Why Commercialisation is problematic
for Teaching, Research and Equality in
Higher Education
Kathleen Lynch,
UCD Equality Studies Centre,
School of Social Justice
www.ucd.ie/esc
Presentation to the Commercialisation in Irish Education
Conference, School of Education, Trinity College Dublin and the
Campaign for Commercial-Free Education,
Saturday November 17th 2007
Restructuring from what to where?
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Education is seen as the new target for investors –once it is
privatised (GATS agreement, EU Services Directive)
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Reorganisation of power and control in higher education is presented as a
simple Technical Solution to technical problems to improve ‘efficiencies’
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There is an institutionalising of market values by technical processes
e.g. the creation of ‘internal markets’ in universities – each
department competes with the other for funding
Hidden hand of the market is masquerading as neutral through the
discourses of ‘restructuring’
The Operational Focus masks the way the University is being
commercialized (albeit packaged in the development discourses of ‘science’
‘excellence’ ‘world class universities’); bureaucratic accounting exercises
controls through counting, monitoring and evaluations that are invisible in the
public sphere
Pragmatic focus to funding especially for research:
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Growing elision of the differences between scholarship, and knowledge
generated for commercial or related purposes - failure to recognise the
conflict of between public interest values and commercial values in research
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Problems with Markets in Education:
Limiting access to higher education + limiting scope
for working in non-lucrative forms of employment
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In a commercially-driven system improving access for nontraditional entrants is not a priority as there is nothing intrinsic to
the market model of higher education that guarantees education
as a right; education becomes a purchasable service.
Empirical evidence suggests that having education markets
polarises intakes and reinforces social segregation (Archer, L. et
al. (2001) Higher Education and Social Class; and Ball, S.
(2003) Class Strategies and the Education Markets. Hugh
Lauder et al., (1999) Trading in Futures: why markets in
education don’t work.).
Fees in private US universities are averaging $35,000 - $45,000
per annum- huge debts incurred by students so they only want to
work in fields where they can ‘get a return’ to pay debts –
negative impact of this on public service recruitment, community
and voluntary sector employment
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Why Commercialisation is problematic for Equality of
Access, Participation and Outcomes
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The State is an in-eliminable agent in matters of justice: only the
state can guarantee to individual persons the right to be educated.
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If the state absolves itself of the responsibility to educate, rights
become more contingent; in a commercial system the right to education
will be contingent on the ability to pay.
Democratic Accountability must be distinguished from Market
Accountability
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In a democratically accountable system, each individual has an equal
right engagement
In a market-led system accountability will be contingent on market
capacity or resources
As higher education is almost becoming a prerequisite for
participation in the so-called knowledge economy – access to
higher education is no longer a matter of choice but an economic
necessity
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The absence of an individual right to higher education would mean
families with limited resources would have to ‘select’ who to send to
college.
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Why Education for Profit is problematic for Democracy:
Closing down of Dissent
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Primary function of Higher Education is to serve the Public
Interest (in the pluralistic sense) – it should be the watchdog for
the free interchange of knowledge and ideas and the public
guardian of the right to dissent
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It cannot focus on Public Interest Values if it is dependent on private
funding for research and teaching which may be cut off due to dissent
If Universities become dependent on private (corporate) finance, they
face huge conflicts of interest -public interest goals are often in
conflict with the self-interested goals of profit-making bodies –e.g. in
relation to patenting of new products/ideas
Education ‘markets’ are driven by competitive advantage and this
encourages privatisation of academic voices and scholarship –
 Why share research if one wants one’s own university or oneself
to profit from one’s own scholarship? Why dissent from the
reigning intellectual or political orthodoxies if it upsets your
employment or career prospects?
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Impact of Commercialisation on
research
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Strong incentive to undertake commercially-oriented research in a
commercially driven system;
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The work of Risa Lieberwitz, (2004) Professor of Labour Law, Cornell
University, shows that an estimated 50% of life sciences faculty members in
the US are consultants to industry and this limits their freedom to be critical of
their ‘industrial funders’
Why should universities/higher education bodies ever exist as research
institutions if their work is the synonymous with the interests of private
business?
At present the cost of basic research is being borne in greater part by
the taxpayers; how much of research funding to the natural sciences in
Irish universities is government funding? What % of university funding
in the sciences (‘natural sciences) is from the private sector?
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With commercialisation, research findings and research products are
increasingly patented (privately owned, licensed and sold) but if the State
has paid for their production why are they privatised? Who benefits?
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Impact of Commercialisation on Teaching and
What is Taught: Censorship of Critical Thought
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Markets are driven by concerns for efficiency but education cannot be, because:
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Critical thought, especially critical discourses and dissent is disabled by
commercialisation
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a) education for work and activities that is not marketable is still vital (e.g. for public
service, civil society, arts, care work etc.)
b) education of those who will never be producers in market terms is still necessary
e.g. closure of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham
in 2002; closure of all Women’ Studies Departments in Belgium since 2000)
Disciplines which have a strong tradition of critical discourse and debate are not
expanding at the same rate as commercially-driven fields of knowledge.
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With a small number of exceptions new Professorships and departments in Ireland
have been heavily concentrated in the more commercial sectors of science, technology
and business.
Declining investment in arts, humanities and social sciences – especially in those fields
and disciplines that have a record of dissent and critique
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The impact of commercialisation on the culture of
teaching and education in Universities
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In adopting business models of operation there is:
 A Move from being centres of learning and scholarship to service-delivery
operations with productivity targets – driven by unscientific ‘league tables’
and ‘rankings’
 A Down-grading of teaching, especially undergraduate teaching
 A Down-grading of the care of students as it is not measured or
measurable
 Electronic Tagging of Academic Staff -rewarded and promoted primarily
for publishing in electronically measurable publication outlets (journal
articles – imposition of the natural science model of value measurement
throughout the university sector) – Increased surveillance of all staff
 No incentive to publish within small countries (Ireland)
 A penalisation of Staff for publishing reports for statutory, voluntary or
other agencies (not counted as scholarly work) – (they do no count for
promotion in Human Sciences in UCD for example) and neither do public
lectures to non-academic audiences
 A Closing down of democratic dialogue between the universities and
civil society and even the state itself.
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New Authoritarianism
‘It is my call’
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‘It is my call’ – a response from a senior university manager to a query
as to why a committee decision was ignored and his personal
preferences dictated policy (Comment reported to the committee by a
member, May, 2006) (note head of RTE’s comment ‘A Judgement Call’
re ‘balance’ of the Late, Late Show panel, 9/11/2007)
Lack of openness and transparency – failure to reply to queries or acts
of obfuscation (3 very cordial emails and 2 phone calls elicit no
information on key research plans directly impacting on work;
September and October, 2007)
‘As College Principal, I am entitled to call whatever meetings I like to
discuss College business. Email: 26/1/2007: a response to a query why
the decision-making procedures of the College were not adhered to
Centralisation of power and the break up of collegiality – profound
demoralisation and disrespect for people of equal skill and expertise
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League Tables and Rankings:
a tool of the market
‘The new IQsim’
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Only measure outputs without assessing inputs systematically – in
terms of real resources, time, inherited identities, student needs
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No league tables assess universities in terms of diversity of
intake, especially in terms of openness to traditionally excluded
groups- in the US strong disincentive to take students who have
low grades (often the most disadvantaged) as it reduces rankings
in the US News and World Report Rankings –
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Growth of Merit-based student aid as opposed to Needs-Based
Student Aid (already happening in Ireland with entrants awards)
None of these rankings survey student opinion or staff opinion
None take account of local missions or national goals
The journals that are included for assessing academic citations
are overwhelmingly in English, predominantly American and
mostly owned and managed by commercial interests
Thomson Corporation (that owns and manages the Indices (ISI)
used to measure publications outputs), Quacquarelli Symonds,
The Times newspaper are all interlocking commercial interests
controlling the flow of highly unscientific information about
universities but the latter keep citing them if it suits their
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Shanghai Jiao Tong Technological University
Criteria for ranking of Universities 2007
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5 criteria were used in 2007– This is how they graded the ‘top 500’
Universities: Only published articles are included, all books are excluded
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10% for Nobel laureates among graduates (chemistry, physics, medicine,
economics and Fields Medals in maths) 5 subjects only
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20% for Nobel laureates awarded to current staff in above 5 areas
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20% for Articles in two science-related journals Nature and Science
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20% for Highly cited researchers in 21 areas (all 21 subject areas bar one,
and part of another, are in science or technology).
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20% for Articles in Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science
Citation Index (many of the prestigious journals in the social sciences are not
listed)
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10% for overall academic performance: weighted scores on the above five
indices divided by full-time equivalent academic staff members
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Total 100%
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Shanghai Jiao Tong method:
Inherent bias against the arts, humanities and
critical social sciences
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Shanghai Jiao Tong is a Technological University so why are
we evaluating universities by their criteria?
50% of the evaluation is based on Nobel prizes (Medicine,
Physics, Chemistry and Economics), Fields medals
(Mathematics) and science journals alone
Books not included – too difficult –yet in the
arts/humanities/social sciences (AHSS) – a variety of studies
show at least 50% of publications are in book form
Most large universities are mixed disciplinary institutions – ceteris
paribus, highly specialised science-related institutions are
ranked higher
The methodology of the Jiao Tong league table system is at
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2006/ARWU2006Methodology.htm#Met
h5
Authors themselves do not even claim it is objective!
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Universities use Unscientific Data to measure their
own performance!
Times Higher Education so-called ‘World Rankings’
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Breach of the most basic scientific principle: access to the methodology
employed is not available (see the paper by Prof. Simon Marginson*,
Professor of Higher Education, University of Melbourne,16th Annual New
Zealand, International Education Conference, 8-10th of August, Christchurch,
2007)
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40% of grade is based on a ‘peer review exercise’ by Qs – Quacquarelli Symonds –
‘contacted 3,703 academics around the world’ asked to name their top 30 universities
in their fields: We have no idea how were these sampled nor how they counted
and weighted? *The better the marketing the higher the standing
10% based on graduate 736 ‘international’recruiters’ Who are these? Why these?
20% for staff student ratio: dividing student numbers by staff numbers- ‘staff who have
a regular contractual relationship’ Who knows what is counted here in terms of
staffing?
20% for citations measured by Thompson Scientific in Philadelphia and divided by staff
numbers (only journal articles are counted)
5% for the % of overseas staff; 5% for the % overseas students
Total: 100%
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German Model of University Evaluation
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Centre for Higher Education and Development (CHE) and the German Academic
Exchange Service (using the publisher Die Zeit) have developed a model of evaluation
now used in Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands and Flanders
In Germany CHE Surveys 130,000 students and 16,000 staff on student experiences and
satisfaction and academic recommendations on good departments in different fields. 36
subjects are covered. It uses other independent data sources to complement the survey
but none directly from the universities.
It does not rank universities but locates them individually across a range of areas –
including teaching, diversity, quality of student experience, mission etc.
It avoids the flaws of holistic educational indicators and the inappropriateness of creating
inappropriate ordinal scales, and it includes a wide range of disciplines
Data is available free of charge on an interactional web-enabled data base; students can
create their own ‘rankings’ based on their priorities
The normative power of comparison is shifted from the ranking agencies (currently
commercial interests) to the student and academic staff who know the universities/colleges
Source: Usher, A. and Savino, M 2006, A World of Difference; a global survey of university
league tables, accessed November 13th 2007 at http://www.educationalpolicy.org)
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Academic Capitalism at work
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Universities are increasingly legitimating the pursuit
of individualised economic self-interest and career
interests among staff (new contracts with inflated
salaries to selected groups) – no incentive to be
collegial and little incentive to teach once one is a
senior lecturer or professor
Staff and student idealism to work ‘in the service of
humanity is diminished when colleges and
universities begin to function largely as ferociously
competitive business-oriented corporations
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Why Democratic Public control of Higher
Education Matters in a ‘Knowledge Economy’
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People have a right to education – Article 24 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14 (ICESCR)
Education is indispensable for realising other rights
Education has an intrinsic value for the development of the individual
– for the exercise of capabilities, choices and freedoms
Education has a care function as well as a development function: this
cannot be guaranteed in a privatised system
Education enables one to overcome other social disadvantages
Education is a Public Good as well as a Personal Good- it enriches
cultural, social, political and economic life locally and globally
Education credentials play a crucial role in mediating access to other
goods, notably employment, culture etc.
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