The advent of a new national regulatory and quality assurance regime in Australia, through the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), presents additional requirements to university governing bodies, for compliance with standards and for risk management. This paper discusses TEQSA's approach and potential vulnerabilities for…

In line with China's massive leap forward in higher education since the late 1990s and its ambitious bid for world-class universities within decades, doctoral education has been strongly, and arguable strategically, promoted by the Chinese government. During the past four decades, China quickly established a national system of academic degrees and…

The pursuit of enhancing quality in tertiary education and educators is noble. Increasingly, however, universities are resorting to stark, reductionist representations of educational quality, such as decontextualised mean figures generated by student surveys, to measure and report on this. This paper questions the validity and reliability of such…

In this article the author discusses public reaction generated by the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. He argues that it is not simply that the methodologies adopted by the main rankers -- Times Higher Education (THE), QS and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University -- are diverse and open to the usual interpretation, but there…

As a key performance indicator in university quality assurance processes, the retention of students in their studies is an issue of concern world-wide. Implicit in the process of quality assurance is quality improvement. In this article, we examine student retention from a teaching and learning perspective, in terms of teaching and learning…

Commonwealth funding formulae have caused Australian universities to become obsessed with maximising external research funding. Considerable pressure is applied to faculties, departments and scholars to apply for funding, and relative success in attracting it is given excessive weight in evaluating research performance. This may be productive in…

Focusing on the developmental needs of early career postdoctoral fellows--the lifeblood of an internationally competitive research-intensive university--this paper suggests an inextricably linked, two pronged approach to improving research performance at Australian universities. The first is to reconceptualise post-PhD research pathways and in…

It's become a truism that Australian higher education nowadays is in a state of perpetual change. The next round of changes to research and teaching funding, however, will permanently alter the face of the sector. We asked five of Australia's most prominent Vice-Chancellors to anticipate the future face of higher education. NTEU's Carolyn Allport…

Explores benefits and dangers of electronic learning and the globalization of higher education, focusing on the strategic response of Australian institutions to international cartels in partnership arrangements that cross national boundaries and involve for-profit media or information technology companies in curriculum development and delivery.…

The capacity of the Australian university system is being steadily undermined by government policies, which erode infrastructure, destroy faculty career opportunities, and threaten commitment to teaching and research. Acceptance of current policies amounts to collaboration in the erosion of the universities. Those committed to educational quality…

A discussion of concerns about quality in higher education focuses on the use of performance indicators as measures of quality. Great care is advised in the use of performance indicators because available indicators are not sufficiently substantive in relation to higher education's goals, processes, and outcomes. (MSE)

The effects of a new minister of education and increased government control on Australian higher education are discussed, focusing on the implications for policymaking, curriculum, the academic profession, the relationship of research and teaching, and the overall quality and equity of higher education. (MSE)

Characteristics of the American university are examined as they are relevant to the concerns of Australian higher education. Aspects discussed include diversity of institutions, methods of governance, tenure and academic freedom, external peer review of programs and projects, research funding, and curriculum design and patterns of attendance. (MSE)

It is argued that university policies and procedures concerning assurance of quality education are framed with little regard for significant differences among disciplines, and that some common approaches to assuring academic quality impinge on some aspects of research, undergraduate teaching, and graduate work. Focus is on England and Australia.…

It is argued that despite the current view of college teaching as a discrete set of skills, good teaching is more complex and involves understanding the specific contexts in which teaching occurs, and how teachers understand and communicate concepts to a changing student population. Portfolio-based peer assessment of college teachers is…