What does the future hold for higher education? Is the university set to become like the panopticon, where academics are constantly surveyed and regulated in the name of efficiency? Tony Murphy finds that A Manifesto for the Public University is a must for all those with vested interests in HE: students, researchers, and VCs, as well as policy makers actively engaged in shaping the future

Murphy, Tony

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LSE Research Online

blogs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2012/01/22/book-review-a-manifesto-for-the-public-university-by-john-holmwood/Book Review: A Manifesto for the Public University byJohn HolmwoodJan 22 2012What does the future hold for higher education? Is the university set to becomelike the panopticon, where academics are constantly surveyed and regulated inthe name of efficiency? Tony Murphy finds that A Manifesto for the PublicUniversity is a must for all those with vested interests in HE: students, researchers,and VCs, as well as policy makers actively engaged in shaping the future.A Manifesto for the Public University. John Holmwood. BloomsburyAcademic. October 2011.As we begin to deal with the fall-out from Lord Browne’sIndependent Review of Higher Education Funding and StudentFinance, Professor John Holmwood presents a collection ofessays written by members of the Campaign for the PublicUniversity. Holmwood and colleagues make the case for the publicbenefits of the universities, and therefore the case for publicfunding. Although we have witnessed previous moves towards thecommodification of research and consumerism within HE, it isargued that the direction of Lord Browne’s review represents aprofound shift for the university system away from the principlesand objectives of the Robbins Report. The projected marketizationof the system undercuts the very notion of HE as a public good andchallenges the value of education in itself. As such, the book is trueto its title, demonstrating the value of the university system beyondcontributing to national GDP, instead serving an important socialmission.The authors highlight the folly of reducing the purposes of HE tosolely instrumental functions. Holmwood is quick to demonstrate this, and he cites two key featuresof the present direction: the marketization of the public university system, and the replacement ofdirect funding of undergraduate courses by student fees. For Holmwood, such state withdrawal fromdirect funding of universities is deeply ideological. His key concern is not necessarily the levels offunding, rather the purposes of the university system and the consequences of allowing suchpurposes to be defined by the market. In a related sense, he argues ”…it is right that students be atthe heart of higher education, but in a role other than as consumers.In his chapter, Michael Burawoy considers the possible roles of the public university, and arguesthat universities have become subject the twin pressures of commodification and regulation. As aresult, the pursuit for reflexive knowledge is being sacrificed by the instrumentalization of theuniversities. In chapter 3, Nicola Miller and John Sabathy claim that British universities are on theverge of losing their freedom to pursue intellectual insight; student choice will dictate what is taught,and civil servants will dictate what is researched. Such features are not entirely new, but currentgovernment policy will accelerate them. It is argued that the university will soon become thepanopticon, where academics are constantly surveyed and regulated in the name of efficiency.In Chapter 4, Philip Moriarty focuses on science disciplines and explores the heightened focus onimpact across research outcomes, and the ill-effects of this. He notes how the research councilsand HEFCE have led universities to not only being business facing, but business led, “involving anevolution of academic science from a public good to a private good.” Desmond King picks-up onthat theme in chapter 5, demonstrating the pronounced shift in funding for applied research in thesocial sciences, and the wider politics of publically funded social research.In a passionate discussion of HE, equal opportunities and unequal outcomes, Stephen McKay andKaren Rowlingson suggest that a marketized HE will serve to ensure inequalities and diminish theopportunities for lower income groups to challenge the status quo. Greater widening access effortsare therefore crucial, and the restoration of the EMA is necessary in meeting that end. Publicfunding of HE is justified through the system’s social mission.In chapter 7, Diane Reay cites Tawney’s work in critiquing the current direction of the universitysystem. Reay argues that we are some way from the socially just system as described by Tawney;one in which education is viewed as an end in itself, where status or wealth is not a barrier to entry.Reay includes a range of damning statistics to highlight stark inequalities within our present systemand how this permeates life chances. For example, students from private schools are fifty five timesmore likely to attend Oxbridge than a state school counterpart in receipt of free school meals. Whilsttellingly, Lord Browne himself attended Cambridge, and four of his six fellow panel members areOxbridge alumni.Reay asserts that our elite institutions provide little opportunities for social mixing across socio-economic status and race. This has profound implications for social mobility and equality. LordBrowne’s proposals will exacerbate this situation, manifesting itself through the distinction betweenthe more expensive elite institutions, pre-dominantly attended by privately educated students, andthe lesser and cheaper institutions with sizeable cohorts of working class students. Although this issomething that many of us would already recognise.For me, chapter seven is the pick of the essays. Reay is impassioned in her account, furthermore,what she cites around the reproduction of disadvantage is already highly visibly within the currentsystem. Thus, it does not require a great deal of imagination to accept her bleak assessment of thecurrent trajectory given recent reforms. I struggled to read her account and do anything other thanagree entirely with what she argues.To its credit, the book includes a riposte from the former President of Universities UK, Sir SteveSmith. He broadly supports the present reforms, claiming that change was inevitable given theunsustainable position of previous policies, and that we should be optimistic about the future. Heargues that Lord Browne is not responsible for reductions in direct state funding of HE, rather hisefforts have been to substitute other funding for lost government revenues. The author sets out todebunk what he describes as three key myths established in the public debate: 1) funding for HEhas been reduced 2) this spells the end for the humanities and social sciences 3) the new systemplaces impenetrable barriers in the way of students from poorer backgrounds. His account is fairlywell reasoned, but as he himself acknowledges, only time will tell.Although the text is less seamless than it would have been with a single author, it is none-the-lesscompelling reading; mostly the essays are well reasoned. The reader is left in no doubt that despitepolicies under previous administrations having lit the fuse; the contents of the Browne reviewrepresent profound change for the HE landscape as marketization lifts off. This text is a must for allthose with vested interests in HE: students, researchers, VCs, as well as those policy makersactively engaged in shaping the future.——————————————————————————————-Tony Murphy is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Westminster. He also works as anAssociate Lecturer in the Social Sciences at the Open University. Tony previously taughtCriminology at Manchester Metropolitan University, and worked as a Research Assistant at theLSE. Tony holds BSc and MSc degrees from the LSE, and a number of postgraduate qualificationsfrom the Open University.Read more reviews by Tony.You may also be interested in the following posts (automatically generated):1. Book Review: Creating the Market University: How Academic Science Became an EconomicEngine by Elizabeth Popp Berman2. The transformation of university financing will not serve the public interest and will encouragefinancial takeover by for-profit companies3. Book Review: The Public Value of the Humanities4. Every great university needs a legal studies programme

Book review: a manifesto for the public university by John Holmwood

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