Change in the nature of the university: the quality regime and its effects on the university teaching environment

Abstract

One of the world's most enduring organizational forms, the university, enters the third millennium facing many challenges. Recent decades have seen the relationship of the university to the state and the commercial world change and mutate rapidly. The closely guarded concepts of academic freedom and autonomy have become threatened and some might say compromised. As state and corporate support is predicated upon explicit accountability and transparency of functioning, universities have had to enter and adopt the quality model to justify their activities. This article argues that while the objectives of the quality movement are praiseworthy, the validity of the application of crude quality metrics to the complex functioning of a university, particularly in relation to teaching, is suspect. It warns against the naive adoption of managerialist rhetoric and methods and calls for a more holistic and sophisticated approach to the measurement of university processes.