Universities Compromised? The separation between form and function in Higher Education

Andrew McGettigan has been drawing attention to a worrying trend of disestablishing Higher Education Institutions recently. The first example of its kind was the effective dissolution of the City of Leeds College of Music (see http://andrewmcgettigan.org/2011/08/31/leeds-college-of-music-dissolved/), which was transformed into a private company called Leeds College of Music Ltd, a subsidiary of Leeds City College. [I have a personal interest in this because I used to work there]

Next up, it looks like UCLAN is pursuing a similar strategy. The request for a change in corporate form http://andrewmcgettigan.org/2012/11/21/uclan-changing-corporate-form/ has been made to the Secretary of State, Vince Cable, to dissolve its current corporate form (a Higher Education Corporation) and transfer all assets and staff to a new company.

The speed and ease with which this is happening is frightening. Universities may have considered their corporate status protected - after all, whilst approval is required from the Privy Council to create a University, once the status has been granted, there is currently no mechanism for removing it. However, the current moves illustrate that other mechanisms seem to be effective in fundamentally redefining the nature of a University as an institution. McGettigan points out that 20 other institutions in UK are similarly 'primed' with their own private companies to make a similar move. Given that the move can be made so easily and quickly, we can expect a great deal of turbulence in the coming year.

In whose interests is this? One would worry that the principal beneficiaries will not be students or staff, but senior managers and the partners with whom they can cut investment deals. Does the replacement of a quasi-public organisation with a private one means a shift in emphasis in from public service to profitability? McGettigan clearly worries that it does:

Increasingly commercial orientation will push up against the question of equity investment (investors cannot buy shares in charities), by which point the difference between a company limited by guarantee and one limited by share may appear as academic as the difference between the former and a higher education corporation does now.

The problem with this is that Universities are about truth: "Universal knowledge", as Newman calls it. The corporate form, structures of governance, curriculum and working practices are all entwined in the pursuit of truth. One of the things that these structures and procedures guarantee is open critique and disputation. Such openness, and the way that openness feeds into governance structures and mechanisms, protects freedom of expression as a means of keeping open the path to truth. The wish within a University is that the institutional conditions that led to Galileo's persecution could not occur.

This doesn't always work. But in established universities, institutional committees like the Academic Senate, which represents the intellectual heart of the institution with the Vice-Chancellor as its head serve as a balance between the operational needs of the institution and its deeper mission and commitment to truth and knowledge. Senate is not like a corporate board. The senators represent the identity, purpose and focus of the institution. In being the representatives of the state of knowledge within their respective disciplines, their concern for upholding truth and making their voice heard in matters ranging from the curriculum to the adminstrative procedures is fundamental to the University working as a coherent, purposeful whole.

The deep worry then is that the transformation in corporate form invites a kind of gerrymandering of academic governance: consultants and cronies fill the chairs once occupied by the critics. The transformation of corporate form is not being done in the interests of scholarship. It is being done for political reasons (the personal ambitions of politicians), and no doubt in some cases, for reasons of personal ambition by institutional leaders. As McGettigan points out, academics have been squeazed out of the debate about these changes. In fact, there has been no debate.

What lies implicit in this process is a split between form and  function within the University. Where the traditional governance arrangements saw administration and the pursuit of truth as part of a whole, the transformation of corporate form suggests that governance arrangements are separable from academic activity. For institutions like UCLAN, such a separation seems less controversial than a similar attempt within more ancient institutions. With UCLAN being a 'new' university, the insinuation is that the academic voice does not merit an equal voice in the governance arrangements of the institution; it is therefore ok to let the 'professionals' take over the governance and the 'form' of the university, and ensure that they 'direct' the activities of the academics in performing the 'function' of the university.

The separation between form and function becomes more serious however when attempts are made to silence criticism of university governance - both within the institution (in the form of threats and sometimes bullying) and from ex-employees - in the form of compromise agreements forced on those who leave the institution under the terms of a "Voluntary Severance" agreement. Many of these people have been witness to the back-room scenes of the sometimes brutal transformation of their institutions. Staff are forbidden from speaking out about what they've witnessed. The website academicFOI has done a survey (see http://www.academicfoi.com/tribunalsgagging/index.htm) on the numbers of Compromise Agreements arranged by UK universities. The figures are alarming as they are - but it should be stressed that the survey was done a while ago, and in the intervening period, Universities have been shedding far more staff under similar terms.

The survey figures largely represent witnesses to the transformation of their institutions (apart possibly from those having signed Non-Disclosure Agreements for research purposes) who have a story to tell, but who cannot tell their story for fear of legal action.

The risks are clear:

1. The risk of damage to the intellectual life of the institution through the separation of form and function;
2. The moral hazards brought about through insufficient accountability by institutions;
3. The risk to students through increasingly aggressive marketing practices by new private institutions;
4. The risk to the pursuit of truth through an increasingly "corporatised" climate of fear where academics become second-class members of their institutions.

It is a toxic cocktail: radical institutional changes coupled with what amounts to suppression of dissent and potentially the compromise of governance and accountability.

If openness and debate is not to be built into the structure of institutions through academic committtees like Senate, it will become a requirement for government to regulate Universities in such a way as to avoid moral hazards and damage to intellectual life. The former will present a political risk at some point (it will only take one "Bernie Madoff" in charge of a University somewhere...); the latter will present a risk to the reputation to UK Education and national competitiveness.

As I have argued previously, there is a pressing question concerning the governance of Universities in this new climate: (see http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/what-is-role-of-government-in.html) I suggest a crucial first step to towards this new regulatory framework is to ban the use of compromise agreements simply to gag staff taking voluntary severance or leaving institutions for other reasons (I have heard of the use of Compromise Agreements for staff who simply move to jobs elsewhere!). The argument for these pernicious instruments is usually that they are to "protect the institution's reputation", but in reality is appears that they serve to protect the reputations of senior managers rather than the institution, for which public money is being used (or rather money students haven't earned yet). Why is existing libel legislation not enough?

Senior managers of institutions will need to be held to account. If existing governance arrangements become compromised in the confusion to transform HE, then government will need to step-in. Compromised academics are bad enough; compromised University accountants, registrars, personnel officers, etc are big red flashing warning lights that something could well be amiss. Similar warnings were ignored when government failed to regulate the banks: a similar tale of lack of accountability whose consequences lie at the root of our present difficulties.

It may be inevitable that the University sector contracts significantly as an employer in the coming years; that the number of institutions falls; that technology drives efficiencies whereby the best professors can be more effectively amplified (but in more imaginative ways than simply 'online'). These changes could be in the interests of students who have been positioned with little option but to get degrees: we ought to expect the cost of education to fall. But it might not. Fewer institutions means more powerful institutions and certainly more influential managers of institutions. It means a few individuals will become very wealthy on the back of education. Accountability in education will be as paramount as accountability of banking. Damage to the essential function of the University in the pursuit of truth is in nobody's interests. At worst it opens the door to corruption. At best, a radical rethinking about the form of institutions is required, where the relation between form and function can be properly inspected.

Allegories, Histories, Systems and Tippett's "Midsummer Marriage"

I'm been thinking about Michael Tippett's opera "The Midsummer Marriage". Apart from the music being fantastic, it is a story heavily influenced by Jungian psychology - an allegorical rite of passage from darkness to light. Nearly 60 years after its first performance, it still resonates. It has the power to transform its audience. It is music of rebirth. Sorely needed right now.

This continuing power is, I think, linked to the fact that history repeats itself. It's not just because the same people tend to make the same kinds of mistakes at different moments, but it appears that the same types of people make the same types of mistakes across different centuries.

I've always been a bit uncomfortable thinking about 'types' of people. It's all a bit rigid. "I'm not a type; I'm me!" we protest. But I've met a few other people like me - and it surprised me (my daughter is like me too - although that surprises me less!). But the idea of a 'type' is rather constraining. I might be a particular type now, but next week I could be something completely different. One minute I'm swearing at some code that won't work on the computer (one of the less appealing aspects of my personality!), the next minute I'm offer sage-like advice on a friend's career choice (actually, that's equally unappealing!).

But the point is, I change. So the issue of type can only be an issue of identifying a patterning to change processes. And then, if there are 'types', there could be determined a finite set of distinct patternings across a random population. This is rather reductionist. But there might be some utility in it.

Knowing a pattern is to have some anticipatory capacity with regard to behaviour. "If you do that to so-and-so, they will respond in this-or-that way". There's a chance that the patterns aren't far off the mark. And if the patterns aren't that far off the mark, then it is also interesting to thinking about the predictions of one person in interaction with the predictions of another person.

In a sense, this is what social simulation attempts to do.

A cybernetic mechanism is a kind of patterning. In Beer's Viable System Model, System 3 does the operational management. We all know what happens if our operational management isn't working properly... we go bust!! But we also know how operational managers react to Research and Development people who (instead of worrying about operations) dream up new ideas and products (this is System 4 in Beer's model): "You R&D folks don't do anything. Come out of your ivory tower and do some work!", and conversely the R&D people will say "You operations people are blindly carrying on as if the world isn't changing. But it is - we will need to change!"

Some people seem more drawn to System 3, others to System 4. Is this their pattern?

But to come back to the point about continual change, nobody is an island. Indeed, to say "x is more System 3" is misleading, because x's System 3-ness is a manifestation of x's social circumstance, and (indeed) the mindset of the person making the judgement about x. Maybe it's more accurate to say "x is on a journey where being System 3 a lot right now is meaningful". But that doesn't ring true. If x is organised and an organiser, if x is a bully, if x is a dreamer.. we wouldn't really expect x to change over the course of their life, would we? But miraculous transformations can occur.

Maybe people don't change because they don't change their environment. "x is depressed" is a good example of a state which can be remedied through action - often the action of other people. Can "x is a bully" be remedied? I believe so, and the process is called "therapy". What's involved there?

Therapy is a process of changing the social situation. In particular, it changes the "positioning" of x (at least this is how Rom Harré would describe it). The therapist listens to the patient, unraveling the layers which mask the authentic self. The therapist may offer some sort of interpretation: something about the mother, something about sex, something about archetypes, etc. What's going on here?

Psychotherapy concerns itself with deep mysteries. The therapist's language names things that most of us rarely articulate. This process may have some effect because the subject that is addressed is so deep and dark that giving it a name assists in the process of reconfiguring one's perception of the world. This is the business of determining absences. [I'm beginning to think about a mechanism whereby this can be explained: see http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/attachments-metagames-and-anxiety-in.html]

It may be that this moment of the identification of absence is always the same with everyone. It is a deep reckoning; a process of individuation.

But the path by which the therapist goes to get there is different for each person. Is it through the shadow? The great mother? The wise old man? Anima? Animus? In what order? That may be where there are distinct patterns. Something like the Enneagram may be a useful cypher for these patterns [Stafford Beer was particularly keen on the Enneagram - see http://cybernetics-and-society.wikispaces.com/file/view/The%20Cybernetics%20of%20Foresight-APFC-2012-Clemens.pdf/389716864/The%20Cybernetics%20of%20Foresight-APFC-2012-Clemens.pdf]

But this is precisely the organisation of Tippett's opera. The main characters, Mark and Jennifer, go on different journeys, but end up in the same place as a result of their individuation processes. Just as we can look at any organisation and see the archetypes that work there, so too can we observe our own journeys. Indeed, it may be the only way to steer a safe course through turbulent times.

The Cybernetics of History (and the History of Cybernetics)

History as an activity is a feedback system: the past feeds back into the present; the present becomes the past. But it does this through the reflexivity of people who think and write about history: that's another feedback system. The historian is in the present. But it is a present constituted partly by narratives of the past. The existence of the historian is situated in the 'history system' - the academy of historians, who (like all academics) compete for their narrative accounts to become the dominant story. History as a social system is very complex.

It's striking that Luhmann wrote voluminously from a historical perspective about various social systems, from law to economics, from art to love. But he never critiqued the basic paradigm within which he operated: that of writing historical narrative. He preferred to use his powerful system tools to redescribe historical narratives rather than look at the process and pathology of narrative writing itself.

What we end up with is a kind of neo-historicism. And it's not much better than the old-fashioned historicism  which was so vigorously critiqued by Popper, Berlin and Hayek. Historicism lies at the root of idealism. Idealism sits uneasily on the road to fascism.

Cybernetics itself has a history. It's become popular to tell the story of cybernetics within the frame of conventional historical narrative. First there were the Macy conferences, and so on. It's great the first time you hear it; but after that it all gets a bit dull and predictable. With stories that lead into the present in this way, there is always a hope that they end by saying "and then we finally managed to save the world!". Anything less is a let-down. And in the case with cybernetics (as many other intellectual movements), we would have to say "eventually it bifurcated, with factions splitting off in all sorts of directions, and everyone disagreeing about what it was all about." That's a fairly miserable ending. Which is a shame because the tools of cybernetics are very powerful indeed.

But let's turn the tools of cybernetics on this whole process of writing a history - even the history of cybernetics. What emerges?

The first thing that we notice is that this move transforms the focus away from diachronic sequential movements towards synchronic structural conditions: what are the regulating mechanisms of writing a history?  Here I am tempted to say that there's some mechanism of viability within a historian (a viability mechanism like any other human being), and there is a special 'game' that the historian has to play within their 'history' environment to maintain their viability. How might all this work? Well, we can start to put some flesh on this kind of mechanism... [but I won't go into detail about all that here]

A cybernetics of history is about suggesting synchronic conditions and comparing the dynamic of their emergence with what is known of diachronic movements. This is not a million miles away from agent-based modelling. But there is more to it than this.

Any history is, ultimately, about teaching a narrative. Historicist narratives can be dangerous precisely because of their teachability. It is the teaching of a history which changes the world, not the narrative per se.

If we are to escape diachronic historicism by moving to synchronic analysis, how is the teaching different?

To understand (to teach) the synchronic structural conditions of something is to teach the characteristics of a game - say a game of chess. Each player has their qualities, each their position, each their interactions. The moves of each can be understood, their options at any point assessed. But understanding in this way is also allegorical. Each player represents some dynamic aspect which has a relation to other dynamic aspects. The personification of virtues and sins shows their dynamic in much the same way as a cybernetic mechanism might characterise the different levels of regulation. I find it fascinating that allegories played such a major educational role in the medieval church.

But a synchronic understanding invites participation rather than spectatorship. Its goal is insight gained through activity. This is a move away from storytelling to community performance; from books to games.

There are some remarkable advances being made in technological areas which relate to this kind of synchronic exploration. Agent-based modelling on the one hand can allow people to explore hypothetical situations, and explore the qualities of agents. Data analytics and sophisticated regression techniques can reverse-engineer reality to help construct more sophisticated models, which can then be further explored. But technologies for shared experiences in engaging in these activities are even more interesting.

The problem with historicism is that the approach to teaching a historical narrative held the narrative as sacrosanct, to be absorbed (albeit discussed and critiqued) by its readership. What was never appreciated was that the learning of a historical narrative was never the 'absorption' of that narrative; it was the learning by a student of a historian-teacher's personality.

Our challenge is not now to come to know professional historians who tells convincing stories. It is to come to know each other. Of course, we all tell stories. But we need a means of inspecting each others stories and finding an accommodation between us for the sake of effective decision and control in our society. Cybernetics gives us the conceptual tools for producing synchronic characterisations; Technology gives us the means whereby those characterisations may be explored together. 

Sin and the Generals: Commemorating WW1

There's an excellent article in the New Statesman by T.G. Otte this week about the background behind World War 1. The coming centenary of the war in 2014 will be, no doubt, a very special occasion. We still feel the echoes of those terrible events now, and looking back and reflecting how it could happen is an opportunity to look at ourselves now.

We are in a dangerous situation, as Otte argues. The chaos we find ourselves in at present has some frightening parallels to the lead-up to the trenches. And then there's the fact that the previous 'general war' was in 1815, so we could be due another any time. I hope that if enough people find this terrifying, there may be a chance that it doesn't happen. But we will need imagination, creativity, intellect and love to avoid it.

One of the problems in thinking about war (and history in general) is the tension between the universalising force of narratives and 'historicism' and the particulars of individual lives. Individuals lead their troops to disaster; individuals fight; individuals fail to listen to subordinates who vainly try to speak truth to power. Each individual is worthy of voluminous study in their own right, whether they are the corporal's wife, or the general's illicit lover (male or female!). Each play their part - often without knowing it - in what gradually unfolds as a bloody narrative.

Each person loves and hates. Events cause them to fear - but not always big events.

The fear of discovery of an infidelity by a high-ranking official can lead to strange alliances and deals which then upset the political balance. Hypothetically (although I'm confident that such a story could be found amongst the incompetent generals in WW1), we could imagine disgruntled troops muttering:

"Why was Tommy-no-brains given such a powerful position by the General? What a mess he made of it! Nearly 200 men walked straight into enemy fire and were slaughtered. But Tommy was fine, protected by the General." 

But Tommy knew something about the General's proclivities.  

And it wasn't just Tommy. Others, equally talentless, found themselves groomed into the sordid personal life of the General, only to then find themselves handsomely rewarded for remaining quiet and pliant: chauffeurs, fixers of liaisons, managers of bedsits, etc... 

What happened to everyone else? 

There was disbelief as incompetence piled on incompetence; as failure was rewarded. There was total suppression of dissent: after all, nobody suppresses dissent better than someone fearful of being "found out", or in the case of Tommy, deprived of the source of their privilege. The fear instilled in the troops was seen by the "top brass" as a sign of their strength. And then the polarisation really set in: 

There was little averting the inevitable catastrophe. 

There is a different way to think about history. Not as narrative, but as systemic structure, where both diachronic and synchronic aspects are explored. This is revealing because it helps us to sniff out the essence of the structural conditions of our own time and see where the danger lies. When we look at the Jimmy Saviles, the Press Barons, the city traders and some of our politicians, we see it.

The danger lies in fear. If only the General has accepted his sexual proclivities, rather than being ashamed and wishing to hide them. But then, he wanted easy acceptance, to maintain an unblemished and unproblematic image. The General's fear was driven by a desire to maintain this and to protect it from his lustful alter-ego.

What we fear most is ourselves. That is the fear that leads to war.

If history is to be more than 'historicism', then it should be, I think, a path of self-discovery. Through history we see the dynamics of ourselves and others. We understand where the rot set in. If we can learn the lesson, then we might do the work on ourselves so that it doesn't set in again.

#FutureLearn and Past Technology

Sticking #future in front of something makes it look great in shiny packaging and then kicks it into the long grass. In the real future (not the #future), when people come across the package, sodden and decayed, and wonder what it is, it is unlikely that any of the glitz of its original packaging will have any impact at all. The power of history lies in its reconstructing of narratives which account for present decay. Decay and death is ever-present, although some periods appear more in decline than others. We're in one of those now. One of the things that happens in such periods are efforts to escape. Presenting things as 'of the future' is a symptom of this.

When we do see things which really are new, we know it viscerally. I was fascinated to see a transcript of an online conversation between Ronald Reagan (who was then governor of California), Edward Said and Marcel Broodthaers (waiting for Jane Fonda to appear..) in 1975. Actually it turns out this was a hoax! However, in the made-up transcripts each had their own agenda politically - it could have happened. They all 'got it'. They knew it would be big. Said's first reaction was "this really works" (they couldn't do punctuation, although I guess he would have stuck an exclamation mark at the end of it.. or maybe a smiley!).

MARCEL BROODTHAERS
Hello.
EDWARD SAID
Hello this really works.
RONALD REAGAN
Hello this is Gov. Ronald Reagan of California.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
Yes amazing.
RONALD REAGAN
Neat stuff.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
I thought I would say hello whilst we are waiting.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
This is mb.
RONALD REAGAN
Hello Marcel.
EDWARD SAID
Who are we waiting for. Im Edward.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
Hello.
RONALD REAGAN
Hi Ed. Call me Ron.
EDWARD SAID
Hi Ron you dont mind do you.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
Hello Edward. Well Im told we are waiting for Jane Fonda.
RONALD REAGAN
No my wife calls me Ronnie.
RONALD REAGAN
Jane Fonda. Really. Well Ill be.
RONALD REAGAN
Interesting line up.
That's what it feels like when you see 'the future'.  MOOCS, #FutureLearn, etc are not 'the future'. They are, in fact, pretty miserable - a symptom of decay. The visceral reaction really matters. The same might be said of e-learning in general. The uncomfortable fact is that the reaction of Reagan, Said, etc appeared to educationalists as 'potential' for education.. But somehow we've not realised the potential. Said spotted it... RONALD REAGAN
Wouldnt you rather pick up the phone and call.
RONALD REAGAN
All this damned typing.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
You get faster.
EDWARD SAID
Yes I would but if it were to be cheap and inexpensive.
EDWARD SAID
Free.
RONALD REAGAN
Free. Well who pays for it in the end though.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
The people of course.
RONALD REAGAN
You mean taxes.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
I assume you are in a military communication centre like me. Both of you.
EDWARD SAID
But for a young man or woman in Sri Lanka this might help them voice their ideas to people like a university professor from Michigan or an architect from Bahia.  EDWARD SAID
The rich should pay.
It was obvious to an academic like Said that this was massive. Technology and communications have clearly done amazing things, and no doubt many lives in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, have been transformed. But they could not have foreseen how social structures, power relations, institutions and governments would have reacted to the potential. Reagan might also have been thinking "yes.. but if I was a terrorist or a communist..."   The essence of something powerful like ARPANET, or any development that is really new and "will change the world" is a sensation of emancipation. That's what all of these people must have felt. Indeed, that's what I felt when I encountered micro-computers in the 1980s. It was thrilling - particularly for a teenager.

When we look at MOOCs, we do not see emancipation. We see a manifestation of repressive social structures that have become technologised. We see powerful institutions that are looking for new ways of hooking customers into their products and making money. They will tell us "it's the future". But the point about really exciting things is that nobody needs to be told "it's the future".. they already know. 

The real irony in this was that ARPANET was a research project (albeit in a military unit.. although I'm sure it felt pretty much like a university). That's what research should do - produce cool things that emancipate people. So what are universities doing to produce new things that emancipate, that have the same thrilling effect? Isn't that where our research effort should be concentrated? Why are Universities doing such dull stuff with education? 

The answer to this question is depressing and symptomatic of the deep trouble we are in. Research in Universities has become so closely tied to capitalism, to 'revenue generation' that the value of research is measured in terms of "business potential". When University academics are dependent on meeting these criteria to keep their jobs, then it is little surprise that the rot sets in. When those rules are applied to the business of the University itself, MOOCs are what we get. For some reason, Universities have been unable to match the excitement of the early internet with regard to teaching and learning. A depressing "if it brings the money in, if it creates a marketing buzz, it's good enough" mentality.

I think the reasons for this are complex. Partly, it is because our theories of learning (particularly the dominant constructivist theory) is deficient in explaining the gamut of the human experience of learning. The fact that these deficiencies have not been explored academically is connected with disciplinary pathology and the organisation of Universities themselves. The fact that new exciting educational technologies haven't emerged is to do with an absence of theoretical development. What has taken its place is corporatism, technological "fadism", and the unremitting forces of marketisation. The only way out is better critical thinking and better theory.

The discussion on ARPANET expanded on the impact on education:

MARCEL BROODTHAERS
Students I think could benefit from this greatly.
EDWARD SAID
Yes I can imagine.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
Vast networks of students.
EDWARD SAID
Networks. What does that mean really.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
Youth must be provided with the means to grasp this opportunity.
RONALD REAGAN
Sounds a bit out of control to me.
EDWARD SAID
Sounds suspicious.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
The young will grasp its potential in a way we couldnt imagine.
RONALD REAGAN
I dont doubt that.
MARCEL BROODTHAERS
You agree with me Ronald.
RONALD REAGAN
Well yes.
EDWARD SAID
And what will it lead to Marcel. Other networks with more power will already have control.

I think that's where we are...

What now is the role of government in regulating Universities?

The relationship between government, universities and industry is of fundamental significance in a knowledge economy (see http://www.universal-publishers.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1581129378 for an excellent analysis of this using cybernetic theories). The regulation of education by government inevitably has knock-on effects throughout the rest of the economy.

In industrial society, governmental regulation was partly a matter of deciding how many engineers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc were needed and what sort of research was required in the national interest. Resources could then be allocated centrally to institutions who were trusted to organise themselves in the delivery of suitably qualified individuals.

In a post-industrial society - particularly one with a massified higher education system - things are not quite so simple. There are of course still calculations done on the number of teachers, nurses (now this requires a degree), doctors, etc are needed. But education is largely treated as a commodity which is saleable in its own right, with its own market, providing its customers have the means to purchase. Government increasingly has taken the attitude that giving students the means to purchase education (through the provision of loans) is all that it requires to do to regulate the education system. The market for education will self-organise and deliver effective education (which may be exportable) given the provision of resource by government to students. To what extent are they right?

Education is a peculiar kind of industry. Institutions operate as autonomous entities but dependent on student numbers and (most importantly) political policy. Institutions, for all their claims of autonomy and independence, are beholden to the will of ministers. For ministers themselves, the fundamental question concerns the basis of their policy-making and the treatment of individual institutions. Whilst officially, government appears merely to be providing the resources to students so that they can purchase education, behind the scenes a completely different (and somewhat chaotic) picture emerges of lobbying by institutions trying to influence policy to favour their particular circumstances. Simple things make a big difference: for example, the allocation of 'student numbers' to institutions determines an institution's maximum potential income. 'Student numbers' are bid for by institutions and allocated by a rather opaque bureaucratic process where no institution can be entirely certain of the outcome. Added to this, with more providers entering the market, and with the highest-performing students excluded from the student-number control, the government appears set on producing increased competition in the sector, particularly at the lower-end, as Andrew McGettigan explains (see http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/who-let-the-dogs-out)

"With the government maintaining control of overall student numbers through controls on recruitment, we would see more outfits competing for a limited number of students: intensifying competition. It is one thing to use private providers to increase overall capacity (as recommended by Browne), quite another to intensify a zero-sum game: recruitment and marketing will eat up a significant proportion of the new higher fees."

But the zero-sum game isn't quite what it seems. There is a kind of aleatoric element in university funding which is itself a regulating mechanism. The fact that lobbying can affect the outcome of student number allocation or policy initiatives introduces further levels to the regulatory game. There is some kind of process of allocation of numbers; there is also some kind of political game that must be played with the minister. Given this rather frightening scenario, one wonders who would want to be a Vice Chancellor. Of course, individuals with certain Machievelian character traits might thrive in this situation, but they are not necessarily the character traits that one would wish for in a leader of a university! To be fair, Vice Chancellors may well resent the assault on their institutions and the system. But who would dare speak out for fear of upsetting the minister? Many, I should imagine, find themselves in an impossible position - which seldom brings out the best in anyone.

The problem with all this is that it is completely unaccountable. The minister acts as a shadowy kingmaker behind the scenes playing a cynical game with the electorate whilst "leading on" university leaders. Universities find themselves in financial trouble and its their fault, despite the fact that the minister may well have been pulling the strings for some ulterior motive. At the same time, it is not inconceivable that institutional managers themselves may have ulterior motives. These may or may not also have been manipulated by the minister, but however it is inspected, the complete absence of a clear organising principle for higher education can mask mismanagement, injustice or (potentially) criminality.

This is a toxic cocktail of unaccountability, indiscriminate regulation, personal ambition and political manipulation. It may, however, work for a while. When is it likely to break down? As we have seen in other recent instances of institutional trauma (the press, BBC, MP expenses, etc), I think there will be some kind of shock. The problem with any unaccountable system is that people eventually get sloppy and make mistakes which gives the game away. As the shock is absorbed, and people unravel the tangled mess that has become educational regulation, they may well ask the question that so badly needs to be asked: "Why are we doing this?"

Education without Failure

Imagine an education system without failure. Could it work? Or is creating failure a necessary function of education?

We would have to rethink what it is education is doing. Can it still be considered a 'filtering mechanism' or a means of judging who should get what job?

Does an education system without failure necessitate a society without fear? Because people are fearful, so education addresses their fears, but it replaces one fear with another. The fear it replaces is irrational and existential. Educational 'fear' by contrast is rational, systemic and 'fair'.

But we all know it isn't really.

The things that separate us from one another are the judgements we make about each other which derive from our individual anxiety to preserve our identity. The preservation of our identity is, I think, tied to the preservation of a particular set of relations with those we love: our tie to our parents, our children, our friends, etc. Those ties are based on reliable patterns of communication, where strategies for action can be formulated with sufficiently accurate foresight as to the results of those actions. Those people we fear, those who are outside our circle of attachments, are people with whom we cannot predict communications. We fear this disruptive and unpredictable element and its effects not just on us, but on those we stay close to.

The labelling of education serves a purpose in this regard (indeed, the curriculum itself can be seen as instrumental). It marks out those with whom we may have a chance of predicting how they might communicate with us, even if we don't know them that well. It provides a starting point for social engagement. In this way, labelling is an extension of the class system. Failure serves to ensure this labelling system continues to work.

The irony in education is that deeper metacognition can overcome the reliance on labels for making judgements. The deepest metacognition leads to the "loving openness" that is the epitome of wisdom. At this level, the relationship between identity, attachment, and the world at large has been re-programmed. Identity is an unendingly flexible set of relations between the individual and the world. Preservation of identity is never in doubt, and fear is minimised.

If we are to have higher education for everyone, then the basic labelling of education is likely to cease working in terms of its ability to allow people to predict communications. Having a degree in x may mean vastly different things depending on the institution, the individual's social background, etc, and this will be quickly revealed through social interaction. Moreover, an individual may fail in degree x at institution y, but succeed in institution z, and whilst success at z is still success, the efficacy of the success may well be exposed.

If we didn't create failure, would it matter? Perhaps, in having such a range of different institutions, we are already doing away with failure. But this means the labelling doesn't do its job. It's not just a matter of asking "what might take its place?", but of demanding "whatever does take its place, can it be reasonable and fair?"

Here we have deep problems. Because in pushing everyone through education, there is inherent unfairness already. Individuals cannot help their upbringings, and in turn they will have less choice with their educational journeys. But they still have to pay, irrespective of the benefits of their narrow choice. Yet the labelling is already determined by the choice; it was already determined (by and large) by school, the family, etc. And education without failure in some ways makes this more confusing and less effective.

But I don't want to argue for failure: failure is terrible. I believe the onus is on those institutions at the bottom to offer something different from those at the top. Rather than trying to ape the elite, widening participation institutions should deal directly with those issues of fear that undermine the essential fairness of opportunity for all. Metacognition, inquiry, technological flexibility through to sheer 'nous' and creativity can overcome the barriers of the labelling of the elite universities. Learning how to teach this ought, I think, to be their central concern.