me, the analogy underscores the view held by many students and indeed by other groups both inside and outside the university that not all programs or units or components of knowledge in a program are useful or relevant.  They treat these programs or units, mainly in the social sciences, as ‘the watermelon seeds’ that on first instinct are to be dug up and flicked off or in the least unwillingly tolerated as having little utility.

The challenge for the lecturer, and indeed the university at large, is to make these ‘seeds’ palatable for the students and others to swallow now with the certain knowledge that they will come to enjoy the sweetness of their fruit later in life. These ‘seeds’ have value not just for the individual but for the society at large.