How would you like to be on the Office for Students Register? I sure would! Here are some of the benefits that come with the registration, assessment, and investigation fees:
Sometimes to shift frames philosophers use thought
experiments. Here’s one we might call the Uni-less Thought Experiment: Imagine
there are no universities and colleges. They do not exist, never have existed,
and cannot even be imagined. How do we provide the social pillar of HE (i.e.,
teaching, researching, and community service)?
Here is How and Some of Why
This post combines a recent statement from the University and College Union (UCU) and a self-description of the Office for Students (OfS)
Register to help provide an answer, one you will not have thought, certainly
one no labour union can provide (though they should concede). These
two bodies – the UCU and OfS – are functionaries in the British tertiary
or higher education system. Comparable functionaries are found in the United
States, Canada, Australia, or any country that has adopted the HEI model –
though with some notable divergence based on differences in ethos. We can see the UCU as a labour union comparable to the California Faculty
Association, the American Association of University Professors, or the United
Auto Workers in the United States system, and the OfS as comparable to
accreditation agencies like the New England Commission of Higher Education or
the American Bar Association. Each of these functionaries is
backed by acts of legislation and the corpus of law.
Statement from the University and College Union:
Description from the Office for Students:
Originally, the plan was to highlight the words, phrases, and
claims that are impacted by PSA, places where the professional model maps onto and
diverges from the HEI model that is assumed in all of this material. But read for
yourself, with PSA in mind. Here is my reading.
Rubbish! But Let Me Elaborate
Jo wants to “refocus” on finances with the aim of
sustainability. This leader should know that we are never not talking about
finances in the HEI model, that fundamentally every aspect of tertiary education
is directly impacted by finances. So, upon what has the UCU been focused!?
The first thing the PSA model tackled was, if not the endemic, then the entrenched finance woes of the HEI model. Try this basic calculation: The revenue your department generates in (say) tuition alone divided by the number of full-time equivalent faculty employees. Could you own and operate an academic practice in your discipline on this revenue? I absolutely can, in Canada, the US, the UK, and so on. What I want, what I demand is the opportunity to do so in the face of a monopolistic HEI model that unnecessarily, unjustifiably and unadvisedly denies me meaningful choice in how I earn a living from a complex investment in self and society.
Jo imagines the “refocus” to look like this: The government
(the public?) ensures that “no institution goes under” and that there are no “geographical
cold spots” in educational offerings, and that this be done by the public (government?)
introducing “new funding” to the HEI model.
PSA offers expanded, tuition-free tertiary education and asks for less
public funding. Check.
Honestly, why are these people chosen, these positions
filled? I could say this stuff. Are they supposed to be clever? Connected? Conniving? Creative?
Obviously not the last. I was responding to the same inane, impotent drivel thirty
years ago when PSA was first conceived as a response to the very same problems HE
faces today. Frankly, wouldn’t it be more economical for the dues-paying
members to commission a UCU AI avatar that pumps out this tired nonsense 24/7,
a kind of union telescreen?
Look, maybe I’m mistaken about PSA and it’s not even viable,
never mind preferrable. But at least I am offering something to consider
besides this sad attempt at Starbucks-style labour organization and an even more
pathetic gesture toward stewardship. Along with the indignities and ineptitudes,
we suffer the exclusivity of universities and colleges. These post-WWII, HEI-modelled
systems are often described as mass higher education. Instead, they cripple its massification, when we
should be expanding access in ways unimaginable to these mindless institutions.
If this exclusivity existed in manufacturing, hairstyling or tutoring, we would call it a monopoly. Imagine if it existed in the provision of legal or medical services - one could only (legally) hire these vital services from providers who are employees of a registered employer. Whatever its nomenclature, one direct consequence is that I cannot earn a living by offering my expertise in HE from without the exclusive employ of these registered employers.
And, if you think there is some slip here from public to
private, then you are not paying attention and you have a duty to try harder.
Jo makes a nod to free speech, or to that with which it is often conflated, so-called, academic freedom. As usual, pundits of the HEI model have gotten it ass backwards. Organizations like the American Association of University Professors suffer from similar confusions when they call for the protection of so-called, institutional freedom. Institutions do not need freedom. Individuals need freedom. But I’m not going to tread that path again and bring us, instead, to the destination post haste.
The only reason, now seriously, pay close attention, the
only reason the academy goes on and on about something like academic or
institutional freedom is because academics are (exclusively) in the employ of
institutions. That is, because academics are not free of institutions (as
employers). How absurd is that, eh? Now, stick with me a few more steps and
you can stand where I do, outside the ubiquitous HEI model. Out here, conversations, conventions and calculations are different. Out here, I can exercise the option to practice
HE as a professional licentiate, independently of the monopolistic employment
conditions of the HEI model.
Alas, no, I can’t. And that’s bullshit, of the fundamental bollocks
kind.
There is no, out here. There is only, in there. Regulatory
bodies like the OfS emerge from the primordial soup of the HEI model, are tuned
to the HEI frequency, shaped by the institutional stone, or whatever metaphor you like. More
directly, such government-sanctioned bodies explicitly ensure that none of us can
earn a living in the practice of HE without these institutions. To repeat,
some might call that a monopoly and monopolies can be useful to society. But not in
this case. Monopolies can be necessary to a society. But not in this case.
So, let’s see how the OfS denies us not only the right to
earn a living but also the right to free tertiary (higher) education. This
requires further reading with PSA.
The Chief Executive’s Statement presents a wonderful source –
I don’t know or care who is in the photo. I will quote this material in some
detail, drawing from the text in order of presentation:
§ “large and diverse higher education sector”
§ “registration system for…universities…institutions…companies…colleges”
§ “registration…unlocks significant income for universities and colleges”
§ “over 400…providers were teaching or supervising”
§ “with student populations varying widely…our aim is to ensure that every student”
§ “students make a considerable financial investment in their studies”
This selection demonstrates how even a body such as this self-described defender of the interests of each and every student spends
most of its time referencing institutions, while it misrepresents their function
in tertiary education. What’s even more astounding is that this sort of confusion
is white noise in the academy.
Among other insights, these quotes reveal a kind of slight
of hand, identifying universities and colleges with HE. They are not HE. At best,
they facilitate the provision of HE. PSA stands as another facilitator. To see the difference between them, on the one hand, the HEI model of institutional employers, UCU labour representation and OfS regulation counts 400 providers of teaching,
researching and community servicing in the British HEI model, while PSA counts hundreds of thousands - and with PSA the number could be much higher, as could
their compensation.
To be clear, these frontline service providers do not receive (though they earn) the £35.5 billion that the OfS dished out in 2021-22, the (income) benefits of which it ensures can only be unlocked by the registration of institutions, not individuals. For a hint at what might be earned in PSA, using the basic income calculation: £35.5 billion ÷ 224,530 academic staff (excluding atypicals) = £158, 108/annum, or £238, 119/annum, if we use the 149,085 full-time contracts. I guarantee I can operate a professionally licensed, supported and shaped academic practice on that sort of revenue, no institutional employer required. Imagine how such financial liberation can be used to provide tuition-free HE - remember that?
[The wider question is how many “atypicals” are
there? If you know, please send me to a source. I've found some UK data difficult to locate with confidence. https://www.hesa.ac.uk/support/definitions/staff#terms-employment
]
But I don’t want to misrepresent the power that the OfS has
to shape the working conditions and so service of HE. We are assured that registration
is voluntary. If you want to hang your shingle, you can. They’re not
authoritarian monsters, after all. Of course, there are a few small matters, enforceable
by law. Some small concessions in the exercise of this basic freedom to earn a
living from one’s investment in self and society, restrictions in the name of
protecting (certain segments of) society from [FILL IN THE BLANK]. To sum: You may not receive income from the public purse for the teaching,
researching, or student supporting you contribute to society; and you must not
refer to your practice or your services as those of a university, nor advertise
or represent your services as those that lead directly to legally recognized credentials.
…I’m sure an attorney or solicitor can
tighten it up for me.
As the subtitle indicates, rubbish! I am an academic. The institution is an optional tool that I can use in the provision of my expert service. No one can restrict the exercise of my rights and freedoms in the name of preserving some absurd elective model. Good luck with counter-arguments!
I lived and taught in China for a number of years. With sincerity,
many Chinese citizens refer to their nation as a democracy. Obviously, there are shades of
freedom. The trouble with this absurd HEI model is that it has forced the invention and then defense
of academic freedom (in employment) at the expense of real freedom (in
conscience) from the (exclusive) employment of institutions. The worth of HE is
determined by the freedom of academics, not by academic freedom or the
institutional employers that invite it with conflict.
One of the subjects I taught in China was Critical Thinking – actual critical thinking, not critical thinking with Chinese Communist Party characteristics. This might sound absurd, but most of the sections of this course fed the dual-degree program that Beijing Normal University marketed with Saint Mary’s University, one of my alma maters and a former employer back in Canada. The SMU degree identifies CT as meeting a general degree requirement. Another post discusses some of my experience in this program. Suffice it to say, the courses were a dismal failure, but the program was a smashing success. But I digress...
Thank you, the NECHE, the Office
of Students, the Rector, the Regent, the Board, the Bishop, the CCP, for your
fine stewardship of higher education. I appreciate that the OfS is new to the
scene – though you are not a new idea, a new aspiration, a new ethos – and you
have been handed a bag of shit, but if you really do care about mass HE, its
diversity, its equity, its quality, its expansion and insulation from tyranny, then,
please, spend a little of the considerable resources at your disposal to vet
this professional model.
PSA offers a middle way that is different from the middleman
monopoly of the institutional model. It is public, not private. It
is a shift in public power, not in public purse. It is a shift in production,
not product. It is a shift in employment, not ethos. The alternative is our heritance
of institutional tyranny over individuals.
At this juncture, the case should be plain to introduce or at least investigate
PSA on the grounds that it better realizes the rights and freedoms of essential
stakeholders (i.e., of human beings, not legal beings). The UCU and the OfS pilot academics (and so
higher education) away from proper stewardship, proper working conditions,
proper education, drawing us into contests with institutional participants that
are irrelevant, disposable, inessential. The rest of this post spends time poking at leadership in the UCU and OfS organizations. Remember though, I poke from
outside the HEI model and I do so because leaders need to be poked. That said, there
is also further detailing of the rights and freedoms case for PSA, should you
remain skeptical or sketchy.
No Tertiary Education Without Universities and Colleges
Steeped in assumption of the HEI model, the UCU plan, as shorthanded by General Secretary, Jo Grady, is to get new funding by flattering the new government. Sounds like an original, solid plan for sector sustainability.
Here’s another: subordinate universities and colleges. The professional model that I develop introduces better
stability, sustainability, versatility, diversity, equity, solidarity, and
more. These institutional inheritances are not HE and never have been, which
means they are not necessary. At the same time, I appreciate that to most
people these institutions don’t seem optional. Thankfully, this perception is mistaken. PSA makes universities and
colleges mere electives in the HE sector and offers correction or mitigation for the many institution-based fractures in the social pillar.
Secretary General, Jo Grady, wants the latest government “to
end the failed marketisation experiment and publicly fund the sector.” It is reasonable
to insist that making (and keeping) a sector public means to properly fund the
sector with public dollars. Fair play. I want this too.
But this message needs some unpacking to show that, though
we use the same words, Jo and I don’t really speak the same language. First, it
is important to note that the centuries-old HEI model can likewise be characterized
as a (social) experiment, one that hues every shade of Jo’s, nah, everyone’s
thinking. By my thinking, the HEI results are not good. Perhaps you disagree.
But make no mistake, everything of value in education is an experiment (at some
point), including the institutional model of universities and colleges.
Second, this insistence rests upon assumptions which further
insist that proper public funding requires proper regard for fiscal realities. In
other words, unlimited funding is not on the table - though even if it were, I
argue that the HEI model remains inferior to PSA. Suppose that
tomorrow five billion pounds was allocated to the sector by the new government,
which apparently enjoys the favour of some (most?, certainly not all) academic
members of the UCU. Would the sector need all this funding? Suppose it was ten
times that amount? Or a trillion in pound sterling? You get the idea.
Third, while no foul is called, among the assumptions is a
principle or value that seems to underwrite the insistence on proper public funding,
one that forces into the discourse a demand for efficiency or optimization in
funding (formulae, models, etc.). Perhaps this points to the modern notion of sustainability or a deeper relation among the social pillars, where one must
not unduly demand (scarce) resources, when those resources otherwise
might be used to improve a social pillar such as healthcare or legal
representation. If you don’t need all of that one trillion in funding, then
maybe the NHS could use some.
Finally, it must be acknowledged that what counts as proper
funding is calculated based on the model in which the notion is being applied.
It used to be that this was the inherited default of the HEI model. However, there
is now a new model in town. One that offers very different calculations across
the board.
Together these points are intimately related and indicate
that making a model for HE does not depend upon a system of HEI employers. Put
another way, creating a model for the provision of HE is not restricted or
limited by the HEI model. It is from this context that the opening Uni-less Thought
Experiment must be approached.
Earlier, I implied that Jo Grady is not the first to cry poor and scream for more money, like children whining for a better allowance. A decade ago, some prof from I-Don’t-Give-A-Shit University was peddling her innovative free college plan, well, only two years for free, actually. I tried to convince her the so-called, F2CO plan, was inferior to PSA. That PSA better addresses her expressed concern for the plight of students. Her response was to publicly call me a weirdo or wacko or something. You can decide for yourself. At the time, everyone and their dog was tabling some dreamy plan for tuition or expense-free college that was invariably scripted by the HEI model. As such, every single plan required MORE MONEY. The professional model I develop requires LESS MONEY, a lot less: United States, Canada, and Australia.
Yes, yes, if you throw an unlimited, unthreatened supply of
public funding at the HEI model, then HE would be for everyone and free. Stop
it. Sit up straight. You’re not paying attention.
As the self-proclaimed protectors of higher education (by
extension), this is the best the UCU can come up with: give us more money. Pathetic!
Have they not been paying attention for at least the past forty years? Does it not
occur to them that the institutions they assume are the problem, that universities
and colleges are instruments used against academics and so against HE? Does it
not dawn on them that this sort of dysfunction in the model has been around for
centuries, and so the latest apparent government champion is irrelevant?
The real Trojan horse in HE is the university and college. The
extraordinary thing is that even though this Trojan is not necessary, all
interested parties prostrate themselves in front of the institutional alter. By
doing so, they demonstrate a terrible complicity in the suffering, the squandering
of HE. You will not solve the many, many problems in HE with
bitching and band-aids, or demands for new funding from new governments, or
waving a finger of moral condemnation at employers, or even some glorious wave
of global worker empowerment, from the trucker to the teacher. You doom the social
pillar, if you continue to insist on exclusive use of the university and
college employment model.
Academics should be licentiates of a proper legislated
profession, as are those who practice law and medicine. In the
same way that it would be illegal to practice law or medicine without the
credentials that academics offer with bitter irony – or rather, it should be said, that
university and college employers offer using academic employees, courtesy of
OfS regulation. In the same way that these actual professionals can decide to
hang a shingle in whatever geography they choose, offering whatever qualified services
they wish, to whomever they elect, in concert with numerous other examples of
the exercise of professional prerogative and personal freedom.
Perhaps a professional model means providing our expert HE
services to the public as employees of some institution on the OfS Register –
like my alma mater, which had to change its name because it was caught pimping
out tertiary education, just to survive the HEI model. Perhaps PSA
means an independent academic practice across the street from the OfS-enabled, University
of Whatever. Both are viable. Both are public. But both are not equally
desirable. Professional practice kicks the shit out of HEI employment on every
metric that matters to HE.
However, I am not here to make the full shit-kicking case, yet again. I’m here to make another case, yet again. I claim that: The
OfS is a legislated functionary (a deputy of government) that interferes with
two rights: the right to earn a living and the right to free tertiary
education. This is because the ubiquitous assumption of the HEI model entails a monopoly on access to employment and education in the sector. This assumption is built into
the OfS when it excludes me (or you) from opting for the second possibility of
independent academic practice in HE. And though it does so unwittingly, it also
does so without justification. There is, after all, a perfectly viable
alternative professional model that – did I mention – kicks the shit out of the
HEI model on everything from stewardship to content and from cost to access.
As academics, it is our duty to improve the state of HE, not
during this election, or for the term of this employment contract, or for career advancement, but in a more substantive sustainable
way. The HEI model has had centuries to prove itself. I don’t give it a very
high grade. You might. But duty demands you consider your evaluation in light
of an alternative, not bathed in its own spotlight. With PSA, academics can no longer hide within labour unions that point to institutional employers as scapegoats,
because the model enables academics to provide better stewardship for HE in the
absence of significant interference from unnecessary institutional middlemen, from the inference of entrenched us-vs-them mentalities.
Conclusion
If on your first pass you find yourself in a dismissive mood,
because you get a whiff of “marketization” or a neoliberal vibe, give it some
time. That PSA draws on the professional service model is reason
to be cautious, but not substantive grounds to criticize or dismiss it based on
your perception of how the legal or medical professions have treated the social
contracts that were struct for provision of their equally valued services. At the same time, the existing professions offer lessons that can be used to detail
the PSA model, while any such criticism of the professions must be taken in turn with the centuries
of condemnable actions by the universities and colleges of the HEI model.
I find dark humour in a general call for de-colonization that
maintains the colonial tools of university and college institutions. I put it to
you, what could be more anti-colonial than the destruction or demotion of
institutions in favour of individuals? More anti-capitalist than the triumph of
worker over employer? This is what PSA does. One might describe it as turning the
HEI model inside out. Where once individuals were at the
disposal of institutions, it is now institutions at the disposal of the
individuals.
And if you think I’ve made some metaphysical or legal blunder,
I have not. Sit up straight and try harder.
Assumptions shape everything. Did you notice that the Uni-less Thought Experiment assumes something which underpins all discourse on tertiary/post-secondary/higher education? It assumes that HE continues in the absence of its facilitation through the university and college employment of academics. I promise, if you examine this alternative for its bouquet, you will find aromas not detectable in the HEI model. For instance, the quality, access and free expression in which the Chief Executive wraps the OfS, find a far better fit on the PSA model, and the investment of students in their education is dramatically reduced, thereby reducing the (personal) opportunity costs associated with the HEI model. All of this, if only you will recognize your assumptions.
This post took a look at the English state of affairs. They suffer the
same conditions that are found in the US, Canada, Australia, Scotland, never mind in a place like India
that cannot hope to provide the institutions and faculty employees it estimates
to need in the near future. What I’m advocating is not as radical or alien as it might at first seem and PSA is far from being in a position to challenge
the venerable institutions of our inheritance. As such, as always, I ask for any and all assistance
in the development or dismantling of the PSA model.
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