Work in progress 15 July 2012
A genealogy of knowledge as an accountable commodity
Keith Dixon
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Paper for 13th World Congress of Accounting Historians
Newcastle, Northumbria
17-19 July 2012
Corresponding author:
Keith Dixon
Accounting and Information Systems Department
College of Business and Economics
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch 8140
New Zealand.
keith.dixon@canterbury.ac.nz
+64 (0)3 364 2987 x3681
Acknowledgements
1
Abstract
This study is about how and why knowledge in the form of higher education learning has
come to be accounted for using calculative practices. These practices are evident in public
funding of higher education based on equivalent full-time students, student fee charging
methods, credit accumulation and transfer systems, qualification frameworks, graduate
profiles, levels of learning, learning outcomes, specifications of qualifications and
courses/modules in credit points, assessment scores and grades, students’ academic records,
diploma supplements, and things of that ilk. Using a genealogical approach, the antecedents
of these various paraphernalia are analysed and exemplified, mainly in a former British
settler-colony/dominion setting that is now a parliamentary democracy but in which
managerialistic ideas are ascendant. There, the antecedents were influenced significantly by
practices of the ancient universities in the colonising country. This was in an effort to attain
equivalence in standards to these institutions, but at the same time being cognisant of the
colony’s needs for but shortage of secondary school teachers; and later, the dominion’s needs
for various professionals, including academics. Consequent to political, economic and social
change in the post-WWII years, increased demands for educated labour, restructuring of
higher education as a public policy system, broadening of the higher education curriculum,
wider access to higher education, and mechanised forms of accounting also became
influential. The third major twist was the imposition on and adoption by higher education
institutions of various ideas associated with neo-liberalism and managerialism. These have
included giving students the status of consumers, managing academics and academic
innovation, standardising qualifications, and formalising quality assurance, including using
audit and accreditation methods. Incidental to these histories, the study raises the basic issue
of whether the practices and paraphernalia analysed comprise an as yet unrecognised form of
accounting.
Keywords: university degrees, genealogy, path dependency, higher education standards,
higher education massification and diversification, managerialism in education, curricular
accounting
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Introduction
Widespread studies of accounting usages and their contexts have illuminated accountings as
technologies of order and of legitimation. Very few of these studies of the socio-political
functions of accounting are set in university contexts, and one such study reported an absence
of accounting (Pettersen and Solstad, 2007). However, perhaps that is because the researchers
looked at the wrong things and in the wrong places?
This study is about how and why knowledge in the form of higher education learning has
come to be accounted for using calculative practices. These practices are evident in some
likely facets of university systems: public funding of higher education based on equivalent
full-time students (EFTSs); and student fee charging methods. But they are now prominent in
technology to do with knowledge measurement and certification, found among less likely
facets of university systems closer to, indeed adjacent to, the education coal face. That is in
qualification frameworks, credit accumulation and transfer systems, specifications of
qualifications, award regulations, graduate profiles, levels of learning, learning outcomes,
course catalogues itemising courses/modules in credit points and course weights, assessment
scores and grades, students’ academic records, student transcripts and diploma supplements
(re the latter, see European Commission, 2009b), and related paraphernalia.
In this paper, these various practices and paraphernalia are analysed and exemplified
retrospectively, mainly in a former British settler-colony/dominion setting, namely New
Zealand, that is now a parliamentary democracy but in which managerialistic ideas are
ascendant (Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008). The paper reports how the antecedents of today’s
practices and paraphernalia continue to reflect the significant influence on them from the
ancient universities in the colonising country(ies), namely Scotland and England. This
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influence derived from efforts to attain equivalence in standards of learning and certification
to those associated with these ancient institutions, while cognisant of some local needs for
people in short supply. In particular, secondary school teachers were needed in the colony;
and later, various professionals (e.g., engineers, accountants, home-grown academics) were
needed in the dominion. Consequent to political, economic and social change in the postWWII years, increased demands for educated labour, broadening of the higher education
curriculum in line with other mainly-English-speaking countries, restructuring of higher
education as a public policy system, wider access to higher education, and mechanised forms
of accounting also became influential. The third major twist was the imposition on, and
adoption by, higher education institutions of various ideas associated with neo-liberalism and
managerialism. These have included giving students the status of consumers, managing
academics and academic innovation, standardising qualifications, and formalising quality
assurance, including using audit and accreditation methods. Incidental to these histories, the
study raises the basic issue of whether the calculative practices and paraphernalia analysed
comprise an as yet unrecognised form of accounting.
The paper comprises an opening descriptive section on the paraphernalia just referred to.
Next is an explanation of method. Then there are three sections of descriptive analysis
covering the three themes outlined in the previous paragraph: the establishment of institutions
worthy of the name university through setting, policing, evaluating and raising of
standards/qualities of university-student learning and assessing the equivalence of such
learning; university enlargement; and a re-assessment of the philosophy of universities and of
public services in the age of neo-liberalism.
4
Knowledge Measurement and Curricular Accounting
Credit is used frequently in higher education to refer to learning that, having been assessed as
above specified standards, counts towards a student’s qualification. In recent decades, in
Europe and internationally, including in New Zealand and at the University of Canterbury,
credit has become accounted for using a collection of increasingly convergent calculative
practices. Among these practices, the most obvious feature is credit points, which quantify
volumes of learning entailed in courses[1] and qualifications. Other features are levels of
learning, level descriptors and learning outcomes, including means of measuring and
recording them: these indicate qualities of learning. When they were first being introduced in
England, Theodossin (1986) coined for these practices the term curricular accounting. This
term has still not yet appeared in any accounting journal, begging the question of whether
curricular accounting is a form of accounting and worthy of inquiry by accounting
researchers, so it is appropriate to reflect on this matter here briefly.
The technology referred to as curricular accounting is usually not part of the remit of persons
whose daily specialist duties are identified with accounting in universities (e.g., bursars,
finance registrars, college or faculty divisional accountants) but is dealt with by other
institutional officials (e.g., managers of student administration, and of academic strategy,
programmes, policy and quality) and academics. The accounting literature is devoid of the
term and subject matter, notwithstanding that the practices of curricular accounting are part of
the academic work environment of most contributors to accounting conferences and journals.
However, in discussing the significant extension of accounting in the functioning of modern
industrial (and now global) societies, Burchell, Clubb, Hopwood, Hughes and Nahapiet
(1980) raise the possibility of new accounting practices emerging during changes to patterns
of organisational visibility. These in turn affect organisational participants’ perceptions of the
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problematic and the possible in wide ranging matters of managerial, organisational and, by
inference, service practice, giving rise to changes in these.
The notion of new accounting practices is exemplified in Chua (1995) about the fabricating
of diagnostic-related groups as a basis of accounting in hospital settings. Hers is prominent
among a wide variety of research about public bodies that points to this extension having
been as rampant in public services (for an overview, see Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008) as in
any other kinds of organisational activities, leading to social and institutional transformations,
including in higher education, and so to the possibility of new accounting practices. Such
practices might arise in response to helping the emergence of organisational forms with many
interdependencies that make them increasingly complex; allowing operating information to
be relayed around the networks that characterise these organisational forms; measuring and
evaluating of some classes of people by other people, according to set priorities and
expectations in relation to, say, divisional and product performance; and distributing reports
and such like, according to legal and regulatory requirements, administrative needs and
market expectations (Burchell et al., 1980). Although these responses may be construed into
criteria by which to evaluate whether a collection of practices could be regarded as
accounting, they are probably not sufficient in themselves.
Turning to other research, it seems that matters of scope, process and consequence of
accounting have become more contested. Thus, the boundaries of accounting are being
pushed out making it broader in scope and more multifarious in process, and its application
wider in consequences, than narrow, conventional definitions. The latter often convey an
image of accounting as recording, analysing and reporting financial transactions of businesses
(or even nonbusinesses) or, going a bit further, as system-generated information (see Davis,
Menon and Morgan, 1982) to be used, at least potentially, for such purposes as
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communication and discussion in carrying out planning, control and evaluation (e.g., see
Pettersen and Solstad, 2007). For example, in Miller’s work, including with others (e.g.,
Miller, 1990; Miller and Napier, 1993; Miller and O’Leary, 1990) and work such as Neu
(2000) on postcolonial views of colonial times, accounting is seen as encompassing
numerous calculative practices and applications. It enables knowledge to be conveyed over
great distances, and plays distributive and ideological roles. People involved in interactions
from which accounting usages arise, or which these usages cause, derive various meanings
from these interactions, ones not limited to rationality as portrayed in neo-classical economic
rhetoric. In a different field, Dillard, Brown and Marshall vouch that:
Management and accounting information systems are a particular kind of symbolic
representation embodying expertise, facilitating hierarchical controls, and manifested
as administrative technology that informs the purposeful action of organizations in the
transformation process. These systems can foster sustaining processes, exploitative
process [sic], or some combination of both. (2005, p. 81)
Indeed, discussing the situation in 1980, Burchell et al. said that “accounting developments
are seen as being increasingly associated not only with the management of financial resources
but also with the creation of particular patterns of organizational visibility” (1980, p. 5); and
argued that “No longer seen as a mere assembly of calculative routines, [accounting] now
functions as a cohesive and influential mechanism for economic and social management”
(1980, p. 6). However, regardless of this economic, political, cultural and social breadth, one
image that seems ever present is that of calculative practices, and interpreting realty through
numbers or criticising ways numbers are used to interpret reality (Davis et al., 1982; Dillard,
1991).
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In coining the name curricular accounting, Theodossin (1986) was analysing developments
in England. He was familiar with modular/credit courses because of their popularity in his
American homeland since the second half of the nineteenth century. There, they had been
intended as “breaking the stranglehold of the [Oxbridge-inspired] classical curriculum” (1986,
p. 5) but had had the significant consequence of a “curricular free-for-all” (1986, p. 5), which
was eventually checked by introduction of “a system of ‘concentration and distribution’”
(1986, p. 7) involving majors and minors. He noted the emergence starting in the 1960s of
courses like these in some English universities and polytechnics, and discussed the credit
system as it was developing in Britain in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, it is probably
surprising that he used the name curricular accounting in 1986 because, although he refers to
the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme (CATS[2]) (see 1986, p. 39) as being under
development, this scheme was only embryonic compared with CATS that Trowler (1998)
reported as being used widely in British higher education. Most significant is that the
arithmetic of the system’s credit points did not materialise and gain widespread acceptance
until later in the 1980s (Allen, 1995). That arithmetic facilitated each person’s study being
recorded by module, as Theodossin discusses. It was in a currency of points and levels that on
the surface at least was common within and across higher education institutions. The value of
the study each person did over an extended period could be accumulated over several
institutions. The potential arose for each person to have what Adam (2001) refers to as
“lifelong learning accounts” (p. 302).
As Butler and Hope (2000) clarify, CATS now has many counterparts elsewhere, some based
on a similar principle to CATS of purporting to measure quanta of learning (e.g., the
European Credit Transfer Scheme (ECTS) – see Adam, 2001; “ECTS user guide”, 2009;
European Commission, 2009a); and some, by contrast, based on alternative principles such as
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measuring quanta of taught classes (e.g., the Student Credithour System used in the United
States of America (USA), which pre-dates CATS by at least several decades) (see also
Bekhradnia, 2004; Theodossin, 1986). This is evidenced by a significant volume of official
literature, both at policy level (e.g., Bologna Working Group on Qualifications Frameworks,
2005; New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), 2008) and organisational level (e.g.,
Open University, 2005).
Although no other authors have been found to use the name curricular accounting as such,
several are concerned with how curricular accounting or specific characteristics of it have
consequences for higher education and its participants. For example, Raban (1990) implies
that Theodossin (1986) saw CATS merely as bookkeeping among higher education
institutions and then criticises this view. He elaborates on potential ramifications of CATS
and similar schemes, and on meanings that they can inspire. He considers issues around
valuation as well as accumulation and exchange, and notes that CATS has been “a powerful
catalyst for change in higher education [in England]” (p. 26), for example, aiding “the
[English] Government’s attack on elitism and restrictive practices of the universities” (p. 26).
Bekhradnia (2004), in also using the word accounting, provides further elaboration and
discussion. For a review of this and similar work, but in which the word accounting is not
used, see Restrepo (2008). Other matters in the scholarly literature include sharing
experiences and improving method or technique at ground level; and making or
implementing policy at national level. For example, Greatorex (2003) is concerned with best
practice among educators when it constructing level descriptors; Dillon, Reuben, Coats, and
Hodgkinson (2007) relay how learning outcomes have been developed at one of the world’s
largest universities, by reference to learning levels, and then linked to teaching and
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assessment; and Young (2008) draws on various jurisdictions (e.g., New Zealand, Scotland,
South Africa) to suggest how to go about devising national qualifications frameworks.
Study and Report Method
The study was devised following the author’s observations and perceptions during
participation in two decision processes between 2007 and 2012 at the University of
Canterbury (UC). First, a proposal was debated and eventually resolved by UC’s various
academic committees for common course sizes. Following this decision, the credit-point
values of the approximately 3,600 courses within the UC credit-point system were
standardised as being of 15 points, or of multiples of 15 points. Second, and coincidentally,
one UC faculty was resolving a longstanding proposal that its Bachelor of Commerce
(BCom.) should have a graduate profile. The profile adopted comprises several overarching
learning outcomes, and work is now in progress that is expected to result in either refined or
new detailed learning outcomes that reflect these overarching ones for each of the 150 or so
courses that are populated predominantly by BCom. students. A further possibility is for
curriculum maps to be devised for each of the dozen or so subject majors within the degree.
The two processes comprised much debate, informal discussion, manoeuvring, conflict and
negotiation, mostly among staff but with representatives of students as well. The various
participants expressed or displayed varying degrees of familiarity-unfamiliarity with credit
points, learning outcomes and similar concepts; and held various opinions about their
meanings and significance. Various educational, financial and other ramifications and
consequences attaching to the proposals were revealed, along with some anomalies in the
credit-point system. A range of opinions were evoked about the efficacy of writing learning
outcomes for courses and awards. Little was said or written to convince this participant10
observer that more than a few participants were cognizant of associations among credit points,
course weights, levels of learning, learning outcomes, teaching and assessment, despite what
appears in official pronouncements (e.g., UC, 2009a) and literature such as Dillon et al.
(2007).
It was the varying degrees of familiarity, the variety of opinions and the lack of cognition
with the said associations that led the author to embark on the study. The idea that curricular
accounting was the topic of the study arose serendipitously. The author stumbled upon the
term during a Google ScholarTM search of the literature. From that point, suggestions of
Burchell et al. (1980, see p. 23 especially) were adopted when considering questions on
which to focus the lines of inquiry, namely: How does curricular accounting function
officially at the University of Canterbury in 2012? How has it emerged and developed and
who has been involved and what issues shaped it? How has it become intertwined with other
aspects of life; and what consequences have arisen?
Following these lines of inquiry simultaneously, the author delved into the underpinnings of
the extant UC points system. Its historical development was traced retrospectively through an
institution that at its inception was known as Canterbury College (1873-1932) (hereafter “the
College”), and then Canterbury University College (1933-1957) (hereafter “the University
College”), before obtaining its present title and autonomous university status. Up until this
status was attained, the institution was an affiliate of the University of New Zealand (UNZ)
(1870-1961), whose functions were also relevant to the development of the system. The
influence of systems used elsewhere in the past and presently were also explored.
The author is a participant-observer at UC and has drawn on experience of conducting
research into university accounting, finance, accountability and governance. Various
documentary sources of evidence were consulted, including the Calendars of UC[3].
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Specimens of student records held at UC were examined. Other official documentary
evidence in the public domain was perused. A staff seminar was held and several UC
academic-managers and officials responded to questions and made comments about the
analysis the author was writing. From 2010, the author deliberately stepped up his
involvement in other participant-observation opportunities relevant to the research, including
joining UC’s academic board, an accreditation steering group of the business school and a
programme committee that oversees the BCom. degree and related undergraduate
qualifications.
One further point needs reporting about UC. Christchurch experienced an earthquake in
September 2010 and much subsequent seismic activity has ensued. All this has affected every
aspect of UC. These recent events and their consequences are deliberately omitted from this
version of the paper.
Standards and Equivalence
This analysis addresses how and why curricular accounting about university-student learning
reflects and constitutes standards and equivalence. It can be inferred from data derived from
the entire life of the institution that is now UC that curricular accounting’s emergence and
development has been shaped by various people, and educational, economic, political and
social occurrences and issues with which they were concerned, both within the institution and
in the dynamics between institutional participants, individually and collectively, and the
outside world. For specific periods during its emergence and development, the accounting
and its antecedents took particular forms, known as the 360 point degree system (2006- ), the
new degree structure (1975-2005), and the unit system (1926-1974). The name(s) of the
system(s) before that have not been located but the elements and provisions have. These
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various systems reflected many issues and occurrences, and shaped and formed some of them.
Of the three themes induced by the researcher as having shaped curricular accounting,
standards and equivalence was the earliest to arise, and is very much still prominent.
Canterbury (University) College and University of New Zealand
The period from the 1870s to the 1950s comprised the formative years of Canterbury College
and the University of New Zealand until there was a national consensus about establishing of
the University of Canterbury and others as degree granting institutions in their own right. The
mainstays of the College in its early days were prominent, usually wealthier, persons among
the mainly British settlers to Canterbury Province[4], and academic staff whom they recruited
from British universities. Their idea for a university was a mix of providing access to
education, bringing about the educated population that would be important to the settlement’s
development and being a matter of provincial pride. They were cognisant of the shortcomings
in secondary education[5], resulting in students being poorly prepared for tertiary study. But
they were also desirous for the standards qualifications to be raised to those of British
universities, which most had attended and where they continued to send their sons[6]
(Gardner et al., 1973; Hight and Candy, 1927). These original circumstances exemplify a
subject that recurs frequently, that of tertiary courses and qualifications being juxtaposed
between, on the one hand, the standards of entrants from secondary school[7] and their
economic circumstances (e.g., many could only afford to study part-time[8]), and, on the
other hand, the development needs of New Zealand, which relied on the supply of teachers,
engineers, lawyers, accountants and so on[9]). The original circumstances also indicate that
concerns are long standing about standards compared to Britain and, subsequently, other
selected countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, USA, European Union (EU), Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries), with implications and
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consequences for higher education provision (i.e., such matters as teaching, research,
administration, facilities, governance, student quality and learning).
The accounts of Gardner et al. (1973) and Parton (1979) indicate that in the first few decades,
the concern about standards was reflected in several matters. For example, the College chose
to recruit professors from leading British universities[10] for much of its existence[11]; and it
was still contentious to employ people with only New Zealand qualifications as professors c.
1920[12][13]. It was decided to establish UNZ[14], rather than having a university in each
province: Gordon (1946) describes it as a “Policemen University, whose main duty was to
Keep up the Standard” (p. 271). UNZ remained a non-teaching, examining institution
throughout its existence[15]: it conducted colony/dominion-wide matriculation examinations,
and used examiners based in Britain to set and mark examinations for degree subjects[16][17].
Between them, the lay and academic founders of the College and UNZ knew basic ideas,
structures, processes, practices and the like from Oxbridge, the ancient Scottish
universities[18] and elsewhere of similar antiquity[19]; and, as notions of path dependency,
and indeed mimicry, would lead one to expect, they applied these, as was evident not only in
matters of appearance (e.g., ancient stone buildings, formal academic dress[20]) but also
structure and process, often in the name of standards and equivalence. Standards also figured
in both sides of the various arguments that occurred during UNZ’s existence about whether
academics as distinct from laypersons should be involved in UNZ’s governance: the issue
was whether this involvement would raise or prejudice standards (see Francis, 1997; Gordon,
1946; Hunter et al., 1911), and it gave rise to the Board of Studies (in 1915) and then the
Academic Board (in 1928), and partly contributed to UNZ’s eventual dissolution (in 1961)
(Gardner et al., 1973; Hight and Candy, 1927; Parton, 1979)[21].
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Representational Scheme
Curricular accounting as it later materialised at UC was not among practices with which these
founders could have been familiar from universities they had experience of or otherwise been
familiar with in southern England and elsewhere in Britain. Probably the only system
remotely like it in the English-speaking world at that time was the Student Credithour System,
which was still in its infancy in the USA (Heffernan, 1973; Rothblatt, 1991). Instead, they
and their successors over the first 90 years of the institution that became UC and of UNZ
(and their counterparts at the other affiliates (e.g., colleges of Auckland and Otago) used noncalculative practices instead. These can be envisaged as part and parcel of a consistent
representational scheme, to which the various matters contribute. The scheme featured
applications of mainly-British-derived basic ideas. Here is my attempt at outlining the
scheme:
The participants in UNZ, the College/University College and UNZ’s other affiliates
have included, among others academics, students, examiners, administrators, and
academic and administrative governors. Students have studied towards qualifications
under the tutelage of academics. Study has been separated into subjects, and then into
examination papers and courses of lectures/study. Qualifications have been
distinguished into levels (e.g., bachelor, honours, master); and bachelor degree
qualifications have further distinguished into stage-based levels (e.g., pass, advanced).
Graduates have used their learning and qualifications to enrich their lives, including to
secure employment as teachers, in other professions[22] and other work to which they
were suited, and/or to go on to further study.
The scheme has endured though several versions, by virtue of modifications to fit changed
circumstances of the institutions enumerated above, and then UC[23], alongside the New
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Zealand Vice-Chancellors Committee (NZVCC) (now called Universities New Zealand) and
the first of the two “Ministries of Universities” (i.e., the University Grants Committee (UGC),
the other being the present Tertiary Education Commission (TEC)). It seems that at various
times most participants have found the particular version of the representational scheme that
they experienced sufficient for going about their activities, and any who have not have been
expected to work with it anyway. However, there have been those who have been prepared to
dispute the status quo and campaign for change, and from time to time this activity along
with external or internal social, economic, technological and political occurrences has given
rise to modifications to how the basic ideas have been applied (e.g., the intimacy or distance
among members constituting the institution; the gradual increase in significance of
postgraduate study and research; the incursion of managerialism), and so to the
aforementioned revisions and successive versions of the representational scheme. One series
of changes within the schemes has involved the practices and related paraphernalia that have
now emerged as curricular accounting.
Qualifications
Returning to the topic of this section, qualifications are a prime example of how a concern for
standards has shaped change. Initially, UNZ conferred the degrees BA, BA with Honours
(BA(Hons)) and Master of Arts (MA). Lectures and college examinations (or courses)
leading to these were offered across all affiliates in conjunction with UNZ. Although these
were to cater primarily for aspiring school teachers, appropriately or otherwise, the bare
dozen courses with which the College started in the 1870s were in subjects typical of
Oxbridge. Thus, they included classics, English language and literature, other modern
European languages, mathematics and natural philosophy, physical science, history, mental
and moral philosophy and logic, jurisprudence and constitutional history. Although there
16
were some extensions into other subjects suited to school teachers, this was slow in coming.
Then, as enrolments from teachers began to decline and the need in the Colony for other
professions became apparent, there was some diversification. More bachelor degrees[24]
were designated by UNZ, for example, of science[25], laws, music and commerce (re the
latter, see Gaffikin, 1981)(see Figure 1)[26]. Corresponding courses were staged by UNZ’s
affiliates, including some new divisions of these (e.g., in 1890, the (National) School of
Engineering was founded at the College) (Gardner et al., 1973).
[INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE]
Alongside the inauguration of these new more specialised degrees, changes were made to the
BA itself, and it was to continue as the most popular degree[27]. As much as providing
alternative qualifications, the persons championing these changes were concerned about the
breadth of subjects in the BA being achieved at the expense of depth in a major subject, and
so giving rise, they argued, to the BA being a mere pass degree[28] and of a lower standard
than counterparts in Britain and elsewhere (Gardner et al., 1973). These changes illuminate
how this concern for standards and equivalence contributed to the coming about of curricular
accounting.
Rooted in the idea of preparing teachers for the Colony’s schools, the BA in the 19th century
was a general degree, reminiscent it seems of the Scottish ordinary degree (see Theodossin,
1986), requiring and encouraging breadth of study across several subjects, sciences as well as
arts. Intent on raising the standards that students had to achieve to complete the BA, UNZ
revised the degree regulations by the simple expedient of adding a further subject
requirement c. 1880 to give rise to the so-called “Sale-Cook” degree[29], and then again c.
1890. That is, the original requirement to pass in four subjects was increased to five, and then
to six: the number of examination papers this entailed rose from 8 to 10 and then 12.
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Eventually and not without a long-running struggle, further criticisms (e.g., as levelled by
Hunter et al. (1911) on behalf of an assortment of concerned academics) led UNZ to make
further changes to the BA, with consequences for the other bachelor degrees. Significantly,
levels of examinations (and courses) were distinguished between pass and advanced, which
was defined as two years study in a subject subsequent to pass. Students were permitted to
choose among three patterns of subjects and levels. That is, they could take a broad sixsubject degree, without any at advanced level; or a narrow four-subject degree, with two
subjects at advanced level; or an intermediate five-subject degree, with one subject at
advanced level. That this opportunity for greater depth at the expense of breadth had student
support is reflected in statistics from 1917: 55% of students chose the four-subject option and
41% chose the five-subject one, so marking the de facto end of the six-subject pass degree.
However, UNZ rejected several proposals during this period for a nine-unit degree, the first
of which was put forward in 1909 by Arnold Wall, the College’s professor of English (18981931) (Parton, 1979). It was 1926 before a proposal along these lines finally succeeded[30],
and so commenced the aforementioned unit system (Gardner et al., 1973; Parton, 1979).
The Unit System
As to parameters of this system, a unit was defined as one year's work in an approved subject.
Each subject normally comprised a First year unit course, a Second year unit course and a
Third year unit course[31]. Each First year course was a pre-requisite of the Second year
course, etc. The new BA regulations required students to complete nine units in five subjects
over three years, or the part-time equivalent. At least one subject had to be at Third year and
one other had to be at either Second year or Third year. Each unit mostly had either two or
three, mostly British-set and marked, UNZ examination papers, which had all to be passed to
complete the unit. The requirement for nine units meant passing between 18 and 27 UNZ
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examination papers in all. As examinations for each unit were sat at the end of the unit course,
for a full-time student they would fall not only at the end of the second and third years, as
previously, but also at the end of his/her first year.
Further changes followed not only in the use of the unit metric as a reference to subjects,
examinations and courses, which was definitive in degree structures of UNZ and then UC
until 1974, but also to the structures of the other bachelor degrees (e.g., the nine-unit pattern
was adopted for the BSc. from 1927, although it was later changed to eight[32]) (Gardner et
al., 1973; Parton, 1979). It gave rise to the possibility of some standardisation across subjects
and courses, and so its inauguration was an occasion at least formally when, having drifted
apart by developing in their own ways, the majority of bachelor degrees were brought closer
together to make them of a similar standard and equally demanding in what students had to
attain to graduate[33].
A further matter worthy of comment is the uniformity across the same year/level of a subject
at different affiliates, and coherence between different years/levels of the same subject (and
conversely scope for variation and innovation among these). The continued subordination of
teaching to common external examinations[34] and, by implication, common curricula,
common textbooks and similar, all overseen in some detail by UNZ, made for a uniformity
and coherence within subjects that had its supporters and its critics (e.g., see Gordon, 1946, re
undesirable bureaucracy that was somewhat stifling of innovation). As to comparability of
the same year/level across different subjects, consistency was very much a judgement call on
the part of participants in UNZ’s governance and examining: there were no formal learning
outcomes that provided a basis of comparison.
19
The specifying of a degree in this way seems to have some originality. Degrees of the
University of London comprised nine course units (Theodossin, 1986) but this was not
initiated until the 1960s, some 40 years in arrears of UNZ.
Equivalence of Learning and Transfer of Credit (1)
The notions of equivalence and transfer (see Toyne, 1979), in particular, credit transfer
between affiliated colleges and between UNZ and overseas universities, warrant a mention at
this juncture. The very existence of UNZ and, over and above that, its examinations process
and system of results and qualifications, meant that having to assess the equivalence of
courses and qualifications within New Zealand for purposes of credit recognition and transfer
did not arise in the way that has been the case since UC took over from UNZ in assessing
students and conferring degrees. Students going through their degrees at the different
affiliated colleges were assessed ultimately using the same national external examinations
each year in the various levels of each subject. The use of the same examination paper
established de facto norms for what was taught, how and using which textbooks and
materials; and norms for what was learnt and how. However, present-day means of
expressing norms, such as learning outcomes, were not yet in use. Student who moved
between affiliates were allowed to continue with the same degrees and sit the further UNZ
examinations as appropriate. Transfers of credit between UNZ meta-qualifications (i.e., BA,
BSc., BCom., etc.) were permitted under regulations laid down by the UNZ Senate.
The equivalence issue, involving learning from outside New Zealand, was limited for many
years to complete qualifications. As UNZ statutes permitted, its Senate conferred degrees on
people already possessing degrees from British and foreign universities[35]. Obtaining a
UNZ degree made it easier for a new immigrant with an overseas degree to be accepted in
teaching and other professions in the colony. Later, the foreign degree holders sought
20
recognition that their degrees were at least equivalent to UNZ degrees in order to enter a
university college and study for a UNZ higher degree. As the applications were few, it was
easy take the facts of each application and let the UNZ Senate evaluate the application on
merit. Then, credit for incomplete qualifications and individual courses emerged as a matter
for consideration. By the 1950s, the number of applications warranted the process being
delegated to a standing committee of UNZ’s Academic Committee. In assessing credit,
curricular accounting measures do not seem to have figured at all, if indeed they existed[36].
As returned to below, once UNZ handed on its powers to confer degrees to UC and the other
universities, these then took over the function of overseas credit recognition and transfer; and
a new function arose of credit recognition and transfer among New Zealand universities.
When other tertiary institutions in New Zealand were also given statutory authority to confer
degrees and similar qualifications in the 1990s, credit recognition and transfer was extended
to them.
From UNZ to UC
Initially, the functions of the College and the other affiliates appeared mostly to dovetail quite
well with those of UNZ, with examinations being especially central to their interrelations.
Inevitably, however, mismatches and tensions arose intermittently. In the first few decades of
UNZ, these were unsatisfactory only to a minority, albeit a vocal one, who broached the
issues of how UNZ might be reformed, how relations between it and its affiliates might be
revised and whether UNZ should be dissolved and separate universities established (see
Hunter et al., 1911). These issues became the subject of continuing debate in which both
sides recognised that the influence that those in control of UNZ had over academics working
at the College and the other affiliates carried through into the form and curriculum of
qualifications, how students were examined, how standards were discoursed and the way
21
activities were arranged and represented. The two sides differed over whether this influence
was good or bad for standards and equivalence. Those on the side arguing that it was good
held sway well into the 1920s but they had to concede on various matters, including agreeing
to adopt the unit system (Gardner et al., 1973; Parton, 1979).
From the 1930s, this side’s position became increasingly less tenable as concerns about
academic standards of UNZ and its affiliates grew. A vital issue was over UNZ’s structures
and processes—“cumbersome”, “outmoded” and “paralysing” were how many saw them—
and the difficulties they presented for academics and institutions wanting to keep up with
changes occurring to what universities were about not only in Britain but also in the other
dominions and the USA, including the range of subjects and activities they encompassed[37].
Reforms to the university system arose out of these circumstances between the 1940s and
1960s. They included devolvement of responsibilities and functions of UNZ to the university
colleges and its eventual formal dissolution[38] (Gardner et al., 1973; Gordon, 1946; Gould,
1988; Parton, 1979; UGC Review Committee, 1982)
Responsibility for the representational scheme and its underlying basic ideas moved during
these reforms. Academics and governing bodies at the University College and its counterparts
obtained some authority, albeit in dribs and drabs, to prescribe award regulations for degrees
and diplomata[39], to lay down prescriptions for courses and to approve students’ personal
courses of study. They used this new authority to make various proposals, including for
courses that would be peculiar to their colleges and for variations to qualification regulations
affecting the number and level of units. These were only controversial[40] for as long as
variations from existing practices were regarded as threats to standards of courses and
qualifications but, once the principle of course and qualifications varying across university
22
colleges was accepted, such proposals began being considered on their merits and became
somewhat commonplace (Gardner et al., 1973; Parton, 1979)[41].
Alongside the acceptance of new courses from teachers at the University College and UNZ’s
other constituent university colleges, UNZ also ended completely the use of British-based
examiners, and then, by 1950, replaced many external examinations with internal ones at
each affiliate. This meant that teachers came nearer to covering the subject matter in which
they were confident and considered most relevant. There had already been a move in the
1940s at the University College towards using tutorials and shifting the emphasis a little away
from teaching and towards learning. The introduction of more internal examining meant they
could move away from teaching to the external examinations, which had included lecturing
on everything that it might have been possible for the external examiner to include on the
external examination paper, probably shifted the emphasis towards learning even further.
And it probably shifted further still between 1960 and 1980 because of a trend in NZ
universities generally for work assessed during courses to be included in the calculation of
final grades, instead of the measurement of student attainment being solely reliant on final
three-hour examinations (see UGC Review Committee, 1982).
The new courses and variations in degree regulations changed qualifications, some becoming
broader as to subjects and others specialising in a subject in more depth. However, units and
stage-based levels[42] continued to be the way these were expressed formally in award
regulations of UNZ and, from 1961, of UC (Gardner et al., 1973; Parton, 1979).
UC at Ilam and the New Degree Structure
UNZ dissolution and the bestowing of authority on the university colleges to establish and
regulate qualifications, conduct assessment and confer qualifications was a change that
23
occurred over several years either side of 1961. Shortly after UC’s emergence, construction
began, some 20 years after first being mooted, of a second UC campus in Christchurch’s
western suburbs at Ilam, on a much larger site than the original. By the early 1970s, the
original campus had been vacated and UC was reunited on the Ilam campus, with bigger and
better teaching and learning, research and student accommodation facilities, all of which have
continued to be expanded[43] (Gardner et al., 1973; Parton, 1979; UGC Review Committee,
1982).
The new campus created the possibility of UC throwing off its previous character as an
affiliated college of UNZ, with a provincial outlook and teaching responsibilities, to become
a university with national responsibilities and an international outlook (Gardner et al., 1973).
In view of this possibility, perhaps it is more than coincidence that the move to Ilam took
place in tandem with the implementation at UC of the first system of curricular accounting in
which credit points were incorporated. Officially referred to at the time as the new degree
structure, this system was a melding of the unit system inherited from UNZ and the idea of
assigning credit points to courses and specifying qualifications in terms of points. (e.g., a
three-year, full-time bachelor degree should usually require the successful completion of
courses whose total value was 108 points).
In promoting the new degree structure, Vice-Chancellor Phillips likened unit courses to large
stone blocks (the façade of the original campus springs to mind, with bricks being the
equivalent of 12 points in the new system), compared with small bricks that the new degree
structure would facilitate (Lego® springs to mind, with bricks worth as few as 3 points)
(‘Credit points’, 1974). However, in rising above the comparison of the bricks and mortar of
the two systems, he spelt out eloquently the social and political significance of this first
system of curricular accounting, as follows:
24
Much water has flown under bridges both social and academic in the last half century
[during which the unit system prevailed]. From being almost on the fringes of society,
universities have moved into a central position. They now provide in much larger
numbers and in wider variety the professional men and women upon whom we depend
to lead our society forward into the twenty-first century.
And this is a society in ferment, more delicately articulated, with greater
interdependence among its parts, more heavily reliant on expert skills and the power to
innovate, conscious of serious economic problems and more concerned to better the
physical and cultural environment and the lives of those who are handicapped by age,
sex, race or simply an impoverished family background, as well as to uplift our poorer
neighbours in the South Pacific.
The university will not and cannot stand aloof from these tides of change sweeping
over a society which supports us and of which we are an integral part. In a large sense
then this revision of our teaching arrangements is but one of our responses to the social
challenge.
There is also the academic challenge implicit in the extraordinarily rapid growth of
knowledge. Universities, Canterbury among them, have been major incendiaries in
setting off this explosion. More knowledge has to be absorbed, refined, transmitted and
– not least important – offered in new combinations. When we set out to study the
environment, social work or regional planning – to take only three examples – we soon
become acutely aware that new perspectives open and that regroupings of knowledge
are imperative. All this lies very near the heart of the proposal to renew our degree
structures. (Phillips quoted in ‘Credit points’, 1974, p. 5)
25
As this quote exemplifies, standards/qualities continued as a high priority for UC c. 1970.
Coming within that priority now were concerns about keeping up with changes to what
universities were about and the range of subjects and activities they encompassed. These had
been happening in British universities and elsewhere in Europe since the 1950s, with much of
the lead for them coming from North America. Contemporaneously, the OECD was
exhorting governments in its member countries to pursue educational development and
broader participation in order to advance technologically, and so develop economically
(Theodossin, 1986).
Phillips urged UC to keep up with these international trends, rather than maintain a somewhat
introspective, New Zealand-oriented viewpoint (see Phillips, 1970). Having said that,
activities among NZ’s universities generally had become more outgoing, including that in the
1960s and 1970s curriculum reform had led to widening of the range of recognised university
subjects and disciplines (see Gould, 1988). The consequences at UC were not only more
meta-qualifications but also more sub-divisions of these qualifications (e.g., endorsements
and majors) to accommodate increases in the range of recognised university subjects and
disciplines. Given this desire to widen of the range of subjects and related discipline-based
departments in the name of quality, the new degree structure made it easier to specify allembracing regulations of more qualifications, particularly of the endorsement and major
varieties, including extending existing ones. How this was possible with new degree structure
is explained next. The extent of the increases is enumerated in the section of the paper about
enlargement.
Bricks and Mortar of the New Degree Structure
The system was approved and implemented in stages because of controversies surrounding it.
Initially, a system, known as the starred paper system, was agreed upon at UC c. 1970 to
26
allow undergraduate students in effect to combine two half units as part of the number of
units (e.g., nine) specified for their degrees; and so to provide greater scope for crossdepartment/subject study; the University of Otago used a similar system. However, the
starred paper system proved only partly effective and was difficult to administer, and so
further discussion and negotiation took place. This led to the new degree structure being
introduced from 1975 (Committee for Educational Policy, 1973).
The new degree structure entailed the qualifications in question being translated from
requiring a specified number of units to requiring a specified number of credit points. Each
existing unit was designated as comprising 12 credit points; and the nine-unit degrees (e.g.,
BA, BCom.) were deemed to comprise 108 credit points, and the eight-unit BSc. was deemed
to comprise 96 points. There seems to have been no official definition of a point other than
that just like a unit, one year's work in a subject amounted to 12 points. Alongside this, halfpapers that arose from the starred paper system, and other courses created by breaking up
unit courses, gave rise to courses of 4, 6 and 8 points, as well as 12 points.
To split unit system size courses into smaller ones seems to have been one of the main
intentions of the proponents of the new degree structure. However, there were no signs yet of
specifying these courses of different points values in student-centred terms such as hours of
learning and assessment. At most, less precise terms were used, loosely associated with
contact hours and number of examinations. This was a basis of criticisms of the new system
among students advocates. They were concerned that overall student workloads might
increase under the new system, if lecturers delivering now smaller individual courses were to
increase the material that they put into them, compared with the quantum of material that was
in original whole unit courses. Students were encouraged “to watch the staff, and
administration, very carefully” (Bishop, 1973, p. 4).
27
In adopting the new degree structure points system, claims were made that the use of points
would afford flexibility in the composition of courses of unit and sub-unit size and in the
shape of degrees. Students would have greater freedom to choose courses that they would
prefer to include in their qualifications. In particular, it would have a liberalising effect by
allowing students associated with one faculty to study courses in other faculties, thus
breaking down artificial divisions between subjects in different faculties (Turbott, 1974). By
opening up these possibilities for student choice, there was some expectation that student
enrolment patterns would extend to the new disciplines and subjects that were being equated
with higher university standards, and so these new areas would be justifiable in terms of
demand as well as educational prestige. Of course, such new subjects were not universally
welcome among the academics, who also had related criticisms and misgivings. In response
to these, the UC authorities undertook to improve student counselling and other processes in
order to ensure personal courses of study through a degree made “academic good sense”
(‘Credit points’, 1974, p. 25) and to prevent “a kind of ‘supermarket’ shopping for imagined
‘soft options’” (‘Credit points’, 1974, p. 25)[44]. The introduction of these safeguards, or at
least promises to do so, seem to have brought about enough support for a new negotiated
order, to have arisen, consistent with theories associated with path-dependence,
representational schemes and genealogy.
From the New Degree Structure to the 360 Point Degree System
By 1990, courses had emerged across UC of 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 24 points. Moreover, 6 points
was the more usual reference point as to what a standard-sized course comprised, compared
with previously when the unit (≡ 12 points) served this purpose. Courses were listed in each
year’s Calendar with lecture hours, and laboratory and/or tutorial hours specified but there
was no precise pattern to these hours in terms of proportionality to a course’s point value.
28
Furthermore, the required points for a three-year bachelor degree had been changed to 102
(from either 96 or 108), and students were now required to have 48 points above Stage I (up
from 36 as far as the BA and BCom. were concerned), including at least 12 at Stage III. Thus,
although bachelor degrees were slightly smaller in volume, at least formally, they entailed
more study at higher levels than before, thus again raising the standards that students had to
achieve to complete these degrees, as happened when the unit system had been
introduced[45].
The new degree structure had mostly been about revising UC’s degrees and related
undergraduate qualifications. It provided and facilitated choices of study and combinations of
subjects among an increasingly large and less supplicant-like body of students. It made it
easier than before to recognise credit among qualifications within UC. It contributed in other
ways to having a system that was capable of providing order and control among not only
increasing numbers of participants at UC but also academics with increasingly diverse
knowledge and interests in teaching and research[46], and students from an increasingly
diverse mix of New Zealand and overseas school leavers, and people of varying ages and a
range of workplace experiences. It brought about changes to activities, events, behaviour and
values of UC participants, and so the representational scheme of UC. Correspondingly, the
the issue of the system allowing students too much flexibility had mostly passed, possibly
aided by new thinking in the 1990s associated with public sector reform as analysed later in
the paper[47].
By now, ideas first developed in Scotland were emerging about specifying and measuring
learning in student-centred ways, including student study hours (see UC, 2008b) and studentorientated learning outcomes. These events brought about conditions of possibility for the
360 point degree system at UC, especially as it had already been adopted elsewhere in New
29
Zealand in the tertiary education system and UC had become more cognisant of external
relations matters. Thus, in the 2000s, the official claim was made that “the generic nature of
our degrees derives from flexibility of pathways” (UC, 2003, p. 7) and the desire was to
maintain and enhance these circumstances. Thus, thirty years on from adopting the new
degree structure, UC turned to the 360 point degree system to replace it.
Again, there was much negotiation and discussion across UC before the approval process
came to a resolution at UC Academic Board (UC, 2004, Minute 7) and the system, as
outlined earlier, was introduced in 2006. During this process, three reasons were advanced
were offered as a counter to several internal issues that arose during consideration of the
proposed change, such as how much change would be entailed to the size and composition of
existing courses; how would the potential of the change to increase student workloads be
guarded against; and what would be the financial impact on departments, colleges and UC..
The three reasons were that 360 point degree system would comply with NZQA requirements.
It would facilitate transfer of credit. It would achieve consistency between credit points and
course weights (i.e., for NZ Government funding purposes, the proportion of an EFTS
represented by one enrolment on a course), thus simplifying the relationship between these
two metrics, and so making it more understandable for students and staff (UC, 2003).
Analysis of the three reasons follows.
NZQA Requirements
On the validity of this, NZQA had indeed adopted a 360 point degree system for specifying
qualifications (e.g., degrees, certificates, diplomas), including postgraduate ones (see NZQA,
2003). But NZQA did not actually require UC to adopt such a system and had no formal
powers to compel it to do so. That the UC system did not encompass postgraduate courses
and qualifications was indicative of this lack of compulsion[48]. However, 360 point degree
30
systems were in widespread use in other New Zealand universities and polytechnics, and so
for UC to use such a system would make many functions easier for many people inside and
outside UC, including comparing standards/qualities of learning and qualifications, and, as
the second reason recognises, credit recognition and transfer, as dealt with below.
Almost incidental to implementing the 360 point degree system, UC introduced a significant
change to satisfy NZQA as the regulator of degrees on behalf of the NZ Government. As UC
(2003) points out, NZQA had laid down a policy that a minimum of 20% of the study for a
bachelor degree should be at 300-level (see an updated version of this in NZQA, 2007),
whereas UC’s existing requirements for 12 points out of 102 points was below this. When
regulations of all UC’s bachelor degrees of three years duration were restated in terms of
points of the new 360 point degree system variety, students were required to complete at least
84 points of 300-level courses (usually three 28-point courses). This raised the proportion of
300-level study in these UC degrees from 17% (i.e., 0.5100 EFTS ÷ 3.0000 EFTSs) to 23%
(i.e., 84 points ÷ 360 points (and 0.7000 EFTS ÷ 3.0000 EFTSs)). UC (2003) justified
exceeding the 20% minimum by claiming it would emphasise UC’s commitment to high
quality degrees[49]. Be that as it may, formally at least, the replacement of one points system
by another was accompanied again by a raising of the standards that students had to attain to
complete a bachelor degree.
Equivalence of Learning and Transfer of Credit (2)
Making credit transfer easier within and among jurisdictions increases possibilities of
qualification completion (and reduced the rate of non-completion); and increases access to
higher degrees for holders of bachelor degrees. The new degree structure system, being to
some extent peculiar to UC, certainly when it came to dealing with non-New Zealand
universities, was cumbersome in this regard and required much complex translation of points
31
(UC, 2003). In contrast, there seems to be some justification to UC’s (2003) claim that the
360 point degree system is an international standard, in that the system bears a close
resemblance to CATS. However, UC (2003) made no reference to either the Student
Credithour System or ECTS, which are arguably international standards of at least equal
standing to CATS, with ECTS in particular having replaced national systems in several
jurisdictions in Europe, and so likely to challenge and perhaps replace CATS in Britain.
UC (2003) justified the desire for an international standard on grounds that inward
international credit transfers based on incomplete qualifications were increasing, in line with
widening participation and greater mobility. No doubt the same trends applied to inward
credit transfer from within New Zealand, and the 360 point degree system would also make
this easier because many other institutions use the same system (see NZQA, 2008; UC, 2007).
Outward credit transfer was not referred to specifically by UC (2003), but this had also been
increasing significantly, and so specifying UC study according to the 360 point degree
system would likely make it easier for past UC students to obtain credit and obtain entry to
higher degrees in Britain and in universities in other countries familiar with CATS[50].
A further issue relating to the efficacy of curricular accounting in matters of credit
recognition and transfer can be dealt with here. While the widespread adoption in various
jurisdictions of international forms of such accounting has made some aspects easier, the
validity of the notion that credit points earned in each and every jurisdiction are of the same
quality is an important issue. For example, how do 30 CATS points at 300-level in a
particular subject or attaching to particular learning outcomes from the University of Durham
(England) compare with 30 points at 300-level similarly specified from Canterbury Christ
Church (England)[51], and are they the equivalent of a 30 point 300-level course with similar
specifications at UC?
32
Questions like this go beyond the matter of equivalence to the matter of standards. The use of
levels, points, learning outcomes and other features in ways that, on the surface at least,
correspond to how other institutions (e.g., those whose qualifications appear on the New
Zealand Register of Quality Assured Qualifications, those using CATS) use them has made it
easier to compare standards and to test the equivalence of qualifications. However, heed
needs to be taken of a warning that Bekhradnia (2004) raises in an international context: The
increasing focus of mainstream CATS developments on the quest to define meaningful and
commonly acceptable ‘outcomes’ for each course and module is, along with other
bureaucratic structures, risking undermining the whole enterprise of learning recognition
among institutions. Study of 30 points at 300-level at some institutions is going to be more
equal than study of 30 points at 300-level at other institutions for the various reasons that
distinguish some tertiary institutions, disciplines and academics from others.
Consistency, Simplification and Understanding
The third reason UC (2003) gave for the 360 point degree system was about replacing a
system with one that users associated with UC, particularly students and staff, would find
easier to understand, and so, presumably, easier to use and realising more of its full potential
as a means of improving and controlling standards/qualities. In the section entitled NZQA
Requirements, the percentages 17% and 23% were calculated, the former under the practices
associated with the new degree structure system and the second under the 360 point degree
system. This example has more to do with other themes identified in the study, and so is not
gone into here in its extensive and probably bewildering detail. However, it does exemplify
the validity of the claim that the new system would be easier than the old system for students
and staff to understand because, unlike in the old system, points values and course weights in
the new system correspond directly and consistently within and across levels (i.e., 100-, 200-,
33
300-levels)[52][53]. The distinction between levels is based entirely on what students are
expected to learn during a study hour. During an hour at higher levels, compared with lower
levels, higher standards/qualities of cognitive and affective learning are expected, based for
example on relevant educational theorising (e.g., see Roberts, Watson, Morgan, Cochrane
and McKenzie, 2003). The vital quantitative relationship in the 360 point degree system is
that “Nominally 1 point = 10 hours study or total learning hours” (UC, 2008b), no matter
what the level; or put even more simply, 1 point at every level equates to a course weight of
0.00833 EFTS. This contrasts with the new degree structure situation of a 6-point, 100-level
course being allotted a course weight of 0.1550 EFTS, compared with a 6-point, 200-level
course being allotted a course weight of 0.1850 EFTS, and a 6-point, 300-level course being
allotted a course weight of 0.2550 EFTS. Courses of other points values at these differing
levels were allotted course weights in proportion to these, so for example, a 9-point, 100level course was allotted a course weight of 0.2325 EFTS, and a 4-point, 300-level course
allotted a course weight of 0.1700 EFTS. As even these basic numbers intimate, the
ramifications could be perplexing to many UC staff wishing to figure out was going on[54].
These weights were also significant is setting tuition fees. As well as fees for courses being
differentiated by EFTS funding category (e.g., Science Faculty courses were generally priced
higher than Arts Faculty courses), they were set in proportion to their course weights, and so
fees for courses in the same funding category were differentiated according to their
undergraduate level. However, while their point values had been part of the entry for each
course in the UC Calendar, course weights were not until 2004, and so in the meantime how
fees were calculated was obscure to many UC students and other interested participants.
Indeed, it seems that publishing course weights from 2004 did not clarify matters much as far
as fees or other matters were concerned.
34
A goodly proportion of the academics who had to be persuaded about the 360 points degree
system for it to pass through formal committees were sceptical of the basic idea that points
can be translated into work hours: seemingly such an idea was regarded as “inappropriate for
a university” (UC, 2003, p. 5), there being a general belief that university standards were
superior to lesser institutions of tertiary education, whence the idea was believed by some to
have derived, because of its use by NZQA. This caused UC proponents of the change to try
and distance the proposal from this idea, in particular the quantitative relationship labelled
above as vital. However, subsequent to the 360 points degree system having been agreed and
implemented, the notion that “Nominally 1 point = 10 hours study or total learning hours”
frequently appears in the discourse of official UC papers (e.g., see UC, 2008b). But, as of
April 2010, it was not actually in any formal statements in the UC Policy Library (UC, 2010),
probably because such statements must go through various academic committees and it is
doubtful if the notion in question would receive a smooth passage. Having to downplay this
notion seems to represent an obstacle to individual and collective effort in realising more of
the system’s full potential alluded to above as a means of improving and controlling
standards/qualities. Furthermore, because the notion is still disputed, so the meanings of
system as a whole are disputed. This was evident, for example, in meetings of committees to
discuss proposals for all UC courses to be of a common size of 15 points or multiple of 15
points; and for a common graduate profile for all majors and endorsements of the BCom.
Issues 2012
Theories of negotiated order, path-dependence, representational schemes and genealogy
stress the dynamics of situations, in that while issues give rise to a new order, part of the new
order comprises unresolved issues and circumstances out of which new issues might arise,
and these issues will give rise to further changes and a subsequent new order. As was voiced
35
by some of its supporters (and opponents) when it was being approved (see UC, 2004), the
360 point degree system gave rise to a new source of complexity, which amounted to an
unresolved issue that has arisen again and for which a resolution has been sought. The
complexity was/is that the system implemented in 2006 encompassed a perplexing array of
point values of courses, ranging from 11 to 28[55]. In 2004 and 2005, some supporters of the
proposal for 360 point degree system pressed for a uniform number of points for all courses.
However, these supporters were told by its main proponents that the proposal was the “best
solution available” (UC, 2004, p. 7) in the circumstances, anticipating that including a
uniform requirement in the proposal would risk its defeat. By 2009, views had changed
enough for this issue to be revisited and renegotiated. Thus, arose the most recent step along
this path whereby courses with a perplexing array of point values, ranging from 11 to 28,
have been converted to courses having a common size of 15 points or of multiples of 15
points (i.e., 30, 45, and 60) (UC, 2004, 2009a).
A consequence of making this change is interesting for being consistent with previous
changes to systems. All undergraduate degree regulations are changing to accommodate this
standardisation. It has been decided that the points required at higher levels of these degrees
will be rounded upwards to the next multiple of 15 points, and conversely fewer points will
be required at lower levels to leave the total points unchanged. Thus, of the 360 points
required for a three-year degree, at least 90 points must in future be at 300-level and not more
than 135 will be permitted at 100-level. This raises the proportion of 200- and 300-level study
in these UC degrees, the latter increasing from 23% as calculated above to 25%,
notwithstanding that the minimum NZQA requirement remains at 20%. This choice to raise
the requirements at 300- and 200-levels seems to have been made mainly so as not to be seen
as lowering standards for 2012 graduates compared with 2011 graduates. However, another
36
issue occasionally alluded to is the situation now pertaining in England, where for 360-point
bachelor degrees (commonly called bachelor degrees with honours[56]) 90 of the points
should be at Further and Higher Education Qualification Level 6 (≡ 300-level) (see Quality
Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2008). Seemingly null and void by now are earlier
arguments against the increased requirement of 300-level points to the effect that this lessens
the breadth of degrees and so their liberality (see UC, 2004)[57].
Other ramifications of the decision to standardise by having a common size of 15 points or of
multiples of 15 points are less public or shared but are occurring and are associated with
standards. They include the following. First, many 2009 courses warranted either minor or
major redesign because their points value were being changed, and that additional courses
were required, for example, because two courses of 22 points each are having to be replaced
with three courses of 15 points each. The new and revised courses had to be processed for
approval by academic committees and could come under a scrutiny that is more attuned to
current standards compared with when courses originated. Second, the number of 15-point
courses required for a three-year bachelor degree is now 24, compared with as few as 18 or
19 under the previous arrangements. This increase in courses has probably resulted in an
increase in the number assignments that students must complete and numbers of tests and
examinations they must take to obtain a qualification, and this may affect standards and
students’ workloads, notwithstanding the notion that “Nominally 1 point = 10 hours study or
total learning hours” may be more accepted by course designers, and so be taken greater
cognisance of by them in designs of courses. Whether actual workloads now correspond more
closely with those implied officially by their credit point values is uncertain. At present,
students’ actual workloads are not monitored formally but data available through the
Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (2009) for UC and other universities in New
37
Zealand and Australia suggests that the hours during which most students actually study are
less than those signified by the credit points for which they are enrolled. Studies of student
workloads on programmes in England specified in CATS points have produced similar
findings, as well as evidence of wide variations in study times in different disciplines at the
same institution and in the same discipline at different institutions (see Bekhradnia, 2009)[58].
University Enlargement, Massification and Diversification
University enlargement, particularly as reflected in growth of the numbers of qualifications,
subjects, courses, students and staff, has not only been ever present in shaping the practices
and paraphernalia analysed in this paper but also it has gradually come to the fore,
particularly in the second half of the 20th century, in response to popular demands for higher
education. These matters are alluded to above, especially in relation to the change in outlook
at UC that spawned adoption of the new degree structure. In this section, the extent of this
enlargement is revealed by several charts. These are explained and linked to the material
already reported in the previous section, with further elaboration about enlargement,
massification and diversification.
Qualifications, Courses and Subjects
Data about numbers of qualifications and courses are summarised in Figures 2 and 3[59].
Clear from these charts is that growth has been virtually exponential, with recent numbers in
particular dwarfing those of only a generation ago. Indeed, the growth of qualifications is
even more spectacular when one appreciates that the data used in Figure 2 are based on metaqualifications only, and do not reflect the variety that has arisen in the past few decades of
choices of majors and endorsements within the biggest of these. For example, in 2010 there
38
were 34 major divisions of the BA, and six major divisions and 13 endorsements of the
BCom.
[INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE]
[INSERT FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE]
Growths of qualifications and courses reflect growths of subjects and subject-based
departments. Already explained above is how the initial Arts qualifications and courses were
supposedly to cater primarily for school teachers. Then, there was the diversification among
UNZ and its affiliate into other degrees and corresponding courses, as depicted in Figure 1.
By the time the change of name from College to University College was made[60], the
number of main subjects was 20, as demarcated by being in separate departments. In the late
1950s, UC inherited 23 main subjects/departments from the University College, and although
these were double the size of their 1920s counterparts in terms of staff (see below), they were
still intimate internally and close knit across the budding UC (see Gardner et al. 1973 on this
last point). The number of qualifications UC could confer at that time, in its own right instead
of UNZ, was only about 20 and the number of courses taught there, and which now had to be
finally assessed, had still not reached 300. When the new degree structure was implemented
some 15 years later, the number of courses had been increased more than threefold. Since
then, it has increased at least a further threefold. Indeed, the shape of Figure 3 indicates the
situation that significant rates of growth decade on decade are barely abating, despite the ever
increasing denominator in their calculation.
By the end of those 15 years also, the number of subjects/departments had increased to 31
and they were much bigger, often with groups of staff allied to branches of the main subject,
bearing out Vice-Chancellor N. C. Phillips’s argument (see ‘Credit points’, 1974) that a better
39
means was needed to facilitate variety in grouping the knowledge that students wanted to
study from among the wider variety of subjects UC was teaching. The coincidence of
implementing the new degree structure with how much bigger departments had become, and
that they were on two campuses and then one new larger one, was accompanied by loss of
personal interactions across UC, as noted by Gardiner et al. (1973). They observed that
academics and students changed their allegiances from the institution and its breadth of
subjects to their specialist qualifications and disciplines, as housed in faculties and
departments. This reflected similar events at the other large campus universities, as observed
by UGC Review Committee (1982). Similar is discussed by Francis (1997) in the context of
theories underpinning the reforms that were implemented in New Zealand a decade later and
that continue to have various effects on universities (see below). Whatever, the number of
main subjects/departments at UC in 2010 was 36, covering about 150 branch subjects.
Further insights into the above pattern are that the 35 or so years between UNZ first
considering and rejecting the unit system, then introducing it, and then it being central to its
qualifications system were ones of only moderate growth. A significant constraint on growth
was that university entrance standards were raised in tandem with improvements in secondary
education (Gardner et al., 1973; Parton, 1979). Indeed, the unit system seems to have been
more about standardising and standard raising, than of accommodating the complexities of
growth. This contrasts with the new degree structure that replaced it 50 years later.
The 30 years from when UNZ began being dismantled and the new degree structure being
implemented at UC (i.e., 1945 to 1975) were significant for changes in New Zealand that
affected higher education and that were reflected in how the University College/UC
functioned. Increasingly accepted was the idea of university institutions having an enhanced
role in the development of New Zealand society, as the “Much water has flown under bridges”
40
quote from Vice-Chancellor Phillips affirms (see section headed, “UC at Ilam and the New
Degree Structure”). In the aftermath of World War II[61] in particular, university institutions
were expected to cope with the consequences of increased demand for well-educated persons
across New Zealand and further afield (e.g., Britain, Australia), a growth in the number of
people who expected to go to university, and general expectations that universities would
broaden their intake and be more responsive and accountable.
Reforms to the university system arising out of these circumstances started with devolvement
of responsibilities and functions of UNZ to the university colleges. As explained earlier, the
reforms included the dissolution of UNZ for various policy and process improvement reasons.
For a while, this dissolution gave rise to smaller institutions, including UC, whose
administration was probably less complex than UNZ’s had been. This extended to matters
accommodated by the unit system inherited from UNZ. However, these circumstances were
short lived, as indicated above, because UC’s academics took advantage of their autonomy
and started catching up with the changes occurring elsewhere. They were exhorted to do this
nationally, in the name of curriculum reform (see Gould, 1988), and internationally, by the
OECD, in the name of educational development and broader participation in order to advance
technologically, and so develop economically (Theodossin, 1986). Consequently, numbers of
subjects, courses and qualifications began the expansion that is still going on, as revitalized
from time to time by further exhortations of this kind and other factors.
That implementing the new degree structure coincided with the latter stages of the relocation
to Ilam (see above) seems not to have been mere coincidence but an anticipation of many
things that were to transpire on the new campus, including the enlargement with which this
part of the analysis is concerned. The new degree structure reflected and constituted a
watershed at UC and, presumably, at the other New Zealand universities where it or
41
something very similar was introduced around the same time, as they tried to deal with
similar circumstances of growth, diversity, complexity and so on. The new degree structure
facilitated within UC both the drawing up of standardised regulations for undergraduate
qualifications in a common language and currency, and a common means to track the
progress of students across a wider range courses, subjects, departments and faculties.
Reflecting these developments, and giving them greater impetus, intakes of students
increased as students were afforded greater access, Public funding became more formulaic
and based on student numbers, and so growth in students generated more revenue. Moreover,
government and private spending on tertiary education was increased in order to increase the
qualification level of the population and the individual (Gould, 1988). The increased revenue
enabled universities to increase numbers of staff in response to the increase in subjects and in
students.
Students and Staff
The pattern of change in student numbers (see Figure 4) is of an even steeper shape than
numbers of qualifications and courses. The composition of students has also changed. When
the College moved into buildings of its own that gave rise to the original campus in 1878,
there were less than 100 students, who were part-time and mostly male and from the middle
strata of the community (i.e., the offspring of minor professionals, trades people and small
farmers). When the name was changed to University College, annual participation was just
over 1,000 students, the majority of whom were still part-time and male, but they now came
from the upper strata of the community as well as the middle one. Growth occurred over the
near 30 years, and so UC inherited a rate of participation of just over 3,000 students annually.
When the new degree structure was implemented, the number annually at UC had reached
42
around 7,500. After a further 35 years, in 2010, the number of students is approaching
20,000[62].
[INSERT FIGURE 4 ABOUT HERE]
In promoting the new degree structure, Vice-Chancellor Phillips pointed out that universities
had come to teach much larger numbers of people, and expected the upward trend to continue
(see ‘Credit points’, 1974). His expectations appear to have been well-founded: indeed, he
probably underestimated the enlargement that has occurred in the meantime, driven primarily
by social, political and economic changes in New Zealand and other places whence students
have been drawn. Combinations of government policies and actions and expectations of
employers, parents/whãnau expectations, secondary school staff and young persons have led
to mass participation in tertiary education by New Zealand’s school leaver population, and
increased numbers of “adult” students. A significant shift has been to accept students who
appear capable of bachelor-level study of the expanding numbers of subjects, regardless of
how high they had performed at school relative to their peers (i.e., there has been a move
away from norm referencing and a move towards criteria referencing). Active recruitment of
foreign students has been undertaken increasingly, motivated both by a desire to
internationalise and because of the additional potential fee revenue (see UC, 2009b). The
background of students has become much wider, in terms of socio-economic status, gender,
age, place of origin, ethnicity, race and nationality. The last few reflect not only international
recruitment, but also greater diversity in domestic recruitment. Increased student numbers has
also been achieved by increasing study facilities, most significantly by relocating the campus
from the city centre site (now an arts centre and tourist attraction) to the present Ilam campus
(Gardner et al., 1973) and continuing to build on that campus.
43
Changes in staff numbers are indicated in Figure 5. The complement of a few male academic
professors with British qualifications that was attracted to the College in the first decade grew
to 60 professors and lecturers by the time of the University College name change. They were
still predominantly male but by then some had obtained at least their first degrees from UNZ.
In the growth that occurred during the University College period, the complement expanded
to 150[63] and was inherited by UC. By the time the new degree structure was implemented
in the 1970s, the numbers had more than doubled to about 350; and it more than doubled
again between the 1970s and 2000s, reaching nearly 800 by 2010, of who over 60% are male.
[INSERT FIGURE 5 ABOUT HERE]
Further to explanations above for significant growth in the number of courses, some growth
has indeed been new courses in existing and new subjects, and so has entailed more lectures,
assessment and so on. However, the number of courses also increased because individual
courses have been made smaller deliberately, to increase student choice and multidisciplinary study within qualifications, to accommodate broadening staff interests and
preferences, and to reflect changes to the academic calendar[64]. To illustrate the change in
the standard course size in the past 80 or so years, unit courses were the equivalent of 40
points in present day terms, while the most common sized course under the new degree
structure would have been 20 points, and the proposal agreed to in 2009 has meant that most
courses since 2011 have been of 15 points (see UC 2009a). A further factor in the increase in
course numbers and the other statistics charted in this subsection is that on 1 January 2007
UC absorbed qualifications, courses, students and staff of the Christchurch College of
Education, which had been an entirely separate entity tracing back to 1877[65]. In Figures 2
to 5, the stacked bars for 2009 distinguish the portion of the UC statistics that can be
attributed to the former College’s activities.
44
360 Point Degree System as Accounting
The tree reasons used at UC to justify the change from the new degree structure system to the
360 point degree system are given earlier. That is done because they are clearly related to
standards and equivalence. However, that does not mean they are not important to university
enlargement and so relevant here. It is interesting to compare expectations of the 360 point
degree system with those related to the new degree structure system. Whereas the new
degree structure system was introduced to improve relations within UC, the 360 point degree
system had more of an external relations appeal, as systems of this ilk had come into
widespread use in other New Zealand universities and polytechnics. This has resulted in
many functions being easier for many people inside and outside UC. The functions in
question range from high-level functions to do with policy, educational audit and
accreditation, including comparing standards/qualities of learning and qualifications, through
to more voluminous but mundane functions such as credit recognition and transfer. Adopting
the 360 point degree system has eased UC’s dealings with NZQA, CUAP, NZVCC and TEC
in New Zealand[66]; and with institutions and higher education systems outside New Zealand
in the international network that staff at UC consider themselves to be part of. In that network,
CATS is far more recognisable than was the new degree structure system.
Being recognised as an institution, having one’s qualifications and courses recognised, and
being able to deal with matters of credit transfer quickly and accurately all make UC more
attractive to potential students and potential staff, leading in circumstances of relatively open
entry to more students enrolling, and so to more staff being qualified as appointable and to
UC having the finance to recruit them. That is, until issues of funding came to a head in 2010,
and restrictions were contemplated on initial enrolments and on continuing enrolments.
However, a complete about face has occurred during the seismic activity that started to affect
45
UC and Christchurch in September 2010. The issues now are to attract students, to reduce or
retain staff, and recover physically and financially – these recent events and their
consequences are deliberately omitted from this version of the paper.
The basic argument of this part of the analysis is that within a growing institution and across
a growing number of institutions that have the potential to recognise each other, conditions
conducive to the demand for and possibility of developing a new accounting have arisen, and
this new accounting comprises paraphernalia that are described in the introduction and are
referred to thereafter as curricular accounting. In support of this argument, and consistent
with the title and purpose of this paper, raised in the literature review was a reciprocal
association between, on the one hand, the need or inclination or choice to adopt accounting
practices in particular and, on the other hand, the simplicity-complexity of organisational
forms and networks in general (Burchell et al., 1980). Three related matters are relaying
operating information between participants, evaluation of activities and participants in them
by other participants and external parties, and fulfilling other recording and reporting
expectations and requirements among participants and external parties, including their
counterparts in similar institutions.
In the context of universities, it seems reasonable to assume that this simplicity-complexity is
associated with, among other things, the range and quantity of participants (including
academics, students, examiners, administrators, and academic and administrative governors);
the diversity of academic interests and activities (e.g., the range of subjects, the number of
qualifications available and number of courses staged, the effort put into pure and applied
research, the diversity in research and teaching-learning methods); and the interdependencies
among them. How the latter arises includes students enrolling on courses they need for each
year of a qualification, from among the courses and qualifications available. For example, a
46
present-day full-time equivalent student, of which there are in excess of 15,000 at UC, enrols
on eight 15-point courses annually, giving rise to more than 120,000 course enrolments and
final course grades, over a quarter of a million individual assessments, over three million
class sessions (lectures, tutorials, seminars, laboratories) and over 18 million student study
hours. Curricular accounting has been devised out of necessity to provide order and facilitate
control in these complex circumstances, and has enabled circumstances to take on greater
complexity in response to internal and external aspirations, expectations and pressures.
Going back in history to before, except for its bare rudiments, curricular accounting was
devised anywhere, let alone deployed in New Zealand, student and staff numbers at the
College characterised its smallness, intimacy, close proximity and self-sufficiency. Where
there was need or desire for collective control, it was possible to realise much of this control
in the usual course of daily interaction, in a professional network or clan[67] manner, without
need of practices as complicated or as quantitative as are entailed in present-day curricular
accounting. There were so few courses being taught by so few people and studied by so few
people that it was relatively straightforward for each academic to know how courses
compared or contrasted in such basics as the amounts of study they entailed, their internal
pass rates and grade distributions, and their external pass rates and grade distributions,
assuming these were significant metrics of the times. Moreover, the College’s relationship
with UNZ was far and away more important than with any other body, about which see next.
The only need there was for any form of accounting was to administer and govern the
College, using conventional bookkeeping and financial accounting suited to any small or
medium-sized organisation.
The corresponding rolls of UNZ, or rather its affiliates, and the range of available
qualifications and component courses were not large enough to warrant anyone devising a
47
means (e.g., credit point metrics) for adding together copious combinations of courses from
an abundance of possibilities[68], especially as the items that were credit bearing as far as
UNZ qualifications were concerned were the UNZ examination results, not study assessed at
affiliate level[69]. The geographical distance from one affiliated college to another warranted
UNZ having a system but the one used seems to have been based on residential meetings of
the Senate and its boards and committees. These were conducted at least annually over
several days, as reflected in its “Minutes of Proceedings” (1871- ); and could draw on records
of each student’s particulars, enrolments and achievements, which contained few numbers
other than examination scores and gave rise to little calculation, apart from conversion of
these scores into grades and counts of subjects passed to compare with qualification
regulation requirements.
In any case, curricular accounting as practised in the past 40 years would have been
somewhat antithetical to the approach to control thought prudent by at least a majority of
those who established, governed and had most influence in running UNZ and its affiliates.
That is if, as it appears, curricular accounting facilitates flexibility for students in their choice
of learning and devolves curriculum choices to academic staff of various ranks. As growth
occurred at the University College and UNZ (and its other affiliates) between 1930 and 1957,
arrangements were changed in order to cope, but these changed arrangements were along the
lines of taking existing functions and tasks en bloc, and devolving them as smaller packages
to new organisational units, rather than to devise large volume systems, including because
computer systems were not yet available. Thus, for example, the University College
formalised its departments more, and arranged the about 20 so formalised into seven major
academic divisions, called faculties mainly, whereas the College had previously been divided
into the School of Engineering and the College proper. The situation of students studying
48
courses leading to qualifications that were associated mostly with particular departments and
faculties was reinforced, so continuing to keep at bay flexibility for students in their choice of
learning.
UNZ was party to these changes at affiliate level but up to the 1930s at least was reluctant to
change its structures and processes. These became ever more unsuited to the growth that they
were being used to handle, and so criticism of them for being outmoded and exasperating
increased. The corollary was that the university colleges were growing big enough to be able
to perform each for themselves the functions and tasks of UNZ in respect of their
geographical districts, their disciplines and their students. This created the conditions of
possibility for the process that cumulated in the dissolution of UNZ and the establishment
instead of four universities. Indeed, between 1945 and 1961, the way for this change was
paved from within UNZ by its last Chancellor, David Smith, aspects of the process of change
having been alluded to in the analysis (e.g., the University College obtaining such powers as
pronouncing course prescriptions and approving students’ personal programmes of study, the
UGC and other bodies being established to perform national functions) (Gardner et al., 1973;
Parton, 1979).
The devolution of university status instilled in each university healthy competition,
enthusiasm and so on, and opened the way at each for innovations separate from the others,
not to mention divisions of universities innovating separately from other divisions of the
same university. While UGC, its Curriculum Committee and the NZVCC provided means of
consultation, comparison, benchmarking and the like, and so could have acted as dampening
forces on innovation, much diversifying activity occurred, as well as much rivalry over status,
doing research, attracting and teaching students, having the ear of the Government, winning
resources, using new technologies and so on. Furthermore, having taken on a more
49
international outlook, the new universities could look directly overseas for ideas, trends,
advice and so on, rather than this be channelled through UNZ. For example, there was every
possibility that enthusiasm in the OECD in the 1970s for qualifications comprising
modular/credit courses (see Theodossin, 1986) would have influenced thinking at UC and the
other universities. These ideas and innovations further fuelled the growth of students, courses,
etc. on top of societal changes that did so, as outlined in the analysis.
Possibilities emerged in this climate of new technologies to handle student records,
enrolments, articulation of awards and courses, and the many other things that have come to
rely on curricular accounting, as well as the need for these technologies. The advent of
computing power, albeit in mainframe form generally suited to routine data gathering and
processing, and generating paper-based reports (e.g., payrolls, debtor lists, T-accounts, and
student transcripts) also helped. Thus, when UC implemented the new degree structure in
1975, a system of credit points based on one unit being designated as 12 points had already
been in use across most of Victoria University of Wellington’s programme for three years
and in use for the BSc. programme at the University of Auckland for two years. Thereafter,
the idea snowballed in each of these and at the other universities established when UNZ was
dissolved and in the following decade, as they tried to deal with the similar issues of growth,
diversity, complexity and so on.
The Age of Neo-Liberalism
In this analysis, the levels of the higher education system induced by Becher and Kogan
(1980), namely the central authority, institution, basic unit and individual levels (see Figure
6), are sometimes used. Referred to also are reforms-oriented change and principles that have
underlain the reforms. Examples of these include the allocation of resources by purchasers to
50
providers in financial forms based on performance metrics (thus constituting and reflecting a
purchaser provider spilt); the commodification of learning as another valuable product, with
its own metrics, out there in the market place for private goods and services; recognising and
augmenting the consumer rights of individual students vis-à-vis public institutions; the use of
metrics to value learning as a personal asset; the use of metrics to set control boundaries for
individual academic staff, basic units and institutions; the use of metrics to measure
university services and performance; and the publication of some of these metrics,
purportedly to increase transparency.
[INSERT FIGURE 6 ABOUT HERE]
The basis of this analysis is the series of changes to curricular accounting since the
Rogernomics reforms were instigated in 1984, through the marketisation phase and then the
strategic phase changes, up to the present (re these phases, see Pallot, 1998). Juxtaposing the
situation as it was in 1984 with the situation in 2010 is a suitable starting point, and is
attempted in Table 1. This is followed by a series of sub-analyses, each showing how some
aspect(s) of curricular accounting have been reflective of the policy movements and
transformations referred to and reviewed above, and how those same aspect(s) of curricular
accounting have influenced or helped constitute said policy movements and transformations.
These sub-analyses are synthesised at the end.
[INSERT TABLE 1 HERE]
Credit Points as the Basis of Curricular Accounting
The use of credit points, being a set of numbers that are purported to quantify volumes of
learning entailed in courses and qualifications, is as basic to curricular accounting as money
units are to modern-day conventional accounting for capital, assets, liabilities and so on. As
51
explained above and included in Table 1, UC has used two points systems successively since
the 1970s. Both the new degree structure and the 360 point degree systems are based on
notions of education, knowledge and learning being atomistic, mechanistic and explicit in
character, and so capable of commodification, as per the orientation of the reforms (Lawrence
and Sharma, 2002; Trowler, 2001), although the latter had not started when the new degree
structure was introduced.
University Revenue
The EFTSs Funding System and the provision for university-set tuition fees implemented in
1991were more than a change to how universities obtained funds to meet operating costs, or
to how universities generated revenue, they were a major, reforms-oriented change to tertiary
education. In contrast to the system it replaced, the funding system was transparent and
purchaser-provider split oriented, and involved methods that were more quantitative and
metricated, including actually to calculate the number of EFTSs and the cost of providing a
place at a university for an EFTS. Depending on how one sees an enrolled student, it could
also be characterised as either activity based in the context of university operations (e.g., with
the students as a raw material in the teaching process leading to a finished graduate), or
achievement based in the context of university outputs (e.g., with the students as customers of
an organisation producing courses and certifying attainment in the form of qualifications).
The tuition fees embodied the idea of users paying for the product they were receiving, and
these fees too involved quantitative methods, including pricing at the course level, as fees
came to be assessed for each separate course in which a student enrolled.
At UC, Vice-Chancellor Brownlie opined that these reforms, coupled with pressure on
resources, made 1991 a difficult year (UC, 1992). More was to come, however, as during the
1990s the Ministry made the calculations of EFTSs more specific, so that an EFTS at UC was
52
calculated in the same way as an EFTS at every other institution. UC accorded each course a
course weight, according to its level and its point value under the new degree structure
system (see section about Consistency, Simplification and Understanding).
The general circumstances after 1991 of the amount of government grant (and student fee)
revenue being based on numbers and discipline- and level-mixes of EFTSs precipitated an
increase in consciousness at the institution level of student enrolment numbers, and numbers
and appeal to the market of courses and qualifications. Admittedly, this consciousness was
not new, but it did become more focused, particularly as other considerations entering into
resource attraction diminished. Basic units and individual staff had also long been conscious
of the numbers of students and EFTSs they were teaching. This stemmed from longstanding
use, among other things, of staff-student ratio metrics to argue about the increasing
inadequacy of resources and for more resources. However, the post 1991 circumstances made
it much clearer and less disputable how much revenue was being received at the institution
level because of the activities of the different basic units and individual staff, compared to the
costs of the resources that the institution level was allocating to each of these.
This new level of clarity further precipitated calculations of EFTSs taught by staff in each
basic unit figuring increasingly in discussions about resource allocations within UC. Indeed,
during the 1990s, the EFTS funding system processes resulted in planned and actual EFTSs
in each subject becoming much sought after matters of public record (see Coy et al., 1997).
These data supplemented data that were already in use politically in these negotiations, and
so made it possible to make rough calculations of revenues, costs and surpluses (deficits) of
subjects, departments and faculties, and so of cross subsidies among these units, thus fuelling
grievances about resource allocations and remuneration. However, formally, mainly under
Vice-chancellor Brownlie, resources continued for some years to be mostly allocated in
53
physical terms and through political, economic and educational negotiations and similar, and
divisional units continued to have to argue for their corner.
Then, in 2003, after two changes of vice-chancellor, formal changes were made, including
the establishment of an additional set of basic units, alongside the structure of faculties and
departments initiated in the 1930s. Called colleges, these units are managerial in nature[70]
and have profit-centre style, delegated budgets closely aligned with EFTSs[71], giving rise to
increased interactive and diagnostic control across UC. Their establishment resulted in the
relationship between the rate at which credit towards a qualification is accumulated and the
amount received from tuition fees and the EFTSs-based grant (subsequently called the
Student Achievement Component – TEC, 2010a, 2010b, 2010e) being carried through to the
division of resources within UC, with concomitant consequences for colleges’ and
departments’ efforts at attracting students, foreign as well as domestic. It has also given rise
to EFTSs manipulations, as awareness increased in basic units of the effect on EFTSs of the
composition of qualifications, as specified in qualification regulations.
One reason given by UC (2003, 2004) for the changeover from the new degree structure
points system to the 360 point degree system in 2006 was to simplify the relationship
between credit point values of courses and course weights and make it easier for students and
staff to understand[72]. Thus, it is arguable that the change in the curricular accounting
system was precipitated by the change to the funding and fees systems, which in turn was
precipitated by the reforms.
Commoditised Education, Knowledge and Learning
The simplification took the form of aligning the two metrics across all undergraduate levels
(and, eventually, postgraduate levels), such that one credit point at every level would equate
54
with a course weight of 0.00833 EFTS[73]. To students, who are all now paying fees (or
accumulating loans as fees are paid for them by a Government agency), this simplification
and alignment further resulted in tuition fees of courses being aligned with credit-point values
of courses. Thus, it strengthened and clarified the relationship between the rate at which they
accumulate credit towards a qualification and the amount they pay in tuition fees.
Consequently, possibilities proliferate of students seeing courses and qualifications as similar
to other commodities they purchase.
Among staff at the various levels of UC, similar possibilities of courses and qualifications
being a valuable commodity came about but to as commodities to sell rather than purchase. It
did not go unnoticed that there is a tighter relationship under the 360 point degree system
between, on the one hand, points and numbers of students enrolled, and, on the other hand,
institution-level revenues from tuition fees and annual Student Achievement Component
grants, and thence to basic unit-level allocations through annual budgets. This increased
incentives for colleges and departments to attract and retain students, although ambiguously,
the ascendancy of PBRF-related persuaders and metrics of control being imposed at the
individual staff level from the basic unit level and institution level (see TEC, 2010c),
combined with a simplistic teacher-control metric of class contact hours (UC, ????), gives
rise to a tendency for departments and colleges to pack students into large 100-level and,
perhaps, 200-level courses taught by new junior staff and casual staff (including postgraduate
students), and for senior staff to want to teach smaller classes at the 300-level and
postgraduate level, in which the assessment and informal contact staff workloads are smaller
than they are for the larger classes.
Incentives also increased for colleges and departments to manipulate EFTSs, and how to this
under the 360 point degree system was clearer than previously. With the compositions of
55
qualifications being stated in choices of courses and credit points aligned with course weights,
it is clearer how quantities and distributions of EFTSs are affected by such decisions as
changing the choice of courses permitted for a qualification, changing points values of
courses and changing the number of points required at each level of a bachelor degree and for
other qualifications. However, it seems that there is still some learning to do at the institution
and basic unit levels, based on the evidence of how a desire for all courses to be of a common
size of 15 points or multiple of 15 points was implemented, without appreciating the adverse
financial implications for colleges and UC during the changeover period from 2010 to 2012.
Marketing Commodities
In terms of attracting students and similar marketing matters, the usefulness of the 360 point
degree system lies in UC issuing information about qualifications and courses in a
standardised form, intelligible alongside corresponding information from most New Zealand
institutions and many elsewhere. By the time UC made the changeover to the 360 point
degree system, the system had been in use at many other New Zealand institutions for several
years and NZQA was using it to articulate and publicise qualifications and programmes
comprising the New Zealand National Qualifications Framework (see Figure 6).
[INSERT FIGURE 6 ABOUT HERE]
In the rhetoric of the reforms, adopting the 360 point degree system has allowed UC to at
least match its so-called competitors (i.e., other universities) in credit recognition and credit
transfer matters. From the information about qualifications and courses, customers (i.e., the
students, and the people who are employing or will employ the students because of the
knowledge and skills they have been credited with) can choose to study knowledge and skills
they desire by selecting a particular combination of courses covering this knowledge and
56
these skills, so long as that combination of courses is permitted under one of the available
umbrella qualification packages (e.g., bachelor of arts, bachelor of science). They can
purchase these personal programmes as if they are commodities, and if they complete them
successfully they are awarded qualifications. The system makes it easier to answer the
question of how equivalent these qualifications are to those of other institutions, particularly
in New Zealand, because the National Qualifications Framework applies, but elsewhere as
well. Alternatively, if the combination of courses they choose does not fit a UC qualification
package, or their studies at UC are interrupted and they wish to continue them elsewhere,
they can take the credit and apply confidently for it to be included in a qualification available
at another institution, particularly in New Zealand but elsewhere too.
Product Design, Specification and Appraisal
In regard to a course as a product, UC staff design courses, obtain approval for them and
stage them. The approval process involves information being considered, questioned,
commented on and scrutinised by academic peers. Some matters have been standard for some
time but others are more recent: a prescription, which mostly allude briefly to course content
but may also mention learning outcomes and method; level (e.g., 100-level); relationship to
other courses, including pre-requisite study, co-requisite study and restricted study; teacher(s),
formal hours of student-teacher contact, teaching/delivery method and availability of other
resources; assessment provisions; predicted student numbers; plans for monitoring quality;
credit-point value, and so course weight; and learning outcomes.
The changes in information over the past decade or so, and the way it is used by peers, have
affected what staff consider in designing and revising their courses. They have gradually
received some encouragement during the approval process in collegial-type ways to achieve
some internal consistency among the size and credit-point value of their course and the
57
learning time available, learning objectives and student learning outcomes. They are also
encouraged to mix the formal (or class contact) and informal (or independent) learning that
they design into courses, in order to foster capability among students to be independent, with
the proportion of informal learning increasing from 100-level to 300-level and postgraduate
courses.
An important aspect they are urged to consider is how much assessment is included in
courses and how much time various assessments might take, compared with the learning time
available and the period over which a course is studied (UC, 2009a). Limits are advised for
the number of major tests during a course (as distinct from a final examination or similar endof-course assessment) according to a course’s credit-point value. For example, advice is
given that the number of major tests[74] in a 100-level course of between 13 and 24 credit
points should not exceed two (UC, 2008b).
In considering the teacher workloads of courses at different levels, they are encouraged to
assume these workloads will be relatively similar, even if actual contact hours for teachers
reduce at higher levels. This is because it is thought to take more time to provide guidance
and resources for students’ independent study at higher levels, and so offset reductions in
formal teaching at these levels (UC, 2008b). Besides, there is a significant school of thought
that the student who has progressed to a higher level is more capable of studying than the
student at a lower level, and so needs less direct guidance to make effective use of learning
resources.
In practice, some portions of the information provided are of better quality and seem to be
taken more seriously than other portions of it. For example, learning outcomes are often not
in “good form”, UC has no level descriptors[75] and it varies whether the outcomes match
the descriptors that are relevant for the level of the course available from NZQA[76]. It is
58
also possible for proposers to provide an analysis in hours of student activities to match the
number of credit points but this is rare. Some of these shortcomings may be attributed to lack
of knowledge on the part of the staff making proposals of what is wanted, and to lack of
inclination on the part of staff considering proposals to question shortcomings in proposal
documentation. However, it does appear that at least as significant are the many ambiguities
and difficulties that arise in trying to compose level descriptors and learning outcomes (see
Greatorex, 2003); behaviour among many participants intent on preserving or extending
boundaries within which they operate as teachers and in other roles; and a lack of acceptance,
even a resistance, on the part of some participants of the managerialist ideas of education,
knowledge and learning that underlie proposal document templates (see Trowler, 2001). As
Trowler (1998) analyses elsewhere, it is quite common for writers of proposals at the two
universities that the researcher has worked recently to enter words in some boxes to comply
with completing the documents; and for readers of proposals not to pay as much attention to
these words as they do to others, other than to note that the words in these boxes do enough to
comply with the proposal process. At UC, scant attention is paid to student workload, in
contrast to class contact hours and teacher workload. How much time students actually spend
studying a 15-point course or a 360-point degree vary somewhat in the researcher’s
experience and observation, which is consistent with findings elsewhere about variability of
student workload and engagement (e.g., see Australasian Survey of Student Engagement,
2009; Bekhradnia, 2009).
The aforementioned lack of acceptance and resistance is clearer in relation to the New
Zealand National Qualifications Framework. It attracted much suspicion at UC from the
outset because of its application to tertiary education institutions other than universities and
the inclusion of qualifications designated as bachelor degrees and similar awarded by these
59
other institutions. Using the 360 points degree system means that credit and qualifications
gained by students at many non-university degree-conferring institutions are expressed in the
same metrics, and so reinforces an impression that might be conveyed by the Framework that
this credit and these qualifications are equivalent to credit and qualifications from UC and
other universities. This and related possibilities concern many UC staff mainly because of the
implications for educational standards but also because of economic and market implications.
The standards side of this issue is part of the analysis above[77]. On the economics and
markets side, prominent is the issue that some institutions provide qualifications at a lower
price than others, as in any other commodity market, leading to the rational economic
behaviour that customers are attracted away from the higher priced supplier towards the
lower price supplier. From a reforms-oriented viewpoint, this may be interpreted as one
institution being more efficient and providing better value for money than another, both to the
student-purchaser and to the Government grantor purchaser. However, extrapolating from
Bekhradnia (2004) finding mentioned in Note 18, it seems that most students and other
customers are unlikely to base their evaluation of a qualification purely on the basis of it
comprising the same number of credit points as another, and in doing so ignoring the criterion
of which institution awarded the qualification.
Product Ownership
A further matter stemming from the last point about comparability of qualifications from
different institutions is the extent to which study programmes are dependent or independent
of the staff teaching them. It was long the case at UC, certainly since the dissolution of the
University of New Zealand and possibly for at least a decade before that, that a course was
inseparable from its teacher(s), and if the teacher(s) changed so would the course as an
educational experience (e.g., lecture content, textbooks and teaching materials, assessment
60
instruments and questions/tasks, grade distributions), but not in terms necessarily of code,
name, prescription, points value and similar formalities. However, with the formalities being
extended and gradually becoming more specific, including learning outcomes, assessment
strategies, assurance of learning, the discretion that teachers have to change a course becomes
constrained, and the course takes on a separate existence from the teachers.
The researcher’s experience at the Open University made him aware of the possibility of
separation. Course there are presented at a distance with written and otherwise recorded
learning resources developed and packaged before the course is presented to cohorts of
students. The time elapsing between serious development starting and the final presentation
of the course is usually several years, during which time the teaching team of central, fulltime academics and part-time tutors or associates can turn over a few times. Although this
turnover changes the course in some ways, the basic educational experience prevails
throughout the series of presentations.
This is quite different from the norm at UC, where much discretion not only exists but is
actually seen as a quality feature. However, discretion can be costly and risky, and makes it
difficult to satisfy accreditors’ requirements in matters of assurance of learning. Hence, there
seems to be a trend, admittedly somewhat slight, towards courses becoming products in their
own right and separate from their teachers. This can be seen as a matter not only of product
specification and commodification but also of ownership. If a teacher leaves, is s/he obliged
to leave courses with UC? If a teacher arrives, should s/he have so much discretion as to in
fact change an existing course so much that it is unrecognisable? These questions touch
considerably on academic freedom, intellectual property ownership, costs of designing and
staging courses, continuous improvement of courses and incorporating recent research into
courses, and maintain and improving the quality of courses. Curricular accounting and its
61
accoutrements variously facilitate changes but reduces the risk of doing them, and deter and
prevent changes by constraining teachers in what they have discretion over.
Conclusion
This study is about how and why knowledge in the form of higher education learning has
come to be accounted for using calculative practices. Using the New Zealand higher
education policy system, and the University of Canterbury in particular, the study shows how
these practices are evident in orthodox accounting and financial management of university
institutions, including public funding and student fee charging methods. Furthermore, they
are evident closer to the educational coal face as ways to measure knowledge provided by
university teachers and acquired by university students. The paraphernalia involved now
includes credit accumulation and transfer systems, qualification frameworks, graduate
profiles, levels of learning, learning outcomes, specifications of qualifications and
courses/modules in credit points, assessment scores and grades, students’ academic records,
diploma supplements, and things of that ilk. Using a genealogical approach, the antecedents
of these various paraphernalia are analysed and exemplified in the paper. In this former
British settler-colony/dominion setting that is now a parliamentary democracy but in which
managerialistic ideas are ascendant, it has been shown that the antecedents were influenced
significantly by practices of the ancient universities in the colonising country. This was in an
effort to attain equivalence in standards to these institutions, but at the same time being
cognisant of the colony’s needs for secondary school teachers and the dominion’s needs for
various professionals (e.g., engineers, accountants, home-grown academics). Consequent to
political, economic and social change in the post-WWII years, increased demands for
educated labour, restructuring of higher education as a public policy system, broadening of
the higher education curriculum, wider access to higher education, and mechanised forms of
62
accounting also became influential. The third major twist was the imposition on and adoption
by higher education institutions of various ideas associated with neo-liberalism and
managerialism. These have included giving students the status of consumers, managing
academics and academic innovation, standardising qualifications, and formalising quality
assurance, including using audit and accreditation methods.
Incidental to these histories, the study raises the basic issue of whether the practices and
paraphernalia analysed comprise an as yet unrecognised form of accounting. What this paper
refers to as curricular accounting may be mundane and unexciting to readers who work with
it daily in universities: familiarity can breed contempt. However, that contempt is probably
misplaced when one reflects about the conditions of possibility this accounting has created. It
is more than coincidence that the extension of curricular accounting to many countries has
occurred contemporaneously with several other strategic changes affecting higher education
in these countries and alluded to in the Introduction. Numbers of students have risen
significantly and participation rates are several-fold greater than a generation or so ago.
Numbers of institutions providing higher education have also risen, and there are far more
institutions calling themselves universities, or otherwise having degree-granting powers, or
who have been accredited to teach and examine students for degrees conferred by other
degree-granting institutions or bodies. Huge diversification has occurred in disciplines and
subjects. Degree and other awards have broadened and have become more modular and
accommodating of student choices. This has led to customisation in knowledge and skills
coverage. There has been some national and international integration of qualifications,
making it more possible for students to gain a qualification through study with more than one
institution and in more than one country. Consequently, students have become more mobile
and more knowledgeable of the market. Fees levied on domestic students have increased
63
relative to government grants and as a proportion of the revenues of universities and other
tertiary institutions; and those fees, the equivalent charged by institutions to international
students and significant proportions of grants that institutions receive from governments are
linked more closely to an individual student enrolling for a specified course.
Many of these changes stem from higher education activities having become classified
increasingly as public services. Consequently, the institutions providing them have been
caught up in economic restructuring and reforms to public governance and management
(Kelsey, 1997; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004), and so come to be part of the New Higher
Education (Trowler, 2001). For example, re Colombia, see Restrepo (2008); re New Zealand,
see Boston (1988, 1996), Larner and Le Heron (2005), and McLaughlin (2003); re Norway,
see Pettersen and Solstad (2007); re United Kingdom, see Deem (2004), and Deem and
Brehoney (2005). Potentially, curricular accounting shares with several other variants of
accounting the attributes of having been introduced or adapted to reflect these changes to
higher education and having helped constitute them. Examples of these other variants
reported about higher education institutions in New Zealand include activity-based
management and costing (Coy and Goh, 1993; Robb, Shanahan and Lord, 1997),
performance measurement (Lord, Robb and Shanahan, 1998), accounting information as part
of governance (Dixon and Coy, 2007), annual reporting (Coy, Dixon, Buchanan and Tower,
1997), and resource allocation and accountability (Coy and Pratt, 1998).
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84
Table 1: Comparison of the situations prevailing at University of Canterbury in 1984 and 2010 re Elements of Curricular Accounting
Elemants of
Curricular
Accounting and
Related Matters
Situation in 1984
Situation in 2010
Credit for learning
Credit is used frequently in higher education to refer to learning that,
having been assessed as above specified standards, counts towards a
student’s qualification. Concept recognised, in credit points and credit
transfer
Concept is greater usage, as an expression for recognising learning within institutions, between institutions
in the same jurisdiction and across jurisdictions
Units of learning
A course is the minimum formal unit in which knowledge is studied and
on which students enrol, to give rise to credit. Courses vary in
subject/topic, level and credit value. Courses are combined to form a
programme leading to a qualification
A course is the minimum formal unit in which knowledge is studied and on which students enrol, to give
rise to credit. Courses vary in subject/topic, level and, to a lesser extent, credit value. . Courses are
combined to form a programme leading to a qualification
Qualifications
Wide range of broadly-based UC qualifications (e.g., in science, arts,
commerce), designated as undergraduate (e.g., bachelor degrees) and
postgraduate (e.g., bachelor degrees with honours, master degrees, doctor
degrees)
Even wider range of similarly designated UC qualifications, with many sub-divided as discipline- and subdiscipline-specific majors (e.g., in accounting, tax and accounting, marketing)
Levels of learning
Undergraduate-postgraduate levels distinguished, and undergraduate
study distinguished as Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3, and postgraduate as
masterate and doctorate
Undergraduate-postgraduate levels distinguished, and undergraduate study distinguished as 100-level, 200level and 300-level (although terms Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 still used) , and postgraduate as masterate
and doctorate
Credit points as
measurement or value
of credit
Credit in the form of numbers that are purported to quantify volumes of
learning entailed in courses and qualifications. New degree structure
system of points applied to most undergraduate programmes, except
engineering, but not to postgraduate programmes. A three-year bachelor
degree comprised 108 points (or 96 in the case of science) (by 2000, all
are of 102 points). Similar numbers/calculations used at some other NZ
universities. Meaning of one point not well defined, except in an
expression left over from the unit system that a unit, or 12 points,
comprised “one year’s work” in a subject
360 point (three-year bachelor) degree system of points applies to all undergraduate courses and
increasingly more postgraduate courses, with all courses having a points value of 15 points or multiples
thereof from 2011 (from 2006 to 2010 points values of courses were much more varied). Similar to
systems widespread in NZ and to CATS used in UK. Meaning of a point defined in terms of hours of
learning and assessment undertaken by a student: 1 point ≡ 10 hours of learning (including formal teaching
contact, informal contact, Web-based learning, practicals, lab-work, placements and tutorials, research,
teacher-directed and self-directed study and assessment)
Course weights
Concept not articulated but implicit in EFTSs calculations made to
negotiate funding within UGC (funding mechanism not public or
particularly transparent)
Concept introduced c.1992, following introduction in NZ of EFTSs Funding System, which has since
evolved into the Student Achievement Component of funding. Weight of each course specified as a
decimalised proportion of an EFTS. Course weight and credit point value of each course aligned since
2006, so that 120 points ≡ 1.0000 EFTS. Before that, old new degree structure points and course weights
were only aligned within each undergraduate level, not between levels, and not consistently between
faculties/disciplines.
Course catalogues
Qualifications and courses are catalogued in the Calendar. Entries indicate
level of all courses and points values of most undergraduate courses, and
specify most undergraduate qualifications in terms of points needed in
total and by level. Postgraduate qualifications specified by requirements
for particular courses
Calendar entries indicate level, points values and course weights of all courses. Credit requirements of
qualifications specified in quantitative terms in Calendar in terms of points needed for all undergraduate
programmes in total and by level, and for most postgraduate programmes.
85
Elemants of
Curricular
Accounting and
Related Matters
Situation in 1984
Situation in 2010
Learning outcomes
Used by some teachers but no official standing
Officially included in course and qualification approval documents, and as many official course
information web pages and courses outlines appear to include them as do not. Used by some teachers but
not others as part of teaching strategy and tactics and as a basis of designing assessment strategy and in
criteria-based assessment (at least a significant minority of assessment is norms-based (i.e., standardised
statistically or otherwise) not criteria-based (i.e., measured using pre-determined standards or criteria))
Graduate profiles for
qualifications
Concept not generally articulated
Gaining ground in some faculties, sometimes because of the need to satisfy accreditation agencies (e.g.,
AACSB), and recently commended by NZUAAU (2010)
Assurance of learning
Concept not generally articulated even implicitly
Beginning to sprout in some faculties, sometimes because of the need to satisfy accreditation agencies
(e.g., AACSB), and recently alluded to but not by name by NZUAAU (2010)
National qualification
frameworks
No official NZ framework; a universities framework might be loosely
derived from that inherited from University of New Zealand by the UGC
and NZVCC
NZ National Qualifications Framework compiled by NZQA and made reference to by UNZ and UC in
some documents
Level descriptors
None in evidence
Available nationally from NZQA but not much in evidence within UC or in UNZ guidance on
qualifications, programmes and courses
Credit transfer
systems
Credit transfer applicable within NZ and with other institutions overseas.
Largely based on documentary evidence on a case-by-case basis, with
some use of precedents. Barely based on credit points. Credit given
towards UC qualifications and to permit ad eundem statum entry into UC
qualifications
Credit transfer applicable within NZ and with other institutions overseas. Based significantly more on
credit points but documentary evidence still prominent. Credit given towards UC qualifications and to
permit ad eundem statum entry into UC qualifications
Student records
Card system of student records showing courses previously studied,
grades achieved, points attained and qualifications awarded
Computerised database system with wide-ranging information about each student and each course, the
student records including courses currently being studied and previously studied, points expected and
attained, grades achieved, qualifications awarded
Transcripts of student
records
Issued to graduates on application, being a typed extract of the student
record, showing courses studied, grades achieved and qualifications
gained
Issued to graduates on application, being generated from the student records database, showing all courses
enrolled on and not formally withdrawn from, grades achieved and qualifications gained
Diploma supplements
Concept unrecognised
Concept unrecognised, except by those recently arrived from Europe or with outline knowledge of
Bologna Agreement. Closest concept is transcript but that covers all study and not just that relating to one
qualification/diploma
Student tuition fees
Minor charge made to domestic students and numbers of foreign students
restricted and inconsequential, so fees not a significant matter
Significant fees are charged on each course according to its course weight and cost/funding category. The
charge to domestic students is substantially less than that to foreign students, and is usually paid by
StudyLink, mostly giving rise to a student loan, which students repays out of future earnings
Government system of
funding universities
Quinquennially determined block grants towards fixed and variable
operating expenditures according to disciplines, activities and related
matters. The system was governed and administered by UGC and was
seemingly largely incremental and opaque, although a simple count of
EFTSs was prominent.
Student Achievement Component is relevant here and substantial compared with other components (e.g.,
the Performance-Based Research Fund). Based on EFTSs as calculated using course weights and student
enrolments. Amount per EFTS differs among funding categories into which each course/subject and
discipline is classified.
86
BA inaugurated c. 1870
BA revised c. 1878
BA revised c. 1895
BSc. inaugurated c. 1890
BCom. inaugurated c. 1906
LL.B inaugurated c. 1890
BMus. inaugurated c. 1890
Figure 1 The Branching Out of Bachelor-level Qualifications between the 1870s and 1900s
87
140
120
100
80
No. of qualifications (CoE)
No. of qualifications - post points
No. of qualifications - pre points
60
40
20
0
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2005
2009
Figure 2 Number of qualifications that students have been able to study at UC decade-on-decade since the 1870s (the numbers up to 1960
are for UNZ qualifications, not all of which could be completed entirely through courses at the College/University College. The numbers are
for meta-qualifications and do not include majors and endorsements within these)
88
4000
3500
3000
2500
No. of courses/papers (CoE)
No. of courses/papers - post points
2000
No. of courses/papers - pre points
1500
1000
500
0
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2005
2009
Figure 3 Number of courses that could be studied for at UC decade-on-decade since the 1870s
89
25,000
20,000
15,000
No of students (CoE)
No of students - post points
No of students - pre points
10,000
5,000
0
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2005
2009
Figure 4 Number of individual full- and part-time students enrolled at UC decade-on-decade since the 1870s
90
800
700
600
500
No of academic staff (CoE)
No of academic staff - post points
400
No of academic staff - pre points
300
200
100
0
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2005
2009
Figure 5 Number of individual full- and part-time academic staff based at UC decade-on-decade since the 1870s
91
Basic Unit –
Departments,
Faculties,
Colleges
IndividualAcademic Staff
Normative
Values
Intrinsic: job
satisfaction; personal
wants and
expectations
Extrinsic:
subscription to group
norms
Operational
Activities
judgement of
individual standards
Intrinsic:
maintaining peer
group norms and
values
Extrinsic:
conformity with
institutional
requirements
development of
working practice
development of
course provision
Work required:
research, teaching,
learning facilitation,
learning
Operating process:
curriculum and/or
research
programme
allocations of
individual tasks
judgement of formal
procedures
Institution –
University of
Canterbury
Central
Authority –
Education Dept,
Ministry, UGC,
TEC, NZVCC
Intrinsic: maintaining
due academic
process; initiating
developments
Intrinsic: monitoring
institutional
standards
Extrinsic: conformity
to central demands
judgement of
quality of courses
and qualifications
development of new
structures or
institutions
development of
organisational forms
allocations of
unitary budgets and
programmes
Figure 6 Adapted model for higher education. (Source Becher and Kogan, 1980, p. 19)
92
Maintenance of
institution: forward
planning/
implementing policy
Extrinsic: meeting
social and economic
desiderata
allocations of
institutional
programme
provision and
funding
Allocation of central
resources/
sponsorship of new
developments
Figure 6 The New Zealand National Qualifications Framework (Source: NZQA, 2007; UC, 2007)
93
Notes
1 The word courses is used throughout to refer to units or modules into which study at a higher education institution is formally
organised and the smallest piece of learning for which credit is formally awarded.
2 The CATS acronym is also used to indicate credit accumulation and transfer system but the words system and scheme do not
seem to mean different things.
3 Calendars are recognised as the authoritative source of course regulations at New Zealand universities.
4 The College was established and governed by a lay Board of Governors drawn from the elite among the settlers, the Board also
having responsibility for the Canterbury Museum, the Public Library, some secondary and primary schools, and outlying land
endowed by the Province to generate revenue for the College (Gardner et al., 1973).
5 Ideas and experiences from Britain already in train included that education in the Colony should be provided institutionally and
in three stages, primary, secondary and tertiary: schemes of education practiced by the indigenous peoples of New Zealand (now
called Maori) did not figure in establishing this scheme (Gardner et al., 1973).
6 Most Board members and other wealthier settlers had been used to sending their sons to universities in Britain, and this continued
for 40 years after the College was established, then being impeded by World War I (Gardner et al., 1973). [NB Use of World Wars
I and II as markers of time is not just a matter of convenience. Both wars and their aftermaths had implications for the institution,
and its staff, students and alumni, many of whom were caught up in the fighting, as well as for relations between New Zealand and
Britain, and New Zealand’s standing as a nation in its own right separate from its colonial past.]
7 These shortcomings were reflected in non-matriculated students being a majority until the 1890s. Even by 1930 some 30% of
students attended lectures at the College without (or before) having matriculated, and so were ineligible to sit annual College
examinations that followed these lectures.
8 For some time, the College’s mixed gender student body was mainly comprised of the offspring of lesser settlers (e.g., minor
professionals, trades people and small farmers). They usually needed to earn a living while studying, and so were mostly part-time.
The first full-time student did not enrol until 1879 (Gardner et al., 1973). This preponderance of part-time students applied in New
Zealand as a whole. An early policy objective of the New Zealand Parliament was that a university degree should be accessible to
all, and to achieve this exemption from lectures, evening classes, Saturday classes and other means to allow part-time study were
common from the early days (Hunter et al., 1911). Even by 1925, well over half the total of students at the College and the other
affiliates were part-time, as noted by the 1925 Royal Commission, which reported widespread occurrences of late afternoon and
evening lectures at the colleges in question to accommodate part-time attendance (Parton, 1979).
9 The College was geared initially to admitting aspiring and in-service school teachers, of which there was a shortage in the
Province and Colony up to 1890. Then, in response to changing needs of the Colony for other professions, the College branched
out into engineering, music, law and commerce, in tandem with moves elsewhere to embrace a range of specialities, also including
medicine and dentistry.
10 Although the proportion of staff holding an Oxbridge degree among their retinue of qualifications peaked at over 60% about
1910, the preponderance of holders of British degrees continued for at least three more decades.
11 As late as the 1950s, recruitment for some professorial and other senior posts included setting up a committee in Britain to
shortlist and interview candidates, alongside similar efforts in New Zealand. Use was made of the Universities’ Bureau of the
British Empire, the forerunner of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (Gardner et al., 1973).
12 The majority of academic staff continued to be recruited deliberately in Britain, certainly up to World War I and arguably for
some time thereafter, although persuading academics of the desired quality to come to New Zealand was not easy. Indeed, on
grounds of maintaining and improving standards, recruitment of persons with only New Zealand degrees was contentious up to
World War II. The influence of these British academics encompassed curriculum, assessment, textbooks and other learning
materials, and administrative and policy matters, both at the College and in the running of UNZ, notwithstanding a major bone of
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contention for several decades being the extent to which laymen held sway over policies (Gardner et al., 1973; Hight and Candy,
1927; Hunter, Laby and von Zediltz, 1911; Parton, 1979).
13 For staff names from 1873 to 1973, see Gardner et al. (1973), and for short biographies of those College staff prominent in UNZ,
see Parton (1979).
14 Regarding UNZ, the Board of the College and its counterpart at the University of Otago played a vital part in laying down the
fundamentals of how tertiary education has been organised across New Zealand. Out of various contested possibilities in the 1860s
and 1870s, they established UNZ to act as an umbrella organisation and then affiliated their two colleges to it, although the college
in Dunedin kept the name University of Otago. Subsequently, two similar colleges that were formed in Auckland (from 1883) (now
the University of Auckland) and Wellington (from 1897) (now Victoria University of Wellington) affiliated to UNZ. Some
secondary schools were permitted to affiliate at first as they offered “university classes”, but they were obliged to disaffiliate in
1885 (Gardner et al., 1973; Parton, 1979).
15 According to Gardner et al. (1973), if the idea of UNZ, its functions and its relations with affiliates was inspired by any British
institution, it was the University of London, rather than Oxbridge.
16 UNZ proved to be of great significance during the 90 years that the institution at Christchurch operated as the College /
University College. It quickly acquired various functions, as reflected in the carefully documented “Minutes of Proceedings of
Senate and Boards of the University (of New Zealand)” (1871-). It set and processed common matriculation examinations across
New Zealand (known after 1930 as entrance examinations). It awarded scholarships [NB The awarding of scholarships predated
the establishment of university classes in New Zealand. They had been available during the 1860s to an intellectually gifted few in
the colony in order that they could pursue university study in Britain.]. It established and regulated university awards; and
compiled a catalogue of subjects and courses. It assisted the development of university teaching including by making grants to
affiliates. It administered examinations leading to the awards and conferred the awards; and it conducted examinations on behalf of
the New Zealand Society of Accountants (see Gaffikin, 1981). Meanwhile, activities and functions of the College and the other
affiliates extended to, among other things, admitting students, maintaining records of students and courses, and preparing students
for the UNZ examinations (Gardner et al., 1973; Parton, 1979).
17 UNZ appointed academics based in Britain as examiners, particularly in traditional academic subjects, as distinct from the
professional subjects. This use of British-based examiners arose in the 1870s from a concern to maintain a high standard and secure
fairness among students from the various affiliates, although many academics in New Zealand demurred from this view (see
Hunter et al., 1911). Arrangements at the British end were handled by an agent. As well as setting examination papers, the
examiners marked the students’ scripts, which were sent to Britain for this purpose, and communicated the results to UNZ through
the agent. The duration of this process was such that the ceremonial conferment of degrees could not take place until April, which
has remained the normal time to hold capping ceremonies at UC.
18 Particularly influential, according to Gardner et al. (1973), was John Macmillan Brown, one of the College’s three foundation
professors (1874-1895), and a member of UNZ Senate 1879-1935, including as vice-chancellor 1916-23 and chancellor 1923-35. A
graduate of Glasgow and Oxford, at his inaugural address to members of the College, he held up the Scottish and German
universities as models for New Zealand to follow, rather than the English ones.
19 For a review of these in their original setting, see Francis (1997).
20 Regarding appearances, the brick buildings constructed to accommodate the College between the 1870s and 1920s were
covered with a façade of what might be mistaken for either the stone used at St Andrews or Cotswold stone, and they were replete
with cloister-like arcades. Until the 1930s, staff and students were obliged to wear caps and gowns.
21 As Francis (1997) shows, the frequent championing by academics (see Hunter et al., 1911) of some bygone golden age when
they were free to gather and disseminate knowledge without political and administrative inference, and when universities were
politically and administratively autonomous is something of a myth, except in a few cases and only occasionally. Lay people, many
associated with provincial governments and then the Government, have been involved since the outset with UNZ and its affiliates
and it successors, and in recent decades, they have been New Zealand very much dependent on direct government grants, which
were designed to facilitate massification, and, most recently, on fees and other revenue ostensibly paid by students but who utilise
so-called student loans and student allowances that derive from government [NB Although there is some variety in schemes of the
different countries that have adopted these measures in an era of user pays and markets, student loans tend to be only repayable out
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of earnings of the borrowers once they exceed a certain taxable income, and so the loans are more akin to a deferred income tax.
Student allowances are grants, rather than loans, and only certain students are eligible for most of them, usually those whose
parental and personal incomes are below a means-tested threshold].
22 Between 1883 and 1913, 60% of the graduates of the College had entered the so-called learned professions (e.g., teachers,
lawyers, engineers, clergy, doctors) (Gardner et al., 1973).
23 UC was one of four universities established in place of UNZ. Four more have been established since, each emerging from
university branch facilities institutions or other tertiary institutions that existed in 1961 (see Gould, 1988).
24 Regarding masterate and doctorate degrees, even as late as the 1950s, the annual number awarded by UNZ for the whole of
New Zealand were only 220 and 15, respectively. There was a fivefold and tenfold increase in these numbers by 1981 (UGC
Review Committee, 1982).
25 Teachers of science were among those who argued successfully for a BSc.
26 Incidentally, conferring new awards required amendments to be made to UNZ’s Royal Charter, proposals as to which were
scrutinised by the Privy Council at Westminster, and many were not approved (see Parton, 1979), demonstrating British influence
was legal as well as social or cultural.
27 Of 858 degrees conferred by UNZ by 1900, 80% were of the BA variety (Parton, 1979). The BSc was second most popular but
even in 1920 the ratio of BAs to BScs was 7:1, and it was still 2:1 in 1946 (Gardner et al., 1973).
28 In today’s terms, it consisted of 100-level and some 200-level study, at most.
29 G. S. Sale was professor of classics at Otago and C. H. H. Cook was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the
College. It is no coincidence that Latin and mathematics were compulsory subjects and remained so until these gentlemen had
retired in the 1910s.
30 Part of the delay was that it was not until the 1920s that improvements of sufficient magnitude were achieved in standards of
secondary education such that students enrolling at the College and other affiliates were better prepared than previous generations.
31 Second year and Third year were obtained by distinguishing Advanced courses into two stages.
32 The reduction in units was to recognise that in contrast to Arts students Science students had to fulfil periods of laboratory work
during Stages 2 and 3.
33 The BCom. was something of an exception proving the rule. Although it was changed c. 1930 in the aftermath of the change to
the BA, its actual simplification as a nine-unit degree did not occur until c. 1960.
34 See Parton (1979) about the protracted consideration during the 1930s about who should set and mark examinations at the
different levels. The system was changed from a preponderance and then some examinations being set and marked in Britain to
examinations being set and marked in New Zealand, and then set and marked at the constituent colleges, albeit that up to the mid
1950s, the internal examiners were restricted to the ranks of the professors and up to c. 1970 an external assessor had to be
appointed for at least some examinations.
35 The initial statutes named 14 institutions in Britain and the other dominions. After a decade or two, a few applications were
approved from holders of degrees from institutions in the USA and continental Europe. By 1920, the statutes referred to the openended categories of British chartered universities, and British and foreign universities recognised by the Senate.
36 The situation can best be illustrated with a sample of the annual number of applications, whether approved or declined, that the
Senate dealt with. In 1888 and again in 1908, there were three applications for conferrals of degrees. In 1928, it was 11 for
conferrals of degrees, one for grant of credit towards a degree and one for recognition of matriculation from elsewhere. In 1948, it
was 10 for conferrals of degrees, 28 for grant of credit towards a degree and 55 for recognition of matriculation from elsewhere. In
1958, only the numbers of successful applications are available: these were 15 enrolments to higher degrees with graduate status,
30 for grant of credit towards a bachelor degree and 108 for recognition of matriculation from elsewhere (Source of data –
“Minutes of Proceedings of the Senate and Board of the University” (1871- ) for the respective years).
37 Initially, the functions of the College and the other affiliates appeared mostly to dovetail quite well with those of UNZ, with
examinations especially being central to their interrelations. Inevitably, however, mismatches and tensions arose intermittently. In
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the first few decades of UNZ, these were unsatisfactory only to a minority, albeit a vocal one, who raised issues of how UNZ might
be reformed, how relations between it and its affiliates might be revised and whether UNZ should be dissolved and separate
universities established (see Hunter et al., 1911). These issues became the subject of continuing debate in which both sides
recognised that the influence that those in control of UNZ had over academics working at the College and the other affiliates
carried through into the form and curriculum of qualifications, how students were examined, how standards were discoursed and
the way activities were arranged and represented. The two sides differed over whether this influence was good or bad for standards
and equivalence. The side arguing that it was good held sway until the 1920s. However, the composition of the two sides changed
as personnel at the College (and then University College), the other affiliates and UNZ gradually expanded and changed; and as the
idea of university institutions having an enhanced role in the development of New Zealand society was increasingly accepted,
especially in the aftermath of World War II. The institutions were expected to cope with a growth in the number of New
Zealanders who expected to attend university; with general expectations that universities would broaden their intake and be more
responsive and accountable; and with increased demand for well-educated persons across New Zealand and further afield (e.g.,
Britain, Australia). This greatly affected opinions about how they should function, and by the 1950s the side arguing that UNZ’s
influence was bad not only held sway but also there was a majority for its dissolution and for bestowing authority on the university
colleges to establish and regulate qualifications, conduct assessment and confer qualifications. This change occurred over several
years either side of 1961, and UC emerged as a university in its own right (Gardner et al., 1973; Gould, 1988; Parton, 1979; UGC
Review Committee, 1982).
38 In addition to many functions being transferred to affiliates so as to be consistent with their new roles as universities with award
granting powers, some residual functions had to be vested in other statutory bodies, notably the UGC (Parton, 1979). The remit of
the UGC was much wider than merely granting funds (about which see below), giving rise to Gardner et al. (1973) likening it to a
Ministry of Universities. Although it included some functions relating to programme development and assessment, in practice
these were vested in a Curriculum Committee, which although under UGC’s umbrella was a collaboration among the individual
universities. It scrutinised proposals for major new programmes and qualifications from UC and other universities from an interuniversity standpoint after they had passed through a local decision making (e.g., at UC) (Gardner et al. 1973; Gould, 1988; Parton,
1979; UGC Review Committee, 1982). When the UGC was itself abolished c. 1990, this function was taken over by the NZVCC
within which CUAP has emerged to perform it (NZVCC:CUAP, 2007).
39 A significant impetus for having undergraduate diploma qualifications, which are of much shorter duration than bachelor
degrees, seems to have arisen from the Hughes Parry Committee of 1959. It was concerned about increasing the number of fulltime students and tailoring qualifications to full-time and part-time study respectively (Parton 1979). The New Zealand economy in
the 1950s onwards had a greater need for qualified people and diplomas meant part-time students gaining a qualification much
quicker than if they had to complete an entire degree.
40 For example, a proposal by Professor Arnold Wall for a course with a syllabus unique to the College was declined by the UNZ
Senate in the 1920s because it was contrary to the notion of courses having common syllabuses across New Zealand (Parton, 1979).
41 Other proposals around at the time that were also threatening were proposals to create two additional university colleges (and so,
would be universities) in the Waikato and Manawatu regions and to permit courses to be offered extramurally, all of which
eventuated during the 1960s. These were additionally controversial because of the adverse affect they might have on existing
university colleges/would-be universities.
42 The naming of undergraduate levels used officially by UNZ changed in the 1940s from First year to Stage I, etc., probably
because of the longstanding reality that many students studying the courses in question did so out of turn with when they entered
the University College, particularly as part-time students. In everyday parlance, the two sets of terms are used interchangeably
alongside the even more recent official terms of 100-level, etc. whose origins are explained above (see note 6??).
43 The buildings and other features at Ilam are of contemporary design: there was no attempt to replicate St Andrews, Oxford, etc.
of the Middle Ages. However, a few buildings were named to commemorate academics (e.g., James Hight, John Macmillan
Brown) and students (e.g., Ngaio Marsh, Ernest Rutherford) of the earlier period. The original buildings are now an Arts Centre
and tourist attraction.
44 It is as well to remember that even in the 1970s supermarkets were a relatively new phenomenon in New Zealand and they seem
to have been regarded with a mix of suspicion and condescension among UC’s academics, especially when it came to applying
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their circumstances of giving customers (in this case students who traditionally were regarded as supplicants) an unbridled choice
in courses and qualifications.
45 There were two notable exceptions to the study that was encompassed within this initial points system. First, it was never
applied to postgraduate qualifications and courses. Second, engineering courses at Stages I to III were not included, and this
remained the situation until Stage I courses of this ilk were brought into the scheme in 2000. The other engineering courses, which
were referred to as professional level courses, were included from 2004. These exceptions reflect the primary reasons for the
system. Both postgraduate qualifications and engineering qualifications were made up of compulsory courses and limited numbers
of electives.
In the case of engineering, it was rare for students to take any course outside of the Engineering Faculty offerings. There was no
need then to apply any credit point system. In the case of engineering, this changed as a much wider interface began developing
with the rest of UC in the 1990s. For example, the computer engineering degree came to share about 50% of its courses with
electrical engineering offerings and the rest were from the general schedule of courses offered in computer science, which were
also available to the BA, BSc., BCom., etc. The credit point system in these cases made it much easier to manage engineering
students who now had broader enrolment choices because there was less regulatory prescription (Personal communication from
Richard Duke, Dean of College of Engineering at UC).
46 Lest it is forgotten, a note here is in order about research, an activity that absorbs academics and that seems vital in terms of
standards of learning and teaching, and so of courses and qualifications. In the College days, research was severely limited by lack
of library and other facilities and “sadly insufficient” (Gardner et al., 1973, p. 129), although an annual list of research work began
being published in 1919. By the 1930s, a list of staff publications was appearing in the Calendars and Annual Reports. The
University College Council took steps to increase the volume of research activity and the resources it commanded in 1944, spurred
on by philosophy lecturer, Karl Popper (Parton, 1979). Research that academics were engaging in became a little more prominent
and the number of published items increased from 19 in 1948 to 274 in 1971 (Gardner et al., 1973). Today, research, research
outputs and the PBRF, the acronym of Performance-Based Research Fund, are a significant part of daily discourse, as reflected in
the number of items listed in the UC research Report for 2008 being in excess of 3,000.
47 Academics and students interested in newer and/or less high-status subjects gained by reductions that occurred in professional
capture and restrictive practices. These reductions led to increased course choice and resources, the latter being allocated more
openly and in their favour via delegated budgeting.
48 As indicated earlier, this was changing in 2009, when some departments began to assign values of 15 points and multiples of 15
points to postgraduate courses in addition and corresponding to their course weights as already expressed in portions of an EFTS.
49 Elaborating this matter quantitatively, the differences between old system and the new one were that the amount of study
required at 300-level in requirements for three-year bachelor degrees increased from 12 old points ≡ 56 new points to 84 new
points ≡18 old points; and at 200-level they increased from 24 old points ≡ 88 new points to 132 new points ≡36 old points. The
amount of 100-level study allowed to count was reduced from 72 old points ≡ 216 new points to 144 new points ≡ 48 old points.
50 A significant subsequent development may be that in 2007 New Zealand acceded to the Lisbon Convention (Council of Europe,
1997), reaffirming and enhancing recognition in other signatory countries of its qualification system and its registered
qualifications, including those conferred by UC (NZQA, 2007).
51 Given the existence of university league tables and sources such as the Good University Guide 1010 (2009), one might have
doubts about equivalence of quality of national or international points.
52 Under the new degree structure system, UC’s situation regarding the proportion of study at 300-level was not as one might
suppose, that is that 12 points ÷ 102 points = 12%. The proportion of study had to be calculated in terms of student study hours,
and UC’s measure of this were course weights (i.e., the EFTS value of a course) not its points value, illuminating the circumstance
confusing to students that under the new degree structure system the student workload attaching to each point varied from level to
level [NB Under the new degree structure of 1975 to 2004, a 6-point, 100-level course had a course weight of 0.1550 EFTS,
compared with a 6-point, 200-level course with a course weight of 0.1850 EFTS, and a 6-point, 300-level course with a course
weight of 0.2550 EFTS. Thus, the nominal workload required to obtain 6 points at 300-level was greater than that to obtain 6
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points at 200-level, and similarly at 100-level.]. As each 6-point 300-level course had a course weight of 0.2550 EFTS (see UC,
3003), the appropriate calculation was 0.5100 EFTS ÷ 3.0000 EFTSs = 17%.
53 Making points values and course weights equivalent at all levels was achieved by courses within each level being re-assigned
point values according to their existing course weights, and then points values at each level being re-calibrated such that courses at
different levels but with the same course weights were assigned equivalent point values. That this was a rather messy business is
exemplified in trying to explain it. Re-calibration resulted in a 100-level course of six old points being reassigned a value of 18 new
points; a 200-level course of six old points being reassigned a value of 22 new points; and a 300-level course of six old points being
reassigned a value of 28 new points. Furthermore, courses at 100-level of other than 6 old points were reassigned a value of new
points in the proportion of 18 new points being equivalent of 6 old points, and so on for 200- and 300-level courses, the proportions
being 22 new to six old and 28 new to six old. For example, a 100-level course of three old points was reassigned a value of 9 new
points; a 200-level course of three old points was reassigned a value of 11 new points; and a 300-level course of three old points
was reassigned a value of 14 new points.
This issue of the relationship between points and course weights/EFTSs being complicated seems not to have affected many people
when the new degree structure was introduced in 1975 because university funding then was administered very much within the
UGC and student fees were flat and minimal. However, this changed in the early 1990s when the UGC was abolished and the far
more participative or market-oriented EFTS funding system was introduced (Coy, Tower and Dixon, 1991), alongside variable and
significantly higher course fees, the latter being differentiated by course weights. The introduction of the 360 point degree system
seems to have reduced the complexity in question.
54 Some of this perplexity arose because of variation in understanding of what a point was in the new degree structure system, and
what it was not. Although a point was not explicitly defined in this system, the idea was underpinned by the notion of an EFTS
being one student spending the whole of their (work) time studying and being assessed. Thus, from the way that course weights
were determined for each course under that system, it could be (mis)construed that a point at one level had some equivalence to a
point at another level in terms of quantity of knowledge and skills learnt; and, furthermore, that because 300-level learning is more
difficult than 200-level learning, which in turn is more difficult than 100-level learning, the workload required to obtain 6 points at
300-level would be greater than that to obtain 6 points at 200-level, and similarly at 100-level. Although construing the situation is
this way can be seen as flawed, there was some evidence carrying through into the implementation of the 360 point degree system
of courses at higher levels being allotted more points because they were more difficult (Personal Communication from Jan
Cameron, 2008). Hence, typical 6-point courses at 100-level in the old new degree structure system were allotted 18 points in the
new 360 point degree system; typical 6-point courses at 200-level were allotted 22 points; and typical 6-point courses at 300-level
were allotted 28 points (UC, 2003, 2004).
55 It is curious that an array from 3 to 12, as in the new degree structure system, was less of an issue than the array of 11 to 28.
Perhaps more people found the numbers 3 to 12 easier to work with than 11 to 28.
56 The term honours is also used at UC and elsewhere in New Zealand as an appendage to bachelor degrees, but refers to a fourth
year of study after one has completed a three-year bachelor degree and can constitute the first year of a two year master degree.
57 A further anomaly that the 15-point standardisation should resolve is that with courses between 2005 and 2010 having an array
of points from 11 to 28, students completing 360 points over three years have often been completing either 108 or 126 points in
their first year, between 106 and 132 in their second year, and between 102 and 128 in their third year. This has been at slight odds
with the notion of a year of full-time study comprising 120 points. Under the new arrangements of 15-point courses, most students
will now be able to study 120 points annually.
58 All the changes to points, courses, course codes, award regulations and so on have to be included in the next iterations of the
Calendar, in course catalogue systems and student record systems. The changes to points and courses are likely to alter the pattern
of enrolments among departments and colleges, thus changing their EFTS counts, and so internal funding allocations. Indeed, it is
possible that the volume of enrolment and EFTSs across the whole university may change, which would affect UC’s government
grant revenue and student fees.
59 Various issues of definition and availability affected collection and processing of the data provided in these charts and those in
the next two Figures. The reliability of the charts lies in the trends they illuminate, rather than precision of individual data points.
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60 The change of name from the College to the University College was significant to something that did not happen rather than
something that might have. That is, UNZ continued, despite calls for its dissolution and for the creation of four separate
universities out of its principal affiliates (e.g., by UNZ’s Board of Studies in 1918; and by Hight in 1924, in advocating a
University of Canterbury, while professor of history, economics and political science – he was pro-chancellor of UNZ 1938-48).
But to distinguish them from other bodies that used the name college and to confirm their status to the outside world, the affiliates
were permitted to use university in their title (Parton, 1979).
61 This and the previous world war had implications for relations between New Zealand and Britain, in particular New Zealand’s
standing as a nation in its own right separate from its colonial settler past.
62 This is the number of individual students, and it is estimated that over 13,000 are full-time and over 6,000 are part-time. The
relative proportions of full-time and part-time students have been similar to this throughout UC’s existence, carrying on from
previous periods when part-time study was significant, if not ascendant.
63 The ratio of lecturers to professors increased from 1:1 in the early days to 2:1 by 1925, to 5:2 by 1950. As elsewhere in New
Zealand (see Parton, 1979), the increase in staff numbers was accompanied by the number of New Zealand first degree holders
preponderating by about 1950, except in the professorial ranks in which there was still a slight majority of academics from Britain
or similar.
64 Whereas from the 1920s up to the 1990s the year was divided into three terms, after 2000 the academic year was divided into
two semesters. Under the earlier arrangement, and the prior one of two terms up to 1920, courses had usually lasted the entire
academic year, with examinations annually in October. To fit with the new arrangement, during the 2000s, the duration of virtually
all courses was reduced to one semester, with examinations bi-annually in June and October. In bringing this about, the majority of
courses of three terms duration were replaced by two courses each of one semester duration. A minority were rearranged so that
three terms work was fitted into one semester. The change to semesters both accommodated reducing course sizes for the reasons
of student choice and staff preferences, etc., and prompted further changes to course sizes so that they fitted within a semester.
65 There was a period c. 1880 when many College part-time students were also attending the forerunner of the College of
Education.
66 Exemplifying this is the use of a 360 degree points system in specifying and maintaining the New Zealand register of quality
assured qualifications (see NZQA, 2007).
67 Re clan as a mechanism of control particularly suited to organisations focused on internal maintenance with flexibility, concern
for people and sensitivity for those putting their trust in clan leaders, see Berrio (2003), Bourne and Ezzamel (1984), Mintzberg
(1991), Ouchi (1980), Pounder (2001) and Sporn (1996).
68 Even though choice did seem limited, Professor C. H. H. Cook calculated that in 1883 there were over 5,000 ways of
proceeding to a BA (Gardner et al., 1973).
69 Until the 1940s or, in some cases, 1950s, students of the College or University College had to “keep terms” in order to be
eligible to sit UNZ examination papers. What constituted “keeping terms” initially meant attending lectures and then passing
annual College examinations. Later it included completing coursework, or coursework was substituted for annual College
examinations, so that there was only one examination or set of examinations at the end of the course, the UNZ examination(s), and
not two sets. The notion of keeping terms continued at UC, finally dying out in the 1990s, although before that calculating the final
grade of a student on a course was often done using assessment administered during the course and administered at the end of the
course.
70 In contrast, the faculties are organised along curricular lines. The various academic departments are both part of a faculty and
part of a college.
71 Although, under delegated budgeting, resource allocation at UC continues to feature politics and incrementalism, in negotiating
divisional and sub-divisional allocations in financial and physical terms more has come to be made of EFTSs and other metrics,
and of an item known as contribution margin. This is calculated as the percentage of a college’s revenue that is sliced off to meet
the cost of resources that are centrally provided and/or whose use is shared among colleges (e.g., student records, libraries,
teaching accommodation, common areas of building and outdoors campus spaces) and that are not otherwise charged for internally
(e.g., printing jobs, and office accommodation and some other dedicated spaces are charged for internally).
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72 Confirming in a personal communication in 2008 that people generally better understood the new points system than they had
the old one, Jan Cameron, Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Academic), UC, suggests also that students seemed to understand the new
system more readily than staff did.
73 The arithmetic is as follows. A three-year degree comprises 360 points, and so one year of study is typically 120 points. If an
EFTS year is 120 points, then one point is 1 ÷ 120 = 0.0833 EFTS. Incidentally, an EFTS year has also been decided on as 30
weeks at 40 hours a week = 1,200 hours. Thus, 120 points equates with 1,200 hours of study, and so 1 point represents 10 hours of
study, as signalled in Table 1 (Dixon, 2009).
74 A major test is defined as a test that counts for greater than 20% of the final mark for a course.
75 The 360 point degree system meant some things being simplified for UC staff but other ramifications arose and have not yet
been addressed. No matter at which level a course is at, each credit point denotes 10 hours of study are entailed, and so a 15 point
100-level course comprises 150 hours of study of 100-level difficulty or quality, a 15 point 200-level course comprises 150 hours
of study of 200-level difficulty or quality, and so on. The issue is that the points at the different levels are not equivalent in terms of
knowledge and skills learnt, and so cannot be converted from one level to another. To address this issue, many institutions using a
360 point degree system have incorporated level descriptors in it as a way to recognise, regulate and control for the differences that
should arise in courses of different levels. However, these are yet to emerge within UC, although some recognition is given to
those used by NZQA through CUAP procedures (NZQA, 2009; UNZ:CUAP, 2010).
76 The NZQA (2009) level descriptors attempt to distinguish the knowledge, skills and applications expected from students
completing courses at a particular level of the New Zealand National Qualifications Framework, independent of the subject or
content. This is in keeping with that Framework purporting to allow comparison of learning at different types of institutions and on
different types of courses in order to assess equivalence (or difference).
77 Standards related issues are how standards can vary within and between institutions; whether traditional pecking orders of
institutions (e.g., Oxbridge versus the rest in the Commonwealth) are valid; whether institutions can be assessed and world league
tables compiled (e.g., see Center for World-Class Universities, 2008); whether institutions that are accredited in particular subjects
are superior in those subjects to ones that are not; and whether learning acquired formally and in traditional face-to-face modes is
comparable with distance learning, supported open learning, and experiential learning acquired, say, in work situations (e.g., see
Raban, 1990). On whether credit points are likely to bring about an uncomplicated situation as far as credit recognition is
concerned, Bekhradnia (2004) finds that aspiring to guarantees of automatic recognition of learning, using even well-established
points systems, is a mirage.
101