Higher education for community and citizenship?

Abstract

Reforms to higher education in Australian universities since the 1980s have resulted in changes to the way universities are funded and the way students access universities. However, these changes have brought about shifts much more significant and profound that were anticipated by the architects. Taken together, the major reforms over the last fifteen years represent a re-making of universities, what they represent, the values they imbue in students, and their contribution to the wider community. A major side effect of these changes has been on the valuing and delivery of citizenship values through university education. While universities have increasingly focussed on the development of vocational skills in students and disregarded traditional academic values, businesses lament the loss of citizenship values in their employees. It is argued in this paper that the advent of the “new” university conceptualises education as a commodity to be purchased by individuals, thus fundamentally changing the way students engage with their education, as well as changing the notion of the university as a public good.