Governance in higher education
Governing structures for higher education are highly differentiated throughout the world, but the different models nonetheless share a common heritage.
The concept of governance in postsecondary education predominantly refers to the internal structure, organization and management of autonomous institutions.
[6] Kezar and Eckel point out the substance of governance has changed during the last decades with more emphasis put on high stake issues and more incremental decisions made in a less collegial mode – the reasons for this stem from trends that have devalued the notion of participation and also from the external pressures for more accountability and demands for quicker decision-making (that sometimes is achieved through bureaucracy).
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was the first organization to formulate a statement on the governance of higher education based on principles of democratic values and participation (which, in this sense, correlates with the Yale Report of 1828, which has been referred to as the "first attempt at a formally stated philosophy of education" for universities, emphasizing at that time that Enlightenment curricula following the establishment of democratic constitutional governance should not be replaced with retrogression to religious curricula).
[9] The AAUP published its first "Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities" in 1920, "emphasizing the importance of faculty involvement in personnel decisions, selection of administrators, preparation of the budget, and determination of educational policies.
The statement concerns general education policy and internal operations with an overview of the formal structures for organization and management.
Addressing issues through collective bargaining, the statement believes "administration and the governing boards of colleges and universities should accept the faculty's recommendations".
Government should recognize that conserving the autonomy of these institutions is essential to protecting academic freedom, the advance of knowledge, and the pursuit of truth.
[12] In 2002, the Higher Education Program and Policy Council of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) published a statement in support of the shared governance of institutions.
[15] The policy addresses unions and faculty senates, believing that they contribute to the maintenance of shared governance in institutions as well as the role of accrediting agencies to support management standards.
The findings include the state of the locus of authority and reforms as well as the analysis of the challenges facing Liberal Arts Colleges with the pressures of the current economic climate.
From which, the perspective then affirms the AAUP tradition of shared governance as a sound system of organization and management in higher education, "essential to the long term interests of colleges and universities if they wish to remain competitive and academically credible".
With reference to additional "third models" in introducing a discussion of the existing frameworks for the governance of tertiary education, the statement defines the legal autonomy of institutions and independence from external stakeholders.
[22] In recognizing the differences in institutional structures and frames of reference, the statement offers operational good practices as generic principles and recommendations, also identifying national protocols for the success of Australian higher education.
Based physically at the Yaounde – Cameroon, it is about a unique structure of support which aims at improving all the practices which contribute to the smooth running of higher education in Africa.
Its vocation is to accompany the modernization of the governance of higher education thanks to the implementation of expertise, the modules of training, seminars and workshops and especially specific tools of management, analysis and evaluation.
It spreads his actions on the whole domain of governance (academic, administrative, financial, social, numerical and of the research) and has a function of observatory of higher education in Africa.
Methods will step out from the classical models of cooperation in which the "expertise" of the North are transmitted to "addressee" and "consignee" of the South, leading to the principals and attitudes of copy-write.
Rounding on common objectives and shared missions, Anglophones, Francophones, Lusophones and Arabic-speakers will better enrich discussions on how to develop higher educational system.
This illustrates the importance taken by cultural diversity in the World today, being an essential basis for development inside more harmonized globalization which takes into account each person's identity and values.
The governance of higher education will succeed only if it allows creating a common space of meeting between the actors : political, socioeconomic, students, teaching and civil society.
Web site : www.ipagu.org South Africa faces issues related to the governance of their tertiary system of higher education that correlate with international trends.
[24] The authors discuss the need for government "steering," an idea originally envisioned in South Africa with the democratic transition, based upon a cooperative framework as a "conditional autonomy."
The goals and objectives for cooperative governance were thus established with the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) in 1994, detailed in its 1996 report.
[25] Within the initial years of the democratic transition and the end of the Apartheid, Hall and Symes (2005) note that the national government assumed a much stronger regulatory and bureaucratic control of South African postsecondary institutions than what had been originally expected.
Whereby, the "period from the 1997 White Paper to the 2001 National Plan for Higher Education has seen a systematic tightening of state control and the erosion of both the procedural and substantive autonomy of individual institutions".
Sporn, writing for EDUCAUSE, discusses the restructuring of higher education with "notions of new public management", which the author correlates to neoliberal economic models.
[29] In both Norway and Sweden, each have emphasized restructuring based on in vogue international trends with different approaches to reform that are characterized as common to continental Europe.
[30] Stressing quality of learning and leadership within higher education, restructuring by way of the key catchphrases such as accountability, changing management in Europe also includes providing for human resource goals such as staff development.
Believing that there will be either a convergence or divergence between a strong administrative managerialism and faculty involvement in governance throughout Europe, the UK and U.S., the example of the system in Austria illustrates the potential for innovative approaches that grant autonomy to institutions with restructuring through an external board.
