The Universities Accord Buzz Word Ranking

Key word frequency count in the Universities Accord Final Report

My first post opened with a question of whether I was writing for myself, someone else, or many more readers. I was somewhat surprised to see that my ‘hot take’ on the Accord led to more engagement than I was anticipating. Thank you.

I’m intending to use this as a place to explore ideas, and whilst you can’t expect anything that will be of Paul Graham essay standard, I’m hoping I might be able to use the discipline of writing to sharpen my own thinking about accessible quality.

Writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn't know it as well as you thought. Putting ideas into words is a severe test. The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won't just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it. Indeed, that's why I write them.
Paul Graham, Putting Ideas into Words, February 2022

To follow up my inaugural post I thought I’d explore the relationship between quality and the Accord. This sent me down the rabbit hole of counting the number of instances in which ‘quality’ was used in the report, and how this stacked up against other ‘buzz words’. The intention to write ‘Quality and the Universities Accord’ morphed into a quick and dirty ‘Accord Buzz Word Ranking’. The results are intriguing.

CAVEAT: This is far from rigorous qualitative research using clearly defined codes applied in a consistent manner - its high level analysis and should not be used as part of any formal policy advocacy, medical or financial decision making, nor be relied upon whilst operating heavy machinery.

Bruce

To kick things off, reading any report requires a vanity and personality check. “Accessible Quality” did not feature once. A big fat zero. Totes devo.

Many of the heavy hitters in higher education policy intersect with Melbourne Uni, at least for a substantial part of their careers. Andrew Norton - ex Melb Uni VC policy advisor, Grattan and now ANU gets 10 references (noting that some of these counts double up in the footnotes and references). Gwil Croucher, also ex Melb Uni VC policy advisor also comes in with a solid 10. Andrew Harvey (PhD at Melbourne - although ex La Trobe, now Griffith) also comes in with a perfect score. Ex Melb VC, Glyn Davis gets a paltry six by comparison.

The undisputed king of references looks to be ANU’s Bruce Chapman with a solid 15 references. If a buzz word were a person it would be Bruce. This is on the back of multiple meetings with the Panel. You can expect much more policy engagement from Bruce once policy makers start to tinker with or attempt to radically redesign HELP.

For my minor contributions to equity projects past I come in with a respectable four (twice in the footnotes, twice in the reference list) 👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻.

One thing that you might notice from the vanity and personality check is that all those named have one thing in common. Yes, they are all men. It is difficult to form a definitive view on gender and the Accord, but I did take a look at who presented to the panel (see Appendix E). Some presentations were delivered by unspecified staff from various organisations, which may have brought things into balance. The overwhelming proportion of named voices who had an opportunity to present to the panel were men, sometimes their voices were heard again and again.

Presentations delivered by named men: 19
Presentations delivered by named women: 3
Presentations delivered by unnamed organisation representatives: 17

If you haven’t read Beating the Odds by the irrepressible Marcia Devlin, you should. It give some cues as to why this element of the buzz word ranking is a problem. More on this later.

For clarity - the Accord ran a very good and consultative process, but this gendered lens on powerful voices who had an opportunity to influence panel thinking directly speaks to the systemic gendered bias evident in higher education policy making. We need to do better.

The Core Purposes of Higher Tertiary Education

A marker of the directions that things might be taking is that there are more than double the number of references to ‘tertiary’ than ‘higher’, 775 to 323. Expunge higher from your vocabulary - tertiary is the new game in town.

The Universities Accord includes a new National Tertiary Education Objective:

a. underpin a strong, equitable and resilient democracy

b. drive national economic and social development and environmental sustainability.

This is a good place to start to see how the purposes of higher tertiary education feature in the report. ‘Sustainability’ gets 28 references, and ‘democracy’ 7, both mere afterthoughts when compared to ‘‘economic’ with 196, and development’ with 209.

Economic objectives in higher education policy have long trumped the social, but in this report ‘equity’ is ahead by a nose with 210. Respect.

What is more interesting is that these ideals play second fiddle by a long margin to the core functions of higher education, specifically educating students and research. ‘Education’ is the biggest buzz word with 2,278 references, followed closely by ‘students’ with 2,095. ‘Research’ is some way off with 1,463, but is still prominent enough to wave away concerns that the accord gives insufficient attention to research interests.

I really like the proposed objective, but wonder whether more needs to be done to connect the social and environmental purposes, with economic development aspirations, and what tertiary institutions do through teaching and research. The conceptual case is clear to me, but progress towards social, democratic and sustainability related objectives may be eroded if we don’t consciously join the dots in translating the Final Report into more concrete policy change, every, step, of, the, way.

Education: 2,278
Students: 2,095
Research: 1,463
Equity: 210
Development: 209
Economic: 196
Sustainability: 28
Democracy: 7

Tertiary Education Institutions

It is not surprising that the ‘Universities Accord’ gives the ‘university’ plenty of attention, 981 references to be precise. There are however 106 references to TAFE.

Universities are primarily concerned with knowledge, and its creation, preservation and transmission. Knowledge gets 218 mentions. Skills, which is more synonymous with TAFE, gets mentioned a whopping 704 times.

If TAFE higher education delivery were to increase from 1 % (approximate current higher education market share) to 10% (approximate relative attention given in Final Report), we’d need to see some strong investment in TAFE capacity to support this growth. Big opportunities in this space, and I anticipate lateral movements from higher ed to TAFE to support their uplift in higher education delivery.

Universities: 981
Skills: 704
Knowlege: 218
TAFE: 106

Tertiary Education Staffing

This post has thrown out lots of numbers - which is always hard work to read, apologies. If you are looking for a more interesting treatment of letters and numbers, switch to SBS on Demand.

The language around staffing is interesting from my perspective. Policy wonks like myself recognise the importance of legislation and institutional policy in shaping universities. Clark Kerr nailed it when suggesting in The Uses of the University that the university is nothing more than “a mechanism held together by administrative rules and powered by money,”(p15). This clever turn of phrase should not ignore the fact that people who operate within these administrative rules are what really makes an institution - and really good institutions are able to align people, with strategic purpose, through really good policy.

The Accord says as much with the relative billing given to people and policy. Policy gets 149 references, and staff 145. Different categories of staff are mentioned, but all in the tens rather than hundreds.

Policy: 149
Staff: 145
Academic: 94
Researcher: 75
Teacher: 44

I’ve seen some negative commentary that staff related issues are not adequately considered in how the Accord has been framed. No matter what shift in policy direction is coming, it’ll be staff that do the implementation. I’d recommend a concerted campaign to win hearts and minds of tertiary sector staff in parallel to any work needed to move forward with the mechanics of policy. Minister Clare is a charismatic and entertaining spokesperson for the Accord - but he won’t be able to carry this on his own, or for ever. And for the record…. he’d probably win more hearts and minds by referencing Taylor Swift than Guns and Roses.

Quality

My day job is all about quality and standards, ensuring that good governance structures utilise robust evidence-based decision making processes to make and apply good academic policy and assure quality. All this is in service of a high quality learning environment for students and an intellectual climate that allows high impact research to be undertaken.

Looking at quality is what started this piece, and it was pleasing to see it feature prominently in the Accord Final Report.

Accessible Quality: zero
Quality: 356
Standards: 88
Governance: 48
TEQSA: 35
Accessible: 20

A quick run through of the different ways in which quality is referenced highlights that quality is complex. Usage includes quality as aspiration, as a process, an objective standard, a noun, and unnecessary superfluous redundant adjective.

In much the same vein as comments about the National Tertiary Education Objective above, there may be a need to connect policy reforms to a more concrete description of quality. We run the risk that individual interpretations of non-legislated or vaguely codified commitments to quality will be contested through legal process, in much the same way as recent findings of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Equity

Accessible quality is as much concerned about quality as it is with access and equity, and there are cues to the relative importance afforded to different equity groups in the crude word frequency count utilised in this post.

Since the early 1980s seven group have been prioritised in higher education equity policy. This groups were affirmed as important though the Dawkin’s white paper process, and integrated in the Equity and General Performance Indicator Framework still in use today. More on this in this incredible book (note: shameless self promotion alert). To my mind this is a valid proxy for the current state of play.

Regional: 468
First Nations: 314
Remote: 138
Low SES: 88
Disability: 62
Gender: 18
Women: 15
Non-English Speaking Background: 6

There is much to be written about this, but for now I make some brief observations.

Firstly, gender perhaps warrants more attention, particularly if we are to effectively integrate better approaches to the minimisation/elimination of sexual harm and gendered violence in society. There is also the gender wage gap that needs to be narrowed. There is a risk that this work is siloed if not seen as fully integrated in the core functions of education and research. If Bruce, or other men are disproportionately influencing panel thinking, we should question why higher education policy is a male dominated endeavour, and what implications this has for policy design and implementation.

Secondly, some major diversity and inclusion issues are missing from the report. I didn’t find references to LGBTIQ+ in anyway shape or form. This is emblematic of the more nuanced characteristics of equity that are missing or given minimal attention in the report. My hope is that one of the early programs of work handballed to The Australian Tertiary Education Commission and Centre for Excellence in Higher Education and Research is conceptual integration of micro-level equity nuance within the macro equity objectives. First Nations, for example, encompasses incredible complexity, as does disability, as does gender, and some elements of disadvantage remain out of scope and view.

The Buzz Word Ranking

The word counts from the sections above are ranked in order in the table below. I tried to render this in table form for accessibility purposes, but I can barely turn on a computer, so coding this kind if thing is beyond me. Anyone who needs an accessible version - reach out. There are some words in the table that I’ve not covered, offshore and transnational education are of growing importance, but barely covered, and I might write more on this in future posts.

For now I trust this is useful for those who have made it through to the end and, like me, are grappling with the meaning and implications of the Accord.